PREFACE In the following Memoir I have done my utmost to make Mother Francis Raphael speak for herself, instead of talking about her in my own words. I am sure my readers will thank me for this, for what she has written reveals her character far more truly than any words of description could do. But it is necessary to explain how this has become possible, for I owe it in justice to her to say that there is nothing she would have detested more cordially than any appearance of autobiography. It was a form of literature she did not like, and any idea of writing one would have been utterly repugnant to her mind. How, then, has it been possible to make her speak so much of herself, and to reveal, for our delight and instruction, so much of her inner life and character ? In 1876, an intimate friend of many years' standing was seriously ill. Mother Francis Raphael was tenderly anxious to assist her friend to bear the weary hours of sickness, and the patient declared that no tonic that she could imagine would be so efficacious as some memories of her Superior's childhood and early history. Mother Francis Raphael most kindly wrote off, in her rapid way, an account of her life up to the time that she became a religious, in a private note-book, putting as a title-page: "Memories, for the sole benefit of a sick friend. 1876." No one, except the one friend for whom these Memories were written, ever saw a page of this book, or even knew it existed, till after Mother Francis Raphael's death; and it was with considerable difficulty that I could overcome her natural reluctance to allow me to employ it for this Memoir. It is quite certain that, if the possibility of the publication of any part of it had presented itself to the mind of Mother Francis Raphael, the whole would have been committed to the flames before her death. But now that she has finished her course and gone to her rest, I am convinced that she will not object to any use of these notes that might help other souls in the battle of life. They give a history of her soul, and through what tribulations it was led, by the hand of God, first into the Fold of the Church, and then to gradual union with Himself. The history of any soul, known at all intimately, would be deeply interesting; still more when it is a soul so highly gifted in mental power. The Meditations, or, as she called them, expansions of Scripture texts, were discovered, after her death, in a private book; and many of them were probably written in preparation for chapter instructions to her Community, when she was Superior, some for her own meditations. The letters speak for themselves. Many who are acquainted with her books will be glad to become more personally intimate with the writer herself. B. W. ST. DOMINIC'S PRIORY, LONDON, April 1895. |