The Mind’s Ascent to God by a Ladder of Created ThingsDedication

Robert, Cardinal Bellarmin sends greeting.

| bare September I wrote, by the help of God, a little book about the ascent of the mind to God by a ladder of created things. With permission of our holy father I kept that month for a retreat, setting aside all other business, in order to have leisure for the things of God. Though the little book was written during the retreat for my own private use, friends have urged me to publish it, and my desire is that it should bear your name on its title-page.

If my labour prove to be of any value, it will be of use particularly to those who are occupied in public affairs, such as are the rulers of the Church.

Now among the princes of the Church, burdened with a heavy weight of business, you yourself must be reckoned one of the chief: since you are cardinal, archbishop, chamberlain of the Holy Roman Church, a member of the Inquisition, and patron of many important works.

Another reason leads me to dedicate this work to you, namely my desire of handing down to posterity some record of the many kindnesses I have received at your hands and of my grateful appreciation thereof.

The offering that I make, though it be very small, will, I trust, be none the less pleasing to you: we value a book not so much for its size as for the usefulness of its contents. I do not know what will be the criticism of readers of this little book: as for myself I have found it more useful than other little works of mine. I do not read my other books unless necessity forces me to do so; this one I have read three or four times, and I am sure that I shall turn to it again. It is possible that I value the book not for its own merit, but because it is, as it were, my Benjamin, for I wrote it in my old "Accept then, my dear Cardinal, this little gift from age. me, not only as a mark of my regard, but also as possibly fulfilling the office of counsellor. If at times you feel yourself overwhelmed with a pressure of business which threatens to hinder you from your accustomed study, and to snatch away the hour of prayer, let this little book gently remind you to withdraw your mind for a few moments from the crowd of cares, and turn it to the joys of the interior life. In meditation and in reading you will have leisure to see that the Lord he is God and that he is the only true, highest, and everlasting good, and that to possess him brings joy, to lose him, only misery. THE MIND’S ASCENT TO