Excerpt from The Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. 1 of 15: An International Work of Reference on the Constitution, Doctrine, Discipline, and History of the Catholic Church; Fifteen Volumes and Index N taking under our auspices a special edition of the catholic encyclopedia, we are actuated by the motive. Which originally inspired the production of this work. From the start, as the Preface to Volume I declares, it was determined that this encyclopedia should not be exclusively at Church publication, containing only matters of special interest to the clergy. It is intended for the layman as well as for the priest; and, consequently, it contains all that he needs to know, treated from his point of view. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.