The short pieces of English devotional literature recently printed in the LIFE OF THE SPIRIT are examples from a class of writing not yet fully investigated either by the students of Middle English literature or by the lovers of Middle English devotion. Before the days of printing priests were obliged to write, translate or copy matter for the instruction of their penitents, where the possibilities of preaching were insufficient. Thus it comes about that the MSS of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries are full of long and short pieces, often without attribution of authorship or with fictitious attribution. Anonymity was a virtue in those days—a sure refuge in time of trouble. The major works of English doctrinal, devotional and mystical literature have been or will be dealt with by Conrad Pepler, O.P. They came to printed sooner or later, but a great number of secondary works have not yet seen the light. Of the complete ones many are of such uneven quality and of such great length that one could hardly encourage their publication in these days. Such is the Chastising of God's Children, a long treatise on the nature of and remedies for spiritual temptations not reprinted since Caxton's edition of 1492.