Excerpt from The Contemplative Life: Considered in Its Apostolic Aspect In the Church, prayer and penance are the duties that belong to the subsidiary ministry assigned to the Contemplative Orders, and they practise them for the conversion of sinners, for the progress of the good in virtue and for the perfection of the Saints. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at 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.