See BnF collection volume 4 for this title: 4.17. Alfonso Vagnone 高一志. Shiwei 十慰. [3402]

Published between 1625-1635. See entry online: Ad Dudink & Nicolas Standaert, Chinese Christian Texts Database (CCT-Database)

Jap-Sin II, 56
Shi wei 十慰
By Gao Yizhi 高一志 (Alfonso Vagnone).
One juan. Bamboo paper in one volume with a paper case. Published by the Catholic church of Fuzhou 閩中景教堂梓 (Fujian). No date of publication.

The cover bears a label with the title and a Latin inscription: “Pro | decem calamitatibus | consolatio | a p. Alph. Vagnoni | S.J.”

The book begins with a general introduction (two and one-half folios), in which the author states:

I have been living in China for over twenty years and the friends I know all have high ideals and aspire to what is morally correct. Unfortunately in time of adversity they obfuscate their minds and exhaust their bodies. They refuse to be comforted. Worst of all, they even make away with themselves. The principal adversities can be summarized under ten headings. To console [my friends], I first quote the teaching of learned men of the West in the past and then the interpretations of contemporary men of learning. I devote a chapter to each of these adversities, first to console [our sufferers] and then to give them a new outlook. In one word, I wish them to understand the distinction between what is material and what is spiritual, between the temporal and the eternal, and to let them realize that physical suffering is not a real disaster and that spiritual suffering is the real disaster. The same thing can be said of temporal and eternal sufferings . . .

The table of contents consists of one folio. The ten kinds of sufferers are: (1) those who have no sons; (2) those who have lost their homeland; (3) those who have lost their [official] positions (4) the aged; (5) those who have lost their children; (6) those who are discouraged; (7) those who are in discord; (8) those who have lost their consorts; (9) those who have lost their protection and (10) the repenters.
The author’s name is given after the table of contents: 耶穌會後學高一志述, followed by the names of the censors (Pedro Ribeiro, Gaspar Ferreira and Rui de Figueiredo): 同會黎寧石，費奇規，費樂德訂. Permission for publication was granted by Manuel Dias Jr., then Vice-Provincial 值會陽瑪諾准. At the end the place of publication is given: 閩中景教堂梓.
Folio 1 bears the title and the author’s name. There are nine columns to each half folio with nineteen characters to each column. The title of the book is given in the middle of each folio with the number of the folio below the fish-tail. The main text consists of fifty-one folios.

Cf. Pfister, p. 92, no. 7; Feng 1938, p. 109; Hsü 1949, p. 69; Courant 3399; Couplet, p. 12; BR, p. XXXII.
Source: Albert Chan, S.J., Chinese books and documents in the Jesuit Archives in Rome, pp. 360-361.