and unfortunate, a frequent visitor to the sick and the afflicted, a wise and patient counsellor to those in difficulties, a veritable spiritual father to all those entrusted to his pastoral charge. It does not require much knowledge of human nature, indeed, to understand that these very qualities, exemplified in his daily life, furnish an intelligible explanation of his success as a convert-maker. Whether or not he takes account of the fact, the priest in every American city, town, village, or rural district is a marked man; and the fewer imperfections of any kind that are discernible in his life, the greater the assurance that some at least of his non-Catholic fellow-citizens will be impressed by the beauty of the religion which he lives as well as preaches.

Quite apart from any question of conversions, it is eminently worth while for a priest to give some thought to the nature of the individual influence which he exerts on the men and women in the little world around him. While it is probably true to say that if there is one petition which, less than another, the average mortal, priest or layman, need address to Heaven, it is the prayer attributed to a naïve Scotch dominie: "O Lord, gie us a good conceit o' oursells," and while it is the part of wisdom not to take oneself too seriously, not to be carried away by a sense of one's self-importance, it is neither absurd nor foolish for a priest to recognize that to the Catholic cleric with peculiar appropriateness are addressed the words of St. Matthew: "You are the light of the world. A city seated on a mountain cannot be hid." Individual example

is a more potent agency for good or evil than the unreflecting are apt to consider it; and no member of a community, certainly no priest, is so insignificant that his principles and actions, his conversation and conduct, do not sway toward right or wrong some few at least of his fellow-citizens. "Even the weakest natures," says Smiles, "exercise some influence upon those about them. The approximation of feeling, thought, and habit is constant, and the action of example unceasing."

What most laymen, and possibly a few priests, need to have persistently impressed upon their minds, as to this matter of individual influence, is the unquestionable truth that we shall be judged with regard not merely to the evil we have done, but also to the good which we have failed to do. Not to give a positively bad example is well enough as far as it goes, but it clearly does not constitute the complete fulfilment of a cleric's duty to the people in the world about him. A priest's influence on those with whom he comes habitually in contact, be they Catholic or Protestant, infidels or Jews, ought to be something more than simply innocuous; it should be positively, not to say aggressively, beneficent. A man of God, a true ambassador of Christ, he should impress those not of the household of the faith in much the same way as Carlyle was impressed by the life-story of the twelfth-century monk of St. Edmund's:

The great antique heart: how like a child's in its simplicity, like a man's in its earnest solemnity and depth! Heaven lies over him wheresoever he goes or stands on Earth; mak

ing all Earth a mystic Temple to him, the Earth's business all a kind of worship. Glimpses of bright creatures flash in the common sunlight; angels yet hover doing God's messages among men: that rainbow was set in the clouds by the hand of God! Wonder, miracle encompass the man; he lives in an element of miracle; Heaven's splendor over his head, Hell's darkness under his feet. A great law of duty, high as these two infinities, dwarfing all else, annihilating all else—making royal Richard as small as peasant Samson, smaller if need be! The "imaginative faculties"? "Rude poetic ages"? The "primeval poetic element"? O for God's sake, good reader, talk no more of all that! It was not a Dilettantism, this of Abbot Samson. It was a Reality, and it is one. The garment only of it is dead; the essence of it lives through all Time and all Eternity!1

In a truer sense than was dreamt of by the Scotch essayist the twentieth-century priest not less than the twelfth-century monk "liyes in an element of miracle," is encompassed by supernatural wonders from morning till night-summoning God Himself from the supernal glory of Heaven to the humble altar whereon He is daily offered as a propitiatory sacrifice, visiting Jesus Christ really present in the tabernacle from time to time as the hours slip by, nay, acting Jesus Christ both at the altar and in the confessional-Hoc est enim corpus meum-Ego te absolvo a peccatis tuis. In very truth Heaven lies over the priest wheresoever he goes or stands on earth, is close at hand-the

1 Past and Present, p. 91.

adorable Persons of the Blessed Trinity, the Immaculate Mother of the Word Incarnate, and all the hosts of archangels and angels and glorified saints within easy call.

Surely such closeness to the supernatural, such intimate communion with the Creator, the Redeemer, and the Sanctifier of mankind and with Their heavenly worshippers of every rank should leave its impress on the privileged mortal who enjoys a blessing so signal and so constant. As a matter of fact, the impress is left, not merely on the mind and soul of the priest, but on his exterior form as well. That outward indication, so undefinable yet so unmistakable, of interior character or feeling or emotion to which we give the name "expression"; that significant, if indescribable, cast of countenance, peculiar look or appearance that we call "bearing" or "air" sets off the ordained priest from all other men, and, although of almost infinite variety, is so far uniform that it is recognized at once by the world at large, by those outside the fold as well as by our brethren in the faith. It is a truism that no masquerade is more transparent and futile than that of the priest who attempts by the disguise of costume to conceal his identity.

This inalienable and unalterable stamp of the priesthood which each of us wears necessarily affects our relations with non-Catholic neighbors, acquaintances, and fellow-citizens generally. It may well, for instance, lead us to manifest toward these separated brethren more politeness, courtesy, and affability than they could reasonably claim

m

from us were we merely Catholic laymen. Any advances looking toward acquaintanceship or possible friendship may congruously be made from our side, if only to counterbalance the exaggerated sense of aloofness with which the average Protestant man in the street regards one of our cloth. Just what degree of approachableness, urbanity, complaisance, or affability a priest may properly display in his intercourse with non-Catholics is not of course a matter to be settled with rubrical or mathematical definiteness and precision. Quite within the bounds of gentlemanly conduct such as every cleric is professionally called upon to observe, there are widely different types of manners and modes of action advocated in theory and exemplified in practice by clerical advisers and clerics themselves, the world over. Without being really insolent, haughty, arrogant, dictatorial, supercilious, overbearing, or domineering, a priest may by his exaggerated reserve and constraint and silence, or by his undue readiness to take offense where none is intended and "to stand upon his dignity" without any genuine provocation thereto, impress non-Catholics with the idea that he really deserves these unflattering epithets; and it is needless to add that such an impression is not calculated to facilitate the accomplishment of the priest's appointed work in either the natural or the supernatural sphere.

In Scott's "Fortunes of Nigel" there is a passage not altogether irrelevant to this question of the affability of the clergy. Speaking of his hero, a young nobleman, he says: "He was not, as the