which, if not so common as to prove the rule, is yet sufficiently in evidence to constitute a notable number of thoroughly admirable exceptions. We have all met them, either in our own homes (where possibly they have not always been duly appreciated), or in the presbyteries of brother priests whom, it may be, we have envied for the all-round proficiency and unobtrusive excellence of their domestic economy. Good cooks, economical managers, capable laundresses and needlewomen, prompt attendants on door-bell or telephone ring, tidy chambermaids, quick-handed waitresses, neatly dressed, serene in manner, reserved in speech, of inexhaustible patience and well-ordered piety, and knowing their place—such women are to be found in every diocese, and, verily, "far and from the uttermost coasts is the price of them." Happy the cleric who enjoys the ministrations of one of these: he may appropriately sing with David, Funes ceciderunt mihi in praeclaris, "The lines are fallen unto me in goodly places."

As for the less adequately served cleric whose daily domestic worries prompt him to exclaim with St. Paul, "In all things we suffer tribulations," without being able to add the great Apostle's assertion, “but are not distressed," he is assuredly deserving of commiseration, all the more so if his ineffectual remonstrances to a self-willed, domineering, or capricious housekeeper have led him to yield pessimistic assent to the old-time quatrain:

Where is the man who has the power and skill
To stem the torrent of a woman's will?

For if she will, she will, you may depend on't;

And if she won't, she won't; so there's an end on't.

Such pessimism, commonly expressed by the rhetorical interrogation, What's the use? is not to be commended. While a pastor should doubtless show all due consideration to his servants and treat them with the fullest measure of Christian charity and sacerdotal kindness, it is nevertheless incumbent upon him occasionally to make it unmistakably clear to them that, after all, they are servants and that he is the master. As St. Paul wrote to Timothy, “If a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God?" If he chances to be of an ascetic temperament, prompt to seize occasions for mortification and self-denial, an incompetent housekeeper will unquestionably afford him ample opportunity to indulge to the full his liking for crosses, vexations, and trials of temper; and by accepting all these as merciful dispensations of Providence, he may clearly acquire considerable merit. The average priest, however, can scarcely be expected to allow his housekeeper to fill the rôle of a living discipline or hair shirt. He probably believes that his ministry furnishes him with a plentiful supply of unavoidable crosses, and that he is entitled to a certain degree of comfort and ease within the walls of his presbytery.

There are some failings of housekeepers, indeed, tolerance of which can be defended on no valid ground, whether of a pastor's forgetfulness of self, or his kindliness of heart, or his spirit of indifference. What concerns himself exclusively he may perhaps meritoriously overlook; what tends injuriously to affect his relations with his

people or to introduce discord into parish circles, he cannot conscientiously refrain from putting an end to. That his housekeeper serves him with a “cabbage salad" instead of a well-broiled steak, habitually fails to clearstarch his collars, periodically upsets the papers and letters on his rollertop desk, and neglects to keep his cossack in good repair all this he may, if he will, condone; but that she meddles with matters purely ecclesiastical, goes gossiping and tale-bearing from house to house, or entertains congenial scandal-mongers in the kitchen or her room-this, and such like conduct, he is imperatively called upon to check, even should the checking necessitate his discharging the offender. There may be strong and sufficient reasons for a parish priest's disregarding the strict letters of the clause, “nisi quae sit maturioris aetatis," in the decree cited on a former page-the impossibility of securing one of canonical age, for instance; but there are none for the violation of this injunction regarding the secular inmates of a presbytery, "nullo modo, sive directo, sive indirecto, se sacris muneribus gerendis aut rebus ecclesiae administrandis immisceant."

It is perhaps obvious to remark that the average priest's housekeeper is not likely to meddle with parish business or distinctively church matters unless the pastor himself has imprudently broached such topics to her, or still more imprudently discussed with her the character and conduct, faults and failings, of the parishioners. The normal Catholic woman, in or out of a presbytery, will not gratuitously proffer counsel on matters

purely ecclesiastical or administrative to pastor or curate; the exceptional few who are inclined to do so may very easily be put in their place if only the priest keeps his place also. "There are occasions," says Canon Keatinge, "when the priest is tired. He is alone, and time hangs heavily on his hands, and the habit easily grows of finding his way to the kitchen with or without an excuse. Be sure of it, he is always welcome, but he will pay for it." Occasionally the process is reversed: instead of the pastor's making his way to the kitchen, the housekeeper makes her way to the office or study, quite possibly for a legitimate purpose which could be accomplished in two or three minutes, but which serves as an excuse for a prolonged conversation neither necessary nor profitable to either of them.

Discussing the general subject of the priest's attitude toward women, the English author just mentioned remarks that "two women in your house are better than one." Were there any need of demonstrating the judiciousness of the remark, one would merely have to quote the old-time rustic proverb: "Two is company; three is none." There was a substratum of sound philosophy in the apparently purely jocular reply of a clerical friend of ours to his Ordinary's comment on the youthfulness of our friend's housekeeper. "Why," said the prelate, "she can't be more than twenty."—“But, you see, Bishop," replied Father S., "I have two young housekeepers, and their combined years give more than the canonical age." Beyond all question the danger of relaxation, remissness, imprudences, or familiarities is much less when in the

presbytery there are several of "the devout female sex" than when pastor and housekeeper are its only inmates, solus cum sola. To guard against all such dangers as, given our human nature and the inevitable consequences of original sin, are inherent in even our necessary intercourse with members of the other sex, we need to employ the natural preservatives, self-respect, a becoming sense of our priestly dignity, habitual circumspection, and uniform custody of the eyes and tongue. And, to make assurance of our safety doubly sure, we must be assiduous in vocal and mental prayer, and sincerely devoted to the exemplar and guardian of the holy virtue, our Immaculate Mother Mary.