jected of God, and destined to be an everlasting anathema?

So, my dear Children, a vicious Priest, and one who has forced himself against the order of God, into the holy ministry, is almost never converted. The older he grows, the more is he, every day, adding to the mass of his profanations and sacrileges: the divine favors themselves, of which he is the dispenser, harden him; every function is for him, a new crime, and adds a new link to his reprobation; and he dies as he lived, charged with the sacrilegious usurpation of the priesthood, and with all the crimes by which he profaned it: such is the experience of every day. In every other condition, we often behold consoling examples of sinners, who repent and are converted: a disorderly Priest, one who entered the holy ministry without being called, dies a reprobate: nor have the conversion of even a few bad Priests as yet consoled the church for the impenitence and deplorable end of all the rest.

Wherefore, my dear children, neglect nothing in the examination which you are to make here before God, on the subject of your vocation; our precautions cannot be too great, where a

false step is irreparable. Do not cease to ask yourselves, in this place of probation and retreat, where you are to consult the will of God in your regard; whether the holy state to which you aspire, will consort with your past morals; whether you engage in it, from pure motives, or bring to it those talents, which the church requires in every candidate: if one of those conditions be wanting, it is the same as if you wanted all. Pray without ceasing, and let your most ordinary petition be that of the Prophet: do thou, O Lord, thyself, show me the way in which I should walk; and teach me what are the paths which thou hast prepared for me, and which alone can conduct me to salvation: Vias tuas, Domine, demonstra mihi, et semitas tuas edoce me.* A few years of examination, of prayer and of retreat, are not too much to decide upon a choice, which itself must decide upon your eternal salvation and upon that of the people who are, one day, to be confided to your care; that is to say, and let this thought never be forgotten, a choice which is to give to the altar, ministers of the salvation or the perdition

*Psalm. 24. v. 4.

of the faithful; the reproach of the church or its ornament and its glory; rocks of scandal in the way, or pillars to support the sacred edifice; the profaners or the dispensers of holy things'; in a word, instruments of the mercy or the wrath of God, towards men. Amen.

A DISCOURSE

ON

THE CHARACTERS WHICH OUGHT TO MARK THE ZEAL OF THE CLERGY AGAINST VICE.

Emulationem Dei habent, sed non secundum scientiam.

They have the zeal of God, but not according to knowledge.

ROMANS. chap. x. ver. 2.

In a late discourse, we explained to you the necessity of zeal in the clergy; and you remained persuaded, that zeal against vice is the most essential duty of the priesthood, and the first effect of sacerdotal grace. But as zeal has its rules and its imperfections, and as there

*The discourse, on zeal for the salvation of souls. vol. 1. p. 425.

is a zeal according to knowledge, and a zeal of ignorance and temerity, it is important to paint both in their proper colours; and, whilst we enforce what should sanctify zeal, and render it useful to our brethren, guard you, at the same time, against whatever is likely to defile its excellence or destroy its fruit.

Now as zeal is nothing but charity itself, which urges us, which excites in us not only a sincere wish that our brethren be saved, but moreover, a lively and eager desire to labour for their salvation; to know whether our zeal be genuine or not, we have only to examine whether we can discover in it, those characters which Saint Paul considers as inseparable from true charity. For all zeal that is not likened to charity; that is not charity itself, active, compassionate, humble, meek, patient, disinterested, is not zeal according to knowledge, is not that zeal which honours the priesthood, that zeal which the church requires in all her ministers and expects from you.

I know that zeal like the spirit of God, from which it proceeds, assumes different forms according to the different characters of those whose hearts it inflames. In some it is more ardent, in others more gentle and insinuating; in others