to it as their protection, and to plead it even before the lay tribunals, to screen themselves from the infamous prosecutions of their avaricious and tyrannical pastors. What an oppro brium to the sacred ministry! what a disgrace to religion! what a scandal to the wavering and feeble virtue of the multitude! But what could I say to Priests so deserving of all the anathemas of the church, were there any of this detestable character among those who now hear me? Is it to remind them of the sacred laws of the church, touching the disinterestedness and charity of her ministers! of the sanctity of our functions, and of the inestimable gift of God, which is not bought nor sold for money! of the blood of Jesus Christ, that precious pledge of his love, of which we are the gratuitous dispensers, and not like Judas, the perfidious and execrable venders! But how could they be sensible to those great truths of faith, they who are not susceptible of the commonest sentiments of propriety, of modesty or of humanity? they are not even men; how then could they be moulded into ministers of Jesus Christ? nature has lost her rights in their hearts, how then could the sublime sentiments of religion

and of the priesthood exist in them? I feel the harshness of these expressions, but no language can adequately convey the abhorrence and indignation due to a scandal which covers the glory of the sanctuary with opprobrium, and which turns the temple of the living God into the infamous abode of robbers and venders of holy things.

The only resource against this lamentable evil, the only means of preventing it from infecting the whole diocess, is that you, my brethren, who bewail it with us and with the church; who are our glory and our consolation, and the worthy co-operators of our episcopacy in your parishes, would openly manifest your detestation of a conduct so disgraceful to the holy ministry; that you would lay aside all reserve, all forbearance, all human respect for those of your brethren whom you know to be deformed by this hideous vice. Keep no terms of intercourse or civility, with Priests who show that they have no community of sentiment with you not only on the priesthood, but even on religion and humanity they are not your brothers; they are strangers and enemies who have entered into the inheritance, only

to plunder, to disgrace and destroy it. Should they persevere in their iniquitous course after your charitable admonition, publish their infamy to the world: utter your detestation of it in every place and in every society, and do not fail to solicit our just vengeance, against the impious hirelings: let no timid silence, no false prudence, in concealing this sacrilegious abomination from our knowledge, render you participators in a scandal so disgraceful to the church, the glory of which is integrally confided to you: let your public indignation against those unworthy brethren, and your total interruption of all commerce with them, proclaim to the faithful, the abhorrence of the church, for those base and contemptible mercenaries: Si is qui frater nominatur, est aut avarus . . . . aut rapax cum ejusmodi nec cibum sumere.* Join your zeal to mine; this is one of those scandals which the Angels of the church must not delay till the harvest time to pluck up: it would be soon extirpated in the diocess, were virtuous pastors to unite their efforts with

*1. Cor. c. v. ver. 11,

mine, and by raising a public outcry against so monstrous an abuse, to cover the guilty with that confusion and opprobrium, with which their infamous avarice perpetually covers the church.

EIGHTEENTH DISCOURSE.

ON THE NECESSITY OF PRAYER.

ATTENTION to prayer, which has been just explained, and recommended to you with so much zeal, is not, my brethren, one of those obligations which are peculiar to the sanctity of our calling. It is the most essential duty of christianity every christian ought to be a man of prayer; his views, his desires, his hopes, his affections, his very conversation as the Apostle expresses it, every thing, as far as regards him, is in heaven: every christian is a citizen of the world above, and a stranger on earth; all the

*

*Philipp. c. iii. v. 20.