And in our own days the rosy Heart of Christ warms Its millions. His promised help in undertakings, His comfort in sorrow, His assurance of assistance in death have a touch of the human that humankind cannot resist. And so, Christ the God-man Priest, with His double power, is able to reconcile the two extremes.

In the early days of the Church maybe there was not so great a need of the human element in priests; because the pagan world, already sated with nature in art and vice, was tired of it and would not have been attracted by qualities of a natural kind. Besides, the divine aspect of the Christian dispensation and the divine prerogatives of its priests had the advantage of novelty, and hence needed only to be shown forth in their native splendor, to captivate. Similarly, in the centuries of Faith before the dawn of the modern world the human element could be dispensed with, to a degree, in the sacerdotal character, because the Faithful were held by the sweetness of the God they knew so well. This spiritual tie made the cords of Adam unnecessary. But in our days of Indifferentism, which are not blessed with the charm of the new nor with the sweetness of the old in Religion, the prerogatives of nature have a special claim on priests. This claim is emphasized by the cultivation and information of the masses around us. Especially in this country every man has a sense of his personal standing as a member of the State. Independence has gone along with education, and now instead of having men and women flocking to us, it is incumbent on us to go after them. That such a quest requires an Apostle with heart and mind delicately attuned to nature who would gainsay?

Surely then a priest, to be successful, will be the gentlest of the gentle. He will be kind, sociable, polished, conversational, well-informed, learned, alive to the real interests of the day; capable of meeting any religious or ethical adversary, and able to break the bread of the Gospel from the pulpit with a lavish hand. He will

believe that all the preparatory study and writing and speaking of which he is capable will scarcely measure him up to the ideal minister that the Church has a right to expect. He will be convinced that his best eloquence is not too good for the divine message to men. He will illustrate, explain, and apply the word of God with tact, solidity, warmth, enlightenment and enthusiasm. Finally he will alleviate the temporal needs of his fellow-men, lighten their sorrows and increase their capital of joy, not only by word of mouth and prayer of heart, but also by deed of hand. And all this he will do to put himself in touch with humankind and win them over, with the help of grace, to the side of God.

As now-a-days, more than ever before, it is incumbent on the priest to make himself one with his fellow-men so as to accomplish their spiritual good, he must take special measures not to allow his divine identity to become obscured in a natural atmosphere. Like St. Paul, it is true, he will wish to become anathema for his brethren, and with Moses he will exclaim: Oh, Lord, pardon this people or blot me out of the book of life; or like Ignatius, he will be willing to run the risk of losing heaven by exposing himself on earth still longer to the chances of sin, for the salvation of souls. Still he will remember that he is to be godly as well as human; and is to stand fast by the Lord as well as by men. His grace, his power of consecration and his power of forgiving sins must be cherished: and his personal sanctity must be raised by prayer to the level of his official sanctity. Of old when martyrdom was always imminent, there were few natural alleviations indeed, and the divine had to be kept in mind by the minister of God, if he wished to remain faithful. In after times, again, in what are called the days of Faith, the sacerdotal functions were generally exercised in the midst of religious surroundings. For, the whole of Europe was catholic, and piety was in the air. But it is not thus now. The world is commercial, naturalistic,

indifferent: that world in the midst of which the priest is forced to live and move and have his being.

Accordingly he will think to advantage of his divine sonship and participation in the Deity by grace; of his power over God in the Mass, and of his commission to forgive the world. He will endeavor to realize his unspeakable dignity; and stand before God as a god. And the Lord of all will be charmed into forgiveness by this alter ego. In his priestly character he will say: “Hoc est enim corpus meum;" and forthwith the Almighty will place upon the altar for him the price wherewith to buy men's souls. He will say: "Absolvo te a peccatis tuis"; and the offended Deity will have to listen to those words; and the penitent, already softened into sorrow by his priestly tenderness to him, will have to be let free. Oh what must be the joy of God to look down on such a deified man; and what must be the satisfaction of sinners to look up at such a human god. The Lord of all knows that this Intermediary has His divine Heart and that he can captivate the hearts of men; and they in turn are sure that the same Peacemaker holds them enchained and that he can mollify their angry Master. Here is the In-Carnation renewed; or rather call it an In-Deation. For, in the one case the Word had the divine Nature and took the human: in the other case the priest had the human and, in Ordination, took the Divine. Here is the dual life that priests must lead. Nature alone can do no good, and Orders alone will be futile. By exaggerating the importance of the one, he will withdraw from God; by overestimating the other, he will place a barrier between himself and his fellow-men. But by educating his human powers up to their limit, and by holily exercising his divine faculties to the full, he will liken himself to Christ the Priest, and like Him will save the world.

Sacred Heart College,

Prairie du Chien, Wis.

J. A. MCCLAREY, S. J.

THE EDUCATIONAL WORK OF THE NEW YORK SISTERS OF CHARITY

With the rapid progress of the Catholic Church in New York, the institute of the Sisters of Charity of Saint Vincent de Paul has, under Providence, gone forward with a not dissimilar energy and perservance.

"When," says a recent writer1, "three Sisters took charge of a handful of orphans in New York in the second decade of the nineteenth century, no one could have foreseen that in the second decade of the twentieth century, five hundred times as many noble women would be working in every phase of humanitarian effort on that same foundation, any more than he could have foreseen that the struggling diocese of a few thousand souls of that time, would, after the same interval, count its children by the million. For the crying need in the little diocese, a small remedy was found. That remedy was vital, however; it had the power to grow, and so as the city has grown and many other needs of humanity have become manifest, the Sisters of Charity have developed their institute, broadened their aims, increased and responded faithfully to the many calls made upon them."

The history of the work accomplished by these Sisters in the various departments of charity, the care of the sick, of the orphan, of the aged, of the insane, would each make an interesting story, but perhaps by far their most important work has been done in the educational field.

A born educator herself, Mother Elizabeth Bayley Seton, their foundress, had made the work of teaching the main feature of her institutite, as it was indeed her

own great life-effort. Archbishop Carroll, when consulted on the aims of the new congregation, had written to Mother Seton in reply:

"Assure yourself and the Sisters of my utmost solicitude for your advancement in the service and favor of God; of my reliance on your prayers; of mine for your prosperity in the important duty of education, which will and must long be your principal, and will always be your partial, employment. A century at least will pass before the exigencies and habits of this country will require, and hardly admit, of the charitable exercises toward the sick, sufficient to employ any number of the Sisters out of our largest cities; and therefore they must consider the business of education as a laborious, charitable, and permanent object of their religious duty."

It is not surprising, then, to learn that in the newlyfounded community, when once the novitiate had been formally established, a regular course of studies was appointed for the novices, such as was thought best calculated to fit them for the work of teaching. Mother Elizabeth Seton devoted herself to this work of training, giving conferences, that covered a wide range of experience, and bore chiefly upon the future work of the novices as teachers. Nor was this training confined to theory. It was her custom to visit the classes frequently, either in person or by deputy, for purposes of observation, noting in the different teachers the presence or absence of ability, intelligent method, and power to create interest in the work. Afterwards, in public or in private, as the case permitted, the faults of the teachers were pointed out to them, or their good work received encouragement. The purpose of this system of supervision and inspection was in practice quite like that of our present model-school.

When in 1826 Bishop Dubois, an eminent scholar,