and that they are contending for the rights of God. In all their sorrows there is this deep joy, which none can take from them. S. John Chrysostom says: "The warfare of monks is great, and their labours many; but if one compare their toils to a priesthood well discharged, he will find as great a difference as between a private man and a king."[1]
And their consolation is in like proportion. But if this be true in the older regions of the Church, how much more is it true in England. Among us the Church is both old and new. We are a handful, but separate from the world, and from courts, and from the corrupt atmosphere of secular patronage and secular protection. The true protection of the Church is its own independence, and its true power is its own liberty. We are pastors of a flock descended from martyrs and confessors, and their fervour is not extinct in their posterity. We are in a special sense pastors of the poor; for the rich have gone away, and the vast prosperity of England is in hands that know us not. But to live among the poor was the lot of our Divine Master, and to share His lot is a pledge of His care. We are not only pastors of the poor, but poor ourselves. Poverty is the state of the priesthood in this the
- ↑ De Sacerdotio, lib. vi. 5.
