CHAPTER XIII.
THE PRIEST'S FRIEND.
It is not to be denied that the life of a priest is a life of austere loneliness. From the day that he is set apart by ordination the words are true of him, "Without father, without mother, without genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life; but likened unto the Son of God, a priest for ever."[1] He leaves home and friends; his birth and name and race are forgotten; no one asks where he was born, or cares where he may die. He is separated from the world, and never more alone than when he is in thronging streets and crowded rooms. It is true that he has his flock, his brethren in the priesthood, the whole visible Church, and all the Saints as his companions. But all this is not enough. There is a need of something nearer than this. Priests sometimes seek it in friendships, and in innocent relations of special intimacy. They need, as all men do, the solatium humanitatis. But in seeking it, or in
- ↑ 1 Heb. vii. 3.
