priest's heart he will understand this joy, and his joy will be in measure equal to his love. But the love of souls is a sixth sense. Some men have so little of it as to seem to have none: some so much that it controls all their life. Some priests have, indeed, a love of souls, and yet so unconstraining and so tame that they have little joy and little recompense in their work. But to those in whom the fire is kindled there are three distinct joys, so diverse that they cannot be compared, and yet so alike that they spring from one motive.
The first is joy over the innocent—that is, over the children who as yet are fresh in their baptismal grace; still more over those who have grown up to youth, to manhood, and to womanhood with the innocence of childhood. There can be no more beautiful sight in this world than a soul in grace. In the kingdom of their Father they shall shine as the sun:[1] already in this world in the sight of God they so bear His image and likeness that its brightness is not overcast by any cloud of wilful sin. They are the clean in heart who see God, and the peacemakers who are the sons of God. The humility, purity, sincerity, and charity of such souls in all their relations in life, and not
- ↑ S. Matt. xiii. 43.
