but in a special sense, and with a more intimate and an eternal relation, they are fathers of those whom they have baptised. S. Paul says to the Corinthians, "If you have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet not many fathers, for in Christ Jesus by the Gospel I have regenerated you."[1] This title is the most simple and intelligible to all, old and young, learned and unlettered. The relation of father and child is universal in the order of nature, and it becomes a spiritual instinct in the order of grace. The title of father is the first, the chief, the highest, the most potent, the most persuasive, the most honourable of all the titles of a priest. He may receive from the world and from its fountains of honour many names, from the schools of learning many degrees, from the ecclesiastical law many dignities; but none has so deep and so high a sense as father, and none but the spiritual fatherhood will pass into eternity. The world has overlaid the title of father with its own profuse adulation, and priests have consented to their deprival in accepting the world's addresses. With the title, the consciousness of paternal or filial relation has been first obscured, then forgotten, and in the end lost. The closest bond of mutual confidence and charity between the priest-
- ↑ 1 Cor. iv. 15.
