true that all laws, canons, tows, and contracts lay obligations upon those who are subject to them. But all obligations are not by laws, nor by canons, nor by vows, nor by contracts. There are obligations distinct from and anterior to all these bonds. Faith, hope, charity, contrition, piety, all bind the soul by the most persuasive and constraining obligations. The law of liberty binds by love, gratitude, and generosity. Compared with these it may be said all bonds are as the letter that may kill to the spirit which gives life. These bonds of Jesus Christ are upon all His disciples, and emphatically upon His priests. Upon them are all the obligations arising from their participation in His eternal office, in the sacerdotal character, in their special configuration to their Divine Master, in the divine powers of consecration and absolution: in their personal relations to Jesus, to His sacramental Presence, to His mystical Body. If these things do not demand of men aspiring to be priests interior spiritual perfection before their hands are anointed for the Holy Sacrifice, and the yoke of the Lord is laid upon their shoulder, what has God ever ordained, or the heart of man ever conceived, to bind men to perfection?
