CHAPTER VII.
THE PRIEST'S DANGERS.
All that has hitherto been said has raised the priest to so high a state that the next thought must be of his dangers. If he should fall, how great that fall would be. To stand upon the pinnacle of the Temple needs a supernatural poise and fidelity not to fall. It is well—it is even necessary—that we should both number and measure the dangers which beset us.
We can all, perhaps, remember with what a sense of holy fear we prepared for our ordination; with what joy and hope we received the indelible character of priesthood; with what disappointment at ourselves we woke up the next morning, or soon after, to find ourselves the same men we were before. This meeting of devout and hopeful aspiration with the cold hard reality of our conscious state came like a sharp withering wind over the first blossoms of a fruit-tree. But the effect of this was wholesome. It roused and warned us even with fear.
