Twelve Years in a Monastery/Chapter V

by Joseph McCabe

CHAPTER V.

PRIESTHOOD.

A perusal of the scheme of study which has been described would lead to the impression that Roman Catholic priests must be in a highly satisfactory condition of intellectual equipment. No other priesthood has, or ever had, a longer and more systematic course of training. For ten years, on the average, the candidate is under the exclusive control of the ecclesiastical authorities; authorities who have the advantage of an indefinitely long and world-wide experience in training their neophytes and of a religious authority over them. Their scheme of education, indeed, does seem perfectly constructed for the attainment of their particular object.

Yet it is generally recognised that the Catholic priesthood, as a body, are not at all remarkable for their attainments and intellectual training. Their system is admirable on paper, but it evidently breaks down somewhere. That this widely-felt impression of their inferiority is not a lingering deposit of the ancient prejudice against Rome is clear from the fact that Englishmen notice the inferiority more particularly outside of England—where Catholic priests do not present themselves in the light of schismatic intruders. And it is placed beyond all doubt by the circumstance that the feeling is largely and emphatically shared by Catholic^[1] laymen. Influential laymen like Dr. Ward and Dr. Mivart have written forcibly on the subject; and, on reading the correspondence columns of Catholic papers, one finds much eagerness amongst the laity for the ‘higher education,’ not only of women but of the clergy. The broad fact that, with the wider diffusion of recently-acquired knowledge, the theological army has struck its flag and retreated from point after point implies a grave defect even in the intellectual aristocracy of the Church, which does not escape the notice of the layman. It is not, therefore, surprising to find the ordinary clergy much behind the age in questions of general interest.

The last sermon which I preached in a Catholic Church—that of St. Antony at Forest Gate—was an appeal for the higher education of the clergy. I argued that modern thought has entirely changed the position of the religious teacher, and has deeply emphasised the necessity for an intellectual as well as a moral training: and I freely denounced the actual ignorance of the clergy. My mind had already passed from the Roman Catholic faith, and I spoke strongly and sincerely on the subject. My colleagues feebly congratulated me afterwards, but the laymen of the congregation actually sent a deputy to assure me of their gratitude and their admiration of my bold expression of their sentiments. On the following evening, after a scientific lecture I gave them, I spoke on the subject to a group of educated laymen and found them deeply moved on the question. Certainly, the clergy of St. Antony’s (four of whom were professors) were not below the average. The impression was confirmed wherever one listened to Catholic sermons or entered into serious conversation (by violence) with the priests.

The reasons of this signal failure of a fine educational scheme may be deduced partly from what has preceded. The system is unproductive, in the first instance, on account of the youth and immaturity of the students. At nineteen, when they should still be polishing their wit on Homer, or Tacitus, or Euclid, they are gravely attacking the profoundest problems of metaphysics; a well-educated man of thirty-two who had a brief course of philosophy under F. David, told me that he felt as if he were handling blocks of granite which he fondly wished to penetrate—our usual students never even realised that they were handling ‘blocks of granite.’ Out of many generations of students who passed through my hands only one boy had an idea of the meaning of philosophy; he confessed to me that it was because, like myself, he was tormented with religious doubt from an early age. Before he reaches the age of twenty-four the student has traversed the whole vast and profound system of scholastic philosophy and theology with its innumerable side-issues and controversies; he has his opinions formed upon every serious subject, and knows what to think of every philosophical and religious system that has ever been invented.

But the studies are not even conducted at the ages and with the intervals prescribed in ecclesiastical legislation; the scarcity of priests (the raritas vocationum of which the Pope speaks) induces authorities unduly to accelerate and curtail the course of higher study. Every diocese and nearly every monastic congregation in England is insufficiently manned; thousands of baptized Catholics are wholly neglected for want of priests, and I have known bishops to accept priests who had been practically expelled from other dioceses or congregations. It is true that scores of priests are sent to entertain the natives of Borneo, or bargain with their Anglican brothers over the facetious Ugandians, and that herculean efforts are made to touch the consciences of respectable Anglicans; the fact remains that in East London many thousands of poor Catholics have drifted for want of priests. Pressure and confusion in the seminaries and colleges is the inevitable result.

And it is not merely to procure ‘labourers for the vineyard’ that the studies are deplorably mutilated; another, and a rather curious, motive of hurry is found in certain congregations at least. Certainly in the Franciscan Order students were prematurely advanced to the priesthood for the sake of earning money by their masses. A mass, of course, cannot be sold; that would be simony. But a priest will say mass for you or your intention if you make him a present of half-a-crown. He may say it gratuitously if he pleases (secular priests generally do, I think), but the bishops have decreed that if a priest accepts a ‘stipend’ at all he must not take less than half-a-crown; the Church, being socialistic, does not encourage competition. Now every friar is bound to say mass for his superior’s intention, and the superior, having to provide for the community, secures as many and as ‘fat’ stipends as he possibly can. As a friar is bound to say mass every morning he is worth at least 1l. per week on that count alone; in fact, at Forest Gate, where we were six priests, more than 400l. was netted annually in stipends for masses. As a priest, however young he may be, says mass daily from the day of his ordination, the anxiety of the superior to see him ordained appeals to our sympathy; a student is an onus on the community, he must be made productive as soon as possible.

Under such conditions it is not strange that their educational system leads to such unsatisfactory results. Numbers of young priests are turned out annually upon humanity with full powers to condemn and anathematise, and an intense itching to do so. They soon find that the 'crude and undigested mass' they have 'intussuscepted' is a burden to themselves and a source of pain to their long-suffering audience. In their eagerness to be subtle they teach rank heresy, trouble timid consciences, and hurt themselves against episcopal authority. Then they abandon study entirely, as useless for their purpose. Mr. Jerome has a caricature somewhere of the newly fledged Anglican curate; the young evangelist stands at a table of cigarettes and brandy and soda, and his books are on sale or exchange, ‘owner no further use for same.’ The skit is wonderfully correct for the average priest.

The canonical age of ordination is twenty-four, and it is, probably, the average age; but this precaution for gravity is nullified by the facility of dispensations. The bishop can dispense at twenty-three, and the Roman authorities readily grant a dispensation once the candidate has reached twenty-two years and two months; most of our friars began to earn their pound per week at the age of twenty-two or three. Under one provincial bishop it is said there was always a brood of half-fledged priests who went by the name of 'Sovereign Pontiffs'; they used to be sent to sing mass on Sundays for priests who were absent or unwell, and the bishop always exacted a 'sovereign' for their services. The usual term of reproach for such immature priests is ‘Praesta quaesumus’ an allusion to the fact that they can only say mass, for the expression is a common beginning of mass-prayers.

The ordination is preceded by an episcopal examination in theology. Before the subdiaconate the student must present one treatise on theology for examination; he must prepare two for the diaconate and three for the priesthood. The examination is, however, little more than a test of the memory and industry of the aspirant; if he knows the defined points of Catholic doctrine on the subjects taken, little more is expected of him. And students are usually careful to select the shortest treatises for presentation, and to carry the same treatise through three examinations. Still aspirants are occasionally ‘ploughed,’ though, judging from the preposterous answers of certain successful students whom I have witnessed at the tribunal, it is difficult to conceive the possibility of failure.

The ceremony of ordination, which may be witnessed on Ember Saturdays in Catholic cathedrals, is very long and highly symbolical. In fact it has developed to such an alarming extent that no theologian can say in what the essence of the ordination really consists: there are innumerable controversies as to which rites are essential to the validity of the ‘sacrament.’ From the readiness of the theologian to pass judgment on Anglican orders one would imagine that he knew the conditions of validity without hesitation: the truth is that, in each of the three ‘sacred orders,’ theologians wage ceaseless war over the essentials of ordination. Students are usually in a state of terror about the numerous possibilities of the invalidity of their ordination, and even bishops betray much nervous anxiety in the matter: the ceremony is sometimes repeated for general satisfaction. A curious story is told of a French bishop in illustration of the strange contingencies that affect the validity of orders. He had exercised episcopal functions for many years, when one day his old nurse was heard to boast that she had baptized him, and that she had not used common water for the purpose, but rose-water. The baptism was, of course, invalid: his subsequent confirmation and ordination were invalid, for baptism is a condition sine qua non of the other sacraments: all the ordinations he had ever held were invalid and had to be repeated—all the masses, absolutions, &c., of himself and his priests had been invalid during that period.

A further source of confusion is found in the necessity of ‘jurisdiction’ for the validity of certain priestly functions. After ordination he has the power of saying Mass, and no earthly authority can affect its validity: it remains with him until death in every circumstance. On the Catholic theory I still possess that power in full, and if I seriously utter the words Hoc est enim corpus meum over the piece of bread I am eating (for that is the essential part of Mass) it is changed forthwith into the living body of Christ: it is believed on the Continent that apostate priests frequently consecrate for the Satanists and Freemasons. However the power of absolving from sin is not of the same character; it is only radically received in the ceremony of ordination, and the validity of its exercise is entirely dependent upon ecclesiastical authority. M. Zola, most patient and accurate of inquirers, has overlooked this distinction; in ‘Lourdes’ the Abbé Pierre is made to hear Marie’s confession when he has no jurisdiction over her and could not validly absolve her.^[2]

A second examination (in casuistry) is necessary before ‘faculties’ to hear confessions are granted, which is usually some time after ordination. And jurisdiction is limited to the diocese of the bishop who gives faculties, and may be still further restricted at his pleasure: nunneries and boarding-schools are always excepted from it; and there are always a certain number of sins which the bishop reserves for himself. In some dioceses (Kerry, for instance) the list of ‘reserved cases’ is long and interesting: it usually comprises the sins which are most prevalent in a district—perjury for instance, is reserved in Kerry, for it is as common as truth in a court of justice. The confessor, in such cases, has to write to the bishop for absolution, and tell his penitent to return to him. In London four cases are reserved: immoral advances by a priest to a woman in the confessional, frequentation of theatres by a priest, murder, and connection with a secret society. Two cases which are always reserved to the Pope will be treated in the next chapter.

For a long period after his ordination the priest’s activity is confined to saying Mass every morning. He is not indeed bound to say Mass every morning:^[3] he is bound to hear Mass every Sunday, but there is no definite obligation to exercise his power of consecration. The young priest says it daily during the few years of his primitive fervour, and many priests continue the practice faithfully throughout life. Monastic priests are usually bound to say daily mass by their constitutions, though there is no doubt that it would be much more conducive to true religion if they were allowed liberty of choice. Priests soon contract the habit of hurrying through their Mass at a speed which ill harmonises with their belief in its most solemn character. In fact, the Church has been forced to legislate on the point and forbid the saying of Mass in less than twenty minutes—or fifteen minutes for a ‘black’ Mass.^[4] No doubt a priest works up to a high rate of speed largely out of anxiety to meet the wishes of his congregation, yet the sight is distressing to one who knows how much is squeezed into the twenty minutes. An ordinary worshipper merely sees the rapid irreverent genuflections and the desperate hand movements which are supposed to be reverent crosses over the sacrament, but the mutilation of the prayers is much more deplorable: nearly all are direct and more or less familiar petitions to the Almighty, and one cannot but fondly hope (for the priest’s sake) that he is wholly unconscious of the meaning of his orisons. It is difficult, no doubt, when a large congregation is shifting uneasily on the benches, and perhaps another priest is frowning upon you from the chancel, waiting for his turn. Certainly there are very many priests who acquit themselves with edifying devotion, but the majority run through their Mass (apart from pressure) in the allotted twenty minutes; and, since it takes a priest nearly an hour to say Mass in his early practising days, one can imagine at what price the high speed is obtained.

The Mass is rendered rather ludicrous sometimes from an opposite reason—through its undue prolongation and interruption by musical accompaniment. The High Mass only differs from the daily Low Mass in the number of assistants and the musical rendering. It is supremely incongruous, from a purely religious point of view, for the celebrant to interrupt his solemn rites whilst he and his congregation listen to the florid strains of Haydn or Gounod, operatically rendered by soulless singers who have no idea of the meaning of their words, and are very frequently non-Catholics. Leo XIII. did make an effort in the direction of reform, but he must have realised that it is the éclat of the ceremony which fills Catholic churches all the world over, not the mysterious and unintelligible Mass.

At the same time it must be said that the Church does not do all in its power to make the Mass (and other ceremonies) appeal to the priest. In its stolid conservatism it retains a number of vestments, rites, &c., which have become absolutely unmeaning. The humeral veil, which is worn by the subdeacon at Mass and by the priest at benediction, is an undignified survival of the once intelligible custom of drawing a veil across the sanctuary and at the most solemn moments; the maniple, an embroidered cloth that dangles at the priest's left elbow, is not only unmeaning but gravely inconvenient. The practice of solemnly facing the people to sing the epistle and gospel in Latin, and other such survivals of early custom, are interesting from an archæological point of view, but ought to have been changed centuries ago; indeed, no serious defence can be made of the use of Latin at all in the Church of Rome.

Ecclesiastical Latin is, of course, easy, still it is a fact that many priests know so little Latin of any kind that many parts of the Mass and Office are quite hieroglyphic to them. I remember a country priest who was invited to bless a churn. He took the book of (Latin) benedictions to the farm, and donned his surplice; not knowing the Latin for a churn (which may be excused) he pitched upon a ‘Benedictio thalami’ as probably referring to a churn, and read the ‘Blessing of a marriage bed’ with the usual solemnity over the churn of cream.^[5] Certainly some of the sequences in the Mass and many of the hymns in the Breviary are beyond the capacity of a large number of priests.

And it must be admitted that no familiarity with Latin will enable the priest to attach a meaning to certain portions of the liturgy—especially to some of the psalms. The approved Latin version of the Psalter is a disgraceful performance; yet it has been used for 1,600 years, and there is no question of changing it. St. Jerome, an expert Hebraist, offered an excellent translation in his classical Latin, but the monks knew the old Psalter by heart and would not change; hence the first translation of the psalms, into bad Latin by very imperfect Hebrew scholars, endures to this day. Some of the psalms—notably the 58th—contain unmitigated absurdities; the verse ‘Kings of armies have fled, have fled’ is rendered, ‘King of virtues, beloved, beloved’; verse 13 runs, ‘If you sleep in the middle of the lots, the wings of the dove are silvered,’ &c. There are many similar verses. Yet the good old monks, who doubtless found many deep symbolical meanings in the above, clung to the version, and their modern successors may be excused for wool-gathering during their chanting.

For about forty psalms enter into the daily ‘Office’ which the priest has to recite. One often sees a secular priest mumbling over his Breviary in train or omnibus; he is bound to form the words with his lips, at least. The monks, however, recite their Office in their choir, or private chapel, which is fitted like the stalls of a cathedral. The two sides take up the alternate verses of the psalms, chanting the words in a loud monotone; it is only sung on solemn occasions. The whole of it is set to music, and in such inactive monasteries as the Carthusians, where it is a question what to do with one’s time, the whole is sung daily. It takes about three hours to chant it in the ordinary monotone, and no normal human being could continue in real prayer so long. Indeed, the facility with which the solemn rows of chanting friars could be thrown into fits of laughter gave little token of their great earnestness. Incidents abounded and were highly appreciated. In Killarney we had a priest who read the prayers so furiously that he invariably got inextricably wrapped up in them and threw us novices into convulsions. At London, one day, our instructor, who led one side of the choir, suddenly raised the tone about an octave in the middle of the psalm. The head superior, who led the other side, disagreed with him (as usual); we were afraid to join with either, for they were both equally formidable to us, so we listened with interest as they continued the psalm to the end, chanting alternate verses at a distance of an octave and a half.

There was an asterisk, too, in the middle of each verse which occasioned much distraction; one of our friars received the permanent title of ‘The star’ in connection with it. F. Cuthbert, an amiable and excellent old friar, was superior of the small friary at Stratford; one member of the community was a stone-deaf old friar who had naturally dropped into the habit of going straight ahead with his share of the chanting, in sweet unconsciousness of the doings of his colleagues. As he paid little or no attention to the asterisk—which was a signal for pause—he was repeatedly called to order by F. Cuthbert shouting ‘The star, the star!’ in his ear.

And if there was much to be desired in these religious offices which were of a private character it will be readily imagined that their public services were not more satisfactory. During the long hours which monks and nuns devote to prayer every day it is impossible to expect a continuous ecstasy on their part; and, since most of the psalms do not vary from day to day, the very monotony of the services would stand in the way of any very serious devotion. But in their public ceremonies another distracting element is introduced, the presence of closely observant spectators; it were not in human nature to be insensible of their presence. The sanctuary becomes a stage, and strive how he may to think of higher things, the ordinary mortal cannot banish the thought that some hundreds, perhaps thousands, of eyes are bent upon his every movement; the Catholic sanctuary with its myriads of burning tapers, its fragrant incense, its glory of colour in flowers and vestments, compels attention—every line of the church converges towards the tabernacle, the priest.

Hence it is not surprising to find that there is a vast amount of empty formalism and purely dramatic effect in sanctuary work. One cannot, of course, attach much importance to the grave and devout expressions of the ministers, for it is part of their discipline: from their earliest years they have been accustomed to a close supervision from superiors, and in the course of time the countenance comes to adapt itself automatically to the occupation. In point of fact there are few who are not keenly concerned about the material success of their function—their singing, their deportment and appearance. At such a time as Holy Week, for instance, the feverish anxiety for the success of the extraordinary services runs so high that one may safely say they are quite unattended with religious feeling in the sanctuary: ceremonies and music are practised for weeks in advance, and, when the time comes, celebrants are too busy and too nervous to think of more than the merely mechanical or theatrical part of the devotions.

And the same thought applies, naturally, to preaching: it runs on the same lines in the Church of Rome as in every other church. There are deeply religious preachers whose only serious thought is for the good of their hearers, as they conceive it; there are preachers who think only of making a flattering impression on their audience, or who are utterly indifferent what effect or impression they produce: the vast majority strive to benefit their hearers, and are not unassisted in their efforts by a very natural modicum of self-interest. I heard a typical story of one a few years ago. The priest in question is one of the most familiar figures in Catholic circles in the north of England, an ardent zealot for the ‘conversion’ of England, and, I believe, a very earnest and worthy man. On this occasion he was preaching in the open air to a large special congregation who had made a pilgrimage to the ancient home of one of the priests who had come to grief for political misfortunes under Elizabeth. The preacher was eloquent, carried away, apparently, by his feelings on the subject. My informant, however, a keen critic of elocution, noticed that one gesture—a graceful sweep of the wide-sleeved arm—was unduly prolonged, and, looking more closely, he saw that the preacher was signalling to a photographer in the opposite corner of the quadrangle. The preacher told him afterwards that he had arranged to be photographed at this specially prepared gesture. The photographer had been so captivated by the sermon that he had to be recalled to a sense of duty by the perfervid orator himself.

I remember in my younger days being grievously shocked at one of the London ‘stars.’ I happened to be near the door when he re-entered the cloister after an unusually fervent discourse, and he immediately burst out with the exclamation: ‘Now, where is that port you promised me!’ Five years afterwards I used to feel grateful myself for a glass of port after preaching: it is not apostolic, but this is not an apostolic age, and only merits contempt when it professes to be one.

If the priest has an educated congregation he usually prepares his sermon with care. The sermons are rarely original, for there is a vast library of sermonnaires at the disposal of the Catholic priest, but it is often written out in full, though it is never read from the pulpit, as is done in Anglican congregations. Good preaching is, however, rather the exception than the rule: though the age of martyrs has passed away, a Catholic can always find a sufficient test of his faith in the shape of an indifferent preacher who insists on thinking that he needs two three-quarters of an hour sermons every Sunday. In poor parishes the sermons usually degenerate into intolerable harangues. A priest who had charge of a large poor mission told me that he always prepared his sermon the hour before it was delivered: he took a cup of tea, lit a cigar, opened the gospel of the day and thought dreamily over it, then he ascended the pulpit and preached for half an hour. Men of wide erudition and facility of utterance, like F. David, would often preach most impressive sermons at a few minutes’ notice; others, of the type of Canon Akers and F. Bede, an ascetic, earnest, contemplative type, would also preach sound and rational moral discourses without preparation. The practice of preaching the same sermon many times is, of course, widely prevalent. I remember one old friar fondly kissing a much worn manuscript after a sermon on St. Joseph: ‘God bless it,’ he said, ‘that is the sixty-third time I have preached it.’

There are many other functions in which the priest finds it difficult to sustain the becoming attitude: confession will be treated in the next chapter; extreme unction is a ceremony in which only a keen faith, keener than usually flourishes in the nineteenth century, can take a religious interest. But it is in the ceremony of baptism, especially, that the most unreasonable rites survive and the most diverting incidents occur. There is a long series of questions to be put to the sponsors, and the Church, unmindful apparently of the march of time, still insists on their being put in Latin and repeated afterwards in English. One lay-brother who used to assist me in baptising thought it more proper for him to learn the Latin responses instead of allowing me to answer myself; unfortunately he muddled the dialogues, and to my query: ‘Dost thou believe in God the Father, &c.?’ he answered, with proud emphasis, ‘I renounce him.’

In point of fact, however, I was little occupied with sacerdotal functions. Even before my ordination I had been appointed to the chair of Philosophy, and as soon as I became a priest I entered upon the duties of professor. My application to that science had been noticed by our authorities, and probably attributed to a natural taste for the subject. The truth was I had fallen upon a period of acute religious scepticism, and I knew that philosophy alone could furnish the answer to my doubts, if such answer were obtainable. My misgiving had commenced six years previously, in the novitiate, and I had duly confessed my state of mind to my superior. Kind and earnest as he was, he had nevertheless little capacity for such emergencies; he made me kneel at his feet in his cell and, after plying me for a long time with a sort of ‘argumentum ad verecundiam’—holding up the exemplary faith of Wiseman, Newman, &c.—he discharged me with the usual admonition to stifle immediately any further temptation of that character. He acted upon the received ascetical principle that there are two kinds of temptations which must be fled from, not met and fought, namely, temptations against purity and temptations against faith: in the second case the rule is certainly dishonest, and sheds much light upon the position of many clergymen. Indeed, thoughtful priests do not recognise it, though it is sanctioned, in theory and practice, by the majority.

My scepticism increased: it was partly the effect of temperament, partly a natural desire to verify the opinions which I found myself acting upon. At London I immediately put myself under the guidance of F. David, and for seven years he was informed, almost weekly, of the growth of my thoughts. Though most intimate with him I never allowed him to make any allusion to my difficulties outside the confessional, but, in confession, I spent many hours propounding my difficulties and listening with profound attention to his replies. As time went on I began to feel that I had exhausted his apologetical resources, that he had but the old thread-bare formulæ to oppose to my ever-deepening difficulties: I was, therefore, more dependent upon my own studies, and, as my difficulties were wholly philosophical, I devoted myself with untiring energy to the study of scholastic philosophy. If, in later years, I did not appeal to F. David when the crisis came, it was because I was firmly convinced that I had, in private and in public lectures, heard all that he had to say on the subject. He was the only man who knew that my secession was not the work of one day, but the final step in a bitter conflict of ten long painful years. All that my confrères knew was that I was ever reticent and gloomy (which was, I think, attributed to pride and to sickness), and that I was strangely enamoured of metaphysics: I was accordingly appointed professor of that subject.

In due time I received jurisdiction and commenced the full exercise of sacerdotal power. A monastic superior has the power of examining his own subjects, and thus practically dispensing with the episcopal examinations. Knowing that I was not a zealous student of casuistry F. David kindly undertook my examination: he asked me the formula of absolution (which I did not know) one day when I met him in the cloister, and then sent me up to the Vicar General as 'examined and found worthy.' The late Bishop Weathers used to give candidates for jurisdiction a long and conscientious examination, but the young priests soon found out his vulnerable point. When the examination had proceeded a little they would ask his advice on one of his pet subjects, and a good hour of the time would be usefully occupied to their mutual satisfaction. I then immediately entered the mysterious and much dreaded confessional. Preaching and other functions also commenced, and I was now fully launched in my sacerdotal career.

1. I make no apology for using the word Catholic as synonymous with Roman. We Romanists felt so proud of the name to which we had clung through the long years when it was a sign of disgrace and persecution that we were loth to part with it.
2. A non-Catholic writer is almost certain to stumble in liturgical matters. M. Zola’s administration of the sacraments to the dying—to the pilgrim in the train, in ‘Lourdes,’ and to Count Dario in ‘Rome’—is quite incorrect. It has never been pointed out, too, that the moon’s conduct, during Pierre’s three last nights in Rome, is out of all bounds of astronomical propriety.
3. M. Zola is again wrong in imputing it as a fault that the priests at Lourdes omitted to say Mass.
4. A black Mass—in which the priest wears black vestments—is shorter than usual: hence it is that black vestments so often adorn the shoulders of an ordinary secular priest. Green vestments are worn on a common, saintless day; red for a martyr or the Holy Ghost; white for virgins, confessors and all great feasts; purple for sadder festivals; and gold for any purpose.
5. There are blessings for every thing conceivable. In my younger days a woman once asked me to read a prayer over her; I could not divine the particular purpose and she seemed uncommunicative. So I chose one, rather at random; she was safely delivered of twins shortly afterwards. In Belgium I was much tormented for sending a young woman, who came to me with a severe tooth-ache, to a dentist, and an old lady, who had diseased cows, to a veterinary surgeon. I incurred grave suspicions of rationalism from my colleagues.