Page:The Eternal Priesthood (4th ed).djvu/239

Rh least to him who has been the guide of their youth and both father and friend in God, is to a priest the seal and sign that his work is accepted by our Divine Master.

But another and distinct recompense of all cares, anxieties, and labours is to be found in the conversion of sinners and the return of souls to God. The joy of the Good Shepherd over the lost sheep will be measured by two things—the danger of the soul and the labour of the search. Sometimes one who has long persevered in innocence falls like lightning from heaven. Yesterday he was in union with God; to-day he is cut off and dead. All the grace of childhood and youth is gone, and the brightness is turned into death. And a dead soul, like a dead body, soon decays. One sin opens the floodgate, and the rapidity of the stream is preternatural. Once fallen, the facility is acquired, not by habit, but by a new and strange impulse unknown before. Then comes reckless continuance in sin, and then despair; and despair makes the soul blind and deaf. Every priest has had, or sooner or later will have, this sorrow; and he will remember the prayers and efforts, and hopes and disappointments, it may be of years, before the lost soul was found and brought back to God. S. Augustine gives the