Page:The Eternal Priesthood (4th ed).djvu/290

278 and full of the events of the day. He is what is called a general favourite, hurting nobody but himself, and that so secretly that only God, his angel guardian, his confessor, and perhaps some unknown and watchful friend can see it. He does not see, or hardly sees it himself. His preparation for Mass is never altogether omitted, but it is short and hurried: his Mass is rapid—about twenty minutes—and mechanical: his thanksgiving is short and soon over: his office is said unpunctually, hurriedly, and with little attention spiritual or intellectual. Midnight overtakes him before he has said Prime, and he says the Rosary as a missionary privilege, without the exempting labour of a missionary priest. And yet he will go to his sick calls; sometimes, indeed, they are neglected, and sometimes he goes too late. When by the bedside of the dying, he is roused to a consciousness that he is in his place as a priest, but out of his place as a man. He gives the Sacraments and says the prayers in the Ritual. Then comes a silence. He has nothing to say. The habit of his life and the current of his thoughts are so remote from death and eternity that he has little to say. The dying soul is disappointed, and the friends standing by are saddened and vexed. When death overtakes such a priest it finds him little prepared.