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Rh They are fellow-workers with God in the field of the world and in the vineyard of the Church. They are ploughers, and sowers, and reapers. The priesthood has the office of breaking up the fallow ground of the nations, and of destroying the roots of unbelief that hinder the plough. "I have made thee as a new thrashing wain, with teeth like a saw: thou shalt thrash the mountains and break them in pieces, and shalt make the hills as chaff. Thou shalt fan them, and the wind shall carry them away." They are sowers who cast the seed of the Word upon all lands and beside all waters. They are reapers who go weeping in the midst of a barren and dying world, who shall one day come with joy, bringing their sheaves with them. But these titles, though expressive, are ideal and pictorial. There are others more homely and lying closer to our life and needs.

Priests are also fellow-builders with God in edifying the Church, and rearing the temple of the Holy Ghost upon the one only foundation which Christ, the Master-builder, has laid. They are fathers of all who are born again by water and the Holy Ghost: