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58 second and higher vocation to be in a special manner and measure conformed to the image of the Son by partaking of His priesthood, would be a perpetual motive to all perfection.

8. Lastly, the pastoral office also is in itself a discipline of perfection. For, first of all, it is a life of abnegation of self. A pastor has as many obediences to fulfil as he has souls to serve. The good and the evil, the sick and the whole, the young and the old, the wise and the foolish, the worldly and the unworldly—who are not always wise—the penitent and the impenitent, the converting and the unconverted, the lapsed and the relapsed, the obdurate and the defiant, all must be watched over. None may be neglected—still less cast off—always, at all times, and in all ways possible. S. Philip used to say that a priest should have no time of his own, and that many of his most consoling conversions came to him out of hours, at unseasonable moments. If he had sent them away because they came out of time, or at supper-time, and the like, they might have been lost. Then again the trials of temper, patience, and self-control in bearing with the strange and inconsiderate minds that come to him; and the demands made upon his strength and endurance day and night in the calls of the sick and dying,