Page:Twelve Years in a Monastery (1897).djvu/21

Rh a man of maturer age now seek admission into the cloister. Occasionally a ‘convert’ to Rome loses his balance and, in the first rush of zeal, plunges headlong into ascetical excesses. Sometimes a man of more advanced years will enter a monastery in order to attain the priesthood more easily; monastic superiors are not unwilling, especially if a generous alms is given to a monastery, to press a timid aspirant through the episcopal examinations (which are less formidable to religious), and then allow him, with a dispensation from Rome, to pass into the ranks of the secular clergy. And there are cases, too, it must be added, when a man becomes seriously enamoured of the monastic ideal, and seeks admission into the cloister; rarely, however, does his zeal survive the first year of practical experience.

Apart from such exceptional cases, monasteries and seminaries receive their yearly reinforcements from boys of from 14 to 15 years. Nothing could be more distant from the Roman Catholic practice than the Anglican custom of choosing the Church at an age of deliberation, during or after the university career. The Catholic priesthood would be hopelessly impoverished if that, the only honourable course, were adopted. The earliest boyish wish is jealously consecrated, for Catholic parents are only too eager to contribute a member to the ranks of the clergy, and ecclesiastical authorities are only too deficient in agreeable applications for the dignity; the result is