Page:Twelve Years in a Monastery (1897).djvu/228

222 converts were confirmed Agnostics who had keenly enjoyed the simplicity of my predecessors. It was soon felt that I was not of a proselytising disposition—apart from the insecurity of my own position, I am afraid I never sufficiently realised the gravity of the condition of our Anglican neighbours—and the college worked in complete harmony with the clergy and laity of the vicinity.

Of my own diocesan colleagues I hardly made the acquaintance. The nearest priest of my own diocese was at a distance of twelve miles to the south; the next, fourteen miles to the north; and there, as elsewhere, the secular clergy do not fraternise with monks. I was now, however, bound to put in an appearance at the casuistry conferences which are held periodically, as has been explained. A diocese is divided into deaneries, and the rectors are summoned every month to a conference at the dean’s residence. A programme is printed for each year in which a ‘casus’—an incident for moral diagnosis and prescription—is appointed for each conference: a few questions are added which serve to elicit the principles of casuistry on which the ‘case’ must be solved. A priest is appointed to read the case, solve it, and answer the questions at each meeting; all are then invited by the dean or president to express their opinions in turn, and, as the ‘casus’ is usually very complicated, a long discussion generally follows. Nearly every