Page:Twelve Years in a Monastery (1897).djvu/256

250 cannot convince themselves of my mental derangement have the grim alternative of regarding me as having ‘obviously betrayed a sacred trust’ (to quote my correspondent), and infallibly excluded from ‘the homes of the blest.’ Only my own immediate family circle (and not all of those) and one other family, out of a wide circle of friends, still regard me as a rational and honest human being.

Such a violent disruption of the past is the lot of every seceder from Rome. Add to it the practical difficulty of re-commencing life in mature age, and some idea will be formed of one great force that helps to preserve the integrity of the Roman Catholic priesthood.