Page:Twelve Years in a Monastery (1897).djvu/84

78 after their ordination, and throughout life the priest has to attend periodical conferences which are held in every monastery and diocese for the discussion of points of casuistry. Our professor was a young man of much ability and refinement of character, who lectured on the cruder sections with marked confusion and apology, but, as a rule, priests soon acquire the habit of discussing indelicate ‘cases’ with the calmness of a medical man.

Much as we were attached to our professor for his kindliness and charm of character, we had to procure his removal at the end of a year. Though a man of more than average ability, he was too weak and unsuited for the monastic condition to fill his position with credit.

For our course of dogmatic theology we had the able guidance of Father David. He was a man of wide erudition and considerable mental power, and held us, with one or two exceptions, magnetically bound to him during our studentship. It was a curious fact that nearly all of his students withdrew themselves from his influence in later years. The change seemed to be attributable to the subsequent discovery of the inaccuracy of many of the statements we had taken from him—for want of practice in writing and a shrinking from criticism had encouraged a certain degree of carelessness in his expressions—and partly to the fact that his early kindness and assistance had too much of an element