Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

366 THE FORMATION OF CHRISTENDOMworship. On the contrary, that triple work of instruction,spiritual rule, and worship, which occupiedthe priesthood of the Christian Church, touched everycondition of life with its inexhaustible charity. Anincident of modern life will serve to show what wasas true in the fourth century as it is in the nineteenth. " One day," says M. Cochin, " scarcely a fewmonths ago, I was walking in the court of thInstitute with M. Cousin, and a learned professorphilosophy. A young curate had just passed, andhe went from us towards the bride M. Cousin lookg at him from a distance, stopped and said to hislleague : ' My friend, we have been teaching philophyall our life ; we call young men of educationther, and endeavour to prove to them by labus arguments that there is a soul. In the meantimewhat has this young priest been doing, and wherehas he been going ? He goes to reconcile the soulsf husband and wife, to strengthen the soul of anld man at the point of death, to struggle with vicein the soul of a bad man, with temptation in tsoul of a young girl, with despair in the soul of thunhappy, to enlighten the soul of a child. And wewish to throw such people as that into the river !It would be better for us to be thrown in ourselveswith a stone about our necks. Let us be honestenough to admit what they are doing for souls whilewe are trying to recognise the soul's existence.'" lBut the priesthood thus engaged was one in itsnature and character through every diocese. So theauthority of the bishop was one and the same in all;and the guardian of both in teaching and spiritualrule was the Primacy of St. Peter. Thus the organi-Lnoonlaire's Correspond tn^f ?r/V/> Mtnlamc Sioetcki^e, p. 570.