t because he was a
priest as well as a lord chancellor, but because as lord chancellor he
so often forgot that he was a priest. There are many great
priest-authors, but few of them are among the greatest. A priest in
politics does not usually hold his head, because politics isn't his
place. There are priest-inventors; but somehow we forget the priest in
the inventor, and feel that the latter title makes him a little less
worthy of the former--rather illogical, is it not? The Abbot Mendel
was a scientist, but it is only now that he is coming into his own; and
how many know him only as Mendel, forgetting his priestly office?
Liszt was a cleric, but few called him Abbe. A priest as a priest can
be nothing else. In fact, it is almost inevitable that his greatness
in anything else will detract from his priesthood. Now the Church, my
dear Mark, has the wisdom of ages behind her. She never judges from
the exceptions, but always from the rule. She gets better service from
a man who has sunk his temporal interests in the spiritual. She is the
sternest mistress the ages have produced; she wants whole-hearted
service or none at all. I like thinking of Ruth as my daughter; but I
am not averse, for the good of my ministry, to having someone else take
the responsibility from off my shoulders."

"But," said Mark, "how could a wife and children interfere with a
priest's duties to his flock?"

"The church does not let them interfere," answered Father Murray. "She
holds a man to his sworn obligations taken in marriage. A husband must
'cleave to his wife.' How could a priestly husband do that and yet
fulfill his vow to be faithful to his priesthood until death? His wife
would come first. What of his priesthood? Besides, a father has for
his children a love that would tend to nullify, only too often, the
priest's obligations toward the children of his flock. A man who
offers a supreme sacrifice, and is eternally willing to live it, must
be supremely free. In theory, all clergymen must be prepared to
sacrifice themselves for their people, for 'the Good Shepherd gives up
his life for his sheep.' In practice, no one expects that except of
the priest; but from him everyone expects it."

"Do you really think," asked Mark, "that those outside the Church
expect such a sacrifice?"

Father Murray did not hesitate about his answer.

"Expect it? They demand it. Why, my dear Mark, even as a Presbyterian
minister I expected