mashers
coming around here to teach old priests their business. We kept the
faith--"

"Spare me that," I said. "And don't say a word about the famine years.
That episode, and the grandeur of the Irish priests, is written in
Heaven. We want a Manzoni to tell it,--that is, if we would not prefer
to leave it unrecorded, except in the great book,--which is God's
memory."

He softened a little at this.

"Now," said I, "you are a wise man. What do you want me to do?"

"I want you to pitch into that young fellow," he said, "to cuff him and
make him keep his place."

"Very good. But be particular. Tell me, what am I to say?"

"Say? Tell him you'll stand no innovations in your parish. _Nil
innovetur, nisi quod prius traditum est._ Tell him that he must go along
with all the other priests of the diocese and conform to the general
regulations,--_Quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus_. Tell him that
young men must know their place; and then take up the _Selva_, or the
Fathers, and prove it to him."

"God bless you!" said I, thankfully and humbly. "You have taken a load
off my heart. Now, let me see would this do."

I took down from the dusty shelves a favorite little volume,--a kind of
Anthology of the early Fathers, and I opened it.

"We'll try the _sortes Virgilianae_" I said, and read slowly and with
emphasis:--

"At nunc, etiam sacerdotes Dei, omissis Evangeliis et Prophetis, vidimus
comoedias legere, amatoria Bucolicorum versuum verba cantare, tenere
Virgilium, et id quod in pueris necessitatis est, crimen in se facere
voluptatis."

"That's not bad," said my hearer, critically, whilst I held the book
open with horror and amazement. "That applies to him, I'm sure. But
what's the matter, Father Dan? You are not ill?"

"No," said I, "I'm not; but I'm slightly disconcerted. That anathema
strikes me between the two eyes. What else have I been doing for fifty
years but thumbing Horace and Virgil?"

"Oh, never mind," he said, airily. "Who wrote that? That's extreme, you
know."

"An altogether wise and holy man, called St. Jerome," I said.

"Ah, well, he was a crank. I don't mean that. That sounds disrespectful.
But he was a reformer, you know."

"A kind of innovator, like this young man of mine?" I said.

"Ah, well, try some sensible saint. Try now St. Bernard. He was a wise,
gentle adviser."

I turned to St. Bernard, and read:--

"Lingua magniloqua--manus otiosa!
Sermo multus--fructus nullus!