h a promise is outside the ordinary
province of the vow, which naturally embraces works of supererogation
and counsel. It is unnecessary and highly imprudent to make such
promises under vow. A promise to commit sin is a blasphemous outrage.
If what we promise to do is something indifferent, vain and useless,
opposed to evangelical counsels or generally less agreeable to God than
the contrary, our promise is null and void as far as the having the
character of a vow is concerned.

Of course, in taking a vow we must know what we are doing and be free
to act or not to act. If then the object of the vow is matter on which
a vow may validly be taken, we are bound in conscience to keep our
solemn engagement. What we forbid ourselves to do may be perfectly
lawful and innocent, but by that vow we forfeit the right we had to do
it, and for us it has become sinful. The peculiar position in which a
vow places a man in relation to his fellow-men concerning what is right
and wrong, is the characteristic of the vow that makes it the object of
much attention. But it requires something lacking in the outfit of an
intelligent man to perceive therein anything that savors of the
unnatural, the unlawful or the immoral.

Concerning those whom a vow has constituted in a profession, we shall
have a word to say later. Right here the folly, to say nothing
stronger, of those who contract vows without thinking, must be apparent
to all. No one should dare take upon himself or herself such a burden
of his or her own initiative. It is an affair that imperiously demands
the services of an outside, disinterested, experienced party, whose
prudence will well weigh the conditions and the necessity of such a
step. Without this, there is no end to the possible misery and dangers
the taking of a vow may lead to.

If through an act of unthinking foolishness or rash presumption, you
find yourself weighed down with the incubus of a vow not made for your
shoulders, the only way out is to make a clean breast of the matter to
your confessor, and follow his directions.

CHAPTER XXXIX.
THE PROFESSIONAL VOWS.

THE professional vow is a triple one, and embraces the three great
evangelical counsels of perfect chastity, poverty and obedience. The
cloister is necessary for the observance of such engagements as these,
and it were easier for a lily to flourish on the banks of the Dead Sea,
or amid the fiery blasts of the Sahara, than for these delicate flowers
o