llowing passage: Vocation to the priesthood "by no means consists,
at least necessarily and according to the ordinary law, in a certain
interior inclination of the person, or promptings of the Holy Spirit,
to enter the priesthood. But on the contrary, nothing more is required
of the person to be ordained, in order that he may be called by the
bishop, than that he have a right intention, and such fitness of
nature and grace, as evidenced in integrity of life and sufficiency of
learning, which will give a well-founded hope of his rightly
discharging the office and obligations of the priesthood." This Decree
does away, at once, with the special spiritual attraction, always and
essentially required by so many for vocation to the priesthood.

It may not be rash to conclude, in a similar way, of a religious
vocation "that nothing more is required of the person who is a
candidate for religious life, in order that he may be admitted to the
novitiate by the lawful superior of an order, than that he have a
right intention, and such fitness of nature and grace required by the
order, as will give a well-founded hope of his rightly discharging the
obligations of the religious life in that order."

The present treatise aims at no more than putting in form suitable to
the young the sound conclusions of such reliable authors as Father
Vermeersch, Canon Lahitton and Rev. P. Bouvier, S.J.

As to the advisability of priests, parents and teachers fostering and
developing in the young the desire of a religious life, the words of
St. Thomas are positive: "They who induce others to enter religion,
not only commit no sin, but even merit a great reward." (Summa, 2a,
2ae, Quaest. 189, art. 9.)

And the Third Council of Baltimore, urging priests to develop
vocations to the priesthood, says: "We exhort in the Lord and
earnestly entreat pastors and other priests diligently to search after
and find out, among the boys committed to their care, those who seem
suited and called to the clerical state. If they find any boys of good
disposition, of pious inclination, of devout and generous minds, and
able to learn; who give promise of persevering in the sacred ministry,
let them nourish the zeal of such, and sedulously foster these
precious germs of vocation." (Paragraph 136.)

Priests, teachers, confessors and others who have dealings with the
young, will find it very practical to have at hand several copies of
some reliable booklet on the priesthoo