One day our Lord, instructing His disciples before sending them to preach His coming, said: "The harvest, indeed, is great, but the laborers are few. Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he send laborers into his harvest" (Luke x: 2). And this has been the cry through all the ages—"Send laborers into the harvest!" The Church has always needed good spiritual laborers, men and women, who would be willing to work for God and their neighbor, to extend the Kingdom of God, and this is true to-day of our own beloved country. A host of spiritual laborers is scattered over our land, but the cry is ever repeated, "We need more, the work is too great for our efforts, and all the harvest is not being garnered."
Will you, dear reader, make one more worker in God's field, one more reaper of His harvest that is ripe and falling to the ground because there are none to gather it?
[CHAPTER XII]
THE TEACHER'S AUREOLE
As the acquaintance of young people with religious is frequently limited to their teachers, they are sometimes inclined to identify in their minds the profession of teaching with religious life. And since some feel a diffidence or repugnance in committing themselves to a teaching career, they extend this aversion to the religious state itself. We have shown, however, in a previous chapter that there is great variety and diversity of occupation in religious orders, so that all tastes and inclinations can find congenial exercise in them.
Still, it is probably true, that the great majority of religious men and women are found in the class-room, and this for the good and sufficient reason that Christian education is the paramount need of the day, and the work on which the future of the Church chiefly depends. The young who, perhaps, are tempted to look upon teaching as an obscure employment and a monotonous grind, will do well to reflect that in our time it is considered so honorable a profession that hundreds of thousands, even of those outside the Church, deliberately choose it as the best and most favorable career for the play of their talents.
The professors of our noted universities command the respect and deference of the community, and to them the public look for the solution of the constantly arising civic and social problems. They are regarded as the natural leaders of thought, and are expected to guide and direct popular movements affecting the well-being of society. And this public esteem, is extended in due proportion to all who are engaged in education, for it is universally realized that the standard of morality and intelligence, which is to obtain in the commonwealth, will depend largely on the training given to the young. The teacher is directly employed in the making of good citizens, which is a more important business than the extension of manufactures or commerce. He is setting the ideals according to which the Republic must stand or fall.
And, for persons of refined or intellectual tastes, the instruction of youth must be a pleasurable employment. It is inviting to deal with the young and innocent, who are eager to learn, ambitious to excel, and who in return for their instructor's solicitude, give him unstinted affection and gratitude, and render him loyal obedience and respect. In the teacher's hands is the moulding and shaping of character, the direction of talents which may illumine society. And can any sphere of action be more elevated, more grateful than this?
And then, too, the educator is constantly engaged in the things of the mind, in study, and the discovery of new truths or new applications of old ones, and in imparting his knowledge to fresh, bright intelligences. Nothing is so fascinating to a person of intellectual bent as the pursuit and attainment of truth, and this is the steady occupation of the teacher. Is not the outlook of such a life infinitely wider and more refreshing than the dull routine of business, the noisy rumble of a factory or the sordid dealings of commerce?
But it is principally from the spiritual point of view that education is considered by the Church and religious congregations. The mandate of Christ, "Go ye forth and teach all nations," laid the charge of teaching upon His Church; and on the pastors it devolves to see that the faithful are instructed in Christian doctrines and obligations. To rightfully carry out its mission, the Church has always felt obliged to insist that the education of its children be permeated with religion, and in fulfilment of this duty it has established parochial schools throughout our country, where the young, while acquiring secular science, can at the same time be grounded in the faith and trained to virtuous lives.