(24.) A ruddy and quite healthy-looking parish priest,[768] wearing fine linen and Venice lace, has his seat in church near the cardinals and the doctors of divinity,[769] where he finishes to digest his dinner, whilst certain Bernardine or Franciscan monks come out of their cells or deserts to which decency and their own vows should confine them, to preach before him and his flock, and to be paid for their sermons as if they were vendible commodities. You will not let me continue, and you remark: “That such a censure is novel and unexpected, and that this shepherd and his flock ought not to be deprived from hearing the Word of God and receiving the bread of life.” “By no means, I would have him himself preach that word as well as administer that bread morning and evening, in the churches, in the houses, on the market-places, from the housetops, and have none assume such a grand and laborious office but with intentions, capacities, and physical strength deserving of the handsome offerings and wealthy emoluments belonging to it. However, I am compelled to excuse the vicarʼs conduct, for it is customary, and he found it already established and will transmit it to his successors; but still I must blame this strange, unreasonable, and unwarrantable custom, whilst I approve still less the habit of his being paid four times for the same funeral, once for himself, a second time as his fees, a third for his being present, and a fourth for his officiating.”
(25.) Titus served the church these twenty years in a small living, and is not yet held worthy of a better which becomes vacant; neither his talents, knowledge, his exemplary life, nor the wishes of his parishioners are sufficient to get him promoted; another clergyman starts up, as it were, from underground, and he obtains the preference; Titus is sent back and put off, but he does not complain, for custom will have it so.
(26.) “Who,” asks the precentor, “will compel me to come to matins? Am I not master of the choir? My predecessor never went there, and I am as good a man as ever he was! Shall I allow my dignity to be debased while I hold office, or leave it to my successor as I found it?” The head of the school says: “I do not battle for my own interests, but for those of the prebend; it would be hard indeed for a superior canon to have to do duty with the choir, whilst the treasurer, the archdeacon, the penitentiary, and the grand vicar think themselves exempt from it.” “It is my right,” argues the head of the chapter, “to claim my dues, even if I should never come to prayers; for twenty years I slept every night without being disturbed; I will go on as I began, and never act derogatory to my dignity. Else, why should I be head of the chapter, if my example should be of no importance?” Thus each strives not to praise the Lord, and to show that, for a long time, it was neither customary nor compulsory to do so; whilst the emulation not to repair to divine service cannot be greater nor more fervent. The bells toll in the stillness of the night, and the same sounds which awaken the choristers and the singing-boys, lull the canons into a more sound and pleasant slumber, interspersed by delicious dreams; they rise late, and go to church to be paid for having slept.
(27.) Who would ever imagine, did not experience daily show it, how difficult it is for people to resign themselves to their being happy; and that there should be need of men dressed in a certain fashion, who by tender and pathetic speeches prepared beforehand, by certain inflexions of the voice, by tears and gestures, which make them perspire and exhaust them, finally induce a Christian and sensible man, who is desperately ill, not to be lost for ever but to ensure his own salvation.
(28.) Aristippusʼ daughter lies dangerously ill; she sends for her father, and is anxious to be reconciled to him and die happy. Shall so wise a man, the oracle of the whole town, take such a sensible step of his own accord, and persuade his wife to do the same? No! they will not stir without the interference of a spiritual director.
(29.) If a mother does not yield to the inclinations of her daughter, but induces her to become a nun, she takes upon herself the charge of another soul beside her own, and is responsible for such a soul to God. Such a mother will be lost for ever if the daughter be not saved.
(30.) A certain man gambles and is ruined, but nevertheless, when the eldest of his two daughters gets married, he gives her as a dowry all he has been able to rescue out of the clutches of some cheat;[770] the younger will shortly become a nun, without any vocation for it, but compelled by the losses of her father at play.
(31.) Certain maidens, virtuous, healthy, enthusiasts in religion, and who feel they have a call, have not sufficient money to enter a wealthy nunnery and to take the vows of poverty.
(32.) A woman who hesitates whether she shall enter an abbey or a nunnery revives the old question about the advantages of a popular or a despotic rule.[771]