PRO MENSE AUGUSTO.
(Die I^ma Mensis.)
1. Excerpta ex Statutis Dioecesanis et Nationalibus.
2. De Inspiratione Canonicorum Librorum.
3. Tractatus de Contractibus (Crolly).
"Good heavens," I exclaimed, as Father Letheby came in and read down the awful list in the second copy which I handed him, "imagine that! What in the world do bishops think? It is easy for them to be twirling their rings around their little fingers and studying the stones in their mitres. They have nothing else to do, as we all know, except the occasional day's amusement of knocking curates around, as you would pot balls on a billiard-table. But what consideration have they for us, poor hard-working missionary priests? What do they know about our heavy confessionals, our sick-calls, our catechising in the schools, our preparing for our sermons, our correspondence for our people, with Europe, Asia, Africa, America, and Oceanica, our—our—our—look at this! 'Excerpta ex Statutis!' That means reading over every blessed diocesan and national statute, that is, two ponderous volumes. Again, 'De Inspiratione'—the whole question of the Higher Criticism, volume after volume, Bull after Bull, articles in all the magazines, and the whole course of German exegetics. That's not enough! But here, as dessert, after junks of Rubrics, and indigestible slabs of controverted hermeneutics, come the light truffles and pâté de foie gras of Crolly's 'Contracts.' Begor, the next thing will be they'll want us to preach our sermons before them; and then this Master of Conferences,—he's a good fellow and an old classmate of my own; but of course he must exhibit his learning, and bring in all his Christy minstrel conundrums, as if any fool couldn't ask questions that twenty wise men couldn't answer;—and then he'll cock his head, like a duck under a shower, and look out of the window, and leave me stuck dead—"
There was a quiet smile around Father Letheby's mouth during this philippic. Then he said, smoothing out the paper:—
"There is a little clause here at the end, which I think, Father Dan, just affects you."
"Affects me? If there is, it didn't catch my eye. Show it to me."
I took the paper, and there, sure enough, was a little paragraph:—
"6° The privilege, in virtue of which parish priests of a certain standing on the mission are exempted from the obligations of the Conference, will be continued."
I read that over three times to make quite sure of it, my curate looking down smilingly at me.
"If you are not of a certain standing, Father Dan, I'd like to know who is."
"True for you," I replied musingly. "I believe I am called the Patriarch of the Conference."