resources, that he had but the old thread-bare formulæ to oppose to my ever-deepening difficulties: I was, therefore, more dependent upon my own studies, and, as my difficulties were wholly philosophical, I devoted myself with untiring energy to the study of scholastic philosophy. If, in later years, I did not appeal to F. David when the crisis came, it was because I was firmly convinced that I had, in private and in public lectures, heard all that he had to say on the subject. He was the only man who knew that my secession was not the work of one day, but the final step in a bitter conflict of ten long painful years. All that my confrères knew was that I was ever reticent and gloomy (which was, I think, attributed to pride and to sickness), and that I was strangely enamoured of metaphysics: I was accordingly appointed professor of that subject.
In due time I received jurisdiction and commenced the full exercise of sacerdotal power. A monastic superior has the power of examining his own subjects, and thus practically dispensing with the episcopal examinations. Knowing that I was not a zealous student of casuistry F. David kindly undertook my examination: he asked me the formula of absolution (which I did not know) one day when I met him in the cloister, and then sent me up to the Vicar General as 'examined and found worthy.' The late Bishop Weathers used to give candidates for jurisdiction a long and conscientious examination, but the young
