are made to keep up their ritual and ascetical peculiarities in the privacy of the convent as have been attributed to the Grey Friars. Ex uno disce omnes.
It was well known by my colleagues that I was deeply concerned at the unpleasant condition of my environment for many years before my secession. I frequently spoke with one of them on the subject, for he professed to be in entire sympathy with me on that point; he used to deprecate it in even stronger terms than I. However, suspecting that I would be thereby tempted to procure a release from the Franciscan rule and pass to some other order (for which permission could be obtained), he would pass on, in all simplicity, to assure me that every other order—and the secular clergy too—was in a similarly unsatisfactory condition.
And I had every reason to be confirmed in the opinion he gave me. Catholic priests have two weaknesses in common with the gentler sex—vanity and love of scandal: one cannot move much in clerical circles without soon learning the seamy side of different orders and dioceses. The different dioceses of secular clergy are jealous of one another, and the secular clergy is generally opposed to the regular: nine secular priests out of ten hate all monks, and nine priests (of any kind) out of ten hate the Jesuits—in fact, I have met very many priests who quite accept the Protestant Alliance version of Jesuitism. Before laymen, of course, every branch
