monasticism draws its adherents to-day are much less romantic, and much less creditable, it must be confessed.
Nine-tenths of the religious and clerical vocations of the present day are conceived at the early age of 14 or 15. As a general rule the boy is struck with the desire of the priesthood or the monastery precisely as he is struck with the longing for a military career. His young imagination is impressed with the dignity and the importance of the priest’s position, his liturgical finery, his easy circumstances, his unusually wide circle of friends and admirers. The inconveniences of the office, very few of which he really knows, are no more formidable than the stern discipline and the balls and bayonets of the martial dreamer; the one great thorn of the priest’s crown—celibacy—he is utterly incapable of appreciating. So he declares his wish to his parents—if the course has not, even, been already suggested to him—and they take every precaution to prevent the lapse of his inclination. In due time, before the contaminating breath of the world can sully the purity of his mind, he is introduced into the seminary or monastery, where every means is employed to foster and strengthen his inclination until he shall have bound himself for life by an irrevocable vow.
Such is the ordinary growth of a vocation to the clerical state. There are, of course, exceptions, but they are proportionately infrequent; very rarely does
