worldly joys and wealth and honors, and take unto themselves their suffering Saviour to be their portion and their inheritance. They realize how steep the path to heaven is, what strides are necessary to keep pace with Christ, what numbers will depend on them for help; and they feel they cannot afford to be weighed down with worldly affections and things, and that he who loves these more than Christ is not worthy to be His disciple. The two essential parts of every priestly life are illustrated in to-day's Gospel. First, communion with God, to sit and listen to Jesus's words, and secondly, to launch out into the deep and let down the nets for a draught. " Follow Me," He says, " and I will make you fishers of men." The world is like a sea whose waters, seemingly clear and sweet, are nevertheless bitter to the taste and aggravate rather than slake men's thirst — sinners are like fish, cold, devoid of religious fervor, loving the darkness of the deep and its mud and carrion, having no eyes to see, nor ears to hear God's truth, nor spiritual hands or feet wherewith to extricate themselves, given to preying upon and selfishly devouring one another. And oh! how arduous and discouraging the fisherman's task; how often, when the fish is nearly caught, he suddenly slips back and plunges down again ! There is a rival fisherman, too, the devil, who, though he baits his cruel hook with poisonous pleasure and wealth and honors, and though he tears and kills his catch, still, sad to say, finds many eager for his lure. But Christ's mode of fishing and that of His Apostles and priests is with
