strengthenest me I can accomplish anything and everything. Let demons cry: ' Depart from us, Thou Son of God, What have we to do with Thee? ' but I, unworthy as I am, will henceforth try to imitate the fishermen, who leaving all things, their homes and families, their boats and newly acquired wealth, aye, and renouncing even themselves, followed Thee thenceforth more closely still, even to suffering and to death."
Brethren, St. Paul, writing to the Corinthians of himself and his brother-priests, says: " Let a man so account of us as of the ministers of Christ and the dispensers of the mysteries of God." Herein is contained a double admonition, one for priests as to how they should carry themselves, and another for the laity as to how they should esteem their priests. The Lord's anointed should never lose sight of the dignity of his sacred calling, nor of the rights and the duties that it involves. Christ's priesthood is as far superior to that of the Jews as are the truths and rites and ceremonies, the sacraments and the sacrifice of the New Law to that of the Old. No earthly dignity can compare with that of the Christian Apostolate. While the holy Bishop, St. Martin, was one day dining with the Emperor, the latter out of respect for his saintly guest passed him the royal goblet untasted, and the good Bishop, to assert the dignity of his office, not only accepted the honor himself but handed the cup to an humble priest, his secretary, as next in order of precedence. St. Ambrose, too, when the Emperor Theodosius would have seated himself in the
