anxiety shown by nun-teachers to inspire their pupils with a ‘vocation’ is extremely deplorable. They frequently request priests to secure aspirants for their congregations, and many a priest is tempted, out of desire to find favour at the convent (an important social distinction), to welcome the first word that his girl-penitents breathe in the confessional about a religious vocation. Many priests develop a perfect mania for sending their penitents to convents. For myself, in my hours of deepest faith I never found courage to send a girl to a nunnery: one girl, a penitent of mine, often solicited me about her vocation: I am thankful to say that I restrained her.
A conspicuous advantage of this system (from the ecclesiastical point of view), is that it affords time for a more extensive and systematic training. If other Christian sects—though they do not even impose an obligation of celibacy on their clergy—prefer the more honourable course of not extending any ecclesiastical sanction whatever to aspirants until they arrive at a deliberative age, they must and do suffer in consequence in the training of their ministry. The divinity lectures which the Anglicans follow are but a feeble substitute for the specialised education which their grave responsibility as religious teachers obviously demands; and in a large proportion of cases the theological training of Anglican curates begins and ends with such lectures. In later years, when contact with earnest readers impresses them with a due sense of
