warm exhortation, he would announce that now Father Grafton would make a few remarks, while he retired into the vestry. As he went thither he touched the man nearest the door and beckoned him in. In this way he began his individual work. He would ask some kindly questions about the state of the person's soul, etc. He would probably make an appointment with this person to come and see him at some other time. I have known, such was the necessity of the case, of his making an appointment as early as three o'clock in the morning. On the man's leaving he would tell him to send the person sitting next to him into the room, as he wanted to see him.

During the service cards would be given out, having on them such statements as: "I want to be baptized," or "confirmed," or "to see the mission priest." These might be dropped in a box at the door. There would be also another box in which questions relating to religious matters or Church doctrine might be placed, and which the mission priest or some other might answer before the sermon.

Again, persons would be invited to make special resolutions in conference with the mission priest. At the end of the mission those who had been benefited by it were requested to show their thanksgiving to God by a public renewal of their baptismal or confirmation vows. The mission would end with a thanksgiving service and perhaps, also, in some cases, with a procession, each bearing a lighted candle. The conference at Oxford led to the publishing of a

little book on missions, and not long after the first great London mission was given. Rightly used, and not too frequently, missions may be a source of much spiritual power and blessing to a parish.

Along with missions, retreats began to be given in the English Church. A modified or shortened form of retreat is to be found in the parish Quiet Day. These have quite a distinct ethos from those of a mission. In the mission the Church is making an aggressive effort to win souls to Christ. It is a St. John the Baptist work and a call to repentance. In the retreat God calls us to receive a Gift. He says perhaps to the weary: "Come ye apart into a desert place and rest awhile." To the soul reaching out for a higher life and asking "Where dwellest Thou?" He says: "Come and see." The spirit of a retreat is that of solitude, contemplation, communion with God. At a mission we are called to repent, to break with the world, to be indeed converted. In the retreat Christ gathers us by His own visitation into a fuller incorporation with His own life.

Retreats are a law of God's dealing with us. The great gifts of God to men have mostly been given to retreatants. Christ entered into His work after a retreat of forty days in the Wilderness. St. John the Baptist was prepared for his by his long novitiate in the desert. The Apostles kept theirs with a ten days' prayer previous to the gift of Pentecost. It is to St. John at Patmos that the great vision of the Church is given.

The power of the retreat lies largely in its solitude. The soul goes apart to the dear and only God. It rigidly shuts out the world, one's duties and one's It is in solitude that Christ speaks to the soul, one cannot tell when or how. It may be by some text, or word of a conductor, or interior inspiration. As it is the still lake that reflects the heavens, so it is the still soul that is receptive of God's inspiration. Therefore those retreats given to clergy in which the idea of a conference is mingled, fail of their intended effect. All conversation amongst the clergy should cease during the retreat. Discussion of any matter, especially theological matter, disturbs the soul. The soul should hold itself in loving stillness and expectancy, waiting upon the Lord's action.

It is the same with a Quiet Day. A priest can do much for his people by giving them such a day, perhaps several times a year. They can come, say, at nine, and beginning with a devotional Eucharist remain till some four or five o'clock in the afternoon. This will enable the conductor to give them two meditations, an instruction, and perhaps a short praise meeting. The retreatants should be provided with religious books. Luncheon should be provided by Church workers. Silence should be kept.

Two or three Quiet Days may be held advantageously in a parish; one in Lent and one in Advent. The object of the exercise is to develop a more warm, loving, and personal union with our Lord. What a beautiful motto that is: "Jesus only, Jesus always, all for Jesus.'

CHAPTER VI

AS A CONFESSOR AND SPIRITUAL GUIDE

"Feed My lambs: shepherd My sheep"

HERE is, or was, little done in our theological

TH

seminaries to prepare priests to perform their office as having the cure of souls. "I was," said one whom I well knew, "pitchforked into the ministry"; and one had to learn for oneself. The English clergy are a body well-trained intellectually, of high moral standing, and with the instinct and honor of gentlemen. It is, as a class, one of the best furnished and spiritually minded of any national clergy, but, until lately, not trained in the science of morals or spiritual direction. Consequently, as a high Roman ecclesiastic said, he had no doubt the Anglican clergy as confessors would decide questions rightly, but they might give reasons so untechnical as to make the Roman Curia howl!

A priest, if he is to hear confessions, should go to confession himself. How can he, if a keeper of vineyards, keep them if he keeps not his own? How can he discern the faults of others if he does not learn much of himself? I remember being in retreat under Mr. Carter, and of going to him as the conductor for my regular confession. I had some few faults to state. Mr. Carter did not, in his counsels, say much. Good and wise directors seldom do. But

what he did say was like this: "Do not these faults all come from one root sin?" which he mentioned. On going away I foolishly said to myself: "How can one who has only heard one confession of mine understand me?" It was not long, however, before, as by a light from heaven, I saw he had pierced to the very hidden root of my character and failings.

The priest's calling is to perfection. This must be his aim. He has no right to live like ordinary Christians. To win souls to Christ he must preach the Cross, from the Cross. He must not be governed by a love of money or lead a life of ambition. He must be willing to work where God in His Providence places him, however lowly it may be. It is not the great city that makes the man, but the true man is great in the little town. The priest must teach humility and self-sacrifice by his own example. Before confession was so common a practice he might not have felt it his duty to resort to it. But in a sincere evangelical spirit he will not wish to neglect any means Christ has left in His Church for our advancing sanctification. In my Fond du Lac tract, No. 4, on "Absolution in God's Word," I have met all the popular objections made to it, after studying the conference between the high and low churchmen held at Fulham Palace in 1902.

The director of souls guards himself from that spiritual pride that esteems himself better and wiser always than the soul he directs. The shepherd must often see that a number of his sheep are ranging up the mountain of sanctity far higher than