"
Ernest asked in what respects it was that his friend desired a return to
the practice of our forefathers.
"Why, my dear fellow, can you really be ignorant? It is just this,
either the priest is indeed a spiritual guide, as being able to show
people how they ought to live better than they can find out for
themselves, or he is nothing at all--he has no _raison d'etre_. If the
priest is not as much a healer and director of men's souls as a physician
is of their bodies, what is he? The history of all ages has shown--and
surely you must know this as well as I do--that as men cannot cure the
bodies of their patients if they have not been properly trained in
hospitals under skilled teachers, so neither can souls be cured of their
more hidden ailments without the help of men who are skilled in
soul-craft--or in other words, of priests. What do one half of our
formularies and rubrics mean if not this? How in the name of all that is
reasonable can we find out the exact nature of a spiritual malady, unless
we have had experience of other similar cases? How can we get this
without express training? At present we have to begin all experiments
for ourselves, without profiting by the organised experience of our
predecessors, inasmuch as that experience is never organised and
co-ordinated at all.
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