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"Do you really think," asked Mark, "that those outside the Church expect such a sacrifice?"

Father Murray did not hesitate about his answer

"Expect it? They demand it Why, my dear Mark, even as a Presbyterian minister I expected it of the men I almost hated I never liked priests then Instinctively I classed them as my enemies, even as my personal enemies Deep down in my heart I knew that, with the Catholic Church eliminated from Christianity, the whole fabric tottered and fell, and Christ was stamped with the mark of an impostor and a failure--His life, His wonders, and His death, shams Instinctively I knew, too, that without the Catholic Church the Christian world would fall to the level of Rome at its worst, and that every eneainst her priests I knew that every real atheist, every licentious man, most revolutionists, every anarchist, hated a priest It annoyed me to think that they didn't hate ion But they did not hate , and classed ht was the common bond of enainst their enemy, I certainly was not with them The anomaly of my position increased my bitterness toward priests until I cah I knew that every scandal reacted on my own kind But each rare scandal served to throw into clearer relief the high honor and stern purity of the great mass of those ue feeling of satisfaction was tempered by an insistent sense of my own injustice which would not be denied, for I knew that I was des than I de, condenificent standard, the very seeking of which oal and failed is better than never to have sought at all So long as life lasts, no failure is forever; it is always possible to arise and return to the path And a fall should call forth the charity of the beholder, leading him closer to God But there is no charity for the Catholic priest who stumbles--no return save in spaces hidden froerous atheists, the most sincere Protestants, demand of the priest not only literal obedience to his vows, but a sublime observance of their spirit Why, Mark, you demand it yourself--you know you do"