Three Ideals. 127 



would have to study, and whose interests they would have to further. 

 The example of Ireland may serve to show how intensely popular a 

 clergy sprung from the people can become under favourable con- 

 ditions. It seems probable that the Roman Catholic clergy will be 

 more and more recruited from two sources the lower classes, among 

 whom traditional belief is still strong, and those of the upper classes 

 who dislike the political system under which they live, and will con- 

 sequently take orders with the desire to injure it in every way that 

 presents itself. An appeal to the democracy will commend itself on 

 different grounds to both these groups. With the first it will be 

 instinctive ; with the second it will be the result of calculation. It 

 will not be enough, however, for the clergy to be convinced that the 

 interest of the Church suggests an appeal to the democracy. The 

 fact that you have an obvious motive for offering your services to a 

 man with whom you have hitherto been on bad terms is apt to make 

 him the less inclined to listen. Nor will it be enough for the clergy 

 to be possessed of an organisation which will give them many 

 advantages in making such an appeal. This, too, may only serve 

 to put the democracy on their guard. Besides both these qualifica- 

 tions, there is wanted an enthusiasm on the part of the clergy which 

 shall carry them over the hostility, the coldness, the suspicions with 

 which their overtures are certain to be received in the first instance. 

 Is there anything in the character or history of the Roman Catholic 

 Church which is calculated to arouse this enthusiasm in its mem- 

 bers ? 



"To answer this question fully would be to survey the whole field 

 of ecclesiastical history. But, to note one or two only of the many 

 points which suggest themselves, there is in the first place the 

 essentially democratic origin of the Church. Whenever a Roman 

 Catholic priest stands before the altar or mounts the pulpit, there 

 hangs opposite to him the crucified form of One who was born in a 

 stable, who grew to manhood in a carpenter's shed, whose chosen 

 associates were poor men gaining a precarious livelihood by fishing, 

 who wandered about without a roof to shelter Him, who was in 

 constant conflict with all the traditional and accepted authorities of 

 His nation, and who finally suffered death at their hands. What 



