drinking and to imitate her slow and deliberate sipping, by reading in small quantities, with pauses.  Sometimes priests acquire the habit of hurried reading, quite unconsciously, and afterwards labour hard, and in vain, too, to correct it.  It is important for beginners in the Breviary to go at a slow pace, as the trot and the gallop are fatal to good and pious recitation.  Sometimes priests excuse this hurried reading, as they wish to save time!  Why do priests wish to save time?  “For study,” some may say; but the obligation of the Divine Office precedes all obligations of study, and its devout recitation is of far greater importance to the priest and to the Church than is any other or every other study.  Some priests gallop through the Hours, to gain time for other ministerial work, they say.  But they forget that the primary work—­after the celebration of Mass—­and the most important work of a priest, is the great official prayer of the Church.  Who amongst priests leads the life of ceaseless toil which the Cure d’Ars led?  And we have read how he said his Hours.  St. Francis Xavier found time to preach to his many neophytes, to teach them, to baptize them, and yet he did not use the permission given him to shorten his Breviary prayer.  He read the whole Office daily and added to it prayers to obtain the grace of better attention and devotion.

Sometimes the reading of the Hours is hurried for a motive less praiseworthy than the motives of study or of priestly work. Producitur somnus, producitur mensa, produncuntur confabulationes, lusus, nugae nugarum; solius supremae Magestratis, cultus summa qua potest celeritate deproperatur (Kugler, De Spiritu Eccles.), “On this, God complained one day to St. Bridget, saying that some priests lose so much time every day in conversing with friends on worldly affairs; and afterwards, in conversing with Him, while they recite the Office, they are so hurried that they dishonour Him more than they glorify Him” (St. Alphonsus, Selva).  In the hurried reading of the Office, time, a few minutes perhaps, is gained, but what is lost?  Does the loss of all the lights and graces and blessings of the Office compensate for the time gained?  It is important that all who read the Breviary hurriedly, or who may be tempted to acquire the habit, should weigh well the words read therein (Friday’s Vespers) “Labor labiorum ipsorum operiet eos; cadent super eos carbones” (Ps. 139).  “The labour of their lips shall overwhelm them; burning coals shall fall upon them.”

To acquire this important habit, the practice of reading at a slow pace the words of the Breviary, authors suggest several little hints.  One is, never to start reading the Hours unless there be ample time for finishing the Hour or Hours intended to be then and there read.  The practice of squeezing the small Hours into scraps of time (e.g., in the intervals between hearing confessions in the confessional,