“But,” said Mark, “how could a wife and children interfere with a priest’s duties to his flock?”

“The church does not let them interfere,” answered Father Murray.  “She holds a man to his sworn obligations taken in marriage.  A husband must ‘cleave to his wife.’  How could a priestly husband do that and yet fulfill his vow to be faithful to his priesthood until death?  His wife would come first.  What of his priesthood?  Besides, a father has for his children a love that would tend to nullify, only too often, the priest’s obligations toward the children of his flock.  A man who offers a supreme sacrifice, and is eternally willing to live it, must be supremely free.  In theory, all clergymen must be prepared to sacrifice themselves for their people, for ’the Good Shepherd gives up his life for his sheep.’  In practice, no one expects that except of the priest; but from him everyone expects it.”

“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 enemy of Christ turned his face against 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 me, the representative, as I thought, of a purer religion.  But they did not hate me at all.  They ignored the sacredness of my calling, and classed me with themselves because of what they thought was the common bond of enmity to the priest.  I resented that, for, while I was against their enemy, I certainly was not with them.  The anomaly of my position increased my bitterness toward priests until I came almost to welcome a scandal among them, even though 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 men who had forsaken all to follow Christ.  And my vague feeling of satisfaction was tempered by an insistent sense of my own injustice which would not be denied, for I knew that I was demanding of the Catholic priest greater things than I demanded of any other men.  Even while I judged—­and, judging, condemned—­I knew that I was measuring him by his own magnificent standard, the very seeking of which made him worthy of honor.  To have sought the highest goal and