In most, I believe in all, of the Holy Land convents there are two personages so strangely raised above their brethren in all that dignifies humanity, that their bearing the same habit, their dwelling under the same roof, their worshipping the same God (consistent as all this is with the spirit of their religion), yet strikes the mind with a sense of wondrous incongruity; the men I speak of are the “Padre Superiore,” and the “Padre Missionario.”  The former is the supreme and absolute governor of the establishment over which he is appointed to rule, the latter is entrusted with the more active of the spiritual duties attaching to the Pilgrim Church.  He is the shepherd of the good Catholic flock, whose pasture is prepared in the midst of Mussulmans and schismatics; he keeps the light of the true faith ever vividly before their eyes, reproves their vices, supports them in their good resolves, consoles them in their afflictions, and teaches them to hate the Greek Church.  Such are his labours, and you may conceive that great tact must be needed for conducting with success the spiritual interests of the church under circumstances so odd as those which surround it in Palestine.

But the position of the Padre Superiore is still more delicate; he is almost unceasingly in treaty with the powers that be, and the worldly prosperity of the establishment over which he presides is in great measure dependent upon the extent of diplomatic skill which he can employ in its favour.  I know not from what class of churchmen these personages are chosen, for there is a mystery attending their origin and the circumstance of their being stationed in these convents, which Rome does not suffer to be penetrated.  I have heard it said that they are men of great note, and, perhaps, of too high ambition in the Catholic Hierarchy, who having fallen under the grave censure of the Church, are banished for fixed periods to these distant monasteries.  I believe that the term during which they are condemned to remain in the Holy Land is from eight to twelve years.  By the natives of the country, as well as by the rest of the brethren, they are looked upon as superior beings; and rightly too, for Nature seems to have crowned them in her own true way.

The chief of the Jerusalem convent was a noble creature; his worldly and spiritual authority seemed to have surrounded him, as it were, with a kind of “court,” and the manly gracefulness of his bearing did honour to the throne which he filled.  There were no lords of the bedchamber, and no gold sticks and stones in waiting, yet everybody who approached him looked as though he were being “presented”; every interview which he granted wore the air of an “audience”; the brethren as often as they came near bowed low and kissed his hand; and if he went out, the Catholics of the place that hovered about the convent would crowd around him with devout affection, and almost scramble for the blessing which his touch could give.  He bore his honours all serenely, as though calmly conscious of his power to “bind and to loose.”