Of course one of the difficulties that the priest has to struggle against is his inheritance.  If we trace back the vocation of the priest to the earliest times, we find their progenitors connected with some of the darkest and saddest things in human history.  They are of the same tribe as wizards and magicians, sorcerers and medicine-men, the celebrators of cruel and unholy rites.  The priests of Moloch, of Chemosh, of Baal, are the dark and ancient ancestors of the same vocation.  All who have trafficked in the terrors of mankind, who have gained power by trading on superstitious imaginings, who have professed to propitiate wrathful and malignant spirits, to stand between men and their dreadful Maker—­all these have contributed their share to the dark and sad burden which the priest has to bear.  As soon as man, rising out of pure savagery, began to have any conception of the laws of nature, he found in himself a deep instinct for happiness, a terror of suffering and death; yet, at the same time, he found himself set in a world where afflictions seemed to be rained down upon humanity by some mysterious, unseen, and awful power.  Could man believe that God wished him well, who racked him with cruel pain, sent plagues among his cattle, swept away those whom he loved, destroyed his crops with hail and thunderbolts, and at the end of all dragged him reluctant and shuddering into the darkness, out of a world where so much was kind and cheerful, and where, after all, it was sweet to live?

He turned in his despair to any one who could profess to hold out any shield over him, who could claim to read the dreadful mind of God, and to propitiate His mercy.  Even then a demand created a supply.  Men have always loved power and influence; and so spirits of sterner and more tenacious mould, who could perhaps despise the lesser terrors of mankind, and who desired, above all things, to hold the destinies of others in their hands, to make themselves felt, naturally seized the opportunity of surrounding themselves with the awe and dignity that the supposed possession of deeper knowledge and more recondite powers offered them.

Then as the world broadened and widened, as reason began to extend its sway, the work of the priest became more beneficent, and tended to bless and hallow rather than to blast and curse.  But still the temptation remains a terribly strong one for men of a certain type, men who can afford to despise the more material successes of the world, who can merge their personal ambition in ambitions for an order and a caste, still to claim to stand between man and God, to profess to withhold His blessings, to grasp the keys of His mysteries, to save men from the consequences of sin.  As long as human terror exists, as long as men fear suffering and darkness and death, they will turn to any one who can profess to give them relief; and relief, too, will come; for the essence of courage is, for many timid hearts, the dependence upon a stronger will.  And if a man can say, with a tranquil conviction, to a suffering and terrified comrade, “There is no need to fear,” the fear loses half its terrors and half its sting.