The mother and sister kept silence. The two priests, seeing rocks
ahead in many subjects, could neither talk indifferently nor allow
themselves to be cheerful. While seeking for some neutral subject the
carriage crossed the plain, the aspect of which dreary region seemed
to influence the duration of their melancholy silence.

"How came you to adopt the ecclesiastical profession?" asked the Abbe
Gabriel, suddenly, with an impulsive curiosity which seized him as
soon as the carriage turned into the high-road.

"I did not look upon the priesthood as a profession," replied the
rector, simply. "I cannot understand how a man can become a priest for
any other reason than the undefinable power of vocation. I know that
many men have served in the Lord's vineyard who have previously worn
out their hearts in the service of passion; some have loved
hopelessly, others have had their love betrayed; men have lost the
flower of their lives in burying a precious wife or an adored
mistress; some have been disgusted with social life at a period when
uncertainty hovers over everything, even over feelings, and doubt
mocks tender certainties by calling them beliefs; others abandon
politics at a period when power seems to be an expiation and when the
governed regard obedience as fatality. Many leave a society without
banners; where opposing forces only unite to overthrow good. I do not
think that any man would give himself to God from a covetous motive.
Some men have looked upon the priesthood as a means of regenerating
our country; but, according to my poor lights, a priest-patriot is a
meaningless thing. The priest can only belong to God. I did not wish
to offer our Father--who nevertheless accepts all--the wreck of my
heart and the fragments of my will; I gave myself to him whole. In one
of those touching theories of pagan religion, the victim sacrificed to