and a collaboration without conflict. - As to the nuns,[54] he is
their ordinary, the sole arbiter, overseer and ruler over all these
cloistered lives; he receives their vows, and renders them free of
them; it is he who, after due inquiry and examination, authorizes each
entrance into the community or a return to society, at first each
admission or novitiate, and next each profession of faith or
assumption of the veil, every dismissal or departure of a nun, every
claim that one makes, every grave act of severity or decision on the
part of the superior. He approves of, or appoints, the confessor of
the establishment; he maintains seclusion in it, he draws tighter or
relaxes the observances; he himself enters its doors by privilege of
his office, and, with his own eyes, he inspects its régime, spiritual
and temporal, through a right of control which extends from the
direction of souls to the administration of property.

To so many obligatory matters he adds others which are voluntary, not
alone works of piety, those relating to worship, propaganda, diocesan
missions, catechizing adults, brotherhoods for perpetual adoration,
meetings for the uninterrupted recital of the rosary, Peter's pence,
seminary funds, Catholic journals and reviews-but, again, institutions
for charity and education.[55] In the way of charity, he founds or
supports twenty different kinds, sixty in one diocese alone, general
and special services, infant nurseries, clubs, asylums, lodging-
houses, patronages, societies for helping and placing the poor, for
the sick at home and in the hospitals, for suckling infants, for the
deaf and dumb, for the blind, for old men, for orphans, for repentant
prostitutes, for prisoners, for soldiers in garrison, for workmen,
apprentices, youths, and quantities of others. In the way of
education, there are yet more of them - works which the Catholic
chiefs have most at heart; without these, it is impossible in modern