I cannot
help knowing how much I myself am to blame in this particular; but, my
dear people, it has been very hard for me during these last two weeks
always to be brave and hopeful. Often I have found those entreaties on
my doorstep almost more than I could endure to hear, those letters on my
desk almost more than I could bear to read. So, if you want to do the
one thing that can comfort me in this bitter hour of mine I entreat you
to show Father Hungerford that your faith and your hope and your love do
not depend on your affection for an unworthy priest, but upon that
deeper, greater, nobler affection for the word of God. There is only one
way in which you can show Father Hungerford that Jesus Christ lives in
your hearts, and that is by going to Confession and to Communion and by
hearing Mass as you have done all this time. Show him by your behaviour
in the street, by your kindness and consideration at home, by your
devotion and reverence in church, that you appreciate the mercies of
God, that you appreciate what it means to have Jesus Christ upon your
altar, that you are, in a word, Christians.
"And now at last I must think of those words of our dear Lord as they
apply to myself: _Feed my lambs._ And as I repeat them, I ask myself
again if I have done right, for I am troubled in spirit, and I wonder if
I ought to have given up that third altar and to have remained here.
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