I for one should hesitate to take my
final vows until I had spent a long time in strict religious
preparation, which in the hurry and scurry of active work is impossible.
We have listened to a couple of violent speeches, or at any rate to one
violent speech by a brother who was for a year in close touch with
myself. I appeal to him not to drag the discussion down to the level of
lay politics. We are free, we novices, to leave to-morrow. Let us
remember that, and do not let us take advantage of our freedom to impart
to this Mother House of ours the atmosphere of the world to which we may
return when we will.
"And let us remember when we oppose the judgment of the Reverend Father
that we are exalting ourselves without reason. Let us remember that it
is he who by his eloquence and by his devotion and by his endurance and
by his personality, has given us this wonderful house. Are we to turn
round and say to him who has worked so hard for us that we do not want
his gifts, that we are such wonderful fishers of men that we can be
independent of him? Oh, my dear Brethren, let me beg you to vote in
favour of abandoning all our dependencies until we are ourselves no
longer dependent on the Reverend Father's eloquence and devotion and
endurance and personality.
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