In one of the great cities a certain church was condemned as unsafe, and the congregation were told that ere long they would have to attend other churches in the neighbourhood. One of the Religious Orders entered into treaty for the purchase of the condemned building, in order to build on the site. But nothing was settled, and as the danger of collapse was not immediate the services continued to be conducted as usual. When the time came to collect money for Masses to be said on All Souls’ Day, the parish priest found his usual request for alms refused, on the ground that the ---- Brothers had already been round to say that the church was given up and its congregation attached to the Brothers’ Church in such a street, and this being so they had come to collect the payment for the All Souls’ Masses, which was usually given to the parish priest. He indignantly reported the affair to his superiors, and so it got into the papers. It was added that the priest declined to say the Masses for the dead, as he had not been paid for them, and the ---- Brothers, although they got the money, provided no special service for the congregation who had paid for it. So that the souls for whom these poor folk had given their alms will--in their belief--remain so much longer in purgatory. That the alms were given by the poor, not by the rich of the parish, is evident from the donors not knowing that their parish church still existed. The whole affair throws an instructive light on the relations of the poor with their Church or their parish priest. Had he been in the habit of visiting them, or did they make a practice of attending Mass even occasionally, the mistake could never have arisen. But, as the story shows, the priest had no intercourse with his people save when he went to beg from them. The incident, even allowing a wide margin for journalistic exaggeration, goes a long way to support the assertion of the woman who gave as her reason for not going to confession, that “the priest would only ask her for money, which she wanted more than he did.” One more case, and I have done with this unattractive subject. Some twenty years ago a large dole to the poor, which had been given annually for about four centuries in a certain chapel, was suddenly cut off, and has never been renewed. It came out that the priest in charge had sold the bonds in which the capital was invested, with the connivance of a Government official in the Finance Department, and the two between them spent the money. The priest was convicted and imprisoned for a twelvemonth. Then he was released and appointed to another church in the same diocese. My informant said he had been a witness at the trial. “And to-day,” said he, “that bad man holds the sacred Elements in his hands, and gives the people his blessing. Such things ought not to be allowed.” THE POOR AND THE RELIGIOUS ORDERS CHAPTER V THE POOR AND THE RELIGIOUS ORDERS