The Excellency of Zeal. Love for the Body should be coupled with Love for the Soul. The Zeal of the Wicked. How Zeal should be exercised. Associations of Apprentices, of Operatives. Conferences of Saint Vincent de Paul, of Domestics, of Clerks, of the Young. Circulation of good Books. Happy results of the same. The Advantages and Difficulties of Opposition. Great Occasions. There is a sentiment which should sustain us, and infuse life into all that has been above set forth; into our studies, our composition, and into the Divine word: namely, Zeal. Zeal is power, joy, happiness, expectation, reward and salvation, to the priest and to humanity generally. We need not stop to prove the necessity of zeal. ... It is enjoined on all men:--_Unicuique mandavit Dominus de proximo suo_. ... Is a priest who is without zeal a priest at all? Is not such an one rather a mere man? He is placed here solely to keep up the sacred fire which the Lord Jesus brought down to earth; and what must a cold and insensible priest be nowadays in the midst of those who are perishing through the vices which fret and consume them? He is an almost inconceivable contradiction. ... {288} One of the glories of Christianity is its zeal in ministering to the wants of the body: a charitable service, wherein the priest takes a conspicuous part. But of what avail is it to succor the body, if the soul is neglected? Of what use is it to go forth proclaiming charity! charity! if the soul, the most sensitive and suffering part of mankind, is abandoned to endless misery? Who can fail to be touched with compassion at the sight of so many poor creatures who drudge and wear themselves out, who go and come, who endure and curse, unconsoled and hopeless? The greater part of them, notwithstanding, are not vicious. Some are ignorant, others are led astray; ... many waver between the good and the bad, only waiting for a kindly word to be addressed to them; for an outstretched hand; for some great stream of good to pass by them, and carry them away in its current. How gladly would they follow it! Well, be it ours to create such currents of truth and virtue; be it ours to confront human errors and passions, and to arrest their onward progress.