At length, however, the day dawns when we go forth, pronounced well enough for work, and we resume that life which we once thought had finally passed from us. Then is the time to gather up the fruits of our illness, and to show by the spirit with which we now approach our duties that the lesson of illness has not been lost on us. No feeling of high spirits at the events of life such as starting for a holiday or the prospect of enjoyment will compare with the feeling of elation at finding oneself once more leading the life of a priest in the midst of his people. But not all illness leads to convalescence, and if the malady is taking a serious turn, the priest of all men has a right to be told. He has been so long familiar with death-beds that even the feeling of shock, so often put forward as a plea for concealing an invalid's state, is not to be apprehended in his case; and he knows as no one else does how to prepare himself to face this last passage. Alas! very often he has to do it for himself; he has frequently been the support and consolation of others, but he may live in a lonely mission and find no one to minister to him in his own time of need. He may have to go without Confession or Extreme Unction, and only secure Viaticum by getting a layman to open the Tabernacle, and bring up the Ciborium so that the patient can communicate himself. Or he may live in a populous city and have the same assistance as others. But in either case he has no reason for discouragement. If he has given his whole life to the service of his Divine Master, he need have no fear but that in return he will have the grace of dying as a priest should.