It has been said by some cynics that such joy is misplaced, and that if the young couple realised the anxieties and trials before them they would look on it as a day of sorrow rather than joy. Such remarks are surely out of keeping with the spirit of the followers of Him who assisted at the wedding feast in Cana, and worked His first miracle lest the rejoicings should be marred. In point of fact, marriage is a subject for joy as life is, with all its sufferings and anxieties, for it is the means of achieving a great and joyful work. If ever there is an occasion in life when people stand in need of the joyful sympathy of their friends, it is when they are beginning the main work of their lives. In later years, when storm and stress is on them, they will ever look back to their wedding-day for comfort and hope which will carry them through their trials. If God bless their union with children, the priest is at hand to minister to the mother in childbirth, to baptise the offspring, and to perform the solemn rite which is the mother's act of thanksgiving for successful childbirth. Alas, however, many people lose sight of their religion after as before marriage, and their defection affects not only themselves, but their children. It destroys the character of the home, and is an injustice to those whom they have brought into the world. To them the solicitude of the priest will be continually applied. "I came not to call the just," said our Lord, "but sinners to penance";[7] and the priest's work in continually visiting his flock--house to house visiting, if circumstances permit--is chiefly directed towards rescuing those who have fallen away, or are in danger of doing so. The special efforts, the Lenten sermons and missions then or at other times, and the long hours spent in the Confessional are directed primarily towards getting back the sheep who have gone astray. No satisfaction of the priest can be compared with that when he brings back a lost sheep to the fold, and perhaps creates a holy home which but for his efforts would have been a home of perdition. If he has imitated the Curé d'Ars and done penance to himself in order to obtain such a conversion, the penance will appear to him small indeed compared with the blessings he has obtained.