“Why,” returned he, “the answer would be, that both of these ways are safe according to the Gospel; the one according to the Gospel in its more literal and obvious sense, and the other according to the same Gospel as interpreted by Vasquez. There you see the utility of interpretations. When the terms are so clear, however,” he continued, “as not to admit of an interpretation, we have recourse to the observation of favorable circumstances. A single example will illustrate this. The popes have denounced excommunication on monks who lay aside their canonicals; our casuists, notwithstanding, put it as a question, ‘On what occasions may a monk lay aside his religious habit without incurring excommunication?’ They mention a number of cases in which they may, and among others the following: ‘If he has laid it aside for an infamous purpose, such as to pick pockets or to go _incognito_ into haunts of profligacy, meaning shortly after to resume it.’ It is evident the bulls have no reference to cases of that description.” I could hardly believe that, and begged the father to show me the passage in the original. He did so, and under the chapter headed “Practice according to the School of the Society of Jesus”—_Praxis ex Societatis Jesu Schola_—I read these very words: _Si habitum dimittat ut furetur occulte, vel fornicetur_. He showed me the same thing in Diana, in these terms: _Ut eat incognitus ad lupanar_. “And why, father,” I asked, “are they discharged from excommunication on such occasions?” “Don’t you understand it?” he replied. “Only think what a scandal it would be, were a monk surprised in such a predicament with his canonicals on! And have you never heard,” he continued, “how they answer the first bull _contra sollicitantes_? and how our four-and-twenty, in another chapter of the Practice according to the School of our Society, explain the bull of Pius V. _contra clericos_, &c.?”[149] “I know nothing about all that,” said I. “Then it is a sign you have not read much of Escobar,” returned the monk. “I got him only yesterday, father,” said I; “and I had no small difficulty, too, in procuring a copy. I don’t know how it is, but everybody of late has been in search of him.”[150] “The passage to which I referred,” returned the monk, “may be found in treatise 1, example 8, no. 102. Consult it at your leisure when you go home.” I did so that very night; but it is so shockingly bad, that I dare not transcribe it. The good father then went on to say: “You now understand what use we make of favorable circumstances. Sometimes, however, obstinate cases will occur, which will not admit of this mode of adjustment; so much so, indeed, that you would almost suppose they involved flat contradictions. For example, three popes have decided that monks who are bound by a particular vow to a Lenten life,[151] cannot be absolved from it even though they should become bishops. And yet Diana avers that notwithstanding this decision they _are_ absolved.”