In common estimation, the dignity of a man is reckoned by the character of the office he fills or the duties entrusted to him. Judged by this standard, no worldly dignity can compare with that of the priesthood, whose authority comes from God, and whose powers, transcending earth, reach back to heaven. "Speak not of the royal purple," says St. Chrysostom, "of diadems, of golden vestures--these are but shadows, frailer than the flowers of spring, compared to the power and privileges of the priesthood." And whence arises, we may ask, this incomparable dignity of the priest? First of all, from his power to roll back the heavens, and bring down upon the altar the Majesty of the Deity, attended by an angelic train. "The Blessed Virgin," St. Vincent Ferrer informs us, "opened heaven only once, the priest does so at every Mass." Exalted is the sovereignty of kings who rule a nation, but more sublime the power which commands the King of kings, and is obeyed. Who could conceive, did not Faith teach it, that mortal man were capable of elevation to such a pitch of glory? No wonder St. Chrysostom was betrayed by this thought into the rhapsody: "When you behold the Lord immolated and lying on the altar, and the priest standing over the sacrifice and praying and all the people empurpled by that precious blood, do you imagine that you are still on earth amongst men and not rather rapt up to heaven?" The second great prerogative of the priest is to forgive sins. Christ having one day said to a paralytic, "Man, thy sins are forgiven thee" (Luke v: 20), some of the bystanders marvelled, thinking within themselves, "Who can forgive sins, but God alone?" Yea, truly is this a Divine power, but these critics failed to comprehend the Divinity of Christ, and that all power was given to Him in heaven and on earth. And His power to remit sins has descended to the priest, in the imposition of hands. At Christ's will lepers were cleansed, and once more felt the pulsation of health tingling through their veins; but more wondrous still the word of the priest which causes the scales of the leprosy of sin to fall from the stricken soul, and restores to it the pristine vigor and beauty of sanctifying grace. As keeper of the keys, the priest stands warder of heaven, locking or unlocking its doors to the dust-begrimed pilgrims of earth.