these things. You're asking of the
people an abstinence you don't practice yourself. Sometimes your
friends are women."

"Yes. But--"

Father Tom's anger prevented him from finding an adequate argument.
Father Stafford pushed the tobacco bowl towards his nephew.

"You're not smoking, Tom."

"Your point is that a certain amount of vice is inherent in human
nature, and that if we raise the standard of virtuous living our people
will escape from us to New York or London."

"The sexes mix freely everywhere in western Europe; only in Ireland and
Turkey is there any attempt made to separate them."

Later in the evening Father Tom insisted that the measure of
responsibility was always the same.

"I should be sorry," said his uncle, "to say that those who inherit
drunkenness bear the same burden of responsibility as those who come of
parents who are quite sane--"

"You cannot deny, uncle John, that free will and predestination--"

"My dear Tom, I really must go to bed. It is after midnight."

As he walked home, Father Maguire thought of the great change he
perceived in his uncle. Father Stafford liked to go to bed at eleven,
the very name of St. Thomas seemed to bore him; fifteen years ago he
would sit up till morning. Father Maguire remembered the theological
debates, sometimes prolonged till after three o'clock, and the
passionate scholiast of Maynooth seemed to him unrecognisable in the
esurient Vicar-General, only occasionally interested in theology, at
certain hours and when he felt particularly well. He could not
reconcile the two ages, his mind not being sufficiently acute to see
that after all no one can discuss theology for more than
five-and-twenty years without wearying of the subject.

The moon was shining among the hills and the mystery of the landscape
seemed to aggravate his sensibility, and he asked himself if the
guardians of the people should not fling themselves into the forefront
of the battle. Men came to preach heresy in his parish--was he not
justified in slitting their drum?

He had recourse to prayer, and he prayed for strength and for guidance.
He had accepted the Church, and in the Church he saw only apathy,
neglect, and bad administration on the part of his superiors.... He had
read that great virtues are, like large sums of money, deposited in the
bank, whereas humility is like the pence, always at hand, always
current. Obedience to our superiors is the sure path. He could not
persu