ght them.
Therefore, ye shepherds, hear the word of the Lord: Behold, I Myself
come upon the shepherds. I will require My flock at their
hands."--(Ezek. xxxiv. 2-10.) To be destitute of this zeal for the
Catholic education of our children, is to hide the five talents which
the Lord has given us, instead of gaining other five talents. Surely the
Lord will say: "And the unprofitable servant cast ye out into the
exterior darkness. There shall be weeping and gnashing of
teeth."--(Matt. xxv. 30.)

What a shame for pastors of souls to know that the devil, in alliance
with the wicked, is at work, day and night, for the ruin and destruction
of youth, and to be so little concerned about their eternal loss; just
as if it was not true what the holy Fathers say, that the salvation of
one soul is worth more than the whole visible world! Since when is it,
then, that the price of the souls of little children has been lessened?
Ah, as long as the price of the Blood of Jesus Christ remains of an
infinite value, so long the price of souls will remain the same also!
Heaven and earth will pass away, but this truth will not. The devil
knows and understands it but too well. Oh! how he delights in a priest
who is called, by Jesus Christ, "the hireling, because he has no care
for the sheep, and who seeth the wolf coming and leaveth the sheep and
flieth."--(John x. 12.)

On the Day of Judgment, such a priest will be confounded by that poor
man of whom we read, in the life of St. Francis de Sales, as follows:
One day this holy and zealous pastor, on a visit of his diocese, had
reached the top of one of those dreadful mountains, overwhelmed with
fatigue and cold, his hands and feet completely benumbed, in order to
visit a single parish in that dreary situation; while he was viewing,
with astonishment, those immense blocks of ice of an uncommon thickness,
the inhabitants, who had approached to meet him, related that some days
before a shepherd, running after a strayed sheep, had fallen into one of
these tremendous precipices. They added that his fate would never have
been known if his companion, who was in search of him, had not
discovered his hat on the edge of the precipice. The poor man,
therefore, imagined that the shepherd might be still relieved, or, if
he should have perished, that he might be honored with a Christian
burial.

With this view he descended, by the means of ropes, this icy precipice,
whence he was drawn up, pierced through