f a religious community is
the desire for personal perfection actuating its members. The desire
for personal perfection is the foundation stone of a religious
community; when this fails, it crumbles to pieces; when this ceases
to be the dominant desire, the community is tottering. Missionary
works, parochial work, etc., are and must be made subordinate to
personal perfection. These works must be done in view of personal
perfection. The main purpose of each Paulist must be the attainment
of personal perfection by the practice of those virtues without which
it cannot be secured--mortification, self-denial, detachment, and the
like. By the use of these means the grace of God makes the soul
perfect. The perfect soul is one which is guided instinctively by the
indwelling Holy Spirit. To attain to this is the end always to be
aimed at in the practice of the virtues just named. Second, zeal for
souls; to labor for the conversion of the country to the Catholic
faith by apostolic work. Parish work is a part, an integral part, of
Paulist work, but not its principal or chief work--and parish work
should be done so as to form a part of the main aim, the conversion
of the non-Catholic people of the country. In this manner we can
labor to raise the standard of Catholic life here and throughout the
world as a means of the general triumph of the Catholic faith."

"I do not think that the principal characteristic of our Fathers and
of our life should be poverty or obedience or any other special and
secondary virtue, or even a cardinal virtue, but zeal for apostolic
works. Our vocation is apostolic--conversion of souls to the faith,
of sinners to repentance, giving missions, defence of the Christian
religion by conferences, lectures, sermons, the pen, the press, and
the like works; and in the interior, to propagate among men a higher
and more spiritual life. To supply the special element the age and
each country demands, this is the peculiar work of religious
communities: this their field. It is a fatal mistake when religious
attempt to do the ordinary work of the Church. Let religious practise
prayer and study; there will always be enough of the work to which
they are called."

"Are the Paulists Religious? Yes, and no. Yes, of their age. No, of
the past; the words in neither case being taken in an exclusive
meaning."

"As regards the growth of the Paulist, he must develop in an
apostolic vocation--that is, in apostolic works, Cathol