"
"I agree with you there," I replied; "all men, I should think,
have sufficient grace to make a bargain of that sort."
"There can be no doubt of it," returned the monk. "Such, then,
is the way in which we soften matters in regard to the
beneficiaries. And now for the priests- we have maxims pretty
favourable to them also. Take the following, for example, from our
four-and-twenty elders: "Can a priest, who has received money to say a
mass, take an additional sum upon the same mass? Yes, says
Filiutius, he may, by applying that part of the sacrifice which
belongs to himself as a priest to the person who paid him last;
provided he does not take a sum equivalent to a whole mass, but only a
part, such as the third of a mass.'"
"Surely, father," said I, "this must be one of those cases in
which the pro and the con have both their share of probability. What
you have now stated cannot fail, of course, to be probable, having the
authority of such men as Filiutius and Escobar; and yet, leaving
that within the sphere of probability, it strikes me that the contrary
opinion might be made out to be probable too, and might be supported
by such reasons as the following: That, while the Church allows
priests who are in poor circumstances to take money for their
masses, seeing it is but right that those who serve at the altar
should live by the altar, she never intended that they should barter
the sacrifice for money, and, still less, that they should deprive
themselves of those benefits which they ought themselves, in the first
place, to draw from it; to which I might add that, according to St.
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