ity should understand that he is a suppliant seeking a high privilege, both spiritual and temporal, and he is called upon to show a definite worthiness of having it granted him.

IV. Of the Obligations of the Novitiate

The entrance into the novitiate is of the nature of a tacit contract between the aspirant and the community. The former gives himself to the community under obedience to be trained for the Religious Life, while the latter agrees to give him the required training; supporting and maintaining him in the meantime. This contract is terminable, however, at any moment by either party. The community may send a novice away, and is not bound to give any explanation or reason for its action; and the novice is free without fault or dishonour to depart at his own will and discretion, without even consulting with Superiors as to the wisdom of his course.

During his term of probation the novice is not bound in conscience to obey his Superior, or to observe any rule, for he has taken no vow of obedience and cannot be held as if he had. So long as he remains in the novitiate, however, he is bound as a matter of justice to fulfil the contract which was implied, if not expressed, by the community admitting him to the habit.

On the same principle he is not in conscience bound to poverty. He can acquire and dispose of property at will, although the regulations of the novitiate may limit or forbid his dealing with material goods. In order to avoid distraction, an aspirant should be

required before entering the novitiate to arrange all properties in such a manner as to free him from the burden and anxiety of administering them during the term of his training and probation. This should apply not only to his own properties, but also to such as he may be administering in the capacity of trustee, executor, etc.

Entrance into the novitiate does not bind one to chastity by any new obligation beyond that of the moral law, save that the honour of Religion and the avoidance of scandal demand that he exercise greater discretion than would be necessary in the world.

Since novices do not, like professed Religious, live under the obligation of vows, their merits as well as their faults have to be judged in relation to the virtues rather than to the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. We shall see the distinction between the vows and the virtues when we come to consider the Counsels. Novices are, however, required to observe some Rule in the novitiate, and they must remember:

I. That when one is undertaking for God's glory to live under any Rule whatever, even if it does not strictly bind in conscience, it is rare that he breaks it without sin, because the violation of a Rule generally arises from some evil motive, and every act that is performed with an evil motive thereby becomes evil.

2. Even if no positive obligation exists such as would be induced by a vow or promise, there is on many points an indirect obligation called out by the general precept of charity not to transgress in such a way, or be guilty of such violations, as would give

scandal or pain to one's brethren, or to those outside the community.

3. Even if one is not bound by the vow, one can always gain merit by practising the virtue ; and it is no light matter for one who is supposed to be in preparation for a life-long dedication of himself to God to be indifferent to the virtues that belong peculiarly to the Religious State.

A novice may be dispensed from his Rule more easily than a professed Religious, for the reason that he is under no obligation like that which the professed incurs when he takes his vows.

The chief obligation the community assumes in receiving a novice is that of giving him the special testing and training that should ordinarily result in making him a good Religious. The community that maintains a lax novitiate is guilty of an injustice to the novice that can hardly exist without actual sin on the part of some one in authority.

V. Of the Continuity of the Novitiate

To the end that the necessary training and testing may be given, in most well-ordered communities the novices are ordinarily not permitted to leave the house of the novitiate during their term of probation, except under the immediate direction and care of their Superior. Exceptions to this Rule are made only for grave cause.

The period of the novitiate must be continuous, that is to say, it must be morally without break. Any withdrawal from the discipline of the novitiate, whether by act of the novice himself or of his Superior,

H

breaks the required continuity, even though it be but for an hour; and the novitiate must be begun anew.

This does not, however, mean mere absence from the house of the novitiate, unless such absence be with the intention of terminating the agreement entered upon when the aspirant was received. Even if a novice departs from the novitiate for a short period of time (an "absence of some days,"" says Humphrey) with a wicked and rebellious motive, but without the intention of abandoning his vocation in the community, this act of itself does not interrupt his novitiate, although it may be of sufficient seriousness as a breach of discipline to warrant his Superior in dismissing him. Many communities provide in their Constitutions for dealing with such cases. "It would seem hard," says Gautrelet, " to make a person begin all over again if after ten months (or even twenty in Orders where the novitiate lasts two years) he should yield to a temptation of weariness, and then two or three days after his departure, dismayed by his fault, should return to beg forgiveness for it."1

If a novice should be sent away on a false accusation and should return when his innocence is established, he should not be made to begin anew.

"To dwell within the cloister during the period of probation is of the substance of noviceship in this sense, that wheresoever the Religious is living, he is considered, if he is living there under obedience to his Superior, to be within his religious cloister. If a novice should be sent anywhere else by his Superior, and even if he should remain there for many months, he 1 Gautrelet, op. cit., Vol. i, p. 74.

will nevertheless be truly on probation, since he is truly living under obedience to his Superior."1

The same principle holds good in regard to many other circumstances that interfere with the actual discipline of the novitiate. A novice may be sick through a larger part of his probation, but if he remains under the obedience of his Superior, this is regarded as a good and sufficient novitiate. An exception is made in cases of insanity.

We conclude therefore that the actual discipline and testing is not necessary for the substance of the novitiate. A community may fail to offer the proper discipline, or a Master of Novices may be unfaithful to the trust reposed in him, but the novice is not to be held responsible for this if he yields himself in good faith to be trained. The fact that his probation has not been a real one is his misfortune, not his fault, and he should not be made to suffer for it.

VI. Of the Signs of the Good Novice

St. Benedict in the Holy Rule tells us that four external signs are to be demanded of the novice. He must (1) give proof that " he is truly seeking God"; (2) he must have" an eagerness for the Work of God"; (3) an eagerness "for obedience"; (4) an eagerness for humiliation."2

The first is the chief and all-inclusive mark of the true aspirant to the life of perfection. The last three are rather tests and proofs of the first.

1 Humphrey, Elements of Religious Life, p. 76. 2 St. Benedict, Regula, cap. 58.