Preceptor

“ Although I cried repeatedly at the top of my voice for saving the preceptor’s life, yet, disregarding my cries and abandoning mortality, a disciple took the life of that preceptor. All of us have passed the greater part of our lives. The days that remain to us are limited. This exceedingly unrighteous act that we have perpetrated has stained that remnant. In consequence of the affection he bore to us, he was a sire unto us. ”

“ The ability and success with which you discharged the arduous duties of the preceptor for several weeks, during his illness, the fidelity with which you have labored through the term in your own sphere, the gentle and patient spirit with which you have borne the many short-comings and provocations of those of us who have been more immediately under your charge, and the firm yet always kind manner in which you have led us on in our studies, and restrained us in our errors, have made an impression on our hearts which time will not efface. ”

“ Thus the preceptor was the keystone of the medical educational system and it was through him that essentially all knowledge and training in the art of medicine was secured. Hence the quality of a medical education of an individual student depended in great degree upon the preceptor under whom he studied. The preceptor, not the school, introduced the student to medical study, since the standard requirement was that a student should have studied with a preceptor for at least a year before he might enter a medical school. ”

“ Should the decision of the Midē ́ priests be favorable, the candidate procures the services of one of those present to assume the office of instructor or preceptor, to whom, as well as to the officiating priests, he displays his ability in his adopted specialties in medical magic, etc. ”

“ A Midē ́ who has in all respects complied with the preliminaries of announcing to the chief Midē ́ his purpose, gaining satisfactory evidence of his resources and ability to present the necessary presents, and of his proficiency in the practice of medical magic, etc., selects a preceptor of at least the third degree and one who is held in high repute and influence in the Midē ́wiwin. ”

“ A preceptor, who wishes to gain ascendency over a clever positive boy, must reason with all possible precision, and must always show that he is willing to be decided by the strongest arguments which can be produced. ”

“ PRECEPTOR, a teacher or instructor, the classical meaning of the Latin praeceptor, from praecipere, literally to take in advance, hence to give rules or “ precepts,” advise, teach. As an educational term in English the word is familiar through the College of Preceptors, a chartered Society chiefly composed of private teachers ”

“ The Preceptor must watch attentively for every new exhibition of the child's radical faculties, and obey them as divine laws.
We must in every movement consider that it is the Infinite perfecting the finite. ”

“ We resolved to stay the whole afternoon. The preceptor came out upon the wharf, and called to us to come to him. Fearing that we should be taken back to school and punished, we resolved not to answer, and pretended not to hear him. After repeatedly calling us, and receiving no answer, he came upon the ice; but when he had walked a short distance from the shore we saw that we were in no danger of his catching us, as the ice was very smooth. At length, in an attempt to catch me, the preceptor slipped and fell heavily upon the ice. ”

“ If the Midē ́ priest considers with favor the application, he consults with his confrères and action is taken, and the questions of the requisite preliminary instructions, fees, and presents, etc., are formally discussed. If the Midē ́ priests are in accord with the desires of the applicant an instructor or preceptor is designated, to whom he must present himself 164 and make an agreement as to the amount of preparatory information to be acquired and the fees and other presents to be given in return. ”

“ Every morning, disciples, instead of approaching preceptors for making dutiful enquiries for ascertaining what acts awaited accomplishment and for seeking commissions which they are to discharge, are themselves waited upon by preceptors who discharge those functions. ”

“ In the very same way we must follow the priest's advice if we wish our souls to be cured of their maladies. Just as a person who is unwell would not go one day to one physician and the next day to another, so a penitent should not change confessors without a good reason; and if you have any choice to make let it be made in the beginning, and let it rest on worthy motives. In a short time your confessor will understand the state of your soul, as the physician who frequently examines you does the state of your body. ”

“ A doctor has in some sort a priesthood of his own. Admitted at all hours to the most secret intimacy of families, he knows, guesses, and is able to effect much. Like the priest, in short, he has the ear of the sick and the dying. ”

“ WE have been told, in the common newspapers, that all attempts are to be made this session by the presbyterians, and their abettors, for taking off the test; as a kind of preparatory step to make it go down smoother in England. For, if once their light would so shine, the papists, delighted with the blaze, would all come in and dance about it. This I take to be a prudent method; like that of a discreet physician, who first gives a new medicine to a dog, before he prescribes it to a human creature. ”

“ It is beyond question that a faithful priest is, in his degree, a mirror of Christ, and helps men to see Him more clearly. But it is also true--and a truth worth underlining in these days--that the Doctor, too, is a symbol of what Christ means to be to men--nay, more, that there are respects in which the figure of a beloved physician of to-day comes nearer to the reality of the living human Christ than any other calling in the world. ”

“ The priest effects cures in behalf of the Church and in the name of God by means of prayer, the laying on of hands, exorcism, relics and consecrated natural means, especially water, salt and oil. In doing this he acts as the visible delegate of an [Pg 69] unseen higher physician, the saint ordained of God to be the healer of the sickness. For every affliction has its physician among the ranks of the saints. ”

“ A good priest ought to be a physician to the soul. If Hippocrates had ordered his patients to take hellebore under pain of being hanged, he would have been more insane and barbarous than Phalaris, and would have had little practice. When a priest says—Worship God, be just, indulgent, and compassionate, he is then a good physician: when he says—Believe me, or you shall be burnt, he is an assassin. ”

“ The kind-hearted and high-minded physician, especially if he be a man of the world, as all great physicians have invariably been, is the priestly confessor among Protestants. He no more thinks of betraying the confidences of his patients than the Catholic priest does those of the confessional. ”

“ Monsignor, listen to me. In these cases the doctor always gives his advice. You see even the sacraments have their mental side; and on this mental side the doctor speaks. But the whole decision rests entirely with the patient and his confessor; or they can call in an expert priest-doctor. Only a priest can possibly decide finally the relations between the grace of the sacraments and their reactionary effect upon the mind. A lay doctor only recommends. ”

“ So the canons of Hippolytus (about A.D. 250) decree that a confessor who has suffered torment for his adherence to the Christian faith should merit and obtain the rank of presbyter forthwith—“Immo confessio est ordination ejus.” Likewise in A.D. 314 the thirteenth canon of Ancyra (for the true reading see Bishop Wordsworth’s Ministry of Grace, p. 140) assumes that city presbyters may with the bishop’s leave ordain other presbyters. Even among the medieval schoolmen, some (Gore, Church and Ministry, p. 377) maintained that a priest might be empowered by the pope to ordain other priests. ”

“ If the minister be, in a sense, a priest when he leads the worship of the people, is he also a prophet when he preaches to them? Preaching is intended to be—perhaps we may venture to say that it mostly is—a declaration of the will of God. Moreover, it is not the exposition of a fixed and unchangeable ritual or even of a set of rigid theological formulæ. ”

“ What is the difference between the doctor and the priest, except that one is for your body and one is for your soul? You say you are afraid of the priest; will you not be more ashamed of God, whose servant he is? ”

“ For our sin will not be small, if we eject from the episcopate [191] those who have blamelessly and holily fulfilled its duties. [192] Blessed are those presbyters who, having finished their course before now, have obtained a fruitful and perfect departure [from this world] ; for they have no fear lest any one deprive them of the place now appointed them. But we see that ye have removed some men of excellent behaviour from the ministry, which they fulfilled blamelessly and with honour. ”

“ The physician often finds, that the clergyman, upon whose family he has attended without charge, perhaps for a long time, gives his certificate in recommendation of some nostrum, or employs some quack, or becomes the noisy advocate of some new system just now rising into popular favor, or perhaps, in his zeal for his sect, becomes the active patron of some practitioner of his own denomination, urging him even upon the families of the physician whose services he has so long gratuitously enjoyed. ”

“ Further, Penance is a necessary sacrament, as is also Baptism. But any man is the minister of Baptism, on account of its necessity. Therefore any man is the minister of Penance. Now confession should be made to the minister of Penance. Therefore it suffices to confess to anyone.
Objection 3: Further, confession is necessary in order that the measure of satisfaction should be imposed on the penitent. Now, sometimes another than a priest might be more discreet than many priests are in imposing the measure of satisfaction on the penitent. Therefore it is not necessary to confess to a priest. ”

“ Seventhly, because his life was fashioned according to this doctrine of the Holy Jesus, “Learn of me, for I am meek, and lowly of heart: I am among you, as he that serveth: whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister; even as the Son of man came not to be ministred unto, but to minister.” For it may be said with the greatest certainty, that if the Doctor will have any proof from the scripture of the madness of this bishop, it must be as absurd as the reasons here alledged. ”

“ All the professions are timid and expectant agencies. The priest is glad if his prayers or his sermon meet the condition of any soul; if of two, if of ten, 'tis a signal success. But he walked to the church without any assurance that he knew the distemper, or could heal it. The physician prescribes hesitatingly out of his few resources, the same tonic or sedative to this new and peculiar constitution, which he has applied with various success to a hundred men before. If the patient mends, he is glad and surprised. ”

“ The connection between the priest and the physician is naturally a very ancient one. The priest, indeed, is the primitive physician, the belief that diseases are supernaturally caused indicating him as the agent of their cure. And it is only to be expected that when the attempt is made to divert the treatment of disease from priestly hands the effort should be met with determined opposition. Quite naturally, too, the first gropings after a scientific theory of disease show a curious mixture of rationalism and superstition. ”

“ Once more let it be remembered that the Tribunal of Penance is for the accusation and absolution of sin. Name, nor abode, nor fortune, nor domestic concerns, have any place there. The priest is the spiritual physician, and it is the disease which is submitted to him; all else is foreign to his office, nor has he the right to ask of other matters. ”

“ The learned doctor understood the case, both from his examination of the water, and the information given by the nun, and then he gave his prescription.
Now I know that it is the custom in many cases to give a prescription in writing, nevertheless this time he gave it by word of mouth, and said to the nun;
“Fair sister, for the abbess to recover her health there is but one remedy, and that is that she must have company with a man; otherwise in a short time she will grew so bad that death will be the only remedy.” ”

“ I have proved that a man may be made a minister in general, yea, and sent to exercise it in converting infidels, and baptizing them, before ever he is the pastor of any particular church. To which I add, that in this general ministry, he is a pastor in the universal church, as a licensed physician that hath no hospital or charge, is a physician in the kingdom. ”

“ Thus it was the unavoidable consequence of the theistic theory of life that the priest was the physician as well as the representative of physical knowledge and also the helper and adviser in all mundane exigencies. Whether bodily or psychic troubles afflicted individuals, whether an entire population groaned under heavy chastisements like pestilence, aid and deliverance were always sought in the sanctuary of the gods, from the infallible priest. And the priests were always equal to the occasion ”