Not all, however, who wear the priest's dress are confessors and
priests. There is a body of reserves always in waiting upon the vast
army of regular ecclesiastics: men ready to push forward into the
ranks, but who stop short at the _prima tonsura_ till they have
ascertained how much their chances will be bettered by taking the final
and irrevocable step. Yet, although they now and then bring somewhat
more of worldly leaven into their intellectual and moral training, they
well know that there is but one road to the red hat and the tiara, and
that they who give themselves up to this ambition must give themselves
up to it with undivided hearts. Thus the models which they set before
themselves, the ideals after which they strive, are all taken from
successful aspirants to the honors of the Church. And the interests of
that great body, as a body independent of laymen, and which can preserve
its immunities only by preserving its independence, and its independence
only by a rigid exclusion of foreign elements,[A] become as dear to them
as if they already enjoyed all its privileges and had assumed all its
obligations.
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