&IL—The letters in the Spectator of the last few weeks
on the subject of " disappearing clergy " have made interesting reading. Your corre- spondent, Mr. K. C. Stuart, in your issue of September 14th, says some very true things about the priesthood being a vocation and not a profession, and the importance of " trusting in God." Do you, or he, know the story of the Piccola Casa della Divina Providenza in Turin, begun by a good priest named Cottolenzo in about 19251? It now houses some 10,000 people, including the ill, the maimed, the homeless, and the nuns, priests or lay brothers who care for them, and it has no invested capital, no regular income, but goes on " trusting in God" and living on the charity that has never failed. In the various pavilions are orphans or disabled children, old people with, no one to care for them, difficult and sometimes dangerous cases on the border-line of insanity, un-married mothers—all who are in trouble and have nowhere to turn. I read somewhere of the Procurator saying that by now they would have owned half of Turin but for the fact that every house or bit of property left to them is promptly sold to meet - the daily expenses.
A friend in Florence told me of a priest who has started something of the same kind, as yet on a small scale, and who was in desperate need of half a million lire. Before my friend's eyes the post brought• a letter with a bank-order for 500,000 lire.
"Trust in the Lord and He will provide" is the essence of your correspondent's letter, and it seems to be proved oftener than our positive and materialistic generation would believe.—Yours truly,
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