1.  My soul is deeply pained at the enormity of the matter on which I write, if for this only, that it has caused general suspicion and talk.  But so far it has seemed to me incredible.  I hope then that what I am writing about it may be taken by the guilty as medicine, by the innocent as a warning, by the indifferent, in which class I trust none of you may be found, as a testimony.  And what is it of which I speak?  There is a report that some of you take money from candidates for ordination, cf. note on Theodoret, iv. 20, p. 125. and excuse it on grounds of religion.  This is indeed worse.  If any one does evil under the guise of good he deserves double punishment; because he not only does what is in itself not good, but, so to say, makes good an accomplice in the commission of sin.  If the allegation be true, let it be so no more.  Let a better state of things begin.  To the recipient of the bribe it must be said, as was said by the Apostles to him who was willing to give money to buy the fellowship of the Holy Ghost, “Thy money perish with thee. Acts viii. 20.  It is a lighter sin to wish in ignorance to buy, than it is to sell, the gift of God.  A sale it was; and if you sell what you received as a free gift you will be deprived of the boon, as though you were yourself sold to Satan.  You are obtruding the traffic of the huckster into spiritual things and into the Church where we are entrusted with the body and blood of Christ.  These things must not be.  And I will mention wherein lies an ingenious contrivance.  They think that there is no sin because they take the money not before but after the ordination; but to take is to take at whatever time.