Advance in the Price of Prayers
ADVANCE IN THE PRICE OF PRAYERS.—A writer in one of our cotemporaries tells of an Irish domestic in her family, who, having heard of the death of her mother in the old country, went to the priest to make provision for the good woman's soul. On her return her employer asked the result. She freely related it, saying that the priest had consoled her on her loss, and sympathized in her affliction. Her mother's soul was in purgatory, whence it could be relieved by prayer; and cheerfully the loving girl gave two dollars, that as many prayers might be said for its repose. "Were the prayers said in public?" "No, mam; the priest wrote down my mother's name in a book, that there might be no mistake. He will say them in private. When my sister died, before the war I only paid half a dollar each for prayers for the same purpose; but the priest assured me the present charge was right—that 'prayers had riz.'"