Let me begin by asking one plain question--If all the scholastic
wealth with which St. Thomas has enriched the world lay embedded
in the mind of a Missionary priest: if he more than rivalled
Suarez as a casuist, and Bellarmine as a controversialist, yet if
he failed to acquire a mastery over the only instrument by which
he could bring to bear the riches of his own intellect on the
minds of those around him, of what value is all the wealth
entombed within his head?

If he has acquired no command of the rich vocabulary, the
graceful elegance of diction, the mysterious beauty of
expression, the abundant illustration, the art of storing nervous
vigour and living thought into crisp and pregnant terseness: if
this one weapon, a finished English education, is not at his
disposal, his knowledge, as far as others are concerned, is so
much lumber: to the one spot alone--the Confessional--his
efficiency is narrowed. The other fields of his ministry are
deprived of the immense service this learning might afford.

Let us see how this works out in practice. The unctions of
ordination are scarcely dry on your hands till you begin to
realise what you never realised before--viz., that in the most
literal sense of the word you belong to the Church Militant.

You go out from college, you are quickly confronted with
opposition. At once your brain begins to hew arguments of massive
solidity; had you but the skill with which to hurl them you would
overwhelm the stoutest foe. This skill you have not got, you
never mastered the sciences by which you could smite the
aggressor. With rage you, perhaps for the first time, realise