e man that neglects to acquire a mastery of this instrument
incurs a great responsibility.

The devil, too, has a message to deliver, a message of error; but
at his command there are not only perverse intellects but all the
elegance of polished language and all the persuasive graces of
elocution.

[Side note: An illustration from everyday life]

Let me take an illustration from everyday life. A Catholic child
under his father's roof has religion instilled into him. He goes
to school, and here his knowledge is developed and enlarged. From
the schoolroom he is transplanted into the world to strike roots
if he can in stubborn soil and preserve his faith amidst the
ice-chills of infidelity.

Foes beset him on every side. He turns to the public library. The
infidel review is crisp in style, its arguments catchy, and the
brilliancy of its diction captivates. The pages of the
fashionable novel are strewn with the rose leaves of literature:
the plot enthrals. The arguments of the free-thought lecturer are
well reasoned, the sophistries artistically concealed, whilst his
mastery over the graces of elocution holds his audience
spell-bound.

The young man staggers. He now turns to where he should expect to
find strength. Under the pulpit next Sunday is a mind where the
mists of doubt are gathering and darkening. He looks up to the
"Light of the World" to have these mists dispelled. Instead of
seeing his foes battered with their own weapons he sees these
weapons, that in every domain are conquering for the devil, here
despised.

He is forced to listen, perhaps, to an exhibition of tedious
crudity. He goes away disheartened; perhaps to fall.

Now, the solid theological knowledge in that preacher's head is
more than sufficient to shatter the arguments of infidelity; the
analytic power acquired during his college course would enable
him to tear every sophistry to shreds; but the art of making both
of these effective for the pulpit, the mastery of clear and
nervous English, the elocution that sends every argument like a
quivering arrow of light to its mark, these he neglected, or
perhaps contemned.

This is our weak spot; here our position wants strengthening.

Sit by the fireside with that preacher and suggest the
advisability of cultivating English and elocution. He replies: "I
have two thousand souls to look after, sodalities to work up,
schools to organise, and attend, perhaps, four sick calls in one
night." No, _not