eed give you little trouble.

But your vocation is to be an apostle; to go out amongst men; to
be the light for their darkness, the salt for their corruption;
the aim and goal of your operations are human hearts. This being
granted, are you not bound to sweep from your path every
impediment that prevents your arm from reaching these hearts? But
the most effective barrier standing between you and them is
ill-formed manners.

The laws of good society, the refinement of gentlemanly culture
may, from your standpoint, be the merest trifles; but they become
no trifles when without them your right hand is chained from
reaching human souls.

The only remaining question is, Does the world to-day place such
a high value on good manners that if I go into it without them my
efforts will be in a large degree neutralised? Entertain not a
shadow of doubt on that point, such is the fact.

[Side note: Protestants and Catholics demand culture in the
Priest]

Proud and pampered society will never bend its stubborn neck and
submit itself to the guidance of a man who, judged by its own
standard--the only one it acknowledges--is far from being up to
the level; an object of contempt perhaps, at best of pity. In its
most generous mood it is slow and cautious to take you on trust;
its cold analysis searches you; your unplaned corners offend its
taste; and except in every detail you answer to its rule and
level you are disdainfully thrust aside.

Catholics, while they esteem a mere fop at his just value, expect
their priest to rise above the sneers of the most censorious and,
if possible, to challenge the respect of all. They are proud of
their priest; and surely it is not too much to expect on his part
that he will do his best not to make them ashamed of him.

Their Protestant neighbours know of this pride; and if they can
but lay a finger on his evident defects they will glut their
inborn hatred of the Church by hitting the Catholics on the
sensitive nerve, by galling them by caricature and derision of
the _gauche_ manners of the priest.

Protestant young men, too, will appeal to the pride of their
Catholic companions; and an appeal to pride is generally a trump
card. They will ask--"Is it possible that gentlemen could submit
themselves to the guidance of a clergyman whose manners are
unformed and whose English is marred by provincialisms and
defective accent?"

In speaking of accents, let me say here I do not ask the young
prie