musician neglect to learn the scales till you come to your twenty-fifth year; or if it is your ambition to be a great painter, permit a quarter of a century to roll over your head before you learn how to hold the palette or mix the paints.”  The man that would tender such ridiculous advice would be laughed at.  Yet it is not one whit more absurd than the transparent nonsense that has grown hoary from age, and passes unchallenged as a first principle.

It is often asked how is it that the Irish Church has remained so barren.

Eighty years have passed since the bells of the thatched chapels rang in Emancipation.  During that time over three thousand talented priests are on the land; yet how small the number of works produced.  Why such a miserable result?  What has sterilised the intellects of these men?  Mainly this fatal advice.  How could we have literary tastes among the priests in their pastoral life when such tastes were either frowned down during their college career or postponed to a period when their cultivation became an impossibility.

[Side note:  You must begin while young]

No man can become a preacher without becoming a writer first.  I need not labour this proposition.  A single quotation from the highest authority establishes it.  When Cicero was asked the question—­“How can I become an orator?” his one answer was—­ “Scribere quam plurimum.”  The first step to oratorica eminence was—­write as much as possible.

Now, ask any distinguished writer when did he begin to cultivate a literary taste.  He will tell you with Pope that he “lisped in numbers.”  He began almost with the dawn of reason.  If, then, pen practice must be the first step towards pulpit success, it is while the fancy is tender that it should be trained; while the receptive powers are hungry in youth they should be fed; while the habits of thought are fresh and flexible they should be exercised.  Wait till the hoar frost of age nips the rich blooms of imagination and stiffens the once nimble powers of the mind, and the cast-iron habits of maturer years have settled on you:  literary culture is then an impossibility.

What does this culture imply?  A developed insight into the beauties of thought; a just appreciation of style; an intimate acquaintance with the best authors; an abundant vocabulary and graceful expression.  Can these be acquired in a year? or is the time for acquiring them seasoned manhood?

How worthless and pernicious is this one word “Wait,” here more than ever, where mastery of language is in question.  But a glance shows how much more absurd it is to let a man pass out of his teens before putting him through a thorough course of elocution.  It is while the muscles of throat and lungs are as flexible as a piece of Indiarubber, and the young ear sensitive to every nuance of sound, the future priest must learn to articulate, to pronounce correctly, to husband his breathing, to bend his voice with ease and mastery through the varied octaves of human passion.