Those qualities, assuredly, were not lacking in him which are the necessary elements of character of the good priest and the great man in any time and place.

Those are the subsoil of priestly culture, and with the absence of them no one will succeed in America any more than elsewhere.

But suffice they do not.
There must be added, over and above, the practical intelligence and the pliability of will to understand one's surroundings, the ground upon which he is to deploy his forces, and to adapt himself to circumstances and opportunities as Providence appoints.

I do not expect that my words, as I am here writing, will receive universal approval, and I am not at all sure that their expression would have been countenanced by the priest whose memory brings them to my lips.
I write as I think, and the responsibility must be all my own.

It is as clear to me as noon-day light that countries and peoples have each their peculiar needs and aspirations as they have their peculiar environments, and that, if we would enter into souls and control them, we must deal with them according to their conditions.