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 JAMES GIBBONS 199 of his long career has made any enemies^ neither he nor they have advertised the fact to the world. He has worked his way to position and prominence without a vestige of partisan- ship. Everyone who meets His Eminence finds his open nature, gentle grace, genuine dignity, elegant simplicity of manner, and his transparent goodness irresistibly fascinating. He adapts himself with perfect ease to everyone he meets. At home with the highest of the world, he can umpire a baseball game among schoolboys, feeling and making them feel that he is merely one of them. The newspaper reporters are very fond of him because of the invariable readiness and courtesy with which he receives their professional importunities. He always speaks for them when he can, and they in turn are scrupulous in their care not to misrepresent him. The Car- dinal is a practical friend of the press because he regards it as a great power for good; and the papers and periodicals covet his words because of the weight and popularity of his utterances. Lastly, it is to be observed that Cardinal Gibbons with all his princely qualities is preeminently and by nature a man of the common people. Bom and reared in the ranks he has ever been at one with the multitude, and most of all with the lowly. Knowing their vices as well as their virtues, he has of- ten professed his persevering faith in the ultimate judgment and good will of the American public ; and his confidence has been sufficiently justified in the enthusiastic approval which so many have given to the Cardinal's principles and practice, and the loyalty with which they have for so long a time fol- lowed his lead. He has ever been sanely progressive and actively in sympathy with all the good aspirations of his time and people. Thus is the position of this great American divine simply the reward of accumulated merit. He has forged to the front as churchman and citizen by the sheer force of his personal character. Scarcely to be credited with genius of any kind, unless his great goodness may be called genius, he has achieved a distinction that genius may envy. His is the rec-