Page:What We Want.djvu/80

 from the office which he held in a Roman Congregation; in short, the whole history of your Pontificate as it concerns the election of Cardinals, Bishops, Legates, Nuncios, Apostolic Visitors in the dioceses, speak with too convincing an eloquence.

With the test of selecting persons who are saints by reason of their piety and wisdom, you do not combine the test of selecting persons who by study, culture, and experience of practical life have a clear and steady insight into the questions which are troubling the modern age. No, the single criterion, when there is not added to it that of convention and customary etiquette, is either age or antimodernism. You do not reflect that grey hairs and sanctity of life are of no avail in a ruler when, owing to the education he has received in times which are no longer ours, or to methods and habits of living far remote from the life of our time, experience is not added to them.