List of points

There is no excuse for those who could be scholars and are not.

Study. Obedience: non multa, sed multum — not many things, but well.

You pray, you deny yourself, you work in a thousand apostolic activities, but you don't study. You are useless then unless you change.

Study — professional training of whatever type it be — is a grave obligation for us.

An hour of study, for a modern apostle, is an hour of prayer.

If you are to serve God with your mind, to study is a grave obligation for you.

You frequent the Sacraments, you pray, you are chaste, but you do not study. Don't tell me you're good: you're only 'goodish'.

Formerly, since human knowledge — science — was very limited, it seemed quite feasible for a single learned individual to undertake the defence and vindication of our holy Faith.

To-day, with the extension and the intensity of modern science, the apologists have to divide the work among themselves, if they want to defend the Church scientifically in all fields.

You… cannot shirk this responsibility.

Books: don't buy them without advice from a Christian who is learned and prudent. It's so easy to buy something useless or harmful.

How often a man thinks he is carrying a book under his arm, and it turns out to be a load of rubbish!

Study. Study in earnest. If you are to be salt and light, you need knowledge, ability.

Or do you imagine that an idle and lazy life will entitle you to receive infused knowledge?

It is good to see you put such determination into your study provided, of course, you put the same determination into acquiring interior life.

Don't forget that before teaching one must act. 'Coepit facere et docere,' the holy scripture says of Jesus Christ: 'He began to do and to teach.'

First, action: so that you and I may learn.

Work! When you feel the responsibility of professional work, the life of your soul will improve: and you will become more of a man, for you will lose your habit of 'picking holes' in everything.