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First Dialogue

THREE DIALOGUES ON PULPIT ELOQUENCE Dialogue. Against the affectations of wit and brilliancy in Sermons. That the object of eloquence is to instruct men and render them better, and that the orator who does not aim at this object is not disinterested1

A: Good morning, sir! have you then been to hear one of the sermons to which you have so often been desirous to take me? For my part, I am contented with the preacher of our parish.

B: I was charmed with mine; you have lost much, sir, by not having been present to hear him. I have rented a seat, so as not to lose one of the sermons for Lent. He is an admirable preacher, if you had once heard him you would be dissatisfied with every other.

A: I shall be careful, then, not to hear him, for I do not at all wish that one preacher should give me a distaste for all others; on the contrary, I wish for a man who will give me such a taste for and delight in the Word of God, that I shall be the more disposed to listen to it whenever I can. But since I have, as you say, lost so much by not hearing this fine sermon, and you are full of it, you can make up to me for part of that loss, if you will be so kind as to repeat to me something of what you remember of it.

B: My account would do injustice to the sermon. There were a hundred beauties in it which I fail to remember. It would require a preacher to give you an account ....

A: But still; his plan, his demonstrations, his practical lessons, the chief truths which made up the body of his discourse — do none of these remain in your mind? or were you not attentive?

B: Far from it! I never listened with more attention and pleasure.

A: What then! do you wish me to beg and intreat you?

B: No, but there are thoughts so delicate and so dependent on the beauty and turn of the phrase in which they are expressed, that though you are charmed for the moment you cannot easily recall them afterwards, and even if you do recall them, and repeat them in other terms, they lose their force and their beauty, and seem to be no longer the same thoughts.

A: They must then be very fragile beauties indeed if you try to touch them they disappear. I should prefer a discourse which had more substance and less spirit. It would make a stronger impression and would be better remembered. Why does the preacher speak at all if not to instruct and persuade, and to do so in such a fashion that the hearer can remember?

B: Listen, then! I will repeat to you what I am able to remember. This was the text: " I have eaten ashes as it were bread" (Ps. cii. 9). How could you find a more ingenious text for Ash Wednesday? He showed how, according to this passage, ashes ought to be on this day the food of our souls; then he interwove in his introduction, in the most ingenious way in the world, the story of Artemisia and the ashes of her husband. His transition to the " Ave Maria "2 was full of art. Then his division of his subject was happy; you shall judge of it. "These ashes," he said, " although they are a sign of penitence, are a principle of happiness: although they seem to humble us they are, in reality, a source of glory: although an emblem of death they are a remedy which leads to immortality. This division he repeated in 'various forms, and each time gave it a new lustre by his antitheses. The rest of the discourse was no less polished and brilliant. The diction was pure, the thoughts novel, the periods harmonious, and each concluded with some surprising touch. He drew sketches of morality, in which each recognized his own likeness faithfully drawn, and anatomized the passions of the human heart in a manner which equalled the Maxims of M. de la Rochefoucault. In short, according to rny opinion, it was a masterpiece. And now what do you think of it?

A: I am rather afraid to tell you my opinion of that sermon, or to lower the high estimate which you have of it. We ought to feel respect for the Word of God, to profit by the truths which are explained by a preacher, and to avoid the spirit of criticism, so as not to weaken the authority of the ministry.

B: Do not be afraid of that in the present instance. It is not at all from curiosity that I ask this of you. I have need to have correct ideas upon this matter. I wish to obtain solid information, not only for my own sake, but for that of others, since I too am, by my profession, under the obligation to preach. Speak to me, then, without reserve; do not hesitate to contradict me, nor fear that I shall be shocked.

A: As you wish it I will do so, and even from your report of that sermon I judge that it was exceedingly faulty.

B: In what respect?

A: You will see. Can a sermon be considered good in which the applications of Scripture are false, in which a story out of secular history is related in a puerile and unedifying manner, in which a false affectation of brilliancy is predominant everywhere?

B: Doubtless it cannot, but the sermon of which I have been telling you does not seem to me to be at all of that character.

A: Wait a little, and you will agree with what I say. When a preacher has chosen for his text these words, "I have eaten ashes as it were bread," ought he to have contented himself with tracing out a mere connection of words between the text and the ceremony of this day? Ought he not to have begun by explaining the true sense of his text before applying himself to his subject?

B: No doubt.

A: Would it not also have been desirable to look thoroughly into the circumstances and take the trouble to understand the whole occasion and design of the Psalm? Would it not have been proper to examine if the interpretation about which he was occupied was in accordance with the true sense of the words before giving it to the people as the Word ot God?

B: Most truly; but in what respect was it otherwise?

A: David, or whoever was the author of Ps. cii., is speaking in that passage of his own misfortune. He says that his enemies cruelly taunted him, seeing him beaten down into the dust, lying at their feet, and reduced (he uses here a poetical metaphor) to feed upon bread made of ashes, and water mixed with tears. What resemblance is there between the complaints of David, when he was driven from his throne and persecuted by his son Absalom, and the humiliation of a Christian who puts ashes upon his head in order to bring himself to think ot death, and to withdraw from the pleasures of the world ?* Was there no other text in the Scripture that he could have taken? Had Jesus Christ, the Apostles, the Prophets never spoken of death and

  • "The allegorical principles of interpretation applied to the Scriptures of the ashes of the tomb to which God brings down our human weakness? Are not the Scriptures full of a thousand touching phrases about this truth? Would not, for example, the words from Genesis iii. 19, wThich have been chosen by the Church her self, fitting and natural for this ceremony as they are, would they not have been worthy of a preacher's choice? Had he the false delicacy to find some fault with the text that the Holy Spirit and the Church had desired should be repeated without omission every year? Why, then, should he have put aside that passage and so many other passages of the Scripture which are suitable in order to select one which is not suitable? That is bad taste; a foolish liking for saying something novel.3

B: You are growing too warm on this subject, sir. It is true, however, that this text is not used in a literal sense, but the preacher's explication of it may, nevertheless, have been very fine.

A.: For my part I like to know if a saying be true before I find any beauty in it. But what as to the remainder?

C . The remainder of the sermon was of the same kind as the text. But what was the advantage of saying pretty things upon a subject so terrible, and of amusing the hearer by the secular story of the grief of Artemisia, when he was bound to speak gravely and solemnly, and to give only terrible ideas of death?

B: I see that you do not love flashes of wit on such occasions. But unless these are allowed, what would become of eloquence? Would you reduce all preachers to the simplicity of Missionaries? That is needful for the unlearned people of course, but those who are cultivated have more delicate ears, and it is necessary to adapt our discourses to their taste.

A: Now you are leading me to another subject, but I was endeavouring to show you how ill-conceived this sermon was, and I was just about to speak of the division of it, but T think that you understand what it is that I am obliged to disapprove of. Here is a man who divides the whole subject of his discourse into three points. Now, when a division is made, it ought to be simple and natural; it should be a division which is found ready made in the subject itself, which clears up the details and arranges them in order, which is itself easily remembered, and which helps the hearer to remember other things: finally, a division which displays the greatness of a subject and of its parts.4 But here, on the contrary, you see a man who endeavours in the first place to dazzle you, who displays before you three epigrams, or three riddles, which he turns round and round with a practised hand until you think you are looking at the passes of a juggler. Is that such a serious and grave manner of address as is calculated to make you hope for something useful and important? But let us return to what you were saying: you ask, do I wish them to banish eloquence from the pulpit?

B: Yes, it seems to me that you are tending in that direction.

A: We shall see. What do you understand by eloquence?

B: The art of speaking well.

A: Has that art no other object whatever than that of speaking well? Have men no object what ever in their speech? or do they speak only for the sake of speaking?

B: No! they speak in order to please and to persuade others.

A: Let us carefully distinguish between these two things. The object of speech is to persuade, that is the case always; another object of speech is to please, and this is the case only too often. But when anyone strives to please, he has some other and more distant object, which is nevertheless the principal one. The man of high principle will not seek to please for any other reason than to instil righteousness and other virtues by rendering them attractive, while he who seeks his own interest to increase his reputation or to advance his fortunes, seeks to please only that he may gain the admiration and goodwill of those who are able to satisfy his avarice or his ambition, so that this also comes to be virtually a method of persuasion sought for by the orator: he wishes to please that he may flatter, and thus persuade others to whatever suits his own interest.

B: In short, you cannot but own that men frequently speak only for the purpose of pleasing. Heathen orators had that object. It is easy to discern in the orations of Cicero that he was striving for the sake of his reputation, and who will not believe the same of Isocrates and Demosthenes? All the ancient panegyrists thought less of making the heroes who were their subjects admired than of being admired themselves: they did not strive to advance the glory of a prince except for the sake of that admiration which would accrue to themselves for having praised him with skill. That ambition seems to have been permitted at all times among both the Greeks and the Romans: by the emulation which resulted, eloquence was rendered perfect, the minds of orators were raised to lofty thoughts and great sentiments, and thus the ancient commonwealths were made to flourish: the intellectual enjoyment which eloquence afforded, and the power which it exercised over the populations, rendered it honourable, and it supplied a marvellously effective means of culture and polish for the intellectual powers. I do not see any reason for blaming that emulation, even among Christian orators, provided that no unbecoming affectation appears in their discourses, and that the morality of the Gospel is not weakened in the least degree. A practice can hardly be blamed which animates young men, and helps to form great preachers.

A: You are grouping together here a great number of facts and reasons: let us separate them if you please, and let us examine attentively what conclusions ought to be drawn from them. But let us especially avoid a contentious spirit: let us look at the matter peaceably, and as people who fear only to be in error: and let us make it a point of honour to give up a position as soon as we see that we are mistaken.

B: I am quite disposed to do this, or at least I think so, and I shall be glad if you will warn me if you see that I am transgressing that rule.

A: Let us not speak of preachers at first; they will come in their turn: let us begin with the secular orators, whose example you have just referred to. You have mentioned Demosthenes and Isocrates together; in that you have done wrong to the former; the second is an orator without warmth or earnestness, whose only care is to polish his sentences and give a harmonious cadence to his periods: his idea of eloquence is not an elevated one, and he makes it to consist almost wholly in the skilful arrangement of words. A man who occupied ten years, as some say, and even twelve according to others, in adjusting the periods of his "Panegyric," which is a discourse on the necessities of Greece, was but a weak and backward helper for the Republic against the enterprises of the King of Persia. Demosthenes spoke against Philip very differently. You may see the comparison which Dionysius of Halicarnassus5 makes between the two orators, and the essential defects which he points out in Isocrates. The discourses of the latter he shows to be flowery but feeble, a collection ot periods constructed with infinite care to charm the ear: while Demosthenes, on the contrary, influences, warms, and convinces the heart: he is too keenly occupied with the interests of his country to amuse himself, like Isocrates, with sparkling fancies; his reasoning is closely packed and convincing; his sentiments, generous as those of a soul whose con ceptions were all noble. His discourse grows and is strengthened at each moment by new reasons, and becomes a chain of striking and impressive figures: you cannot read it without seeing that he has the benefit of his country at heart: it is nature herself that speaks in his impassioned passages; the art is so consummate that it does not appear at all, and nothing has ever equalled the power and vehemence of his orations. Have you never read what Longinus has said of this in his "Treatise on the Sublime" r6

B: No: is it not that treatise which M. Boileau has translated? Is it fine?

A: I do not fear to say that, to my mind, it sur passes the Rhetoric of Aristotle, which, although a very fine treatise, has many dry rules, more curious than useful in practice, so that it is much better adapted to recall the rules of the art to those who are already eloquent, than to inspire eloquence and to form a true orator: but the "Sublime" of Longinus adds to its precepts many examples which add greatly to their force. That author treats of the Sublime in a sublime manner, as the translator has remarked: he warms the imagination and elevates the spirit of the reader, forms his taste, and teaches him to distinguish judiciously between what is admirable and what is faulty in the celebrated orations of antiquity.

B: What! is Longinus so admirable! Did he not live in the time of the Emperor Aurelian of Zenobia?

A: Yes; you know their history.

B: Was not that age far below those which preceded it in culture? Would you assert that an author of that period had better taste than Isocrates? I am really unable to believe it.

A: I was myself surprised to find it so, but you have only to read the work to be convinced of the fact. Although it belongs to a debased age it is modelled on earlier models, and has almost nothing of the faults of its time. I say almost nothing, for I must confess that the writer concerns himself more with the ornamental than the useful, and deals but little with the relation between eloquence and morality. In that respect he appears not to have had the same well conceived views as the ancient Greeks, particularly the philosophers. Nevertheless, a defect must be forgiven him in which Isocrates, although belonging to a better age, is much his inferior; especially that defect is excusable in a passage in which he is professedly speaking, not of that which instructs men, but of that which excites their attention and extorts their admiration. I mention that author, because he will help you much to understand my meaning: you will see in him the admirable portrait which he has drawn of Demosthenes, from whom he quotes, several passages which are truly sublime: and you will find in him also what I have said of the defects of Isocrates. You could make yourself acquainted with those two authors in no better way, if you do not wish to take the trouble to study their works for yourself. Let us then leave Isocrates and return to Demosthenes and to Cicero.

B: You leave Isocrates because his example does not suit your purpose.

A: Let us then discuss him a little more, since you are not yet persuaded: let us judge of his eloquence by the rules of the art itself, and by the opinion of the most eloquent writer of antiquity, that is, Plato; will you believe what he says upon this point?

B: I will believe him if he is right. I do not resign my opinion wholly to the word of any writer.

A: Bear that rule in mind, it grants all that I ask: provided that you do not allow yourself to be biassed by certain prejudices of our time, that which is right and just will soon obtain your assent. Do not, then, believe either Isocrates or Plato, but judge both the one and the other by clearly defined principles. You will not question that the object of eloquence is to persuade the hearers to truth and to virtue.

B: But I do question it; it is that which I have always denied.

A: That, then, is what I am going to prove to you. Eloquence, if I do not mistake, may be taken in three meanings:

(i) As the art of persuading men to accept the

truth and of making them better.

(2] As an art of neutral character, of which the

wicked may make use as well as the good,

and which may be employed to persuade to

error and injustice, as well as to justice

and truth.

(3) Finally, as an art which designing men may

make use of to please others, to acquire

reputation for themselves, and to rise to

fortune. Now admit one of these definitions.

B: I admit them all; what conclusion can you draw from that?

A: Wait a while; you will see that in the sequel; in the meantime it is sufficient that I say nothing but what is clearly true, and that leads you towards my conclusion. Of these three kinds of eloquence you no doubt approve of the first?

B: Yes, it is the best.

A: And what do you think of the second?

B: I see what you are aiming at; you are going to construct a sophism. The second is blamable for the bad use which the orator permits himself to make of eloquence in order to persuade to injustice and error. Yet the eloquence of a wicked man may be good in itself, though the object for which he makes use of it be pernicious. Well, our present business is to speak of the nature and rules of eloquence, not of the use which ought to be made of it: do not leave, if you please, the real question before us.

A: You will see that I am not wandering from it if you will be so good as to do me the favour to continue to listen to me. You blame, then, the second kind of eloquence: and in order to avoid any equivocation, you blame then the second way of employing eloquence.

B: You are quite right, and so far we are fully agreed.

A: And what do you say of the third use of eloquence, which is to endeavour to please the hearers by words, so as to build up by that means a reputation and a fortune?

B: You know already my opinion: I have not changed it in the least. That use of eloquence appears to me allowable and fair: it excites emulation, it polishes talents, and renders them more perfect

A: In what respect ought it to endeavour to render talents more perfect? If you had to organize a State or a Commonwealth, in what way would you render the abilities of its citizens perfect?

B: In every way which could render them better. I should wish to form good citizens, full of zeal for the public benefit. I should endeavour to ensure that they should be able to defend the country in war, to make the laws observed in peace, to govern their houses, to cultivate their lands or have them cultivated, to bring up their children virtuously, to instil into them a sense of religion, to employ themselves in commerce according to the needs of the country, and to apply themselves to those branches of knowledge which are useful in common life. That is what, it seems to me, should be the aim of a legislator.7

A: Your views are very just and well conceived. You would wish then that your citizens should be enemies to sloth, and be occupied with matters which are serious and which tend to the public good?

B: Yes, doubtless.

A: And you would put down all professions that were not of such a character, that were, in fact, useless?

B: I would.

A: You would not admit, for instance, bodily exercises except such as conduce to health and to strength? I do not make any special mention of bodily symmetry and beauty, because in well-formed frames these follow naturally from strength and health.

B: I should admit such exercises only

A: You would put down then all those which serve only to amuse, and which do not enable a man to endure better the labours required in peace, and the fatigues of war?

B: Yes, I would follow that rule.

A: And it is, no doubt, in pursuance of the same principle that you would put down also (as you have said to me) all those activities of the mind which do nothing at all to render the soul virtuous, and therefore healthy, beautiful, and strong?

B: Yes; I quite agree to all that, but what follows from it? I do not at all see what is the point you wish to reach; you go so far round about.

A: I am endeavouring to reach first principles, and not to leave behind me any doubtful point. Is all quite clear so far?

C: I must confess that having established this rule for the body, there seems even stronger reason for applying it to the mind.

A: Would you tolerate all the sciences and the arts whose only object is pleasure, amusement, and the satisfaction of curiosity?

B: I should banish them from my Commonwealth.

A: If, then, you tolerate mathematicians, it would be on account of mechanics, navigation, the surveying of lands, calculations that must be made, fortifications, &c. That is their use, which would entitle them to exist. If you allowed physicians and lawyers it would be for the preservation of health and the ensuring of justice. It would be the same with those other professions which are allowed to be serviceable. But what would you do with regard to musicians? Would you not be of the mind of the ancient Greeks, who never separated that which was useful from that which was agree able? They who had pushed music and poetry, blended together, to such a high degree of perfection, intended that these should serve to arouse courage and to inspire lofty sentiments. It was by music and poetry that they prepared themselves for battle: they went to war with musicians and their instruments. The drums and trumpets threw them into a kind of warlike transport, which they called Divine. It was by music and the sweet cadence of their verses that they softened the hearts of savage tribes. It was by the pleasure which this harmony occasioned that they introduced wisdom into the hearts of their children. These were made to sing the verses of Homer in order to inspire them, and that in a pleasant manner, with contempt for death, riches, and pleasures which render the mind effeminate; and to inspire also the love of glory, liberty, and of their country. Even their dances had a serious object; for it is certain that they did not dance for pleasure only: we see by the example of David that the Eastern peoples regarded the dance as a serious art, like music or poetry. A thousand words of instruction were mixed with their fables and their poems: and thus the gravest and most austere philosophy showed itself with a smiling face. That appeared again in those mysterious dances of the priests, which heathens had mingled with their ceremonies for the feasts of their gods. All those arts which consist either in melodious sounds, in graceful movements of the body, or in words; that is to say, music, dancing, eloquence and poetry, were invented only to ex press the passions, and to inspire them by thus expressing. The intention was by means of these to impress lofty sentiments on the minds of men, and to display before them vivid and impressive pictures of the beauty of virtue and the deformity of vice. Thus each of the arts had its place, though under the appearance of pleasure, in the most serious methods of the ancients for the advancement of morality and religion. Even the chase was an apprenticeship for war. All the most enjoyable pleasures were calculated to impart some lesson of virtue. From that source it was that proceeded so many heroic virtues in Greece, which have been the admiration of all ages. That first plan of instruction, it is true, was altered; and even in its original form it had grave defects. Its essential defect was the being grounded on a false and hurtful religion. In that the Greeks, like all the wise men of the world who were at that time sunk in idolatry, fell into error: but though they were in error respecting the fundamentals of religion, and the choice of principles, they made no error as to the right manner of inspiring men with religion and virtue: in that respect their methods were judicious, agreeable, and calculated to make a strong impression.

C: You said just now that this first institution was altered: do not forget, if you please, to explain that to us.

A: Yes, it was altered. Virtue ensures true politeness: but unless care be taken, politeness becomes, little by little, effeminate softness. The Asiatic Greeks were the first to become corrupt; the Ionians8 became effeminate; all that coast of Asia was a scene of voluptuous indulgence. f Crete, notwithstanding the wise laws of Minos, was similarly corrupt: you know the verse which S. Paul cites (Tit. i. 12), Corinth was famous for its luxury and its dissoluteness. The Romans, who were still rude and uncultured, were, nevertheless, beginning indulgences tending to soften their rustic virtue. Nor was Athens exempt from that contagion; the whole of Greece was infected. Pleasure, which ought to be only the means of finding an entrance for wisdom, took the place of the wisdom itself. The philosophers protested against this disorder, but in vain. Socrates arose, and pointed out to his misguided fellow citizens that the pleasure, at which they stopped short, ought to be only the road and incentive to virtue. Plato, his disciple, who has not been ashamed to compile his writings from the discourses of his master, excluded from his ideal state (Republic) all the varied tones of music, all the movements of tragedy, all recitations of poems, and even those passages of Homer as do not tend to inculcate a love of good order and wise laws. These are the opinions respecting poets and musicians expressed by Socrates and Plato: are you not in agreement with them?

B: I entirely agree with their opinion: we ought to have nothing that is useless. Since pleasure can be found in important pursuits, it should not be sought elsewhere. If any art can render virtue easier, it is right in that manner to show that virtue is consistent with pleasure: if, on the contrary, they are separated, men are put under strong temptation to abandon virtue: for, after all, that which pleases without instructing, only amuses the mind and renders it effeminate. So you see that I too have become a philosopher merely from listening to you. But pray proceed, and come to the point, for we are not yet entirely agreed.

A: We shall be, I hope, ere long. Since you are such a philosopher, permit me to ask you one question more. Here you have on the one side musicians and poets under the obligation to use the attractions of their art only for the promotion of virtue, and on the other side you have the citizens of your ideal state excluded from exhibitions which give pleasure but not instruction. But what would you do with fortune tellers?

B: They are impostors, who should be expelled from all societies.

A: But yet they do no harm at all. You must bear in mind that we are not referring to sorcerers, so it is not the black art which is to be feared in them.

B: No, I do not fear them at all, because I give no credence to any of their stories: but they do mischief enough by tricking and misleading the public. In my Commonwealth I do not at all tolerate idle people who mislead others, and who have no other occupation than that of talking.

A: But they gain their livelihood by that; and amass money for themselves and their families.

B: No matter; let them find other occupations in order to maintain themselves: it is proper not only to gain a livelihood, but to do it by occupations which are useful to the public. I say the same thing about all those miserable creatures who amuse the passers by with their talk and songs: even if they never lied or did anything disgraceful or bad, they must be got rid of: uselessness alone would render them offenders: the police ought to force them to adopt some respectable mode of life.

A: But those who act tragedies, would you tolerate them? I take for granted, however, that neither illicit love or immodesty is mixed in those tragedies; and furthermore I do not speak as a Christian: reply to me only as a philosopher and a legislator.

B: If those tragedies have not for their object to instruct while giving pleasure, I should condemn them.

A: Good: in that you take precisely the view of Plato, who would not have allowed any tragedies to be represented in his Republic which had not been examined by the judges; so that the people should never see or hear anything which did not serve to strengthen the law and to inspire virtue. In that you are in agreement also with the spirit of the ancient authors, who thought that tragedy should hinge chiefly on two passions; namely, the terror which arises from a view of the deplorable consequences of vice indulged, and the compassion felt for persecuted and patient virtue: that is the idea which Euripides and Sophocles have carried out.

B: You remind me that I have read that last rule in the "Art of Poetry" of M. Boileau.

A: You are right: he is a man who knows thoroughly, not only the theory of poetry, but also the serious object to which philosophy, which is above all the arts, ought to guide the poet.

B: But now, whither are you leading me by all this?

A: I need lead you no further; you are going on of your own accord: indeed you have happily arrived at the desired end. Have you not assured me that you would not tolerate in your Common wealth any idle people who merely amuse others, and have no other occupation than that of talking? Is it not upon this principle that you would banish those who act tragedies, if instruction is not mingled with pleasure? Shall that be allowed in prose which is not in verse? After that severity, how could you show indulgence to the declaimers who speak only to display their talent and wit?

B: But the declaimers of whom we are speaking have two objects which are praiseworthy.

A: Name them.

B: The first is to maintain themselves: by that means they obtain honourable appointments. Their eloquence gains them reputation, and that draws in its train the fortune which they need.

A: You have already yourself replied to your own objection. Did you not say that it was needful, not only to gain a livelihood, but to gain it by some occupation that is useful to the public? The person who should act a tragedy in which nothing that was instructive was mingled, would be gaining his livelihood: but that fact would not prevent your banishing him. "Take up," you would say to him, "some serious and respectable mode of life; do not merely amuse the citizens. If you wish to derive from them a legitimate profit, labour to some really useful end, or employ yourself to render them more wise and virtuous" Now why would you not say the same thing to the orator?

B: I have another reason to bring forward: the second object of the orator, which I am about to name to you, will explain what it is.

A: Indeed! state it then, if you please.

B: It is that the orator also exerts himself for the advantage of the public.

A: In what respect?

B: He cultures and polishes the intellectual powers by the teaching of eloquence to the people.

A: Listen: if I should invent a useless art, or an imaginary language, from which no advantage could possibly be drawn, should I be of any service to the public by teaching that art or that language?

B: No: because a person is of service to others only in the degree that he teaches them something that is useful.

A: Then you could not possibly prove logically that an orator is of service to the public by teaching eloquence, unless you had already proved that eloquence itself serves some useful purpose. What is the use of the splendid discourses of an orator, if those discourses, fine as they are, bring no practical advantage to the public? "Words," S. Augustine has said, "are made for man, not man for words."9 Those discourses are of use, I know, to him who makes them, because they dazzle his hearers, they cause him who delivers them to be much talked about, and then the public has such bad taste as to reward him for his words, though they are of no use. But ought that eloquence, so mercenary and fruitless to the public, to be permitted in the State that you (by hypothesis) control? A shoemaker at least makes shoes, and could not support his family without the money thus earned by supplying a real need of the public. Thus you see that the commonest occupations have some real object: and can it possibly be that the art of the orator has no real purpose but the amusing of men by words? The only purpose for the gathering of audiences then will be, on the one side to satisfy the curiosity and occupy the idleness of the hearers; and on the other to feed the vanity and the ambition of him who speaks. For the honour of your Commonwealth never suffer such an abuse as that.

B: Well, then, I acknowledge that the orator ought to have for his object to instruct men and to render them better.

A: Be so good as to keep well in your memory this principle which you have admitted; you will see by and by the consequences which follow from it.

B: But that does not prevent a man, while applying himself to instruct others, from being quite at liberty to acquire at the same time reputation and reward.

A: Let me again remind you that I do not speak here at all as a Christian; I need nothing but philosophy to answer you. Orators are then, I repeat, according to your definition, people whose duty it is to instruct other men and render them better than they are. Here, then, in the first place, all mere declaimers are put out of court. Even panegyrists are not to be tolerated excepting so far as they shall propose models worthy of being imitated and shall render virtue loveable by their praises of it.

B: What! is then a panegyric good for nothing if it is not full of moral teaching?

A: Is not that your own conclusion? The only good reason for speaking is to instruct; a hero is only to be praised that the people may become acquainted with his virtues, and be urged to imitate them, and for the purpose of showing that glory and virtue are inseparable. Therefore all praises that are vague, exaggerated, flattering, ought to be struck out of a panegyric. Not one of those sterile thoughts which are of no service for the instruction of the hearer ought to be suffered there; nothing is admissible but that which tends to make virtue loved. But on the contrary, the greater number of panegyrists seem to praise virtue for no other reason than to praise the men who have practised them, and whose eulogiums they have undertaken to make. Do they desire to praise a man? Then they exalt the virtues which he has practised above all others. But everything has its turn, and on some other occasion they will depreciate the virtues which they had before extolled in favour of some other person whom they wish to flatter. It is upon that principle that I think Pliny to blame. If he had praised Trajan in order to form other heroes similar to him, that would have been an object worthy of an orator. Trajan, great as he was, ought not to have been the entire end of his discourse, but rather an example exhibited to men in order to invite them to be virtuous. When a panegyrist has only the mean object of praising a single man, his work is no more than the flattery of one man appealing to the vanity of another.

B: But what will you say to those poems which are written in order to praise their heroes? Homer has his Achilles, Virgil his Æneas; would you condemn those two poets?

A: No! but surely you have not examined their poems any farther than the tables of contents. In the Iliad, Achilles is truly the chief hero, but his praise is not the principal object of the poem. He is represented naturally with all his defects, and those very defects are one of the subjects upon which the poet desired to impart instruction to posterity. He sets himself in that work to inspire the Greeks with a love of the glory which is gained in war and combat, and with a fear of disunion as being the obstacle to all great successes. That moral design is visibly marked through the whole poem. It is true that the Odyssey represents in Ulysses a hero more faultless and more accomplished; but this is, so to speak, by chance, and in fact, a man whose predominant character is wisdom, such as was Ulysses, naturally pursues a course of conduct more exalted and uniform than a young man such as Achilles, of a passionate and impetuous nature; thus Homer, both in one case and the other, has only thought of giving a faithful description according to nature. Besides, the Odyssey teems everywhere with a thousand moral instructions for every detail of life, and it is only necessary to read it in order to see that the poet has described a wise and practically able man, who makes his way through all dangers by the help of his wisdom, only in order to teach posterity the good consequences which must attend piety, prudence, and a moral life. Virgil in the Æneid has imitated the Odyssey in the character of his hero. He has made him gentle, pious, and therefore self-possessed in every emergency. It is easy to see that Æneas is not the principal object in his eyes. In that hero he looks forward to the Roman people, whom he makes to be descended from him. He wished to show that people that their origin was divine, that the gods had long ago prepared for them the empire of the world, and in that way to excite the Roman people to sustain by their virtues the glory of their destiny. Among heathens it was not possible to teach any moral lesson of greater importance than that. The only ground on which it might be possible to suspect Virgil of having thought too much of his recompense in his verses, and to have abused his poem for that purpose, is the praise, perhaps some what flattering, of Augustus and his family. But I should not be willing to push criticism so far.

B: So then you are not willing that a poet or an orator should honestly try to make his fortune?

A: After our digression upon panegyrics, which will not be useless, we have again returned to our difficulty. The question before us is whether orators ought to be disinterested.

B: I do not think so; you would contradict all the well-known maxims (as to men desiring their own interest).

A: Do you not lay down that in your Common wealth it should be forbidden to orators to speak anything but the truth, and that they should always speak to instruct and to correct their hearers, and to strengthen the authority of the laws?

B: Yes, no doubt!

A: It follows then that orators must neither hope for anything for their own interest, nor fear anything from their hearers. If you allow of ambitious and mercenary orators, is it likely that they will oppose themselves to all the passions of men? If they are themselves suffering from avarice, from ambition, from effeminacy, how will they be able to minister to the reformation of others? If they are themselves seeking for riches, will they be the fit persons to detach others from them? I am well aware that it would not be right to suffer a virtuous and disinterested man, who serves us in the capacity of an orator, to want for necessary things; but I know, also, that that never happens if he is truly a philosopher, that is to say, of such a character as he needs to be in order to take in hand the mending of the characters of others. He should lead a simple, modest, frugal, and laborious life; he should avoid unnecessary wants, that little which is absolutely needful to him he ought to earn with his own hands; additional supplies ought not to form his recompense, and are not worthy to do so. The public will confer honours upon him and entrust him with authority; but if he is disinterested, and free from the sway of the passions, he will not use that authority except for the public good, and will be prepared to part with it at any time, rather than to preserve it by dissimulation or flattery of the people. Thus the orator, in order to be worthy to exercise persuasion upon the people, ought to be a man who is incorruptible; without that his talent and his very art itself will act as a mortal poison within the Commonwealth, and from this it follows, according to Cicero, that the first and most essential of the qualities which belong to the orator is virtue. He needs probity, which is proof against any temptation, and which serves as a model to all the citizens; without this it is not possible to show belief himself in what he teaches, nor in consequence, to make others believe it.

B: I quite understand the importance of what you urge, but after all, is not a man at liberty to employ his abilities to raise himself to honour?

A: Let us go back always to our first principles. We have agreed that eloquence and the profession of the orator should be devoted to the instruction and the improvement of the people. In order to perform this freely and successfully a man must be disinterested; he must instil into others disdain for riches, for enjoyments, and of death; he must inspire modesty, frugality, disinterestedness, zeal for the public good, and inviolable attachment to the laws; and all this must show itself no less in his life and character than in his discourses. How can a man who endeavours to please for the sake of his own advancement, and who therefore wants to make use of everybody, exercise such an authority as this over minds? And even if he should say all that is proper to be said, is it to be supposed that belief will be inspired by the speech of a man who does not appear to believe it himself:

B: But he does nothing1 wrong in seeking to gain a fortune of which I take it for granted that he has need.

A: That matters not; let him seek in other paths of life the means of livelihood. There are other professions which will save him from the dangers of poverty; if he needs anything, and is reduced to beg it from the public, he is not the fit person to be an orator. In your Commonwealth would you choose poor and starving persons for judges? Would you not fear that their necessities would reduce them to some dishonourable compliance? Would you not rather choose persons of consideration, and who would not therefore be tempted by their necessities?

B: I certainly would.

A: For a similar reason would you not choose for orators, that is to say for masters whose duty it is to instruct, correct, and train the minds of the people, persons who had no need of anything, and were therefore disinterested? And if there were others who had ability for all kinds of occupations, but who had also private interests which they wished to serve, would you not defer to employ their eloquence until they had attained the objects they so desired, and thus need be no longer suspected of some interested motive when speaking publicly?

B: But it seems to me that the experience of our age proves that an orator may inculcate morality with great power, without abandoning all interest as to his future. Could there possibly be moral sketches more severe than those now before the public? Yet they do not arouse anger, they even give pleasure; and the person to whom they are due is continually rising in the world by their means.

A: Moral sketches have no persuasive power whatever when they are supported neither by principles nor by good examples. Whom did you ever know to be converted by such? People soon grow accustomed to hear these descriptions; they are only a succession of striking images made to pass before the eyes; such discourses are listened to as if a satire were being read; people look at the speaker as one who acts well a kind of comedy, and take much more notice of what he does than what he says. If he is ambitious, vain, moved by interested motives, fond of a luxurious life; if he himself does not relinquish any of the things which he bids others relinquish; people may listen to him as a matter of ceremony; but they will believe and act in the same way as he. And which is even worse, they will come to think that persons of that profession do not speak in good faith; they will disparage their ministry, and will not be persuaded of the sincerity of others, who speak with genuine and honest zeal.

B: I allow that your principles are thoroughly consistent with each other, and that they gain upon the mind when examined with attention; but is it by the pure zeal of Christian piety that you say all these things?

A: It is not necessary to be a Christian to think thus, though one must be a Christian to practise them well; since only Divine grace can repress the love of self: but it is only needful to be a person of reasonable mind to recognize that these things are true. As often as I have cited Socrates or Plato, you have been willing to defer to their authority: but now that you are beginning to be convinced by reason, and that you have no more need of authority, what will you say if I show you that this reasoning is employed by them also:

B: By them! is it possible! I shall be well pleased indeed.

A: Plato introduces Socrates as conversing with an orator named Gorgias, and with a pupil of Gorgias named Callicles. This Gorgias was a man of high reputation; Isocrates, of whom we have said so much, was his pupil. This Gorgias was the first, says Cicero, who boasted that he was able to speak eloquently about every subject: afterwards the Greek rhetoricians imitated that vanity. Let us return to the dialogue of Gorgias and Callicles. These two men discoursed elegantly upon all things, according to the method of the former; they were persons of that fine genius which sparkles in conversation, and they had no other object than to speak well; but it appears that they were wanting in that which Socrates sought for in men; that is to say, true principles of morality, and exact and serious rules in reasoning. After the author has skilfully held up to ridicule that character of genius, he introduces Socrates, who, while he seems to jest with them, pleasantly reduces the two orators to the condition of not being able to say in what eloquence consists. Then Socrates shows that rhetoric, that is to say, the art of those orators, was not truly an art at all. He defines art as "a regulated discipline, which teaches men to do something useful to make them better than they are." Thus he shows that it is only liberal arts which are entitled to the name; and that these degenerate whenever they are employed to any other end than to form men to virtue. He shows that rhetoricians have not that object at all; that even Themistocles and Pericles did not keep it in view, and consequently were not true orators. He says that those celebrated men thought only of persuading the Athenians to make harbours, to build fortifications, or to gain victories. They have, he says, only rendered their fellow citizens rich, powerful, and warlike, and were afterwards ill-treated by them; which return was only what they might have expected. If, by their eloquence, they had rendered their fellow citizens good, their reward, he says, would have been certain. A person who makes men good and virtuous is sure not to find them ungrateful after his labour; for virtue and ingratitude are incompatible. It is not needful to recall all that he says about the uselessness of that rhetoric, because all that I have said to you upon it, as from myself, is drawn from him; it will be of more service to relate what he says respecting the evils which empty declaimers occasion in a State.

B: I quite understand that those rhetoricians were to be feared in the Greek Republics, where they might win over the people and usurp the government.

A: In fact, it is principally of that inconvenience that Socrates speaks; but the principles which he enunciates on that occasion may be much further extended. Nevertheless, when we speak here, you and I, of organizing a Commonwealth, it applies not only to States where the people govern, but to every State, whether democratic, that which is governed by a number of chiefs (aristocratic), or monarchical; so that I do not refer at all to the form of government; in all countries the rules of Socrates are equally applicable.

B: Explain them, then, if you please.

A: He says that man being composed of body and mind, it is needful to cultivate both the one and the other. There are two arts for the cultivation of the mind, and two for that of the body. The two for the mind are the science of laws and jurisprudence. By the science of laws he under stands all those principles of philosophy which direct how to regulate the characters and sentiments of individuals, or of the whole State. Jurisprudence is the remedy made use of to repress injustice and bad faith in citizens; it is by it that lawsuits are decided and crimes punished. Thus the science of laws is of use to prevent evil; and jurisprudence to correct it.10 There are two similar arts for the body: gymnastics, which exercises it, renders it healthy, well-proportioned, active, vigorous, full of strength and grace (you know, do you not, that the Ancients made astonishing use of that art, which we have lost); and medicine, which cures the body when it has lost health. Gymnastics are for the body what moral philosophy is for the soul; it forms and perfects it. Medicine, again, is to the body what jurisprudence is to the mind; it corrects it, and restores it to health. But that institution, which was so unsullied, has been altered, says Socrates. In the place of a solid practical philosophy has been substituted the vain subtilty of the sophists: false philosophers who abuse the forms of reasoning, and who, being without the principles which tend truly to the public good, direct their efforts to the promotion of their private interests. To jurisprudence, he says again, has succeeded the conceit of the rhetoricians, people whose only wish is to please, and excite admiration; instead of jurisprudence, which should be the medicine of the soul, and which should only be used to heal the passions of men, are seen the exhibitions of false orators, who think only of their own reputation. To gymnastics, adds he again, has been made to succeed the art of sophisticating and disguising the body, as to give to it a false and deceptive attractiveness; instead of which, all that should be sought is a simple and natural beauty, which comes of the health and proportion of all the limbs; and that is acquired and retained only by exercise and the observance of rule. In the place of medicine has come all manner of delicious viands, and ragouts, which stimulate the appetite; and when a man is full of unhealthy humours, instead of purging him to restore health, and by health the appetite, they put force upon nature, and create an artificial appetite by various expedients contrary to temperance. It is in these terms that Socrates remarks upon the disorder of the manners of his time; and he concludes by saying that orators, who, with the view of curing men, ought to tell them even disagreeable truths, and that with authority, and to administer to them, so to speak, bitter medicines, have, on the contrary, acted towards the soul as cooks do towards the body. Their rhetoric has been nothing but the art of making delicacies (so to speak) to flutter the appetites of sick men; they have given themselves no trouble except to please, to arouse curiosity and admiration; they have spoken only for that purpose. He finishes by demanding: Where are the citizens whom these rhetoricians have cured of their evil habits? Where the people whom they have rendered temperate and virtuous? Would you not think that you were listening to a man of our own time, who was speaking of present abuses? After having heard the sentiments of that wise heathen, what do you say of that eloquence which sets itself only to please and to make fine pictures, when it should, as he has himself said, burn and cut to the quick, so as seriously to seek a cure by bitter remedies and a severe rule? But judge of these things for yourself; what would you find praiseworthy in a physician who, when you were in the extremity of illness, and it was his duty to prescribe suitable remedies for you, amused himself with turning elegant phrases and developing some fine theory? What would you think of a barrister who, when pleading a cause on the event of which was suspended all the property of your family, or even your own life, should put on the airs of a man of wit, and supplement his pleadings with flowers and ornaments of wit and humour, instead of reasoning with force, and exciting the sympathy of the judges? The love of goods and of life makes that seem ridiculous enough to us; but the indifference which is apparent with regard to goodness and to religion causes this not to be at all remarked in orators, who ought to be the censors and the physicians of the people. What we have seen of the opinion of Socrates ought to make us ashamed.

B: I see now very well that, according to your principles, orators ought to be the defenders of the laws and the teachers of virtue to the people; but legal eloquence among the Romans did not reach that point.

A: That was without doubt the proposed object to it; orators were to protect innocence and the rights of private persons, when they had no occasion to bring forward the general needs of the Commonwealth; it followed from this that the profession was so honoured, and that Cicero gives so high an idea of the true orator.

B: But let us see, then, in what manner those orators ought to speak: I beg you to express to me your views upon that point.

A: I shall not say anything to you about my own views: I shall continue to expound to you the rules that the ancients give us. I shall mention only the principal things, for you would not have leisure for me to explain to you consecutively, in detail, the numerous precepts almost infinitely of rhetoric. Many of them are useless; you have, no doubt, looked into the books in which they are amply set forth: let us be satisfied with mentioning the most important. Plato, in that dialogue in which he introduces Socrates conversing with Phsedrus, shows that the great fault of rhetoricians is that they seek for the art of persuading before they have learned by the principles of philosophy what are the truths that should be taught to others. He would have the orator commence by the study of mankind in general, and afterwards to apply himself to gaining knowledge of the individual persons to whom he may have to speak. Thus he ought to know what man is, what is his chief end, what are his true interests, what are the elements of his nature, that is to say, body and spirit; the true way of making him happy: what are his passions, what excesses they are liable to run into, how they can be regulated, and how usefully aroused so as to make man love that which is good; what are the rules calculated to make him live at peace and which tend to hold society together. After that general study comes the particular: he ought to be acquainted with the laws and customs of his country, and how these are expressive of the national character: the manners of each rank, the differences of education, the interests and the prejudices which rule in the age in which he lives, the means of instructing and of raising up minds. You see that these various kinds of knowledge comprehend all the most real and well established elements of politics and philosophy. In this way Plato shows that only a philosopher can be a true orator: it is in that sense that we must explain all that he has said in the dialogue of Gorgias, against rhetoricians; that is to say, against the class of men who have made the speaking skilfully, so as to per suade others into an art without giving themselves the trouble to learn in principle that which it is their duty to try to persuade men of. Thus, in fact, the whole of the art, according to Plato, consists in knowing" well that which we ought to inculcate, in being well acquainted with the passions of men, and the mode of arousing them for any particular object. Cicero says almost the same thing. He seems to urge, in the first place, that the orator should be ignorant of nothing, because he may have to speak upon anything, and that he can never speak well (as he says after Socrates) of that which he does not know well. But this he afterwards reduces, in consideration of pressing necessity and of the shortness of life, to the most essential kinds of knowledge. He is of opinion that an orator should at least know well all that part of philosophy which concerns manners, permitting him to neglect only the curiosities of astrology and mathematics: especially he thinks that the orator should be acquainted with the composition of man and the nature of his passions, because the purpose of oratory is to arouse them for various objects.11 He requires the knowledge of the laws from the orator as the foundation of all his discourses; only he allows that he need not have passed his life in a profound study of the details of causes, since he can, when needful, have recourse to those deeply learned in the law to supply any lack of knowledge in himself. He requires, as does Plato, that the orator should be a good logician: that he should know how to define, prove, or disprove the most subtle sophisms. He says that it destroys rhetoric to, separate it from philosophy, and makes of orators puerile declaimers, wanting in judgment.12 He asks not only for an exact knowledge of all the principles of ethics, but for a special study of antiquity. He recommends the reading of the ancient Greek writers; that historians should be studied, not only for their style, but to acquire the facts of history; and especially he requires the study of the poets, because of the close relation that there is between the figures of poetry and those of eloquence. In one word, he inculcates everywhere that the orator ought to store his mind with knowledge before attempting to speak in public. I believe that I recall his very words, so often have I read them, and so deep an impression have they made upon me: you would be surprised at the extent of the demands they make. " The orator," he says, " ought to have the subtlety of the dialectician, the knowledge of a philosopher, the diction, almost, of a poet, the voice and the gestures of the greatest actors." Consider now what an amount of preparation would be needed for such a result as that.

C; In point of fact, I have remarked on many occasions, that what is most wanting in many orators, who have nevertheless much ability, is a and hearty love of truth; and that whose mind soever is fully possest with a fervent desire to know good things, and with the dearest charity to infuse the knowledge of them into others, when such a man would speak, his words (by what I can express) like so many nimble and airy servitors, trip about him at command, and in well-order'd files, as he would wish, fall aptly into their own places."

— MILTON'S Apology for Smectymnuus. store of knowledge: their minds appear to be empty: it was evident enough that they had difficulty in finding sufficient material to complete their discourse: it even seems that they do not speak because they are in possession of truths, but that they are seeking for truths only because they wish to speak.

A: That is what Cicero says of those people: they live always, as it were, from day to day with out any provision beforehand, and notwithstanding all their efforts, their discourses appear always starved and thin. A man has not time to give himself three months of preparation before delivering a discourse; those special preparations, however painstaking they may be, are of necessity very imperfect, and a skilled person easily finds out those who are weak in this respect. Many years of study are needed to provide for oneself an abundant store of knowledge. After that general preparation has once been made, special preparation costs little trouble: but the speaker who, instead of going through this careful preliminary training, applies himself only to unconnected subjects, is obliged to dwell upon phrases and antitheses, to treat only of the commonplace, to deal only in vague statements, to weave together threads of thought which have nothing to do with each other. He is unable, for want of study, to display the true principles and connections of things, he is limited to reasons which are superficial and often false; he is not capable of showing the real proportions of truths, because all general truths form, necessarily, an organized whole, and it is needful to be acquainted with almost all of them in order to treat solidly of any one.

C: Nevertheless, most of those who speak in public acquire great reputation without any greater stock of knowledge than that you regard as so insufficient.

A: It is true that they may be applauded by women, and by the unthinking portion of the world, who easily allow themselves to be dazzled: but such popularity is never more than a certain caprice of fashion, and needs ever to be upheld by some clique. People who know the object and the rules of eloquence feel only disgust and disdain for discourses which are all "in the air" and are wearied excessively by them.

B: You would make a man wait very long before speaking in public: his youth would be passed before he had acquired the store of knowledge which you think needful, and he would no longer be of an age to exercise this function of speaking.

A: I would have him exercise it sufficiently soon, for I do not lose sight of the power which comes of experience; but I should not wish that, under the pretext of exercising it, he should throw him self at first -into multifarious employments which would take away from a young man the liberty of study. He should undoubtedly have, from time to time, opportunities to try his powers, but the study of good books should for a long time be his, principal occupation.

C: I think you are right, and that recalls to my memory a preacher, a friend of mine, who used to live, as you said, from day to day; he did not give any consideration to a subject until it was his duty to treat upon it: then he would shut himself up in his study, he would turn over the leaves of the Concordance, Combefis, Polyanthea,13 some volumes of sermons which he had bought, and certain collections which he had made of detached passages which he had met with by chance.

A: You easily understand that all that sort of thing could not possibly make a skilful preacher. In such a condition as that a man can be sure of nothing, he can never speak with power, he has an appearance of borrowing everything and of always making quotations, never of being himself the source of any sentiment which he expresses. A person does injustice to himself who has so much impatience to make himself known.

B: Before you leave us, will you tell us what, in your opinion, is the great effect of eloquence.

A: Plato says that a discourse is eloquent in proportion to the effect it produces on the mind of the hearer: according to that rule you can estimate exactly every discourse that you hear. An address or sermon which leaves you unmoved, which does not touch the depth of your feelings, which tends only to aiford you intellectual gratification, is not truly eloquent at all.14 Will you hear the opinion of Cicero, which is the same as that of Plato, upon this point? He will tell you that all the force of oratory ought to be directed to no other object than to stir and influence the hidden springs of feeling which nature has set in the heart and mind of man. Therefore look into your own self in order to learn whether the orator to whom you listen speaks well. If they make a strong impression upon you; if they make your soul heedful and sensitive to what they say; if they warm your feelings and carry you out of and above yourself, you may safely believe that they have attained the point of eloquence. But if, instead of softening your heart, or inspiring you with strong feeling, they merely please you and make you admire the justness of their thoughts and the brilliancy of their phrases, you may conclude that they are but pretenders to oratory.

B: Pray stay a little longer, and permit me to ask you some further questions.

A: I should be glad to do so, for I have had much pleasure in our conversation, but I have business to attend to which will not admit of delay. I will, however, see you again to-morrow, and we will then, if you please, go on with the consideration of this matter at greater leisure.

B: Adieu then, sir, until to-morrow.

Footnotes

  1. The parties to the Dialogue are designated as A, B, and C. ↩

  2. It was customary at that time, in France, for preachers to introduce into the exordium of their sermons an invocation of the Blessed Virgin and the "Ave Maria"; and great ingenuity was frequently shown in the introduction of this into the special subject of the sermon, such as is remarked upon in the text. Thus L'Esprit Flechier, Bishop of Lavaur and afterwards of Nimes, who was regarded as one of the chief pulpit orators of France, in his panegyric on S. Joseph, effects this introduction thus: "Everything seems to concur to the glory of my subject; in it the Holy Spirit, Jesus Christ, and Mary, have each an interest. I may then hope for the assistance of the first, the grace of the second, the intercession of the third, that is, the Virgin, to whom we will address ourselves in those words with which the Angel Gabriel addressed himself to her, and which S. Joseph no doubt often recalled and repeated: 'Hail, Mary, etc.' " — Panegyriques, Vol. I., p. 71. by Origen and others after him destroyed the legitimate force of the custom of using texts. It destroyed logical connection between text and homily. A text which is torn from its connections in inspired usage, or to which an imaginary sense is given, is no text. This was largely true of the use of texts in the time of Augustine." — AUSTIN PHELPS, D.D. ↩

  3. "The reverence for philosophy also weakened the clerical reverence for texts of the Scriptures. In many instances it was deemed a matter of indifference whether texts were chosen from inspired sources or not. Melancthon says that they were sometimes taken from the ethics of Aristotle. This was perfectly natural. A forced interpretation of inspired language brings it into conflict with the common sense of men. la such a conflict no language can hold its place in the reverence of the human mind. When it had become the usage of the pulpit to employ a biblical text as no other language would be seriously employed by a sane mind, it was an improvement to turn from S. Paul to Aristotle, whose language had not yet undergone distortion." — A. PHELPS, D.D. ↩

  4. "Divisions thus clearly formed and distinctly stated: (i) Promote perspicuity of discussion. They aid a preacher in gaining perspicuity; clear mental action works instinctively by plan, and each assists the other. You understand a subject the better for having reduced it to a plan of discourse. A natural division of a subject for use is no more nor less than a philosophical analysis and arrangement of its materials; your own thoughts are the more lucid for the discipline. Divisions also assist the hearer to clearness in understanding a discussion. (2) Divisions promote unity of discussion. That preacher must habitually think in slipshod gait who can deliberately plan a vagrant discourse. The very effort to classify materials tends to unify them in the result. (3) They promote progress in a discussion. (4) They promote elegance of discussion, and keep up interest in it, etc." — A. PHELPS, D.D. ↩

  5. Died at Rome B.C. 7. The work referred to is Hepl rwv dp\aiii>v pTjropwv UTro/xvyuaTicr/xcH, and it treated of all the chief orators of Greece. But the second half of the work, sect. 4-6, with the exception of the earlier part of sect. 4, which treats of the oratorical powers of Demosthenes, is not now extant. — Trans, ↩

  6. Ilepl v//ovs. — Tr. ↩

  7. "I call, therefore, a complete and generous education that which fits a man to perform justly, liberally and magnanimously all the offices, both private and public, of peace and war." — MILTON, on Education. ↩

  8. Motus doceri gaudit lonicos. — HORACE, B. III., Od. vi., v. 21. f The Fables of Miletus. ↩

  9. De Doctr. Christ., B. IV., v. 24. ↩

  10. "There is scarcely a law in God's code but has its parallel in man's code; hardly a demand made by God for the government of His commonwealth, but man also makes for the government of his common wealth. The preacher, who is versed in the fundamentals of Blackstone, Kent, Chitty, Parsons, et al., can show: I. That law is necessary; 2 That society has a right to protect itself; 3 . That self-preservation is a law written even upon the code of conscience; 4. That in a world where sin is so slightly offensive, and rulers have pledged so little, it is often found necessary to pass sentence of perpetual banishment, imprisonment for life, and death even; 5. That belief or skepticism on the part of the culprit concerning the law, does not, in the least, lessen his culpability nor the certainty of his paying the full penalty; 6. That his inability to comprehend all the whys and wherefores of the law by which he is adjudged a criminal does not detract one whit from the baseness of his deflection, nor the deplorableness of his situation; 7. That all his fine theorizing about what the law should be or should not be, does not affect the law that is and which the judge is bound to follow in passing sentence upon him. Here, too, the great central doctrine of the Atonement finds its fullest, and most unanswerable unfoldment." — J. M. DRIVER. ↩

  11. "All this part of the argument pre-supposes a state of things in which society in general was much more dependent upon the Pulpit (or the Bar) for instruction than at the present time. The Press, with its powerful function as a teacher in every department of knowledge, did not then exist. Nevertheless, the argument for perfectness of culture in the Clergy is indefinitely strengthened, now that, as an American writer (PROF. M. D. BISBEE) remarks: ' After he has done his best, the preacher knows that every hearer can sit at home and read a better sermon. Commentaries, newspapers, libraries, and the multitudinous circles of information, leave the minister no exclusive fields of knowledge. His only resource is to make more vivid what is already known, and to transmute knowledge into life. Then the present, to a singular extent, is a reading age. Most people prefer to sit and read rather than listen, and there is much in this that is profitable. Multitudes are acquiring knowledge and forming convictions in this way, but it is making the work of the pulpit more difficult.' ' There was a time, not so far ago, when the Sunday sermon was almost the only intellectual food which the majority of the population had the means of enjoying. Just think of the difference at the present moment! Think how the intellectual appetite is actually gorged and drenched by the provisions meted out to it! Think of the newspapers, the magazines, the cheap novels, the miscellaneous literature of all sorts and descriptions! The Sunday sermon, instead of being the main item, is now but a comparatively small one of what is poured, week by week, into the minds and imaginations of our people." — TWELLS, Colloquies on Preaching, p. 236. ↩

  12. " For me, readers, although I cannot say that I am utterly untrain'd in those rules which best rhetoricians have given, or unacquainted with those examples which the prime authors of eloquence have written in any learned tongue; yet true eloquence I find to be none but the serious • ↩

  13. These were the popular "Sermon Helps" of the day. ↩

  14. "A friend of mine, a layman, was once in the company of a very eminent preacher, then in the decline of life. My friend happened to remark what a comfort it must be to him to think of all the good he had done by his gift of eloquence. The eyes of the old man filled with tears, and he said: ' You little know! You little know! If I ever turned one heart from the ways of disobedience to the wisdom of the ust, God has withheld the assurance from me. I have been admired, and flattered, and run after; but how gladly I would forget all that, to be told of a single soul I have been instrumental in saving.' The eminent preacher entered into his rest. There was a great funeral. Many pressed around the grave who had oftentimes hung entranced upon his lips. My friend was there, and by his side was a stranger who was so deeply moved that, when all was over, my friend said to him: 'You knew him, I suppose?' 'Knew him!' was the reply, 'No, I never spoke to him, but I owe to him my soul.'" — T WELLS, Colloquies, p. 12. ↩

Chapter 2 of 4