Third Dialogue

True Eloquence: in what it consists. How admirable is that of the Sacred Scripture. The importance of Holy Scripture, and the right manner of explaining it. The means of training oneself for preaching. What ought to be the chief matter of instructions. On the eloquence of the fathers, and their style. On panegyrics.

C: I was beginning to fear that you would not come: and I had almost gone to M.'s house to look for you.

A: A matter of business detained me: but happily I was able to get through it.

C: I am very glad of that: for we are most desirous to go on with the subject entered upon this morning.

C: After I left you, I was at a sermon at ... and I thought of you. The preacher spoke in a very edifying manner: but I doubt if the people quite understood what he said.

A: That too often happens. I once heard an ingenious lady observe that preachers speak Latin in French. The most essential quality of a preacher is to be instructive. But in order to instruct others it is necessary to be well instructed oneself.*

• "The minister is a physician of a far higher order. He has a vast field before him. He has to study an infinite variety of constitutions. He is to furnish himself with the knowledge of the whole system of remedies. He is to be a man of skill, and expedient. If one thing fail, he must know how to apply another. Many intricate and perplexed cases will come before him; it will be disgraceful to him not to be prepared for such. His patients will put many questions to him; it will be disgraceful to him not to be prepared to answer them. He is a merchant embarking in extensive concerns. A little ready money in the pocket will not answer the demands that will be made upon him. Some of us think it will, but they are grossly deceived. There must be a well-furnished account at the banker's. . . . Knowledge, then, and truth, are to be the constant aim of a young minister. But where shall we find them? Let him learn from a fool, if a fool can teach him anything; let him be everywhere and always a learner."

— CECIL: Remains, p. 159.

" In writing sermons, nothing can be done by the minister without knowledge. There can be no substitute for this — all rules and principles to be observed in such compositions are worthless without it. It is vain to talk about the mint, till you have secured the bullion. There fore I suggested to you a scheme of reading before I ventured upon any hints about sermons— 'Reading makes the full man '; and surely if a full man is wanted anywhere, it is in the minister of a church who is fixed to the same spot the whole year round; and who has to produce himself from week to week before the same audience. Nothing short of a large magazine to draw upon will suffice for these frequent demands — without it, the thread of his speech will soon run out the staple of his argument; and instead of a preacher he will become a spin-text. This should be looked to by us. It is unfair to exact the attention of an audience for a considerable time, and supply them ourselves with nothing to fix it. It is unfair to charge them with indifference, lukewarmness, and irreligion, when they are merely weary of listening to one who cannot teach because he will not learn — they have no option but to hear — -they are in the condition of animals long tethered upon a bare pasture, they cannot escape, but you must not bo On the one hand, it is needful to appreciate fully the meaning of what the Scriptures say: on the other, to be acquainted with the precise mental range of the minds we are addressing. That requires first, a solid basis of knowledge; and secondly, great discernment. We speak constantly to the people of the Scriptures, of the Church, of the two Laws, of the sacrifices, of Moses, Aaron, Melchisedek; of the Prophets and the Apostles; and yet we do not give ourselves the least trouble to teach them what all these things mean, and what all these holy persons have done. A person may follow some preachers continually for twenty years without learning religion as he ought to know it.

B: Do you suppose that people are ignorant of the things which you mention?

A: I have no doubt whatever of it. Few people have sufficient knowledge of religion to profit by sermons.

B: Yes, people who are untaught and uncultured are no doubt ignorant of them.

C: Very well; is it not the mass of the people whom it is his duty to instruct?

surprised if they show signs of impatience — give us liberty, or give us

A: You must add that the greater number of the respectable belong to "the people" in that sense. Three-fourths of an audience are always ignorant of those fundamental truths of religion, which the preacher takes for granted that they know.¹

B: Would you wish then that in a large and educated audience a preacher should begin to explain the Catechism?

A: I know that there must be a certain adaptation of the matter taught, to the particular occasion; but it is quite possible without offending one's hearers to quote and refer to those historical facts which explain the origin and the institution of all holy things. So far from that enquiry into their origin being unworthy of the notice of an audience, it would give to the greater number of discourses a force and a beauty which are at present wanting to them. We have already made a passing remark to that effect yesterday, especially with regard to the mysteries of the Faith. An audience is neither instructed nor influenced if we do not go back to the beginning in reasoning with them. How, for example, can we make the people understand what the Church says so often after S. Paul that Jesus Christ is our Passover ( 1 Cor. v. 7), if we do not explain what the Passover of the Jews was, and that it was instituted in order to be a perpetual memorial of the deliverance from Egypt, and to typify a deliverance still more important which was reserved for the Saviour? It is on that account that I said to you that almost everything in religion is of an historical nature. In order then tluit preachers should thoroughly understand these religious truths, it is absolutely necessary that they should be learned in the Scriptures.

B: Pardon me for interrupting you on this subject of the Holy Scriptures. You told us this morning that they were eloquent. I was delighted to hear you say so, and I should be very glad if you would teach me to recognise their excellences. In what does this eloquence consist? The Latin Bible [i.e. the Vulgate] appears to me barbarous in many passages, and I do not discover any refinement at all in the thoughts. What then is it that you admire?

A.: The Latin is only a literal version, in which a great many Hebrew and Greek phrases have been retained through reverence for the original. Do you despise Homer because we have him translated into bad French?

B: But the Greek itself (which is the original for the whole of the New Testament) appears to me very bad.

A: I do not dispute it. The Apostles who have written in Greek were like other Greek-speaking Jews of their time, not well acquainted with that language: thence it is that S. Paul says of himself "Though I be rude in speech yet not in knowledge." It is easy to see that S. Paul avows that he had not a complete knowledge of Greek, though he explains in it nevertheless the doctrines which we have in the Holy Scriptures with great exactness to his hearers.

B: But had not the Apostles the Gift of Tongues?

A: No doubt they had it, and it extended even to a great number of private Christians: but as to the tongues which they knew already by natural means, we have ground for believing that God left them to speak these as they had spoken them previously. S. Paul, who was of Tarsus spoke naturally Greek corrupted by the Hellenistic Jews; and we see that he has written in the same dialect. S. Luke appears to have known Greek better.

C: But I have always understood that S. Paul distinctly says in one passage that he put no dependence in eloquence, but relied only upon the simplicity of the Gospel message. Nay, I have heard many people of weight declare that the Holy Scripture is not eloquent at all. S. Jerome was punished because he felt a distaste for its simplicity, and preferred Cicero. S. Augustine appears in his Confessions to have committed the same fault. Has not God chosen to try our faith, not only by the obscurity of the Scriptures, but also by the poorness of their style, as He has done by the poverty of Jesus Christ?

A: Sir, I fear that you are going too far. Whom would you rather believe, S. Jerome punished for having pursued too much in his retreat his taste for the studies of his youth, or S. Jerome consummately skilled in sacred and profane knowledge, who invites Paulinus in an epistle to study the Holy Scriptures, and who promises him more beauties in the Prophets than he had ever found in the poets? Had S. Augustine more weight of authority in his first youth, when the apparent poorness of the style of the Scriptures did, as he says himself, cause him to feel a distaste for them, or when he composed his treatise On Christian Doctrine? In that treatise he frequently says² that S. Paul has a marvellous power of persuasion, and that the torrent of his eloquence is capable of making itself felt, even by those who are inattentive. He adds that in S. Paul, wisdom has not sought in the least for beauty of style, but that beauty of style attends and even goes beyond the wisdom. He quotes various grand passages from his Epistles, and makes it evident that in these all the art of heathen orators has been surpassed. He makes two exceptions only in this comparison: the one, that heathen orators have sought purposely for the ornaments of eloquence, while eloquence has followed the utter ances of S. Paul and the other sacred writers, naturally and undesignedly: the other, that S. Augustine allows that he did not understand sufficiently well the refinements of the Greek language to be a competent judge whether there be in the Holy Scriptures the rhythm and cadence of those rounded sentences which are to be found in secular writers. I forgot to say that he brings forward this passage of the prophet Amos: "Woe to them who are at ease in Ston, and trust in the mountains of Samaria!" He declares that the Prophet has in this passage surpassed all that is most wonderful in the art of heathen orators.

C: But how do you understand those words of S. Paul: "Not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth"? Does he not say to the Corinthians that he is not come to preach Jesus Christ to them with excellency of speech and of wisdom; that he knew nothing among them but Jesus Christ and Him crucified; that his preaching was founded not on the persuasive words of human wisdom, but on the manifest effects of the Spirit and Power of God; so that, he continues, your faith should be founded not at all on the wisdom of man but on the power of God? What is the meaning of these words? How could anyone speak more strongly in altogether disclaiming that art of persuasion which you are here declaring to be necessary? I confess that I was edified when you condemned all those affected ornaments with which vanity seeks to adorn discourses: but that which follows does not maintain so pious a beginning. You are going to make of preaching an art wholly human, and the Apostolic simplicity will be excluded from it.

A: You take it ill that I should set a great value upon eloquence, and for my part I am greatly edified by the zeal with which you blame me on that account. Nevertheless it will not be amiss to give mutual explanations upon that point. I see many excellent people, who, like you, suppose that eloquent preachers injure the simplicity of the Gospel. When each of us understands what the other means, we shall soon be in agreement. What do you understand by simplicity? and what do you understand by eloquence?

C: By simplicity I understand a discourse without art and without splendour. By eloquence, on the contrary, I understand a discourse full of art and of ornaments.

A: When you ask for a simple discourse do you wish for one without order, without connection, without solid and conclusive proofs, without a suitable method of instructing the ignorant? Do you wish for a preacher who has no pathos whatever, and who does not even attempt to touch the hearts of his hearers?

C: Quite the contrary; I ask for a discourse which shall be both touching and instructive.

A: You wish then that it should be eloquent: for we have already agreed that eloquence is only the art of instructing and persuading men while touching their hearts.

C: I agree that it is necessary both to touch and to instruct; but I should wish that this should be done by an Apostolic simplicity and without art.

A: Let us see then whether art and Apostolic simplicity are incompetible. What do you under stand by "art"?

C: I understand certain rules which the human mind has discovered, and which it follows in a discourse in order to render it more beautiful and polished.

A.: If you understand by art only those expedients which render a discourse more polished and agreeable to the hearers³ I do not contest what you say, and I agree that art ought to be banished from sermons since that vanity, as we have agreed, is unworthy of eloquence and therefore much more unworthy of the Apostolic ministry. It was expressly upon that subject in fact that I had so long an argument with B. But if you understand by "art" and "eloquence" what all the skilful among the ancients have understood by them, it will be proper to bring other considerations into view.

C: What then did they understand by them?

A: According to them, the art of eloquence consists in those means which have been discovered by reflection and experience in order to render a discourse suitable to persuade men of the truth, and to arouse the love of it in their hearts; and these are the very same objects that you wish to find pursued by a preacher. Did you not say to me at that very time that there were needful in a discourse both an orderly method of instruction, solid reasoning and pathetic appeals, that is to say, those means which touch and influence hearts? Now eloquence consists of nothing else than these. Recall that to your memory if you please.

C: I see clearly now to what elements you reduce eloquence. Under that grave and serious form I think it worthy of the pulpit and even necessary if instruction is to have a good result. But how do you understand that passage from S. Paul against eloquence? I have already quoted the words; is it not explicit?

A: Permit me to begin by asking you a question.

C: Willingly.

A: Is it not the fact that S. Paul reasons admirably in his Epistles? Are not the arguments masterly which he carries on against the heathen philosophers, and against the Jews in the Epistle to the Romans? And his observations on the inability of the Mosaic Law to justify men, are they not full of power?

C: No doubt they are.

A: And again, what he says in the Epistle to the Hebrews, on the insufficiency of the ancient sacrifices, on the repose promised by David to the people of God, surpassing that which they enjoyed in Palestine from the time of Joshua, on the priest hood of Aaron and that of Melchisedek, and on the spiritual and eternal covenant which was necessarily to succeed to that carnal covenant which Moses had instituted for a time; are not all these instances of acute and profound reasoning?

C: Unquestionably they are.

A: S. Paul then had no wish to exclude wisdom and the power of reasoning from the preaching of the Gospel.

C: That is apparent from his own example.

A: What then was your reason for supposing that he would have eloquence excluded from preaching, rather than wisdom?

C: It was that he rejects eloquence in the passage which I asked you to explain.

A: But does he not reject wisdom also? No doubt he does; the passage is still more decisive against wisdom and human reasoning than against eloquence. Yet he did not cease for himself both to reason and to be eloquent. You agree to the one assertion, and S. Augustine assures you of the other.

C: You enable me to see the difficulty very clearly, but you do not give me any light upon it. How do you explain it?

A: Thus: S. Paul reasoned, S. Paul persuaded; thus he was essentially an excellent philosopher and orator. But his preaching, as he states in the passage now in question, was founded neither on human reasoning nor on human persuasion; it was a ministry, of which the whole force came from on high. The conversion of the whole world was to be, according to the prophecies, the great miracle of Christianity. It was the kingdom of God, which came down from heaven, and was to bring into subjection to the true God all the nations of the earth. Jesus Christ crucified, when preached to the nations, was to draw all men unto Him; but how? Simply by the unique virtue of His Cross. The philosophers had reasoned, without converting men and without being converted themselves; the Jews had been the depositaries of a law which did, indeed,make manifest their sins, but without bringing the remedy: such was the state of the earth; it was convicted of error and of corruption. Jesus Christ came with His Cross: that is to say, He came poor, humble, and suffering; and this, on our account, to put to silence our vain and presumptuous reason. He did not at all reason like the philoso phers; but by His miracles, and by His grace, He taught as one having authority. He showed that He was above all. In order to confound the shallow wisdom of men, He opposed to it the folly and the disgrace of the Cross, that is to say, the example of His profound humiliations. That which the world regarded as folly, and which scandalized it the most, was to be the very means of bringing it back to God. Man needs to be cured of his pride, and of his love for the things of this present world. By this means God takes hold of his heart and mind; He shows to him His Son crucified. His Apostles walk in His footsteps, and preach Him. They avail themselves of no human resources: neither philosophy, nor eloquence, nor political advantages, nor riches, nor authority. God was jealous of His work, and would have it owe its success to Himself only: He chose that which was weak as the means, and rejected that which was strong, so as to manifest more plainly His own power. He summons that which is not, to convert the world, as He did to bring it into being. Thus the work [of salvation] necessarily has this Divine character, that it is founded upon nothing which is valuable according to the flesh. To have supported the preaching of the Gospel on the resources of nature would have been, according to S. Paul, to weaken and lose the miraculous power of. the Cross. It was needful that the Gospel should of itself make its way into hearts, without any human preparation, and by this prodigy should teach the world that it came from God. Thus human wisdom was confounded and reproved. What inference ought we to draw from this? That the conversion of the nations and the establishment of the Church were due in no respect to the argument and persuasive powers of men. It is not that the greater number of those who preached Jesus Christ were not en dowed with a measure of wisdom and of eloquence: but that they did not put their confidence in that wisdom and that eloquence; nor seek at all to give efficacy to their words by means of these. Every thing was made to rest, as S. Paul says, not on the persuasive eloquence of human philosophy, but on the influence of the Spirit and power of God; that is to say, upon miracles which were visible to the eye, and to the inward working of grace.

C: To rely then, upon human wisdom and eloquence in preaching is, according to your view, to lose the power of the cross of Christ.

A: I think so, without doubt; the ministry of the Word is founded wholly upon Faith. The essential preparation of the preacher is in prayer, in the purification of his own heart, in the expecting of every good result from Heaven, in arming himself with the sword of the Word of God, not with any weapon of his own. But although the inward results of the Gospel are to be looked for only from pure grace, and the efficacy of the Word of God, yet there are certain things which man, on his side, ought to do.

C: So far you have spoken well; but I see clearly that you are now going back into your former views.

A: I am not aware that I have left them at all. Do you not believe that the work of your salvation depends upon grace?

C: Yes, that is a part of our Faith.

A: Nevertheless you recognise that it is the part of prudence to choose certain right paths in life and to avoid occasions of evil? Do you not think that we ought to watch and pray? But when we shall have watched and prayed, shall we have rendered the mystery of grace needless: Without doubt we shall not. We owe all to God, but God subjects us to an outward order of human means. The Apostles did not seek at all for the empty pomp and frivolous graces of heathen orators; they did not addict themselves to the subtle reasonings of the philosophers, who made everything depend upon those arguments in which they refined every thing away, as S. Paul says: they were content to preach Jesus Christ,⁴ but they did so with all that power and magnificence which we see in the language of Scripture. It is true that they had no need of a preparation for the exercise of that ministry, because the Holy Spirit, who descended visibly upon them, gave them "in the same hour, the words which they ought to speak." The difference then between the Apostles and their successors in the ministry is that those successors, not being miraculously inspired as they were, have need to prepare themselves and to fill their minds with the doctrine and the spirit of the Scriptures in order to construct their discourses.⁵ But this preparation ought never to lead them to speak less simply than the Apostles. Would not you be content, provided that preachers were never more full of ornaments in their discourses than were S. Peter, S. Paul, S. James, S. Jude, and S. John?

C: I quite agree that I ought to be content with that; and I confess that as eloquence consists only, as you say, in the order and vigour of the words by which the speaker endeavours to persuade and to touch his hearers, it ought no longer to scandalize me as it used to do. I have always thought that eloquence was an art altogether secular.

A: There are two classes of people who have that idea. The first are pretenders to oratory; and we have already seen how greatly they are mistaken in seeking for eloquence by the use of a meaningless parade of words. The second are those well-meaning people who are insufficiently acquainted with the subject; and with regard to them you see that while they, influenced by humility, renounce eloquence as being an useless pomp of words, they virtually seek for true eloquence, since they desire to touch and to influence their hearers.

C: Now I fully understand all that you wish to insist upon. But let us return to the eloquence of the Scriptures.

A: Nothing is more useful in helping us to appreciate this than to have a taste for the antique simplicity: especially the reading of the ancient Greek writers is of great service in attaining this. I say the ancient Greek writers, because those Greeks whom the Romans so despised, with good reason, and whom they called Grczcult, were wholly degenerate. As I said to you before, it is needful to know Homer, Plato, Xenophon and the other writers of earlier times; after that the Scripture will no longer cause you any surprise. In these two classes of writings the customs, the modes of narration, the vivid pictures of great subjects, the vigorous appeals, are almost or entirely the same. The difference existing between them is wholly to the advantage of the Scriptures; these infinitely surpass all the others in simplicity, in vivacity, in grandeur. Even Homer has never approached the sublimity of Moses in his Canticles, particularly the last (Deut. xxxii. 1-13), which all the children of the Israelites were obliged to learn by heart. No Greek or Latin ode has ever been able to attain the loftiness of thought and language which is found in the Psalms. For example, that one which commences thus: The Lord even the most High God hath spoken and called the world from the rising of the sun unto the going 'down thereof (Ps. L.), surpasses every purely human utterance. Neither Homer nor any other poet has ever equalled Isaiah when he paints the majesty of God, to whose eyes kingdoms are only as a grain of dust, and the entire universe as a tabernacle, which to-day is pitched, and to-morrow carried away (Isa. xl. 9). Sometimes that Prophet has all the beauty and tenderness of an eclogue, in his smiling pictures of peace; and anon he rises to an elevation where all such things are far beneath his feet. What is there in the secular literature of the ancient world, that is at all comparable to the sensitive Jeremiah deploring the woes of his people (Lam. i. i), or to Nahum beholding from afar in his prophetic vision the walls of stately Nineveh falling under the efforts of a countless army (Nah. ii. 3) r We seem even to behold that army; to hear the clang of armour and of chariots; the picture is so vivid that it fires the imagination; it leaves Homer far behind. Again, read the account of Daniel pronouncing to Belshazzar that the vengeance of God was about to fall upon him (Dan. v. 17), and then seek, in the sublimest works of antiquity, any thing worthy to be compared with it. And further, all is consistent in the Scripture; everything has the character that properly belongs to it; the history, the details of the legislation, the descriptions, the passionate passages, the mysteries, the discourses on morality. In a word, there is as much difference between the Prophets and the secular poets as between true enthusiasm and false. The former are veritably inspired, and give expression with power to some truth divinely revealed: the latter raise themselves by an effort above their ordinary standard, and thus make their human weakness the more conspicuous. Only the Second Book of the Maccabees — the Book of Wisdom, especially towards the end — and the beginning of that of Ecclesiasticus, have any traces of that inflation of style which the Greeks, then already dethroned, had spread throughout the East, where their language had established itself during the period of their predominance. I should have been pleased to say more to you of these matters: but they must be read in order to be fully appreciated.

B: I am impatient to look into them for myself. No doubt this study ought to be more attentively pursued than is done.

C: I can well imagine that the Old Testament is written with that magnificence, and contains those vivid pictures of life, of which you speak. But you say nothing of the simplicity which marks the words of Jesus Christ.

A: That simplicity of style is wholly in the antique manner: it is conformed to that of Moses and the Prophets, whose very expressions Jesus Christ often adopts: but although simple and familiar, it is sublime and very figurative in many passages. It would be easy to show in detail, if we had the books before us, that there is no preacher of our age who, in his most elaborately prepared discourses, has been as figurative as was Jesus Christ in His popular preaching. I do not speak at all of the discourses reported by S. John, in which almost all is manifestly Divine. I speak of the more familiar discourses recorded by the other Evangelists. The Apostles have written in the same manner, with this difference: Jesus Christ being master of His teaching, imparts it calmly and with composure. He says what seems good to Him, and He says it without effort; He speaks of the kingdom of heaven and its glory as of the house of His Father. All those marks of greatness which astonish us are natural to Him: He is born to them, and as He Himself assures us, speaks that which He has seen and knows. The Apostles, on the contrary, seem to bend under the weight of the truths which have been revealed to them: they want words, and cannot fully express the concep tions they have in their minds. From this cause come inversions of phrase, indistinct expressions, loose ends of discourse which they are unable to round off. All this irregularity of style, in the case of S. Paul and the other Apostles, marks the fact that their minds are drawn onwards by the Spirit of God; and notwithstanding these small irregularities of style, all that they say is noble, energetic, and touching. In the Apocalypse are found the same magnificence and enthusiasm as in the prophets: the expressions used are often the same, and not seldom the relation between them assists the understanding of each. So you see that eloquence belongs not exclusively to the books of the Old Testament, but is found also in the New.

C: Granted that the Scriptures are eloquent, what conclusion would you draw from that?

A: That those who have to preach ought, without hesitation, to imitate or rather to borrow their eloquence.

C: And also, I suppose, to pick out for quotation the passages which are the most beautiful.

A: The Scriptures are disfigured by not allowing Christians to become acquainted with them except in detached passages. These passages, although they are so beautiful, cannot make the whole of their beauty felt, because they stand alone, and the context of them is not presented to the people as well. For all is consecutive in the Scripture, and that close connection between its parts is the grandest and most marvellous quality of all. For want of knowing this, passages are taken in a sense quite opposite to their own: they are made to say everything that the preacher chooses; and he is contented with certain ingenious glosses which, being arbitrary, have no power to persuade men, and to reform character.⁶

B: Then what would you have preachers do? Should they only follow literally the text of Scripture?

A: Wait a little. I should desire at least that they should not content themselves with weaving together passages agreeing with each other; that they should explain the principles and the mutual connections of the doctrines of Scripture; that they should adopt the spirit, the style, and the illustrations of it; and that all their discourses should be helpful in giving a knowledge of and a taste for it. A preacher could not fail then to be eloquent; for that would be to imitate the perfect model of eloquence.

B: But for that purpose it would be needful, as I said to you, to explain the texts of Scripture consecutively to the people.

A: I should not wish that all preachers should take up that task. It is possible to preach sermons on the Scripture without explaining the whole of Scripture, one book after another. But it must be confessed that it would be quite another thing if Pastors, following the ancient usage, were in the habit of commenting on the whole of Scripture in order to the people. Imagine to yourself what great authority a man would have, who was in the habit of saying nothing of his own devising; but who set himself simply to follow and to explain the thoughts and the words of God Himself. Besides this, he would accomplish two objects at once: in explaining the truths of Scripture he would also explain the text; and would accustom Christians always to join together the text and the meaning. What an advantage to them to become accustomed to nourish their souls with that sacred bread! An audience which should have already learned to understand how to explain all the principal in stitutions of the ancient Law, would be in a very different state of preparation to profit by the explanation of the New, than the greater number of Christians at the present day. The preacher of whom we spake a little while ago had this defect among his great qualities, that his sermons are fine arguments about religion, but are not all composed of religion itself. They are devoted to sketches of morality, and too little occupied in explaining the dogmatic principles of Evangelical doctrine.

B: The reason of that is that it is much more easy to depict the disorders of the world than to explain with precision the depths of Christian doctrine. For the one, all that is needful is experience of wordly business, and words to describe it: for the other, is required a serious and profound mediation upon the Holy Scriptures. Few people know religion, as a whole, sufficiently to explain it well. Such a person (as the former) writes sermons which are beautiful, but would not know how to draw up a solid and orthodox catechism, much less a homily.

A: You have stated the case exactly. The greater number of sermons are philosophical arguments. In many cases the Scripture is never quoted, except when the conclusion has been reached, and that merely for courtesy or for ornament. Then it is no longer the Word of God-that is preached: it is the word and the devices of men.⁷

C: You will grant, I hope, that those people labour only to supersede the Cross of Christ.

A: I agree to all you say of them. I restrict myself to the eloquence of the Scriptures, which preachers of the Gospel ought to imitate. Thus we are agreed; provided that you do not excuse certain jealous preachers, who, under the pretext of observing Apostolic simplicity, neglect to study solidly either the doctrine of the Scriptures, or the wonderful manner of influencing the hearts of men, of which God has given us there the pattern. They imagine that they have only to shout at the top of their voices, and to talk of the devil and of hell often enough, in order to convert souls; but it is in the Scripture that we should learn how to make those strong and grave impressions. There also we may learn admirably how to make our instructions vivid and popular, without causing them to lose the dignity and power which they ought to have.* For

• ' ' To this feeling, the Excessive Love of Variety, may be ascribed the vulgar habit of introducing anecdotes in the pulpit — anecdotes which are not only foolish and beside the point, but often practically untrue, inasmuch as the preacher always explains the facts, and the explanation may be palpably invented. Anecdotage in the pulpit gratifies only the most ignorant and vulgar of hearers, and from vulgar I mean to exclude all those of however low degree who come to hear seriously for the sake of spiritual benefit Of a similar character are those excursions into politics, into popular science, into secular poetry, which sometimes occupy whole discourses, and which are listened to with attention and amusement, but seldom with profit. If these things be used in illustration of great truths, they are evidences of large culture in the preacher, and also have their real value. But to make variety the main object of preaching is to forget that eternal truths require more than a passing notice. The broad lines upon which human conduct should be built must be often and often explained and enforced."— MAHAFFY, p. 125.

" For wisdom dealt with mortal powers,

Where truth in closest words shall fail,

WTien truth embodied in a tale

Shall enter in at lowly doors." — In Memoriam.

" Nor is it merely at ' lowly doors ' that ' truth embodied in a tale * finds easier entrance than truth, which appears in the form of abstract propositions. God, who knows as we cannot know the mystery of our nature, has revealed Himself to mankind in a supernatural history. The Revelation which we have to illustrate, and which furnishes the very substance of all our preaching, is not a series of theological dogmas or ethical principles; it is in the main a record of how God has dealt with individual men, with nations, and with the human race. want of knowing this, they often only bewilder their hearers: leave no distinct impressions of truth in their minds, but only of fear, which soon pass away. That simplicity which they affect is then nothing but an ignorance and rudeness which is, in fact, a form of tempting God. Nothing can excuse those people, except the goodness of their in tentions.⁸ Before preaching it is needful to have studied and meditated upon the Holy Scriptures long and deeply. A priest who has a full and accurate knowledge of them,⁹ and who has the ability to speak, joined with the authority of his ministry and of his good example, will have no need of long preparation in order to preach excellent sermons: it is easy to speak fluently upon subjects which one knows well and feels deeply upon. A subject like that of religion is especially rich in lofty thoughts, and prompt to arouse noble sentiments; and it is these which constitute true eloquence. In a preacher should be found a father who speaks to his children with tenderness, and not merely a declaimer who uses emphasis only as an instrument of rhetoric. Therefore it is much to be wished that there should be no pastors who do not constantly feed their flocks according to the need of each. All that would be needed for that purpose would be to choose for Pastors only priests who have the gift of utterance. Where this is not the case, two evils follow: the one that there are Pastors who preach with little ability or who do not preach at all; and these are little esteemed: the other that the function of preacher when voluntarily assumed draws into it I know not how many vain and ambitious minds. You know that the ministry of the Word was for many ages reserved to Bishops, especially in the West. You remember the example of S. A ugusttne, who, contrary to the common rule, was induced to preach while he was only a priest, because his predecessor Valerius was a foreigner who did not preach fluently: this was the commencement of that custom in the West. In the East priests were authorised to preach much sooner. The sermons which S. Chrysostom delivered at Antioch, although only as yet a priest, are a sign of this.

C: I am like you of that opinion. It would be desirable that only Pastors should, as a rule, be allowed to preach; that would be the means of restoring to the pulpit the simplicity and authority which it ought to have: because Pastors who added to their experience of duty, and of the guidance of souls, the knowledge of the Scriptures, would speak in a manner much more suitable to the needs of their hearers; instead of which, preachers who have only theory to go upon, do not suit themselves at all to the minds of their hearers, enter very little into their difficulties, and speak in a more vague and general manner. Not to mention the special weight attached to the voice of a Pastor, these are strong reasons for preferring their sermons to those of others. What is the advantage of having so many young preachers without experience, without knowledge, without sanctity? It would be much better to have fewer sermons and to have them better.

B: But there are many preachers who are not Pastors, and who preach with excellent results. How many Religious even there are who occupy pulpits must worthily!

C: Yes, that is very true, but I would make them Pastors. Those are the very people whom it would be desirable to put, even against their will, into posts where they would have the charge of souls. Were there not in former times sought for among the solitaries, those men who were fit to be set in the Sees of the Church?

A: It does not belong to us to adjust matters of discipline: each period has its customs adapted to its own needs. Let us respect for our part all the tolerances of the Church; and without indulging a spirit of criticism let us go on to complete our view of a true preacher.

C: It seems to me, as far as the subjects which you have already mentioned are concerned, it is already complete.

A: Let us hear then, what is your idea of it.

C: I should desire that a man should have devoted himself, during his youth, to the serious study of all that might be of service to him in the Greek and Latin poetry and eloquence.

A: That is not necessary. It is true that when those studies are seriously pursued, they are of great advantage even for the understanding of the Scriptures, as S. Basil has shown in a treatise which he has written expressly on that subject.¹⁰ But after all it may be passed over; and in the earlier ages of the Church they were in fact altogether omitted. Those who had studied these subjects when they were in the world have drawn from them great advantages for religion when they afterwards became Pastors. But it was not permitted to those who were ignorant of them to acquire them when they were already engaged in the study of sacred literature.¹¹ There was a per suasion that the Scripture was sufficient; and on that account it is that you see in the "Apostolical Constitutions" an exhortation to the faithful not to read heathen authors at all. The book we have already quoted (B. i. c. 6) says: "If you wish for history, for legislation, for moral precepts, for eloquence, for poetry, you will find them all in the Scriptures" In fact, there is no need, as we have already seen, to seek elsewhere for help in forming the taste and the judgment, even for the attainment of eloquence. S. Augustine (B. iv. n. 8) says that the smaller is a man's own store of knowledge the more he ought to enrich it from the sacred oracles; and that, being himself so humble a person to expound such great subjects, he needs to grow fitter by this authority of Scripture. But excuse me for having interrupted you, and please to continue.

C: Well, let us suppose that we content ourselves with the study of Scripture; but will you not add that of the Fathers?

A: Doubtless, they are the channels (canaux) of tradition; it is through their writings we learn the manner in which the Church has interpreted the Scriptures in all ages.

C: But is a person necessarily obliged always to expound every passage according to the interpreta tions which they have given of it? It seems to me that frequently one of them gives a spiritual sense, and another a sense entirely different. Which is to be chosen? For if they are all to be stated he will never have done.

A: When it is said that the Scripture must always be expounded in conformity to the doctrine of the Fathers, what is referred to is their constant and uniform doctrine. They often give "pious meanings" which are not literal, nor founded on the doctrine of prophetical forecasts, or the mysteries of the Faith. They are, in fact, arbitrary; and therefore there is no obligation to follow them, since in these points they do not follow each other. But in those passages in which they express the sentiment of the Church on some doctrine of the Faith, or on the principles of conduct, it is not permissible to explain the Scripture in a sense contrary to their doctrine. That is how their authority is to be recognized.

C: That seems to me very clear. I should wish that a priest, before he comes to preach, should be thoroughly acquainted with their doctrine, in order to conform himself to it; and farther, that he should even study their principles of conduct, their rules of discipline, and their method of instruction.

A: Undoubtedly: they are our masters. They were men of lofty minds, great souls full of heroic sentiments, persons who had a marvellous experience of the minds and characters of men, who had acquired great authority, and great power of utterance. It is even evident that they had considerable culture; that is to say, they were perfectly instructed in all the proprieties, whether of correspondence or of public speaking, of private life, or of the performance of civil functions. Doubtless, all that training must have rendered them extremely eloquent, and very well fitted to persuade others. And their writings display a degree of politeness, not only of words, but of character and sentiments, which is not found at all in writers of the following ages. That politeness, which agrees perfectly with plainness and simplicity of disposition, and which rendered them acceptable and winning, had important consequences for the good of religion. That is a quality in them which cannot be too much studied. In them, after the Scriptures, will be found the pure sources of good sermons.

C: When a man shall have acquired that foundation of knowledge, and shall have edified the Church by an example of virtues, he will be in a condition to expound the Gospel with much authority and with good results. He will also have been suitably exercised (it is very important to add) by the delivery of familiar instructions and Conferences, and will thus have gained a certain facility and freedom of utterance, sufficient to enable him to speak effectively. Again, I understand that such persons, being occupied in every detail of the ministry, in the administration of Sacraments, the guidance of souls, the visiting of the sick and dying, really have not time carefully to prepare sermons and commit them to memory. It is out of the abundance of the heart, in their case, that the mouth ought to speak; that is, it should impart unto the people that knowledge of the Gospel which the preacher possesses, and make them conscious of that affectionate solicitude for his hearers, which his heart feels.¹² On the question, which you touched upon yesterday, of learning sermons by heart, I have had the curiosity to look out a passage of S. Augustine, which I had formerly read: and this is the sense of it. He lays down that preachers disposition, while the real thing which a man should seek to do should be to produce positive virtues. But veneration does not produce these; and therefore it is not, when the soul moves in complex ways, fitted to be the master. It cannot drive the soul when its different faculties are all abroad, and are variously engaged. It takes another charioteer. So neither can you centre the character round about ideality — the artist feeling — the taste feeling — the sense of beauty and propriety. At certain stages of civilisation men naturally make that pre-eminent, and, as I have said, it may become a powerful auxiliary to the spiritual emotions, to a much larger extent than it is; but as a master-centre, as a sovereign in the soul, it is feeble. As a restrainer, as a harmoniser, as a guide and governor, it is a power indeed. And that which is true of beauty is just as true of conscience. Gentlemen, we hear a great deal said about conscience; we hear a great deal said about the lack of conscience; and I believe that the foundations of character ought to be laid on conscience, just as the parlour and nursery ought to be laid on oak sills; but I should as soon think of bringing up my children on planks and timbers in the parlour and nursery, laying their bare limbs down on these hard timbers and planks, as to attempt to make a rich, sweet, lovely, and lustrous character simply on conscience, which is, in its essential nature, cold, hard, condemnatory, and which comes into alliance with the malign passions much more naturally than with the benign elements. Its chemical affinities are with the bottom, and not often with the top. At any rate they have by practice and habit been made to ally themselves very much with the lower qualities of the mind. The soul will not own conscience as its master. Neither will fear or superstition do to be made the centre about which to harmonise all the faculties of a man's soul. There is but one real centre — Love."

— BEECHER: Lectures, p. 215.

"A sermon that has more head infused into it than heart will not come home with efficacy to the hearers. You must do so and so; ought to speak more clearly and forcibly than other people; because as custom and respect do not permit them to be questioned, they ought to be constantly on their guard against not sufficiently adapting themselves to the needs of their hearers.¹³ " That is why," he says, " those who learn their sermons word for word, so that they are unable to repeat and still further explain a particular truth until they can see that it is understood, deprive themselves of a great advantage." That clearly shows you that S. Augustine thought it sufficient to prepare the matter of his subject in his mind, without burdening his memory with all the words of his sermons. Even although the rules of true eloquence should require something more than this, those of the ministry of the Gospel would not permit us to go farther. As for me, I have long been of your opinion upon this matter. While Christianity has so many pressing wants: while the priest, who ought to be a man of God prepared for every good work, ought to be hastening to root up ignorant scandals from the field of the Church; I regard it as being altogether unworthy of him to pass his life in his study, engaged in rounding his periods, in retouching his descriptions, in settling his divisions. For from the time that he joins the ranks of that class of preacher he will have time for no other employment, for no other labours or study: his occupation and his pleasure it frequently is to deliver repeatedly the same sermons. When the hearer knows beforehand every phrase and every appeal of a discourse, what room is there for eloquence? How can there be any possibility of surprising, of awing, of softening, of taking hold of, and finally, of persuading men? That is, indeed, a strange way of concealing art and allowing nature to speak. For my part, I say frankly, I am scandalized by all this. What! shall the steward of the mysteries of God sink into a slothful declaimer, jealous of his reputation, desirous of a vain pomp of words? Shall he not venture to speak to his people of their God, without having all his words set ready for him in order, and his lesson learned by heart like a boy at school?

A: Your zeal delights me: and what you say is very true. We must not, however, speak too strongly: there must be consideration shown for many persons of merit and even of piety, who, deferring to custom, are led by example to practise in good faith the method which you rightly blame. But I am ashamed to interrupt you so often. Pray continue.

C: I would have a preacher expound the entire circle of religious truths, state them in a plain and striking manner, point out the original institution of doctrines and practices, the succession of facts, and the handing on of tradition, so that in thus declaring the origin and ground of religion, he may destroy the objections of unbelievers without openly attempting to attack them, and thus, perhaps, scandalizing the uncultured among the faithful.

A: You are quite right; because the proper way to prove the truth of religion is to state it clearly. It manifests its own truth when the idea of it is rightly given. All other proofs, not being drawn from the nature and the circumstances of religion itself, are foreign to it. For example, the best proof of the Creation of the world, the Deluge, and the miracles of Moses, is the nature of those miracles, and the simple and impartial manner in which the history of them is written. A man who is wise and unprejudiced need only read them in order to feel that they are true.

C . I should wish, also, that a preacher should explain industriously and in order to the people every detail of the Gospel and the mysteries of the Faith; the origin and the institution of the Sacra ments; the traditions, the discipline, the service and the ceremonies of the Church. Thus the faithful will be forearmed against objections. This will put them in a condition to render a reason for their belief, and will even produce an effect upon those among heretics who are not obstinate. All these instructions will strengthen faith, will give a high idea of religion, and enable the people to profit and gain edification by all that they see in the Church. Instead of this, with the superficial instruction which is given to them, they comprehend scarcely anything at all of what they see, and have only a very confused idea of what a preacher means by what he says to them. The giving of these courses of instruction is the principal reason why I would have preaching left to persons settled in each parish, such as Pastors. I have often remarked that there is no art or science in the world which is not taught by its professors in regular order, according to a fixed method and upon settled principles: it is only religion which is not thus taught to the faithful. A little dry catechism is given to them in childhood, which they learn by heart without understanding the meaning of it; and after that they have no farther instruction whatever, except vague and unconnected sermons. I should wish, as you have said so often, that the first elements of their religion should be taught to Christians, and that they should thus be led in due order up to the highest mysteries.

A: That is exactly what was done in earlier ages. The commencement was made by catechizing, after which Pastors were accustomed to teach the Gospel in regular order¹⁴ by means of Homilies. That course made Christians who were well instructed in the whole Word of God. You know the book of S. Augustine, de Catechizandts Rudibus. You know also the Pcedagogue of S. Clement, which is a work written for the instruction of heathens, whom he had converted in the principles of Christian philosophy. The ablest men were employed in giving those instructions, and they produced mar vellous results, such as we should now consider almost beyond belief.

C: Finally, I should wish that the preacher, whoever he might be, should deliver his sermons in such a way that they would not be painful efforts to him, and that thus he would be able to preach frequently. It would be desirable that all his sermons should be short, so that he might preach every Sunday after the Gospel without incon veniencing himself, and without wearying the people.¹⁵ Apparently those ancient Bishops, though they were advanced in age, and burdened with so many labours, did not make as much difficulty as do our preachers in speaking to the people in the course of the Eucharistic Service which they were in the habit of celebrating solemnly themselves every Sunday. Nowaday, in order that a preacher may have done his duty, it seems to be thought that, when he comes from the pulpit, he should be bathed in perspiration, out of breath, and incapable of doing anything for the remainder of the day. The chasuble, which was not then cut away at the shoulders as at present, but which hung down around them equally on all sides, apparently pre vented them from gesticulating as much with their arms as our preachers do. Thus their sermons were short, and their gestures grave and moderate. Is not all that, sir, according to your principles? Is not that the very idea of sermons that you give us?

A: It is not mine; it is that of antiquity. The more I examine into the details of it the more I find that that ancient method of preaching was the more perfect. The men who elaborated its rules with such care, were great men; and not only of distinguished holiness, but thoroughly well acquainted with the truths of religion and the way of bringing these home to the heart and belief of men: there is wonderful wisdom hidden under their air of simplicity. We should not do well to imagine that any better method has been discovered since you, sir, have explained all that perfectly well, and have left me nothing to add: you have, in fact, developed my thought better than I could have done myself.

B: You estimate very highly the sermons and the eloquence of the Fathers.

A: I do not think I have said too much in praise of them.

B: I am surprised to see that, after having been so severe upon secular orators who have mixed jeux d' esprit with their speeches, you are so indulgent to the Fathers, who are full of plays upon words, antitheses and epigrams, quite contrary to all your rules. Pray reconcile these utterances of yours. For example, what do you think of the style of Tertullian?

A: There are very excellent sentiments in that writer: the elevation of his thought is often admirable: and it is proper to read him for the sake of historical facts, of certain principles of tradition, and for information respecting the discipline of his time. But as to his style, I do not care to defend it: he has many obscure, and even false thoughts, many harsh and entangled metaphors. But that which is faulty in him is just what the majority of readers most seek out. Many preachers are spoiled by the study of his works: they study them just because they want to say something startling. They are dazzled by the style of Tertullian, which indeed is extraordinary, and full of pomp and splen dour. They ought especially to avoid imitating his style or his conceits of thought: but they may draw from his works grand ideas and considerable knowledge of antiquity.

B: And S. Cyprian: what do you say of him? Is he not very inflated and pompous?

A: He is so, no doubt: it is not possible to be altogether different to the fashion of one's country and one's time. But although his style and diction partake both of the inflation of his period and of African harshness, he has, nevertheless, much power and eloquence: a great and eloquent soul is every where visible in his writings, and he expresses his sentiments in a noble and touching manner. In some passages are to be found ornaments not in good taste; as for example in the Epistle to Donatus, which S. Augustine, nevertheless, cites¹⁶ as an epistle full of eloquence. That Father says that God has permitted those passages of tinsel eloquence to have escaped S. Cyprian, in order to teach posterity how greatly Christian severity has subdued in the other works of that orator the tendency to use superfluous ornament, and has brought his style within the limits of a graver and more modest eloquence. It is, says S. Augustine, that last characteristic which is marked in all the letters of S. Cyprian which follow, which may be admired without hesitation, and sought for as being in accordance with the severest rules of religion, but which cannot be equalled without much difficulty. In the main, the Epistle of S. Cyprian to Donatus, though too much ornamented, even in the judgment of S. Augustine, merits to be called eloquent: because, although you may find in it, as he says, too many flowers strewn about, you may see, nevertheless, that the bulk of the Epistle is most serious and forcible, and excellently fitted to give a high idea of Christianity to a heathen whom he desired to convert. In those passages in which S. Cyprian expresses himself with animation and earnestness, he lays down altogether those prettinesses, and takes a vehement and lofty tone.

B: But again, S. Augustine, whom you mention, is he not the very writer of all most addicted to plays upon words? Do you defend him, too?

A: I do not defend him at all in this respect. It was the fault of his time, to which his keen and acute mind rendered him more than usually prone. That shows that S. Augustine was not a perfect orator; but even with this defect, it cannot be denied that he has great power of persuasion. He is a man who reasons with singular force, who is full of noble ideas, who knows the human heart deeply and completely, who has a polished style, and is careful to observe the most exact decorum in all his discourses; and finally, who expresses himself almost invariably in a tender, loving, and winning manner. Does not such a man deserve to be forgiven for the defect which we perceive in him?

C: It is true that in him alone have I ever found one quality, that of pathos; even although he does make puns. Nothing is more filled with pathos than his Confessions and his Soliloquies. It must be confessed that they are full of tenderness, and suited to touch the feelings of the reader.

A: He corrects his tendency to play upon words, as far as that is possible, by the simplicity and directness of his transitions, and his appeals to the affections. All his works are marked unmistakably with the love of God: not only did he feel it, but he knew how to express in a marvellous way to others the feelings which he had respecting it. There he shows the tenderness which is a part of eloquence. Besides, we see that S. Augustine knew perfectly well the true rules for the preacher. He says that a discourse, in order to be persuasive, ought to be simple and natural; that art ought to be concealed; and that an excess of embellishment causes distrust in the hearer. He applies to the subject those words which you know: He is hateful who speaks deceivingly¹⁷ He treats also, with considerable knowledge, the arrangement of subjects, the mixture of various styles, the means by which a discourse may be made to grow in a natural way, the necessity to be simple and familiar, even in the tones of the voice, as well as to use gesture at certain passages, although when speaking on a religious subject every word and gesture should be dignified: and finally, in what manner to arouse surprise and sympathy. Such are the ideas of S. Augustine respecting eloquence. But if you wish to see how completely he possessed in practice the art of putting himself in sympathy with his hearers, and of arousing their feelings, which is the true end of rhetoric, read what he himself relates respecting a discourse which he delivered to the people at Caesarea in Mauritania, in order to abolish a barbarous practice which obtained there. It concerned an ancient custom, of which it is sufficient to say that it had been pushed to the point of monstrous cruelty. It amounted to taking away from an entire population a spectacle which delighted them: judge for yourself what was the difficulty of the enterprise. S. Augustine says that after he had spoken for some time, his hearers uttered cries of applause; but as long as they amused themselves with applauding him, he considered that he had not succeeded in persuading them. So that he held as of no account the pleasure and admiration of the hearers; and he only began to hope for success when he saw tears running down their cheeks. In the end, he adds, the people abandoned that spectacle, and for the last eight years it has not been renewed. Was not that a true orator? Have we any preachers at the present time who could do as much? S. Jerome, again, has his faults of style; but his expressions are masculine and noble. He has little regularity; but he is much more eloquent than most of those who pique themselves on being so. To examine the works of the Fathers, only with respect to their language and their style, would be to judge like a petty grammarian. You know well that eloquence must not be confounded with elegance and purity of diction. S. Ambrose also follows, sometimes, the fashion of his time: he gives to his discourse the ornaments which were then held in estimation. It may very well have been the case, perhaps, that those great men, who had views elevated above the common rules of oratory, adapted themselves to the taste of the time, in order that the Word of God might be listened to with pleasure; and in order to make for the truths of religion an entrance into hearts. But after all, do we not see S. Ambrose, notwithstanding some plays upon words, writing, to Theodoshis with inimitable force and persuasive power? With what tenderness does he not speak of the death of his brother Satyrus? Or we have even in the Roman Breviary a discourse from him on the head of S. John*, whom Herod respected and feared even after his death; bear it in memory, you will find the end of it sublime. S. Leo is somewhat stilted, but yet grand. Pope S. Gregory lived in an age of still worse taste; yet he has written many discourses, with much strength and dignity. It is needful to know how to distinguish in the writings of those great men, as in all other writers of their times, what is due to the bad influence of the age, from that which is to be credited to their own views, and the power of their own genius, which enabled them to influence their hearers.

C: But then, according to your view, eloquence was entirely degraded and vitiated during those ages which were so happy for religion.

A: No doubt that was the case. Soon after the Empire of Augustus, the art of eloquence and even the Latin language began, and continued to decay. The Fathers did not appear until that doctrine had begun: hence they must not be taken as faultless models in every respect; and it must even be coitfessed that the greater number of the sermons

• De Virginibus. B. iii. c. 6. Probably the De'.ollatio S. Joannis B., August 29. which were from them, are by no means their greatest works. When I was proving to you just now, by the testimony of the Fathers, that the Scripture is full of eloquence, I reflected in my own mind that they were witnesses whose own eloquence is very inferior to that which you would not believe in, except from their opinion. There are people of so depraved a taste that they are unable to feel the beauty of the prophecies of Isaiah, but who will admire S. Peter Chrysologus, in whom, notwithstanding the fine name which has been given to him, the essential qualities of Evangelical piety have to be looked for, and may be found, but under an infinity of literary faults. In the East a better style of speech and language was longer main tained, and the Greek language was preserved almost in its purity. There S. Chrysostom spoke it excellently: his style as you know is diffuse, but he never seeks for tawdry ornaments, and he bends all his endeavours to influence and to persuade; he arranges each subject with thought and judgment; he is well acquainted with Holy Scripture and with human character; he finds his way to the feelings he describes vividly and with power; he has just and lofty thoughts, nor is he without animation; take him for all in all, he may be called a great orator. S. Gregory Nazianzen is more concise and more poetical, but not sufficiently careful to persuade; he has, nevertheless, some very touching passages; for example, his, farewell to Constantinople and funeral oration for S. Basil. This latter Father, again, is grave, sententious, and severe even in his diction. He had meditated deeply upon the Scripture; he was well-skilled in all human faults and errors, and of the guidance of souls he is a great master. You could hardly find anything more eloquent than his Epistle to a Virgin who had fallen; in my judgment, it is a masterpiece. Unless a correct taste is brought to the consideration of these subjects, there is a danger of choosing that which is less excellent in the Fathers, and of filling the sermons which we compose, not with their excellences, but with their faults.

C: How long did that false eloquence last, which you speak of as succeeding to the good?

A.: Down to our own time.

C: Do you mean, to this very age?

A: Yes, to this very age; nor are we so far extricated from it as we suppose. You will under stand the reason for this in a moment. The barbarous nations, who overspread the Roman Empire, brought everywhere ignorance and bad taste. We descend from them: and although literature began in the fifteenth century to revive, that revival has been slow. The return to the right path has been a difficult task; and there are still a great many people who do not even know what a correct taste requires. We must not cease to respect the Fathers; and not only them, but also those pious authors who have written during that long interval which separates us from them; we learn from them the tradition of the age in which they lived, and much else that is exceedingly useful and instructive. I am quite ashamed to speak in this dogmatic way; but it is, gentlemen, at your request; and please remember that I am quite ready to withdraw what I have said, if I am shown to be wrong. It is time to bring this conversation to a close.

C: But we cannot release you until you have given us your views on the manner of choosing a text.

A.: You quite understand that the taking of texts comes from this fact: that Pastors never in earlier days, preached to the people their own personal views: they only expounded the words of the Scripture. Little by little the custom grew up of no longer following the course of the words of Scripture; only a single passage was expounded, and that was called the text of the sermon. If then an exact exposition is not made of every part of the Gospel, it is at least needful to choose words which contain the truths most important and best fitted to the needs of the people. Then they should be well explained; and in general, in order that the sense of a passage may be made quite clear, it is needful to explain many others which precede or which follow it; nor should any particularly recondite sense be sought for. With what bad grace does a man desire to show himself inventive and ingenious, when he ought to. speak with all gravity, and with reverent regard to the authority of the Holy Spirit, whose words he borrows!

C: I confess that forced texts are always displeasing to me. Have you not remarked that a preacher draws from a text any sentiment that he pleases? He twists insensibly the subject matter, in order to fit his text to a sermon which he has to deliver. This is done especially in sermons for Lent. It is a practice I cannot approve.

C: Pray do not finish, without giving me your views on a question which has troubled me much; and after that I will not detain you.

A: Very good: let me hear what you wish. I shall be glad to do it if I can, for I greatly desire that you should employ your unquestioned ability in composing simple and persuasive sermons.

B: You wish that a preacher should expound the Scriptures consecutively, in a literal manner, according to their obvious meaning.

A: Yes; that would be most desirable.

B: How then do you account for the Fathers having done otherwise? It seems to me that their tendency is always towards spiritual senses of Scripture. See S. Augustine, S. Gregory, S. Bernard.¹⁸ They find a mystical sense in everything, and the literal sense they do not expound at all.

A: The Jews of the time of Jesus Christ' were much given to mystical and allegorical senses. It appears that the Therapeutse, who were found principally at Alexandria, and whom Philo des cribes as Jewish philosophers, but whom Eusebius asserts to have been among the first Christians, were much addicted to these expositions of Scripture. It was in the same city of Alexandria that allegorical senses of Scripture began to have some currency among Christians. The first of the Fathers who diverged from the literal sense was Origen: you know the sensation that he made in the Church. At first piety inspired these interpretations; there was something in them which was found to be at once ingenious, agreeable and edifying. Most of the Fathers, following the taste of the peoples of their time, as well as apparently, their own, made much use of them; but they always went back faithfully to the literal sense, or to the prophetical, which is literal in its especial manner, on all subjects in 1 70 PULPJT ELOQUENCE.

which there was a question of setting forth the foundations of doctrine. When the people had been perfectly instructed in that which it was needful they should learn from the letter of Scripture, then the Fathers gave them these mystical senses to edify and to console them. These interpretations were strongly to the taste of the people, especially in the East, where they began; since they are naturally fond of mysterious and allegorical language. That variety of senses gives them extreme pleasure, as is shown by the frequent sermons and almost continuous readings from the Scriptures, which were customary in that part of the Church. But among us, where Christian people are infinitely less instructed, it is needful to give what is most necessary to them, and to commence with the literal sense, without being at all wanting in respect for those pious interpretations which have been given by the Fathers: it is needful to have bread before going to seek for ragouts. With regard to the exposition of Scripture, we cannot do better than copy the sound judgment of S. Chrysostom. Most preachers in our. time seek for allegorical senses, not at all because they have already sufficiently explained the literal, but to the entire exclusion of the literal, because they do not understand the greatness of it, and because they find it dry and sterile when treated in the manner in which they preach. Every part of truth and every prescription of morals is to be found in the letter of Holy Scripture; and that, not only with authority and marvellous beauty, but also with inexhaustible abundance; by associating himself with these, a preacher will have always a great number of new and great truths to bring forward, and that without recourse to mystical interpretations. It is a deplorable evil that this treasure should be so neglected, as we see it is, even by those who have it every day in their hands. If that cincient method of making homilies were adopted, there would be two classes of preachers. The one class, having neither vivacity nor poetical power would explain the Scripture simply, without adopting any specially animated or noble style. Provided that they did this in a solid and satisfactory manner, they would not fail to be excellent preachers. They would have what S. Ambrose asks for: a clear and simple style, full of weight and gravity, without affecting elegance, though not despising sweetness and acceptableness. The other class, being endowed with poetical genius, would explain the Scripture with the style and the metaphors of the Scripture itself, and thus they would become finished preachers. The one class would instruct in an effective and dignified manner; the others would add to the power of their teaching the simplicity, enthusiasm and vehemence of the Scripture: so that it will be, so to speak, entire and living in them, as much as it is possible to be in men who have not been miraculously inspired from on high. i*.-:iB': Still, one moment; I. forgot one important detail; but I will ask only one word of you.

! A: Is there still someone else to be blamed?

B: Yes, the panegyrists. Do you not think that when the eulogy of a Saint is to be made, it is proper to depict his character, and to draw out the one special excellence of his actions and virtues?

A: That would seem as though it were chiefly intended to show the acuteness and wealth of fancy of the orator.

B: I understand you do not like that method.

A: It appears to me a false one for most of the subjects to which it may be applied. It is to do violence to facts, to try to force them all into illustrations of a single quality. There are a great number of actions in a man's life which come from various principles, and are signs of qualities very different. It is a sign of scholastic subtlety, and shows an orator who is very far from knowing human nature well, to wish to refer all actions to a single cause. The true means of making a portrait which shall be really a likeness is to depict the complete man: to put him before the eyes of the hearers, as he spoke and as he laboured. In recounting the course of his life, it is quite right to bring into the foreground those parts of it in which his natural virtues, as the graces bestowed upon him, more manifestly appear; yet something must be left for the mind and imagination of the hearer to fix upon. The best means of praising a Saint is to relate his praiseworthy actions. It is this which bestows solidity and strength to a eulogy; which instructs and impresses the hearer. Often . the hearers depart without having after all a distinct idea of the life of a Saint, though they have been hearing about him for an hour: at the most, they have understood some few reflections on a small number of detached facts referred to without order. A preacher ought, on the contrary, to describe the Saint as he really existed; to show him as he was at every age, in -all the conditions of his life, and at the principal conjunctures through which he passed. That would not at all prevent remarks upon his character: which would, in fact, be much better displayed by his actions and his words, tlrnn by fancy sketches and remarks.

B: You would then' have the history of the Saint's life told, rather than a panegyric made upon him.

A: Pardon me, I would not make merely a simple narrative. I should content myself with making a tissue of the principal facts: but I should like that to be a concise, energetic, vigorous recital, vivid and full of animation; each word giving a lofty idea of the Saints, and serving as an exhortation to the hearer. To that I would add all such moral reflections as I thought most suitable. Do you not think that a discourse thus delivered would have a noble and attractive simplicity? Do you not think that the lives of Saints would thus be made better known, and the people more edified? Do you not even think, that according to the rules of eloquence which we have laid down, such a discourse would be more eloquent than all the high-flown panegyrics which one usually hears?

B: I quite see now that those sermons would be not less instructive, less touching, nor less agreeable than others. That is enough, sir; and I am quite satisfied. I feel that I ought not to detain you longer. As for me, I hope that your trouble will not be thrown away, for I am resolved to abandon the use of all the modern collections of "Extracts," and of all the Italian Pensieri. I mean to begin at once the study of the principles of our religion at ' first hand,5 and in their sources.

C: Adieu, sir; and by way of thanks, let me assure you that I cordially agree with what you have said.

A: Adieu, gentlemen: let me take leave of you with these words of S. Jerome to Nepatian (Ep. xxxiv.): u When you shall teach in the Church, seek neither to arouse the applauses nor the groans of the people. Let the tears of your hearers be your praises. The sermon of a Priest should be full of the Holy Scripture. Do not be a mere declaimer, but a true teacher of the Mysteries of God."

Footnotes

1. " My firm belief is that, if you could constrain, I will not say a congregation of rustics, but of the great middle class, or even of the aristocracy, to go through an elementary examination in the most important subjects which can engage the human intellect, the result would be beyond measure startling. I am not speaking lightly when I affirm that few could explain in an intelligent manner why they are Christians, and still fewer why they are Church-people. Of the four Gospels they might manifest some floating and confused knowledge, but most of the books of the Bible would be found to be, for all rational purposes, undiscovered tracts of territory as the wilds of Central Africa. The slightest acquaintance with Church History, Church Biography, Church Literature, or Church Ritual, would be discovered to be exceptional." — TWELLS: Colloquies, p. 61. •'Never be afraid of making your explanations of any truth, or fact, or duty, too simple and elementary. One of the most charming popular preachers and speakers that I ever knew, said to me once, that he always took it for granted, that the people knew nothing about the subject on which he was speaking to them. . . . The thoughts of ordinary men on most things not connected with their own profession are very indefinite. Large numbers of persons, who have been accustomed to read the Bible and to listen to preaching all their lives, have the loosest possible acquaintance with the details of biblical history, and their conceptions of doctrinal truth are extremely vague. They are grateful to any man who will make their knowledge of the external facts of Holy Scripture definite, and who will give sharpness and firmness to the outlines of their conceptions of truth." — DALE: Lectures p. 148. ↩

2. De Doct. Christ. B. iv. et seq. f Ibid. Amos vi. I. ↩

3. This rule, however, is diametrically opposed to a great mass of modern opinion. Thus a character introduced in a work already quoted, as a representative of keen men of the world, is made to say: "My notion is that sermons should always be on topics of the day. We are not living in the time of the patriarchs, nor yet of the prophets; no, nor even of the early Christians. We are living in this reckless, rushing, helter-skelter nineteenth century, and our parsons should select their subjects accordingly. If they caught up the events of the past week, and gave them a sort of moral or religious turn, they would scarcely have the listless audiences that confront them now." — TVVELLS: Colloquies, p. 46. ↩

4. "Our method of preaching is not that by which Christianity was propagated; yet the genius of Christianity is not changed. There was nothing in the primitive method set or formal. The primitive bishop stood up and read the Gospel, or some other portion of Scripture, and pressed on the hearers, with great earnestness and affection, a few plain and forcible truths evidently resulting from that portion of the Divine Word; we take a text and make an oration. Edification was then the object of both speaker and hearers; and while this continues to be the object, no better method can be found. A parable or history, or passage of Scripture, thus illustrated and enforced, is the best method of introducing truth to any people who are ignorant of it, and of setting it home with power on those who know it, and not formal, doctrinal, argumentative discourses. Truth and sympathy are the soul of an efficacious ministry. ... A primitive bishop -would have been shocked with one of our sermons; and such is our taste, we should be shocked with his. They brought forward Scripture, we bring forward our statements. They directed all their observations to throw light on Scripture, we quote Scripture to throw light on our observations. More faith and more grace would make us better preachers, for ' out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.' Chrysostom's was the right method. Leighton's ' Lectures on Peter ' approach very near to this method."— REV. RICHARD CECIL: Remains, p. 180. ↩

5. "It sometimes happens that particular doctrines are unpopular at particular periods, or in particular places. There is scarcely any great truth that has not occasionally suffered in this way. The depravity of human nature, justification by faith, the claims of an outward and visible Church of Christ, the resurrection of the body, the efficacy of holy baptism, the laying on of hands both at confirmation and ordination, the preciousness of the blessed Eucharist, all these and others have in turn been under a cloud, and may be again: but whatever articles of faith the preacher believes to be articles of faith, not mere human traditions or private idiosyncrasies, these he must teach to his congregation, as opportunity offers, whether they will bear, or whether they will forbear." — TWELLS: Colloquies^. 141. "To evade dogma, then, or to hold it of little account, is a defect in the preacher, who is never, or hardly ever, successful, except he be dogmatic. The moral essayist in the pulpit is common enough now-adays; he is often a literary artist, and attracts many people by his grace of diction and richness of ideas. He never shocks or frightens them, for his real gospel is that of modern culture. So it was with Menander and the genteel comedy of the Greeks, when the stage had given up all idea of reforming mankind, and confined itself to pictures of human life. There are great lessons to be gained by such portraiture, and by the graceful but forcible exposure of the weakness and folly of men. But this is not preaching, and will not preserve for the preacher the great vantage ground he once possessed as the leader of earnest men." — MAHAFFY, J. P.: An Essay on the Decay of Modern Preaching, p. 118. ↩

6. See Notes i and 2. ↩

7. "Some one said that Gibbon's style was a style in which it was impossible to speak the truth." — DALE: Lectures, p. 177. Above all, it is the story of the earthly life, the death, the Resurrection, and the Ascension"into Heaven of Our Lord Jesus Christ — God manifest in the flesh." — R. W. DALE: Lectures on Preaching, p. 50. ↩

8. "Read such books as will assist you to a complete mastery of the language in which you preach. No man has a right to set himself up as a public teacher, or to allow others to do it, without being master of some vehicle of expression; or, at least striving earnestly for the mastery. The free school, the public library, an educated pulpit, the masterpieces of the ages reduced to a minimum of cost, have rendered life-long sins against grammar and rhetoric inexcusable. The preacher cannot afford to have his language blue-pencilled by nursery fledgelings. The barber who drops his razor, the artist who steps on his pallet and stumbles over his easel, and the sculptor who is reckless with his chisels are fit companions for the preacher who is a tyro in pulpit letters." — REV. J. M. DRIVER. ↩

9. By way of contrast, take the following contemporary view of preaching. It is manifest how far the sentiment differs from that in the text: "In our day preaching must be full of humanity. That is to say, the truths presented must stand in vital relation to the life we are living. There have been periods when men had their being in the realm of the abstract and the controversial; when they were interested in doctrine for the sake of the doctrines. For better or worse, the world has moved on, and if it listens patiently to the exposition of biblical doctrine, it is for the sake of its practical bearings. The surest way, therefore, for any man to discredit his ministry, is to manifest a tendency to special pleading, to revel in the domain of the abstract." — E. G. SELDEN. ↩

10. On the Reading of the Works of Heathen Writers. — Horn. 24. ↩

11. S. Augustine de Doct. Christ. B. ii. n. 58. ↩

12. "The fruit of the Spirit is not negative, but positive. It is zeal in love; it is humility; it is mind-influence; it is disinterestedness; it is activity in doing good. As you rise from the animal towards the higher forms of men, the natures that are developed must be positive, not negative. A man may have a garden with not a single bit of purslane in it from one end to the other; with not a single Canada thistle in it; with not a pig- weed in it. A man may have a garden without one bad thing in it — and without a good thing in it either, not a flower nor a fruit. Now, to get your weeds out of the way is all right; but the weeds are to be got out in order that the ground may be occupied by positive blossoms and fruit. Not doing wrong is right; but it is a lower right. It is simply keeping under the weeds, as it were, of a man's such and such advantages will result from doing it.' This is cold, dead, and spiritless, when it stands alone, or even when it is most prominent. Let the preacher's head be stored with wisdom; but above all, let his heart so feel his subject, that he may infuse life and interest into it, by speaking like one who actually possesses and feels what he says." — CECIL: Remains, p. 209. ↩

13. "Preaching, to-day, must be crisp in style and compact in thought. No man of our generation can write in his diary of having ' sweetly discoursed for two hours ' in the pulpit. If one should begin such a sermon with a full house, he would find it ingloriously vacated before reaching his 'conclusion.' The stately and elaborate methods of introduction and development indulged in by our ancestors in the ministry would be accounted insufferably tedious, and the verbose 'improvement,' once so effective, would dissipate any wholesome impressions previously created. There must be no appearance of underestimating the value of time; it must be redeemed by an eager pressing on toward the goal sighted from the starting-point of the text. The movement of the preacher must be swift enough at least to keep him always in advance of his quick-witted hearers. If he has anything to say he must say it. Any dawdling with platitudes and commonplaces, any indolent prolixity, any cheap padding of the discourse, will not be tolerated — even by a long-suffering people. The age is too busy for a leisurely dealing even with divine things." — E. G. SELDKN. ↩

14. "You should make a practice of reading the Bible frequently through — the several books of which it is composed successively in their order — a practice which I am convinced you will find advantageous in various ways. A volume of knowledge, an intimacy with your whole subject, will thus gradually accumulate upon you, which will open difficulties, clear up contradictions, account for dark sayings, bring to light hidden truths, in subsequent books, as you approach them in their turn, for which no mere commentator on those books will provide a substitute. And there can be little doubt that the comparatively imperfect knowledge of the Bible history which it may be feared would be found even amongst the regular attendants on our Sunday Services, would be the result of hearing the Scriptures read to them piecemeal; the chapters for the week-day Services not reaching them, and thus the continuity of the whole being disturbed and broken. But by reading the Bible through, you will see the working of God's providence gradually unfolding itself, far more distinctly than anybody can point it out to you— the dawn— the day — the perfect day. . . . You will further be led, by this practice of reading the Scriptures consecutively, to observe the several successive stages of the Gospel, considered as an integral revelation, till it attained the perfectness in which we now enjoy it. Traces of it, though only traces, in the Levitical Law; more of it disclosed in the Psalms; still more in the Prophets, and in Isaiah more especially, from whom alone it would not be difficult to extract every particular of the Gospel scheme (or nearly every particular), now that we know how to look for them." — J. J. BLUNT: Duties of the Parish Priest, pp. 76, 79. ↩

15. "The length of the sermon oftentimes has much to do with its efficiency. That which consumes time and adds nothing to effect should be studiously avoided. Give the best thoughts in the most carefully chosen language. Study brevity. Never weary an audience. To hold a weary audience is to awaken the feeling, ' I'll not go again.' For ordinary preaching thirty or thirty-five minutes of carefully-arranged thought is more effective than more time. A certain mission preacher, after preaching an hour and a half, expressed great surprise because the people were not moved to decision and action. The pastor with whom he was labouring said, 'Make three sermons during the time occupied in preaching this one, and you will make three times as many converts.' Devotion ends when weariness begins." — REV. W. A. BUSHNELL. "The good S. Francis, in his rules to the preachers of his Order, directs that their sermons should be short."Believe me— and I speak from experience — the more you say, the less well the hearers retain; the less you say, the more well they profit. By dint of burdening their memory you will overwhelm it; just as a lamp is extinguished by feeding it with too much oil, and plants are choked by immoderate irrigation. "When a sermon is too long, the end effaces the middle from the memory, and the middle the beginning."— L' ABBE MULLOIS. ↩

16. De Doc. Christ. B. iv. n. 31. ↩

17. De Doct. Christ. B. ii. n. 48. ↩

18. With regard to S. Bernard, his biographer, Mabillon, thus meets the charge: "It may be said, indeed, that Bernard sometimes employs various texts of Scripture in a sense unfounded and far from literal, so that he seems rather to play upon the words quoted than to expound their real sense; but it is easy to reply that, there being in Scripture manifold senses, the holy man believed that he might choose that sense which seemed to him proper to edification, especially when he was not treating of any doctrine of the faith, but only proposed to himself to enlarge upon some pious thought, and thereby to attract the attention and delight of his hearers." — Works, General Preface, Vol. I., p. 23, English Edition. And the principle of the apology applies to all the other Fathers. — Trans. ↩