the same theme, that is to say on two or three doctrines and two or three ideas, you will soon have enough of it.

If some few escape from this injurious result by the sole force of their genius and of an astonishing copiousness, it is none the less evident that a conscientious labor is, and always will be, for the great majority of preachers, the only means of avoiding it. If, then, you are not firmly resolved never to extemporize, save in case of strict necessity, without having studied and meditated, do not begin it at all. If, after having begun, you are agreeably surprised to get along far more easily than you had hoped, mistrust this first success; impress it upon yourself, that the merest ciphers have met with the same, since it is a thing where nothing but boldness is required. "It is with extemporization," says some one, as with the art of swimming; whoever dares to swim, swims; whoever dares to extemporize, extemporizes.” With this difference, however, that the more one swims, the better one swims; while it may happen that the more you extemporize the worse orator you will be.

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A very simple method of forcing yourself never to extemporize without sufficient preparation, is to write your sermons, as if they were to be memorized, and to preach them then, as if they had only been meditated, not written. But in this case, you must not go so far as to half learn them, for then, in spite of your self, you will run after fragments of sentences; you will hesitate and drag; it will be less an extemporization than an ill-learned lesson. This medium, then, is worth nothing; commit the sermon thoroughly, or not at all.

If there be some one idea which you are particularly desirous of expressing well, some argument which you are afraid of weakening, nothing need prevent you from committing that passage in which it is contained; only be careful not to change your tone in passing from extemporization to recitation.

The exordium in particular might be committed. As it is important to make a good beginning, and as, on the other hand, inspiration does not always come at the commencement, you will not repent having taken measures to get over this. At all events, as the exordium requires particular care, it is not sufficient to arrange the principal idea only; it is well also to prepare the principal details.

As to the ideas which are to form the body of the discourse, if you are not sure enough of your memory, not to fear losing the chain of these, you might make a little memorandum of them, which you could place in such a manner as to be able to glance at it without stopping. But do not allow this paper to become a pillow for indolence; neglect nothing that may obviate the necessity of your recurring to it. Besides, the very thought that you have this refuge, will contribute, by giving you more assurance, to make you do without it.

If it be important to determine before-hand how you will commence each of the different divisions, it is no less so to know how you will finish them. Without this, you will run the risk of shortening them, or, what is worse, stretching them out dis proportionately; for an ill-prepared orator is like those people whose visits are interminable, because they do not know how to take leave and go away.

Upon the whole, there is nothing really essential in all this, but the obligation of preparing one's self, of seeking in extemporization a means of preparing better, not of preparing more rapidly. This principle admitted, each preacher can and ought to be judge of the rules, the method of procedure, and the resources which suit him best.

CHAPTER XXI.

THE LIFE, ELOQUENCE AND REUTATION OF BOURDALOUE.-MASSILLON.— ABBE MAURY.-BRIDAINE.

ALTHOUGH We have touched upon many points, historical and others, relating to Bourdaloue, it will still be permitted us to pause a moment in order to take a more general view of his life, reputation and works.

As far as his life is concerned, this is soon accomplished. The date of his birth (1632), that of his death (1704), those of the Lents or Advents when he had the honor to preach before the king, these are all that we learn from biographers concerning him. There are scarcely any of the illustrious men of his time, save La Bruyère, about whom history has been so sparing of details.

And, nevertheless, there was no man in France, not even excepting the king, whose life was more open to view; more public. But, as a preacher, his history is in his sermons; as a confessor, it remained buried in the consciences of which he had the direction. One day, when he had passed his sixtieth year, he suddenly became alarmed at having lived as yet only for others. His hair was growing white; death, from which he had never averted his eyes, began to appear to him more distinctly. And then he wrote to the chief of his order for permission to give up preaching, and to go and hide in the country the remainder of a life, of which De trembled lest he had not yet profited enough for his salvation.

A sublime selfishness, to which his superiors had the wise harshness not to yield. If you have received the gift of sacred eloquence, it is a proof that God would have you remain in the pulpit, and not elsewhere; and if you be really called there by him, there it is, also, and not elsewhere, that you will best work out your own salvation. As to fatigue, do not speak of that. “Have we not all eternity for our repose?" said Arnauld.

As to the reputation of Bourdaloue, whether as orator or writer, -the brilliancy which it has resumed in our days, is one sign of the return of the public taste, and of literature in particular, to solid and serious things. Now, this could not be the case in regard to the reputation of Bourdaloue, without thereby casting more or less reflection on that of Massillon. The latter for a long time had the misfortune, we will not say of being too much praised, but of being too openly preferred to his illustrious rival; in proportion as people were just towards the one, they became severe towards the other. "The greatest glory of Bourdaloue," said D'Alembert, "is that the superiority of Massillon should be still a contested point." Massillon's greatest glory, we would say at the present time, is that he yet has the honor to be put on a footing with Bourdaloue. "Oportet illum crescere, me autem minui," said the Jesuit, when, old, and broken down, he beheld the first successes of the young and brilliant orator; and behold posterity reverses it. It is for you, Massillon, to decrease, and for you, Bourdaloue, to increase.

Not that we approve

Is this as it should be? We think so. of those people who cannot praise one man without undervaluing another; but in this case there is something more reasonable and better founded than the old mania for criticism, or rather the old mechanical necessity of the human heart.

From continually hearing the style of Massillon commended,

"He shall increase, but I shall decrease."-JOHN iii, 20.

considering him as nothing From this cause, his immense

we have contracted the habit of more than an able artificer in style. reputation in the eighteenth century, a period when style was everything; from this also, the loss of this reputation, which could not fail to take place in the nineteenth, when principles have resumed the precedence of form, and thought the precedence of style.

It is scarcely necessary to say, that in expressing this latter fact, we do not intend in the least to plead the cause of the errors by which it may have been accompanied.

It is undoubtedly to be lamented that certain authors, in restoring to thought her empire, have so far disregarded style, as to trample under foot the simplest rules of taste and grammar; but it would also be deplorable if it were insisted upon that they should be judged by their faults alone, and that the good and admirable points of that system whose unskilful apostles they are, should be disregarded and disavowed.

What was it they arrived at, after all? At what do we all aim, at the present time? All, I say; for when an idea is that of the age, sooner or later everybody will adopt it; there will be for awhile some quarrelling about words, but people will agree as to the ideas.

What do we aim at? It is that style should be nothing, independently of thought, and that no one can attempt to make himself a reputation by his style alone;—to live by his style, as was formerly the expression.

Not that style does not possess, and should not always possess an immense value. To-day as yesterday, as in the eighteenth, as in the seventeenth centuries, as at Rome and in Greece, it is the surest guaranty of the duration and glory of a book. But something besides is requisite. The book must also possess another kind of value; we only consent to admire its manner upon condition of being able to admire its matter also.