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PRIMAVERA.

THE spring has passed this way. Look ! where she trod

The daring crocus sprang up through the sod
To greet her coming with glad heedlessness,
Scarce waiting to put on its leafy dress,
But bright and bold in its brave nakedness.
And further on-mark! on this gentle rise
She must have paused, for frail anemones
Are trembling to the wind, couched low among
These fresh green grasses, that so lush have
sprung

O'er the hid runnel, that with tinkling tongue
Babbles its secret troubles. Here she stopped
A longer while, and on this grassy sweep,
While pensively she lingered, see! she dropped
This knot of lovesick violets from her breast,
Which, as she threw them down, she must
have kissed,

For still the fragrance of her breath they keep. And look! here too her floating robes have brushed,

Where suddenly these almond-branches flushed To greet her, and in blossoms burst as she Swept by them-gladsomely and gracefully.

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FORGIVENESS.

O GOD, forgive the years and years
Of worldly pride and hopes and fears;
Forgive, and blot them from thy book,
The sins on which I mourn to look.

Forgive the lack of service done
For thee, thro' life, from life begun ;
Forgive the vain desires to be
All else but that desired by thee.

Forgive the love of human praise,
The first false step in crooked ways,
The choice of evil and the night,
The heart close shut against the light.

Forgive the love that could endure
No cost to bless the sad and poor;
Forgive, and give me grace to see
The life laid down in love for me.

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There are clouds and darkness around God's ways,

And the noon of life grows hot;
And though his faithfulness standeth fast
As the mighty mountains, a shroud is cast
Over the glory, solemn and vast,

Veiling, but changing it not.

Send a sweet breeze from thy sea, O Lord,
From thy deep, deep sea of love;
Though it lift not the veil from the cloudy
height,

Let the brow grow cool and the footstep light,
As it comes with holy and soothing might,
Like the wing of a snowy dove.

FRANCES RIDLEY HAVERGAL.

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From The Contemporary Review. FRENCH PREACHERS.

I.

THE French are the least poetical nation in Europe. They have neither the exuberant idealism of the north, nor the enthusiastic realism of the south. A brave, brilliant race, with a temperament of great contrasts, and an energy all but fatal in its restlessness, they are deficient in at least two qualities, without which there can be no truly great poetry-in earnestness and in repose. And their very language lends itself with difficulty to express the feelings of imagination. It has neither majestic strength nor ravishing sweetness; it is singularly poor in "concord of sweet sounds;" it has no music it does not "sing."

But the gods have not left themselves without a witness. France is the land of rhetoric; the French are a nation of rhetoricians. Rhetoric reigns supreme, for good or for evil, in every department, from the highest to the lowest. Its authority is unquestioned; Church and State bow before it; truth itself makes it now and then a humble courtesy. You may object that it teaches men to value expression above thought, to devote their chiefest energies to the study of the "how," to sacrifice, if necessary, everything to form; but you cannot do away with the fact that it is in admirable harmony with the temper of the people. Hence it has met with a ready response; and the language is now no longer pressed into a reluctant service; it yields itself gladly. Where shall we find a match for the marvellous prose of France? where shall we look for another Montaigne or a Voltaire ? This national rhetorical tendency, with which the Frenchman is born, shows itself as much in the Church as in the world. The history of the pulpit in France is in reality the history of rhetoric in the Church. Church oratory is but one of the departments of belles-lettres. The unfortunate Protestant preacher has to leave nature behind him whenever he steps across the threshold of the temple of grace. Deeply imbued with the notion of the sanctity of his function, he takes

care to remove as far as possible from him all that savors of the wicked world, and his very thoughts are clothed in the patois of Canaan. Not so the French Catholic preacher. The arms of the statesman in the political assembly, the weapon of the lawyer before the judicial tribunal, the power of the littérateur with his motley audience, are transferred to the pulpits of the Church. The theme may be different; the method remains the same. Oh, happy land, where nature is not yet excluded from her pulpits!

The natural love for rhetoric finds itself strengthened by the Catholic Church, which, so far from looking upon it as an invasion, uses all its influence to promote it. The atmosphere of Catholicism is favorable to the cultivation of the æsthetic, for two reasons. First of all, the preacher is the mouthpiece of a faith, fixed in the cardinal points, and in the minutest details, and supported by all the authority and strength of an unbroken, united tradition. He asks no questions - blessed are they that ask none - he "only believes," as the Evangelicals would say. This repose of faith leaves him, as a matter of course, time to devote himself to the development of outward graces. The substance is secured; he can now turn himself to the study of the form.

But the position of the Protestant preacher is altogether different. Whilst the strength of Catholicism lies in affirmation, the force of Protestantism is the grandeur of negation. Its climax is that sublime scene, when the brave Martin Luther defies the world gathered at Worms. Its basis is the right of the individual, its banner is the banner of unfettered criticism; its history, if true to itself, will therefore be a continual conflict, and its only consolation the mournful yet hopeful "I cannot do otherwise, God help me.' Consumed by the love of truth, and never pausing in its search after it here is grand and sombre poetry-it gladly leaves vestments, and flowers, and forms, as an amiable weakness, to women and children.

In the second place, Catholicism has ever appealed to the latent poetry of humanity. A faith which does not appeal to

the imagination is doomed; for what else | mation of certain facts with which we are is religion but the highest form of poetry? familiar, thanks to those articles de luxeThe want of it was at first unfelt in Prot- the creeds of Christendom. Morever, the estantism, for, as we remarked on a for- Shemitic ideas of interpretation are not mer occasion,* it was a great moral out- ours. It is true we cannot accept implic burst, and its leaders were religious gen-itly, as our master, a Cicero or a Demosiuses and heroes. But the Protestantism thenes. As Herder has wittily remarked: of later days resembles the perplexed "There is no Philippos at our gates, king of Israel in the famous representa- and we are not called upon either to contion of the judgment. Whither shall it demn or to acquit a notorious criminal." to the right or to the left? But it Who ever dreamt of anything after a seris too weak to be a religion, and too strong mon except of going home? But a serto be a philosophical school. mon, being intended to keep alive and stir up within us the ideal temper, is as likely, if not more so, to gain its end by adopting a classical model as by following a Hebrew inspiration. At any rate, we shall now glance at the history of the pulpit, and see what it has become in the hands of succeeding rhetoricians.

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One may disapprove of the view which Catholicism has taken of art or of the method which it has adopted in regard to it. The distinction between "sacred" and "secular" is in our eyes intensely immoral. To us the music of Offenbach is as sacred as that of Bach; to us the introduction of theology into art is an unpardonable sin. But no one can deny the soundness of the principle of Catholicism or cease to remember the debt of gratitude which we owe to it. The Catholic Church has bound together æsthetics and Christianity. She has attempted to give expression to the religious sentiment, which would otherwise have been condemned to silence; she has imparted to the religious life color and harmony. The many voices of the inner life of adoration have found a tongue in her rites and forms; the heart of humanity, wearied and saddened by the realities of life, has found in her ideals an imperishable source of rest and consolation.†

II.

THE Catholic pulpit before the days of Bossuet has only a few names which deserve to be recorded. It was the misfortune of the preachers of the age of Louis XIII. to be succeeded by the three greatest preachers of French Catholicism. But, had it been otherwise, it is far from certain that their fame would have been greater or more lasting than it has proved to be. In fact, their chief title to recognition is simply that they preceded Bossuet.

The Renaissance which, like the spirit of the Lord, had gone forth to break the Under the twofold influence, therefore, fetters of unhallowed tradition and tyranof natural proclivity and of the encour-nical authority, had had but little influence agement of the Church, has the rhetorical on the Church. The Church is in all ages element made its power felt in the pulpit. Nor is there any reason why the rhetorical method should not succeed as much as any other. We are unable to look to the Old Testament as our guide, for alas! our preachers are in no sense of the word prophets. We cannot follow the example of the apostles, for they preached no sermons and limited themselves to the procla

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conservative quand-même; in her eyes a thing is good simply because it exists. She generally looks upon what is new with suspicion if not with aversion, and, in nine cases out of ten, when she utters a word in favor of progress, we may be sure that, like Pilate, she says it not of herself, but that another has told her.

Scholasticism, though it had killed every atom of life in the Church,* still lingered

It is almost superfluous to state that my remarks apply to scholasticism in general. Had the Middle Ages produced none other but the author of the "Imitation," that masterpiece of egotism - but all religion

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behind, not merely in those cells of the scholasticism with a slight gloss. The cloister, where it had held undisputed celebrated preachers of the reign of Henri sway for ages, but in the Church, in the IV., such as Seguiran and Coton, are in pulpit, where it had celebrated so oft its reality nothing else but disguised scholasbarren triumphs. Its principle was indeed tics. Even Francis de Sales, one of the too invaluable to be given up. Its funda- most popular and most successful preachmental idea was, that there is but one ers of the day—it is said that he made truth, so that a thing, when theologically about seventy-two thousand converts - is true, must be also philosophically true, and no exception to the general rule. His vice versâ, and that this one truth is to be devotional writings have all the charms of found in the traditional dogma of the a childlike spirit and a poetical temper. Catholic Church. This deification of the They display a richness of observation and stereotype in matter and also in form had a knowledge of the human heart such as indeed made of the Church a vast grave- one might expect of a man whose skill in yard. But, unlike the Greek hero, she the direction des âmes was unparalleled. preferred reigning over the dead to wan- They are also marked by a tenderness dering in the midst of the living, at the which, however passionate, never transrisk of being nothing more than a fellow-gresses certain bounds, so that one feels laborer working together with others for the great common good.

no doubt about the safety of his spiritual wives. There is, lastly, a freshness of language which, by way of contrast with other productions of a similar kind, is singularly refreshing. But, whenever he ascends the pulpit, a complete change comes over him. His sermons abound in far-fetched allegories, treating the Bible as if it were a book of conundrums; long, dry explanations, tending more to the glorification of the "particle" than to the glory of God; curiously grotesque images, more productive of a smile than of a feeling of devotion. How shall we explain this falling-off? Is it because the pulpit is enthralled by some evil spell, or because the tyranny of fashion is nowhere more powerful and more. successful than in the precincts of the Church?

Whilst, therefore, there was on all hands a general revival, and France, under one of her greatest kings-great because he was the concentration of the national virtues and vices and follies Francis I., was rapidly becoming one of the civilizing centres of the world, the Church continued in a state of stagnation. The beautiful gods of Hellas, under whose tranquil reign joys had been great, and sorrows, though not unknown, had pressed but lightly, had dethroned the stern, sombre, violent God of mediævalism. And the world breathed once more freely, and felt like one who, waking from a terrible dream, finds himself still in the heyday of youth with life before him. But the Church remained in that past over whose grave the world had But Francis de Sales contributed indisung its Te Deum. Its form of teach-rectly to the reformation of the pulpit, for ing was undoubtedly somewhat changed; as in the days of Philo Plato and Moses walked hand in hand, so now the Greeks and the Hebrews appeared together. But the substance was altogether unchanged, and the form of the discourse, because of the want of assimilation, resembled oft the coat of the unfortunate Joseph-beautiful, I dare say, but withal with too many patches.

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he was one of the great leaders of the religious revival in the Catholic Church of France during the seventeenth century. Protestantism had rendered to the Church the services of a parliamentary opposition. It had been the misfortune of the Church to have reigned for centuries with well-nigh undisputed authority; it had been her sad fate to proclaim a truth all but unquestioned. Now, though nature may safely be left to its infinite developments, it would seem that the moral world, when thrown completely on its own resources, falls sooner or later into a state of atrophy. And as for truth, every truth being at the

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same time true and false, it is incomplete | place a theologian. No doubt all this is without its contrary part. Truth ever in- not what we understand by "eloquence;" cludes an affirmation and a negation. but is it not a good thing that for the first There is but one great heresy, i.e., to im- time during many centuries the pulpit agine that a part of the truth is the truth. should have as its occupant a man and not The dying Roman Church was roused a scholastic? into active life by Protestantism. This I consider an undeniable fact. But at no period of her history did she manifest more clearly her hidden vitality and her apparently inexhaustible resources of piety and of energy. When in the seventeenth century Protestantism, forsaking its original moral foundation, exhibited not-to-bemistaken signs of weakness, Catholicism was once more full to the brim of life and vigor.

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The Council of Trent had been a great logical folly. Francis de Sales and Vincent de Paul had an inspiration which was worth a thousand councils. The tendency of the Western Church, as distinguished from the speculative Eastern Church, had always been of a practical nature. These two men, true children of their Church, used therefore all their energies to stir up the latent life of the Church. Starting from the principle that "knowledge without virtue and virtue without knowledge are insufficient; " they insisted upon mental cultivation and moral reformation, as both equally indispensable to the priesthood. They then founded schools, sent out mission-priests, covered the land with monasteries, and, above all, gave to the world that greatest glory of Catholicism among the many incarnations of the divine one of the chiefest- the sister of charity. The religious atmosphere being thus gradually purified, it is certain that its influence will at last be felt by the pulpit. The pulpit has never originated any religious movement, strange to say; it has contented itself with following in the wake and gathering up the fragments. The good results of the revival are to some extent perceived at once. Take, as an instance, the sermons of le Père le Jeune, one of the priests of the Oratory. They are simple and practical; it is impossible to say of them "that they aim at nothing and that they hit it." The preacher looks upon his audience as grown-up children to be catechised for the time being with more or less severity. There is a gentle firmness in everything he says, and an air of reality about his utterances so as to make one believe that the preacher is in the first place a man, and in the second

"La science à un prêtre, c'est le huitième sacrement de la hiérarchie de l'Eglise." - Francis de Sales.

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Or look at the sermons of the Jesuit De Lingendes, written in Latin before they were delivered. He wears the garment of a doctor ecclesiæ, his reasonings and discussions are oft protracted to an inordinate length. But under the garment of the logician beats a passionate heart. Père le Jeune at his very best has a dead perfection; he has no verve, no inspiration. But Claude Lingendes has that holy spirit, the absence of which is death. His morality has none of those subtleties attributed to his order. It is simple, austere, naked, not bedecked so as to excite the admiration of children and of monkeys. makes vivid, passionate, nay, violent appeals to the audience. The great preacher must be almost tyrannical. The prophets, the greatest religious orators of the world, were men of violence; they built their morality chiefly on fear. Thus it was that they fell, but thus it was also that they had reigned for centuries in the face of a threefold opposition: the throne, the priesthood, and the majority of the nation. We are still a long way from Bossuet, Bourdaloue, and Massillon; we have seen, however, some of the "missing links."

It

It is interesting to note the contrast between the Catholic and the Protestant preachers of the period. How different the tone, which breathes through the sermons of Pierre du Moulin, or Jean Mestrezat, or Jean Daillé. The Protestants are clad from head to foot in a theological armor. They spend all their energies in the exposition and the defence of a theological dogma. They cling to the letter of the Scriptures, guarding it with a loverlike jealousy, which, to say the least, is somewhat exacting. Their sermons are merely detailed explanations of their text, a custom, however, which has as much raison d'être as the modern fashion of speaking about everything except about the text. Unfortunately their literalism is mostly extreme, and their text says never anything but yea and amen to their theological system.

If in the contents of their sermons they offer a theological analysis, supposed to be founded on the Scriptures, the form in which they express their convictions is even less attractive. The style is as bare as their temples; devoid of imagery and ornament and every artistic element.

It

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