260

LACORDAIRE.

From Hogg's Instructor.

[Oct

LACORDAIRE, THE FRENCH PULPIT ORATOR.

FRANCE has given birth to orators of the highest order. At the bar, in the senate, before the popular assembly, in the professorial chair, in the literary closet, in every department of the art, she has produced men of surpassing eloquence. And such she still produces-witness Thiers, Guizot, Lamartine,

to name no more.

But there is, in particular, one kind of oratory which the French at one time brought almost to perfection, and in which they still greatly excel the oratory of the pulpit. The names of the logical Bourdaloue, of the puissant Bossuet, of the elegant Flechier, of the tender Fenelon, of the graceful Massillon, are known to every one; and the tradition of these great names has descended to worthy successors in the present day, for the high character of French pulpit eloquence is well maintained by preachers such as Monod and Coquerel of the Reformed Church, by such as Ravagnan, Dupanloup, and Lacordaire the Romanists.

among

The last mentioned is a remarkable man, and that not merely as a preacher or a rhetorician. His other qualities and his previous history are singular and striking. He is, moreover, the type of a class; and, as such, his biography is far more instructive than his sermons, and far more impressive than his eloquence. Farther, the history of Lacordaire has been so intimately connected with that of his church since he joined ithe has been so much mixed up with the movement which has taken place in it-the vicissitudes of Romanism in France during the last twenty years, are so resumed in those of the individual, that, to mark the course in which he has floated, is to understand the current of the stream. We propose, therefore, to devote some space to this remarkable man, confining ourselves, however, rather to a sketch of his life and of his opinions, than entering into any systematic review of his works or upon any regular criticism of his

oratory.

Henri Lacordaire is, as Bossuet was, a n tive of Burgundy, having been born in th village of Recez-sur-Ource in that provinc In 1812, being then ten years of age, he w sent to the Lyceum of Dijon, where he su ficiently distinguished himself, more especial by his success in the study of rhetoric. Fro this school, being destined for the bar, 1 was sent to the "Ecole de Droit" of Dijo Here he studied law with considerable su cess; but the tendency of his mind and his pursuits may be gathered from the sa advice he received from the Dean of Facult "not to apply too much to metaphysics But to metaphysics he nevertheless did appl and that with ardor; the consequence w what might have been expected from a you of his age, in a university where, to use own subsequent expression, "he breathe skepticism with the very air."

Drinking, but not deeply, of philosoph and drawing only from the sources of t Voltaire school, he became, naturally enoug a convert to the superficial doctrines of t last century; and in the Société d'Etudes, debating society which existed in the colle for the discussion of "public law, histor philosophy, and literature," the future mo was known as the stoutest defender of deis And to the defence of deism in religion joined that of democracy in politics; so th if a few years back he certainly recorded b opinion "that France could only be a m narchy or a chaos," he did no more, after a when he took his place as a representative the people in the National Assembly, to t cry of "Vive la Republique!" than testi his return to his earlier opinions.

Lacordaire having finished his law stud in 1822, immediately went to Paris. The he began to practice as an advocate, and soon had some trifling causes to plead, which, moreover, small as was the opport nity, he appeared with considerable distin tion. He became remarked, and M. Berry

me-"

How did this come about?

t is said, even predicted him the first rank at | voice full of honey," to use the words of M. the bar "If he did not abuse his facility of Lorain, who employs the expression in a faspeaking." His ambition began to. rise. Al-vourable sense. The result could scarcely be hough he was then living in a little room doubtful; the prize was too tempting, for the only six feet square," splendid dreams visited abbé was the correspondent of the Dijon dehim; the highest rewards his profession offer- bating society, and so knew the value of his ed appeared in the distance; his imagination man; and the opportunity was but too favorclothed him in the first magisterial robes; able, for Lacordaire was weak, yearning for 'hope sprinkled favors manifold" on the as- sympathy, unable any longer himself to sufpiring lawyer; the springs of life were still fice for himself, disgusted with the world, not resh in him; the idea of the celibate or the although he had seen nothing of it but because loister would have made him shudder. But he had seen nothing of it-quite ready, in t was not to last. Within eighteen months short, to listen to a "voice full of honey," fter his appearance at the bar, Lacordaire whatever that voice might say. The abbé entered the seminary of St. Sulpice. In that worked skilfully and quickly. We find hort time the skeptic became not only a con- Lacordaire writing in the month of February ert to religion but a candidate for the priest- in such a tone as this, "I am working, I am hood. taking patience, I have the future before me." We find that the young advocate had not But on the 15th March he writes, "A strange ong entered on the practice of his profession, idea took possession of me the other day-I when a kind of melancholy took possession of seriously thought of becoming a village im, which neither present success nor bril- priest.' It is true that he continues, "Illuant prospects could chase away. He grew sions of the moment, phantoms that immeick of law; "this fire of enthusiasm and diately vanish!" but the idea existed--how nagination"-so he says in a letter of the had it been suggested? To a young man in was not given me to be extinguished a morbid state of mind, declaring that he the icy chills of jurisprudence-to be stifled longed for a tranquil life and a cottage in a nder those hard and positive meditations." Swiss valley, a single word would suffice, A splendid future ceased to allure him. without alarming him, to give the hint of the When his fancy had pictured to him all the similar blessings which a country priest enonors his ambition aspired to, he asked him- joys. He would work out the idea himself. elf what then? and the answer was, all is And so, in fact, Lacordaire did; for it was anity." He thus writes to a friend : 'I have on the 12th May, being in less than two ttle attachment to existence, my imagination months after treating the thought of becomas worn that out; I am sated with every-ing a priest as an illusion and a phantom, ing without having had the experience of and within three of his expressing his deternything. If you only knew how sad 1 am mination to struggle on resolutely at the bar, ecoming! They speak to me of the glory that he entered the seminary. E authorship, of public office, but, to be ank, I find glory a pitiable thing, and I can carcely conceive how men can take so much ouble in running after such a silly little fool." 'Who would fardels bear" if mere fame ere the only recompense, was the sum of acordaire's reasoning. He sighed for tranillity, obscurity, and ease; he longed to reme his literary pursuits; all he wished was to live quietly at his own fireside, without retension and without noise. I shall never e content," he goes on, "till I have three estnut-trees, a potato field, a corn field, ad a cottage in the depths of a Swiss valy." This babbling o' green fields" of urse boded the death of his progress at the

r.

66

In this sickly state of mind, "feeble, dis-uraged, solitary in the midst of eight hunred thousand men," Lacordaire became ac

Nor is this all. This hurried step was taken not only without the consent but without the knowledge of his family. His only surviving parent, who had hoped very fondly of him, resigned herself to the blow only after the lapse of several months and the interchange of many letters; yet this poor mother whom the proselytising abbé must have known to be ignorant of her son's intentionif, indeed, he was not actually the cause of her being kept so--was, according to M. Lorain, "of a simple and firm piety," and, therefore, as "a good Catholic," not likely to have opposed her son's views had she thought the step calculated for his welfare. But she was also "a woman of sound and strong reason, of a judicious and elevated character"quite sufficient grounds for her being kept in the dark.

Such was the secret and precipitate way

TT

When, in 1817, the first volume of the

world and was lost to France. We say re- | tired from the world, because, though the en-mous "Essai sur l'Indifference" appeared trance into a seminary has nothing final in it, nevertheless, to a man of his stamp, it was impossible that, having once adopted such a course, he should not pursue it to the end. And we say that he was thus lost to France, because that course was inevitably to lead him to belong to Rome, to whose interests, henceforth, not only all his energies and abilities were to be devoted, but his personality and national feeling were to be sacrificed. Henceforth in Lacordaire there are two natures, and we see a perpetually renewed struggle between them; the victory, however, always declares for the same side; and though ever and anon the man and the Frenchman in him rebel, the priest in every case succeeds in putting down the insurrection.

the heavy blows which it dealt on incredulit and the fierce attack it made on Protestan ism, were hailed with intense delight in th Vatican, and its author was regarded as th very champion of the church; but when, tw years afterwards, the second volume wa published, and in the attempt to reconcil Romanism with philosophy, Romanist trad tion, instead of being considered as the sol and sufficient ground of belief, was sought t be allied, if not subordinated, to the traditio of human reason, in other words, to the doc trines of common sense, the case was mate rially changed. When Lamennais declared that this common sense-sentiment communsensus communis-was to him "the sole and only seal of truth," and that "his fundamen tal principle was, What all men agree in be In the seminary Lacordaire pursued his lieving to be true is true," Rome, well fore theological studies, sometimes cheerful, some- seeing and instinctively dreading the way in times sad; but, when sad, reasoning away which such a weapon might be turned agains his sadness by such thoughts as that con- her if she acknowledged its legitimacy, be tained in the following fine passage:-- came grievously alarmed at the imprudence "Where do we not at times experience sad- of her advocate, and, without authoritatively ness? It is a dart that we bear about with condemning the work, showed sufficiently he us in our soul; we must try not to lean upon repugnance to its principles. A large pro the side where it is planted, but we must portion, however, of the younger clergy in never attempt to draw it out. It is the jave-France, and great numbers of those among the laity who occupied themselves with such things, hailed the new system with enthu siasm. Among its supporters was ultimately On the 22d September, 1827, he was or- Lacordaire, who, after six years, as he says dained, and soon after he was appointed of irresolution, finally became one of its most almoner to the convent of the Visitation. He ardent and valuable disciples. preached his first sermon at the College Stanislas. In 1828 he was made almoner adjunct to the College Henry IV., but his ardent mind soon conceived the idea of enter ing on a sphere where his energies would have more scope. He formed the project of going out to America as a missionary. He was even in communication with the Romanist bishop of New York, when the revolution of July broke out, altered his plans, and was the means of bringing him into notice. Instead of becoming a missionary he became one of the editors of a newspaper, and entered upon the scene of public life.

lin of Mantinea in the breast of Epameinondas, not to be removed but with death and our entrance into eternity."

The newspaper was the "Avenir," founded by M. de Lamennais. That remarkable man had some time previously made a convert of Lacordaire; though, according to the latter, it was long before he had been able to come to any conclusion on the doctrines of

This was the ecclesiastico-philosophica question raised by Lamennais; there was also to be an ecclesiastico-political one, which, as will be seen, had more practical results. Be it remarked that Lacordaire, when he shuffled off his deism, still retained his republican opinions.

The attachment of Lamennais to the Church of Rome, far from being damped by the untoward reception his attempts to reconcile her dogmas with reason had met with from the higher clergy, had been pushed to extreme ultra-montanism; in his work entitled "Religion Considered in its Relations to Civil and Political Order," he vigorously attacked the famous declaration of 19th March, 1682, restrictive of the limits of the pope's jurisdiction in France, and possibly only waiting a fitter opportunity to vindicate for the see of Rome as much power as it