(30th January, 1793); on this occasion | royalty, seems to have played him the whole assembly, stirred by the false, so that he quitted the pulpit experoration, rose with one impulse, and claiming abruptly, "Lord, pardon our remained standing till the close of the infirmities." sermon. Froude tells us that when the preacher at S. Eustache spoke of the execution of Mary Stuart, he roused such a tempest of passion, that orator and audience broke down together, melting into community of tears. When Father Coneck preached in the great towns and cities of Artois, the churches were so crowded that he used to be suspended in the middle of the building by a rope in order to be heard; and so great were Dean Kirwan's powers of persuasion, that his sermons repeatedly produced contributions of £1,000 or even £1,200. But politics, and especially in stormy times, have also been treated of in the pulpit. Hoadley's sermon on the words "My kingdom is not of this world," gave rise to the Bangorian controversy, which raged so furiously, 1717-18, that at one crisis business in the city came to a complete standstill, the Exchange was deserted, and even many of the shops were closed. Peto, preaching before Henry VIII. at Gravesend, alluding to the question of the divorce, scrupled not to tell the king that the dogs should lick his blood as they had licked up the blood of Ahab. White, Audible approbation was at one time Bishop of Winchester, in his sermon on the fashion of the day. Thus when the death of Mary, took as his text the Spratt and Burnet preached at S. Mar- words, "Wherefore I praised the dead garet's, Westminster, part of Burnet's which are already dead more than the congregation hummed so long and so living which are yet alive," and quoted loud that he sat down to enjoy the the Scripture declaring that Mary had effect produced as he rubbed his face chosen the better part, while her sucwith his handkerchief; his rival, how-cessor was but as a living dog, and so ever, was somewhat disconcerted at so better than a dead lion. The flatterers open an expression of opinion, and of Elizabeth, on the other hand, praised stretched forth his hand as he ex- her "as the glory of her sexe, the claimed, 66 Peace, I pray you, peace." myrrour of majesty, whom all ProtBut the poet of Olney held sterner estant generations shall forever call views: blessed, a woman after God's own heart; a diamond in the ring of the monarchs of the earth, notwithstanding the roarings of Buls of Basan, and the Centaurs and Minotaurs of Rome." Hugh Peters termed Charles I. the great Barabbas of Windsor, who must not be released but suffer for his country. South calls Milton the blind adder, who spat venom on the king's person; while Cromwell is Baal, " bankrupt, beggarly fellow, who entered the Parliament house with a torn, threadbare coat and a greasy hat, perhaps neither of them paid for." notorious sermon of Sacheverell, on Palm Sunday, 1715, rent the kingdom into two factions, and no fewer than forty thousand copies of it were sold. "Bold Bradbury," as Queen Anne called him, preached on her death from the words, "Go, see now this cursed woman and bury her, for she is a 'Tis pitiful To court a grin, when you should woo a soul. Preaching was probably originally extempore, the written sermon being a product of the Reformation era, a sort of check on any doctrinal extravagance on the part of the preacher, who could thus be brought to book on complaint of his audience. Monmouth, as chancellor of Cambridge, intimated to the clergy the displeasure of Charles II. at the use of periwigs and a strange combination - written discourses. Majesty stated that this latter usage had its beginning "in the disorders of the late times," and it was clearly regarded in the light of a Puritanical innovation. South repeated his sermons from memory, which once, at any rate, when he was preaching before 1 Stanley's Westminster Abbey, p. 535. His a The king's daughter ;" and Charles Wesley | Bible and Shakespeare jointly which was actually apprehended as a Jaco- had brought him to that ancient see; bite, and taken before the magistrates Wesley in fifty years preached over in Yorkshire, because he had made use of an expression "praying for the restoration of the banished ones." forty thousand sermons; Hook burned over two thousand when he left Leeds, and Grimshaw in the wild districts adjacent to the Brontës' home preached habitually thirty-six sermons in a fortnight. From The Nineteenth Century.' REVOLUTION. To any one who has studied human nature, whether in novels, psychology, moral philosophy, or in society as it exists around us, the value of treating revolutionary characters will at once be apparent. In times of revolution human passions are set free from the restraints of society; the attempts to master them seem to call forth all that is greatest in man's nature, and to lay bare the veins and arteries of the moral being to the inspection of the historical dissector. Individuals may Popular preachers have often been great employers of proverbs. St. Jerome quotes the proverb of the gift horse; S. Bernard the equivalent of Love me, love my dog; and Latimer closes a sermon with the saying, One man may lead a horse to water, but ten men can't make him drink. Rowland THE ABBÉ GRÉGOIRE AND THE FRENCH Hill even descended to punning. Preaching one day at Wapping, he assured his hearers of grace being shown to the very worst of sinners, even to Wapping sinners. Most of these latter were in the seafaring line, and one day a clergyman preaching in the same neighborhood made use of several nautical metaphors, the better to press home his subject. "Be ever on the watch," said he, “so that on which ever tack the Evil One bear down on you, he may be crippled in action." "Ay, master," muttered an old salt, "but let me tell you that will entirely be either good or bad, they may be depend on your having the weather heroes or devils; but whichever they gauge of him." are, whether we have to deal with a Much has been said of the practice Gabriel or a Lucifer, they are always of buying and selling sermons, a prac-interesting, and always form a fit subtice, by the way, of no very special nov-ject for the student of human nature elty. Just before Toplady was about and of human motive. to be ordained, Osborne the bookseller, the friend of Johnson, offered to supply him with a stock of original sound sermons for a trifle. "I would sooner buy second-hand clothes," was the reply. "Don't be offended," said Osborne, "I have sold many to a bishop." The price of sermons, as of all else, has varied with the times. In 1540 a bishop of Llandaff received from the churchwardens of S. Margaret's, Westminster, for a sermon on the Annunciation, a pike, price 2s. 4d., a gallon of wine, 8d., and boat hire; in all, 3s. 4d. In the seventeenth century sermons seem to have been valued at about 5s. each. But the difficulties of composition have been by no means universally felt. Sharpe, Archbishop of York, was wont to acknowledge that it was the The best-known men of the Revolution are unsatisfactory for several reasons. The Girondins were unpractical pedants, unfit to lead at a time when men of action were imperatively called for, and they received the reward of their pedantry in an almost complete annihilation of their party. Danton, the giant of Carlyle, the statesman after the manner of Comte, was found wanting at the critical moment, and perished before the narrower, but sterner and more consistent, fanaticism of Robespierre. Even the "Incorruptible" himself fell from an originally high ideal, and allowed the guillotine to flow with the blood of men whose chief crime in his eyes was that they were dangerous rivals. Amidst all these fanatical, weak, When first we hear of Grégoire he is neither stirring up provinces to enthusiasm for universal reform nor exercising his powers of oratory on the mob of the Palais Royal; he is simply trying to Do the good that's nearest, Helping, when he meets them, vacillating, or deliberately criminal looks at him that one would have liked men, there was one who showed a to have known him, not for the gloomy, consistent moral purpose, and who, tragic sympathies which draw one to whether right or wrong, seems to have the satanic characters of history, but as believed what he said, and to have a guide, as a priest, and as a friend. acted up to his belief - Grégoire, Bishop of Blois. Of him his earliest biographer has said that "revolutions left him as they found him, a priest and a republican." We first hear of him as a public man some years before the meeting of the States General, and he died in the year 1831, just after the Revolution of July, which overthrew the restored monarchy. He was an author as well as a priest and a states- He is collecting books for his parishman. We have before us a list of ioners, trying to raise them from that some hundred works which he wrote degrading depth of ignorance to which on various subjects. They cover a they have been reduced by a selfish and wide range. Ecclesiastical history, unscrupulous court, and which is so poetry, general literature, philanthropy, soon to bear terrible fruit. politics, all owe something to him. The word vandalism was invented by him à propos of the destruction of works of art by revolutionary fanatics, and his innocent creation was discussed in his " Mémoires," that while a curé in Germany by learned patriots, who tried to elucidate the question how far the new word was a true description of the Vandals. This being the man, how would he act in the storm which was about to burst over France? Grégoire had always been a republican. He tells us, in Lorraine, before the Revolution broke out, he was a member of a society the object of which was the bringing about the annexation of that From many points of view, then, province to Switzerland, and so to give Grégoire is interesting to us. There is it the benefit of the institutions of a portrait of the bishop published in the little republic. He also warmly M. Hippolyte Carnot's edition of his espoused the cause of the Jews, op"Mémoires." It is the bust of a sim- pressed by laws whose barbarity was ple French ecclesiastic. There is in his only equalled by their shortsightedness face neither the fire nor the stern, un- -laws which, in trying to fetter membending enthusiasm of a Bossuet, nor bers of that unhappy nation in their the dreamy and somewhat quietistic rights as citizens, only drove them benevolence of the saintly Fénelon; deeper, and deeper into the policy of nor is one met by the almost inhuman cunning and the arts of dishonest look of concentrated learning which money-making which long persecution strikes one on beholding the portrait of had made a kind of second nature to Döllinger. There is the long, white hair, the benevolent mouth, and broad, practical face so often seen in the quiet atmosphere of the typical French country parish. There is nothing gloomy, nothing revolutionary, nothing of the morbid, though too practical, fanaticism of a Robespierre. There is an air of quiet determination, unobtrusive and inoffensive. He has evidently read much and thought much, but he is still supremely human. One feels as one them, closing, as it did, to them every path which led to straightforwardness and good citizenship. He wrote a pamphlet in their favor, and appealed to the enlightenment and common sense of the rulers of Europe. Besides this, he was connected with the Société des amis des noirs, founded to influence public opinion on the wretched condition of the slaves in the colonies; and he afterwards had the immortal honor of being the first man in any country who proposed and carried a law abol- | down the Church with it. Promotion ishing slavery. depended on birth, and the episcopal Grégoire was returned to the States sees were filled by men who had enGeneral as a deputy of the clergy of his tered the priesthood as one of the only province. He does not seem to have occupations open to younger sons of joined the Tiers Etat so early as some noble families. The versatile Talleyof his colleagues, but he was present at rand, for instance, was one of these. the famous oath of the jeu de paume. Being deformed, he was considered fit From this time he co-operated with the for nothing but the Church. At the progressive party. Co-operated! He time we speak of he was in high posidid not identify himself with them. tion, Bishop of Autun; but later, when He objected to many of the proposi- to be a Churchman was not the best tions which found favor with them. way to honor in the State, he threw For instance, he could not understand up his bishopric, renounced his conneca declaration of rights which was not tion with "superstition,” and became a accompanied by a declaration of duties. diplomatist. No doubt, it would be unHe saw what poor Bailly only learned fair to say that Talleyrand was a type of by a sad experience, that the more hot-all, or even the majority of bishops, but headed members of the liberal party we cannot help thinking that many of were proceeding in a way which was those who went into exile during the likely to overthrow society itself. As a Revolution did so from their connection matter of fact, Grégoire was more ad- with the fallen nobility, rather than vanced in his opinions than most of his from a feeling of their duty as Cathofriends. He was a republican when lics. The revenues of the Church even Robespierre, if we are to believe were enormous, and most of them went Madame Roland, had not yet asked the to the bishops. Bailly speaks of a famous question, "What is a repub- prelate "qui mangeait deux curés par lic?" And it is an established fact jour," meaning that his revenues per that men like Bailly, and even Mira-diem were equal to two yearly revenues beau, were always monarchists. Yet of parish priests. So great, in fact, these men, not having reasoned the matter out, went ahead in a way which Grégoire did not like. In the end they were to become conservatives when it was too late, when the influence they might have exercised had passed from them. Thus the monarchical anarchists, who fought their way forward in the darkness, seemed, for the moment, more advanced and more terrible to the existing order than the philosophic republican who had seen into the future, and who groaned inwardly at the wild infatuation which produced the Declaration of the Rights of Man. In the decrees of the 4th of August, in which the privileges of the nobles were abolished, Grégoire concurred. Then came the crux. It would be impossible, in the space allowed me, in any adequate way to describe the condition of the Church in eighteenthcentury France. The glorious days of Louis the Fourteenth were gone. Royalty, in its decline, had dragged was the disproportion that, after the In was tion of Church property was proposed | laid down on which they could take to assist in paying the enormous debt their stand when the time came. which was crushing France, and which We should not be too hasty in conwas the immediate occasion of the Rev- demning those who accepted the civil olution. The measure was supported, constitution. Grégoire himself among others, by Grégoire. The mo- strongly in favor of it. As a republition was carried, and Church lands be- can, he saw in it the means of overcame the property of the State. Then coming the evils which the declining came the question of the means of monarchy had brought on the Church. maintaining the clergy. Salaries were He seems to have thought that the agreed upon, and, as we have said, the Holy See would not fail to give its adcurés found themselves, for the most hesion, and under the circumstances he part, better off than before. In the accepted the constitution. Had he not discussion on this matter it was pro- done so, he had every reason to think posed to remodel the whole constitu- that, in the unstable and uncertain tion of the clergy in France. It would temper of the Constituent Assembly, be impossible to enumerate here in worse evils might be brought on relidetail the different points contained gion. Thus he was urged both by natin the famous "Constitution Civile." ural inclination and by prudence to The main articles may, however, be take a decided step, and he found himbriefly stated. The number of bish- self at the head of the constitutional oprics was to be reduced, and each movement. In his speech on this ocdiocese to be coterminous with the casion he dwelt much on the interested department in which it was situated. motives of many of those who opposed Bishops and clergy were to be elected the movement, and there is too much in accordance with certain democratic reason to fear that his accusation was forms which were enumerated. These not altogether unfounded. He ended changes raised certain difficulties. A with an appeal to the patriotism of bishop could not, canonically, abandon his see or any part of it, or intrude his jurisdiction into any part of the see of his neighbor. The only power which could solve this difficulty was the pope, whose sanction was also needed for the articles changing the form of election of bishops and the appointment of priests. Gallican tendencies were shown in the clause which forbade a bishop to apply to the pope for confirmation, but commanded that "he should write to him, as the chief of the universal Church, in testimony of unity of faith and of the communion which he is bound to maintain with him." To us, who live after the Vatican and to accuse no one on either side. Council, this article seems stronger than it did to those who drew it up. The old Gallicanism had not yet died, and it had not yet been definitely condemned. Time pressed. The enemies of religion were awaiting their opportunity. If men could not exactly see into the future, they could at least suspect the course which the Revolution would take unless some firm basis were bishops and priests all over the country. "No consideration," he said, "should delay the taking of our oath. We sincerely hope that, through the whole extent of the empire, our 'brothers,' quieting their apprehensions, may hasten to fulfil a duty of patriotism calculated to bring peace to the kingdom, to strengthen the union between the pastor and his sheep ! " Remaining in the tribune, he then pronounced the words of the famous oath: "I swear to be faithful to the nation and to the law." A few followed Grégoire, but the majority hesitated. We prefer to state the facts, The thing which the abbé had done was indeed bold and daring. The constitution of the clergy had been drawn up, but it might yet be amended. The constitution of the country was yet germinating in the council chambers of the constitutional committee. Most men have an objection to taking oaths when they are uncertain to what they commit themselves. At any moment |