pulpit? Open the writings of Bourdaloue, of whom he was the forerunner and model. Yes; Boffuet never appears to me greater than when I read Bourdaloue, who, twenty years afterwards, entered this new road, where he had the fkill to fhew himself an original by imitating him, and in which he furpaffed him in labour, without being capable of equalling him in genius.'

Bourdaloue he characterifes by the fertility of his plans, the talent of well arranging his arguments, by the fimplicity of a stile nervous and affecting, natural and noble by an accurate logic, and by the ufe which he makes of the fathers; but adds, that he was verbose. Maffillon, by the quickness of his genius, the copioufnefs of his eloquence, and beauty of his ftile. Thefe celebrated authors are, however, not unknown to us. We fhall rather, therefore, quote his account of Mr. Bridaine, celebrated for a popular and energetic eloquence which much refembles, as the tranflator has well obferved, fome of our methodistical preachers.

He had fo fine a voice, as to render credible all the wonders which history relates of the declamation of the ancients, for he was as eafily heard by ten thousand people in the open fields, as if he had fpoken under the moft refounding arch. In all he faid,. there were obfervable unexpected strokes of oratory, the boldest metaphors, thoughts fudden, new, and ftriking, all the marks of a rich imagination, fome paffages, fometimes even whole discourses, compofed with care, and written with an equal combination of taste and animation.

I remember to have heard him deliver the introduction of the firft difcourfe, wnich he preached in the church of St. Sulpice, in Paris, 1751. The first company in the capital went, out of curiofity, to hear him.

Bridaine perceived among the congregation many bishops, and perfons of the first rank, as well as a vast number of ecclefiaftics. This fight, far from intimidating, fuggefted to him the following exordium, fo far at least as my memory retains of a paffage with which I have been always fenfibly affected, and, which, perhaps, will not appear unworthy of Boffuet, or Demofthenes.

"At the fight of an auditory fo new to me, methinks, my brethren, I ought only to open my mouth to folicit your favour in behalf of a poor miffionary, deftitute of all thofe talents which you require of those who fpeak to you about your falvation. Neverthelefs, I experience, to-day, a feeling very different. And, if I am caft down, fufpect me not of being depreffed by the wretched uneafiness occasioned by vanity, as if I were accustomed to preach myfelf. God forbid that a minister of Heaven should ever fuppofe he needed an excufe with you! for, whoever ye may be, ye are

all

all of you finners like myself. It is before your God and mine, that I feel myself impelled at this moment to ftrike my breast.

Until now, I have oclaimed the righteoufnefs of the Moft High in churches covered with thatch. I have preached the rigours of penance to the unfortunate who wanted bread. I have declared to the good inhabitants of the country the most awful truths of my religion. Unhappy man! what have I done? I have made fad the poor, the best friends of my God! I have conveyed terror and grief into thofe fimple and honeft fouls, whom I ought to have pitied and confoled! It is here only where I behold the great, the rich, the oppreffors of fuffering humanity, or finners daring and hardened. Ah! it is here only where the facred word fhould be made to refound with all the force of its thunder; and where I fhould place with me in this pulpit, on the one fide, death which threatens and on the other, my great God, who is about to judge you."

And again:

you,

Many perfons ftill remember his fermon on eternity, and the terror which he diffufed throughout the congregation, whilft blending, as was ufual with him, quaint comparifons with fublime tranfports, he exclaimed, "What foundation, my brethren, have you for fuppofing your dying day at fuch a diftance? Is it your youth?" Yes, you answer ; I am, as yet, but twenty, but thirty.'"Sirs, it is not you who are twenty or thirty years old, it is death which has already advanced twenty or thirty years towards you. Obferve: eternity approaches. Do you know what this eternity is? It is a pendulum whofe vibration fays continually, AlwaysEver-Ever-Always-Always! In the mean while, a reprobate • What o'clock is it?" "And the fame voice answers,"

cries out,

'Eternity.'

The thundering voice of Bridaine added, on thofe occafions, a new energy to his eloquence; and the auditory, familiarized to his language and ideas, appeared at fuch times in difmay before him. The profound filence which reigned in the congregation, efpecially when he preached untill the approach of night, was interrupted from time to time, and in a manner very perceptible, by the long and mournful fighs, which proceeded, all at once, from every corner of the church where he was fpeaking.'

Superior ftill in true and effective eloquence was Vincent de Paul, of whom the following account is given :

He was fucceffively a flave at Tunis, preceptor of the cardinal de Retz, minister of a village, chaplain-general of the galleys, principal of a college, chief of the miffions, and joint-commiffioner of ecclefiaftical benefices. He inftituted in France the feminaries of the Lazarifts, and of the daughters of charity, who devote themfelves to the confolation of the unfortunate, and who fcarcely ever change their condition, although their vows only bind them for a year.'

Whilft kings, armed against each other, ravage the earth already laid waste by other fcourges, Vincent de Paul, the fon of a husbandman of Gafcony, repaired the public calamities, and diftributed more than twenty millions (of livres) in Champagne, in Picardy, in Lorraine, in Artois, where the inhabitants of whole villages were dying through want, and were afterwards left in the fields without burial, until he undertook to defray the expences of interment. He discharged, for fome time, an office of zeal and charity towards the galleys. He faw one day a galley-flave, who had been condemned to three years confinement for fmuggling, and who appeared inconfolable on account of his wife and children having been left in the greatest distress. Vincent de Paul, fenfibly affected with his fituation, offered to put himself in his ftead, and, what doubtlefs, will fcarcely be credited, the exchange was accepted. This virtuous man was chained among the crew of galley-flaves, and his feet continued to be fwollen during the remainder of his life, from the weight of thofe honourable irons which he had borne.'

When this great man came to Paris, foundlings were fold in the ftreet of St. Landry for twenty fous a piece; and the charge of thefe innocent creatures was committed, out of charity, as was reported, to diseased women, from whom they fucked corrupted milk.

Thefe infants whom government abandoned to public compaffion, almost all perifhed; and fuch as happened to efcape fo many dangers were introduced clandeftinely into opulent families, in order to difpoffels the legitimate heirs. This, for more than a century, was a never-failing fource of litigation, the particulars of which are to be found in the compilation of our old lawyers. Vincent de Paul at once provided funds for the maintenance of twelve of these children. His charity was foon extended to the relief of all those who were left exposed at the doors of the churches. But that unufual zeal, which always gives life to a new inftitution, having. cooled, the refources entirely failed, and fresh outrages were renewed on humanity.

• Vincent de Paul was not difcouraged. He convoked an extraordinary affembly. He caufed a number of thofe wretched infants. to be placed in the church; and forthwith mounting the pulpit, he pronounced, with his eyes bathed in tears, that difcourfe, which doth as much honour to his piety as his eloquence, and which I faithfully tranfcribe from the hiftory of his life, drawn up by M. Abelly, bishop of Rhodes.

• Compaffion and charity have affuredly induced you, ladies, to adopt thefe little creatures for your children. You have been their mothers by kindness, fince their mothers by nature have forfaken them. See, now, whether ye alfo are willing to abandon them.. Ceafe, for the prefent, to be their mothers, that ye may become their

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judges.

judges. Their life and their death are in your hands. I am going to put it to the vote, and to take the fuffrages. It is time to pronounce their fentence, and to know if ye are unwilling to have compaffion any longer upon them. They will live, if ye continue to take a charitable care of them, and they will all die if ye abandon

them."

Sighs were the only answer to this pathetic exhortation: and the fame day, in the fame church, at that very time, the Foundling Hofpital at Paris was founded and endowed with a revenue of forty thoufand livres.'

To Saurin, though a Proteftant, our author pays a juft tribute of praife, but with qualifications, which fufficiently fhow how extremely different are his ideas of pulpit compofition from thofe which prevail amongst us. He blames his expofition of the text, his critical difcuffions, all which he saysare extremely different from eloquence.

On this account, therefore, when you read Saurin, do not stop fort at any of the first part of his difcourfes. This manner of writing, which, at the beginning of this century, was called "the refuged ftyle," has been charged againft him on fubftantial grounds. He uses a tranflation of the Bible, which was made iminediately after the feparation of the Proteftant churches; and this old language, contrafted with his modern eloquence, imparts to his ftyle a favage and barbarous air.'

He adds, that he was a natural orator and would have acquired taste, if he had refided at Paris. It is plain from the fe criticifms that the character of an infiructor, forms no part of the abbe's idea of a Chriftian preacher. We cannot refuse tranfcribing the paffage of Saurin, of which he fays, Never did any orator conceive any thing more daring than the dialogue of Saurin between God and his auditory in his fermon on the fast of 1756.

Say now, in the prefence of heaven and earth, what ills hath God inflicted on you. O my people, what have I done unto thee? Ah! Lord! how many things haft thou done to us! Draw near ye mourning ways of Zion, ye defolate gates of Jerufalem, ye fighing priefts, ye afflicted virgins, ye deferts peopled with captives, ye difciples of Jefus Chrift, wandering over the face of the whole earth, children torn from your parents, prifons filled with confeffors, gallers, freiated with martyrs, blood of our countrymen, fhed like water, carcafes once the venerable habitation of witneffes for religion now thrown out to favage beafts and birds of prey, ruins of our churches. duft, afhes, fad remains of houfes dedicated to our God, firms »cks, gilets, punifhments, till now unknown; draw nigh hither, and give evidence against the Lord.'

If fo animated a writer is cenfured for being, in the opening of his difcourfes, dry and critical, it may be well fuppofed our English preachers, who are often fo throughout the whole of theirs, fare but ill in our author's critique. As much, he fays, as Saurin is inferior to the French preachers, fo much are the English inferior to Saurin. He does not confider that few of our English preachers intend to be orators; or rather that, and that alone, is oratory, which in every nation is adapted to convince and to perfuade the people of that nation. The partiality of the Frenchman is, indeed, pretty apparent in the abbé's criticism on Barrow and Tillotson; but as we have likewife our prejudices, it may be of fervice to know what foreigners think of us. In one thing we cannot acquit M. Maury of great prefumption, which is of pretending to judge of the ftyle of our authors, when he appears to have read them only through the medium of a tranflation; yet he breaks out into the following apostrophe, after quoting fome paflages of Tillotfon, in which he fancies the ftile wants dignity.

O Louis XIV! what wouldft thou have thought, if the ministers of the altar had addreffed fuch language to thee in the midst of thy court! What would have been thy furprize, if thine ear, accustomed to the dignified accents of Boiluet, to the elevated and energetic tone of Bourdalove, to the infinuating melody of Maffillon, had been affailed with this gro's and barbarous elocution?'

But the character of the two nations appears in nothing more ftrikingly than in the account he gives of a fermon preached by the bishop of Worcester (Dr. Maddox), in 1752, for the purpose of promoting the establishment of an hofpital for inoculation.

Deftitute of imagination, and of fenfibility, he wanders into abftract calculations refpecting population; into low details about the fecondary fever; and, after having exhaufted all those combinations, certainly more fuited to a medicinal fchool than a Chriftian affembly, he quotes the teftimonies and authority of Meffrs. Ranby, Hawkins, and Middleton, furgeons of London, of whom he speaks with as much veneration as if they were fathers of the church.

The more we read foreign orators, the more we perceive the pre-eminence of the French preachers.'

Now the abbé does not reflect that an English audience would really confider Meifrs. Ranby, Hawkins, &c. as much better authority in fuch a matter than all the fathers of the church put together, and would be fooner moved to endow an hofpital by the fimple statement that in the natural fmall-pox, one in feven are loft, and only in two or three hundred by C. R. N. ARR. (XI.) July, 1794. Ꮓ .

inocu