when he called the graceful and varied vocables and intonation of the French tongue 'monotony in wire.' Whatever one may think of the tedium of the rhymed hexameters of its tragedy, even these have a grandeur and resonance in their music, more resembling the sonorous march of the organ than the tripping twang of the lyre. Declaimed by Rachel, they breathe divinæ particulam auræ.

There is something, moreover, in the mere size of the pulpits, which is usually larger in France; in the frequency of address from the altar steps, giving effect to the clerical costume, and command and freedom to gesture; in the fact, too, of the auditory in great part standing throughout the service, requiring brevity and point in the homily; and, further, in the vast predominance of the lower classes in most of the assemblies for public worship, to account for the prevailing style of preaching amongst the French people being so different from our own, and in many points of view so worthy of admiration. It aims at effect, and it is effective, as every unbiassed spectator must allow; the tout ensemble making up the sum of its aptitudes, which is considerable, and the eagerness with which it is followed furnishing a fair gauge of its success.

On a comparison of the object respectively aimed at by the two classes of preachers on the different sides of the Channel, it may fairly be questioned whether we on ours have not sacrificed too much to the characteristic feature of Protestant indoctrination, which is didactic to the highest degree. The Protestant preacher aims to instruct, the Romish expositor to move; the one to furnish correct ideas, the other to exhibit enthralling motives. The former therefore lectures, the latter persuades. The Protestant pastor will tell you what the prophets and apostles taught, but is rarely himself an apostle, much less a prophet; but the Romish declaimer, whilst saying very common things, and, in our apprehension, sometimes very wrong things, has generally the advantage of seeming much in earnest, and, at extraordinary seasons, of appearing a very John the Baptist, denouncing sin, and urging repentance on the people. This advantage could not be secured where the sermon was habitually looked upon as a teaching rather than a moving ordinance. If Romish divines too often forget that religion is not merely devout feeling, we, it

is to be apprehended, as often forget that religion is not merely devout notions. Never, perhaps, in any Protestant temple, not even in those of France, where we listen to the same flexible and exquisite rhetoric as in the popish sanctuaries, are we moved to express our applause by an involuntary bravo, like the lively Byzantines with their Eugé to him of the golden mouth, as we are in some popish chapel, where an obvious Christian duty may be urged upon the people by no logicallylinked series of reasons, but by a simple appeal to their own consciousness of what is right, and (for we must not forget this other as a frequent motive) to the authority of the church, which demands obedience because it has the power to enjoin the observance it requires.

The hortatory, as distinct from the didactic, is unquestionably a characteristic feature of the preaching of the Church of Rome, and by an obvious sequence, of the Romish Church of France. If the policy of the Popish Church in that country relaxed into connivance at the use of manuscript in the pulpit, the character of its discourses would doubtless undergo a considerable alteration, and would assimilate in some measure to the more didactic nature of Protestant homiletic address, with serious detriment, in all likelihoood, to the effectiveness of that unequalled organ for extemporaneous exhortation, the national language of France. So long, however, as that policy continues the same on this point (and we could not wish it changed), that mellifluous tongue will well serve the needs of those who are to employ it, and make the eye sparkle with its brilliancy and point, move the soul to tenderness by the softness of its appeals to the affections and our better nature, or urge to repentance and holiness by the vigour of its denunciations and the sternness of its rebukes. For the purposes for which it is used in the Romish Church, the French language is one of the aptest instruments that can be employed. It suits itself to the varied phases of the mind addressed, and the manifold exigencies of the orator, like the cogs to the dentated wheel. The tongue throws trippingly off the light vocables which God has fitted for its modulation, and these again answer to the cries of the expectant heart, as the nursing mother to the impatience of her fretting babe. We speak, of course, of a creed alien to our own, and of sundry arrangements and characteris

tics which we cannot entirely approve, yet are we constrained to avow of the affair, on a review of the whole, as recognising a higher operation than that of man in this reciprocation of part and counterpart, 'herein is wisdom. (Rev. xiii.)

Yet, over and beyond all we have stated, we see much in the national character of the French people to account for the peculiarity of the pulpit; but it needs a residence among them to appreciate their character. They are a vain people, hence they like what is grandiose in their pulpit. They are a polite people, and have no objection to compliment, implied or expressed, on the part of the preacher. They are a witty people, and demand a happy use of their facile tongue. They are quick of apprehension, and volatile in their attachments, hence prosiness disgusts them, and protracted discourses tire: short, sharp, biting sermons; or easy, fluent, narrative sermons; or, again, grandiloquent and declamatory sermons, is what the French people affect. But the angel Gabriel himself would have few admirers, if, after an hour's attendance at mass, he administered the dose of an hour's homily at its close. When we come to name the condensed brevity of discourse requisite to secure the popular ear, recommended to the clergy by one claiming some authority among them, our readers will recognise the truth of our assertion. What Cotton Mather had written over his studydoor, would seem inscribed habitually on the French pulpit-'Be short.' If, on the contrary, the most followed preachers of our own country aim at brevity at all, they must be allowed to succeed in their attempt, in the same sense only in which an attorney's instructions to a lawyer, extending to a hundred folios, are by courtesy designated a brief. A sermon needs not be, and ought not to be, a body of divinity, but a single commonplace well and wisely handled, according to the demands of time and place; more regard being had throughout to desirableness of impression, than to uniformity or philosophy of method. You may wet a man with a smart shower as thoroughly as with a deluge. A rifle will despatch a soldier on the campaign that knows no returning, as effectually as a 24-pounder. He who resists a half-hour's exhortation, will not be likely to capitulate to the dinning reiteration of an hour. A few strokes of the lash find the culprit sensitive to its twinge, while the prolonged

punishment defeats its own end, and deadens the sense of pain in the benumbed sufferer.

We are unwilling to dwell upon the faults of the Parisian character, which we conceive to be reflected as faithfully in its pulpit, as they are acted in the life. Indeed, the defects of the pulpit presume the corresponding failures in the morale of the people, just as the adaptations of mechanism suggest the existence of a purpose in the mind of the designer. That character exhibits the strangest contrasts; each contrasted phase being all the while as indisputably true as that which is diametrically its opposite. No nation ever more coveted splendour abroad-none was ever more frugal at home-the French individual, or family, being singularly self-denying in its ménage. No people were ever more generous in the use of money-none ever more money-loving in speech and appearance, for livres de rente is as common a phrase in their lips, as the everlasting dollar in those of Brother Jonathan. None more magnificent in those exploits which appeal to universal admiration, and challenge the pen of history-none more circumscribed and narrow in the circle of the individual and obscure.

Great virtues and great faults are found to be massed in the same characterchiari-ascuri of the most pronounced shine and shadow; and that description is eminently true of them as a people, which was intended for an individual-the English statesman whose portrait was etched in the words we quote -'the wisest, greatest, meanest of mankind.' Apropos of sermons and national character, we think the following Parisian incident may challenge comparison with the world:

In the year 1497, a zealous Franciscan monk preached against female libertinism, and with such signal success, that two hundred dissolute women forsook their evil way, and became the crown of glory rewarding his eloquence. He established a maison for their reception, and so pleasant would seem to be their condition there, that in the statutes provision had to be made against prostitution, with a view to shelter within its walls. One scarcely knows which most to wonder at-the prudence which suggested the precaution, or the natural weakness which

made the precaution wisdom. It was established, that none should be received but women who had led a dissolute life;' and to prevent girls from prostituting themselves, in order to be received, it was enacted that the candidates shall be obliged

course it enjoins is evangelical and just; for love in the soul, beaming through the face, and prompting the kind endeavour, is a first condition of success in popular pulpit oratory. Hearts ever have been for sale in this world, but the price ishearts. It is not money, but barterlike for like-which secures them.

One must understand the people, to address them with effect. Most persons judge of them from insufficient data. One sees a profligate wretch staggering, drunken and blaspheming, through the streets, and says, There's a pretty sample of the people!' Another, equally mistaken, finding a poor fellow bring back a purse that had been lost, or hazarding his life to save another's, cries out, 'There's a true specimen of the people!' The premises in both these cases are too narrow, and the inference untrue. The fact is, that the people have two sides, and both must be recognised in dealing with them. They are timid and brave, kind and unkind, delicate and gross, credulous and unbelieving, generous and selfish, serious and frivolousnot every person all these at once, but a mixture of some of these in different proportions in most individuals. Not many of the multitude are demons of darkness, without one ray of light in their composition, although no angel of unstained purity be found in their ranks. Few are all evil, even though there be none entirely good. Frivolity is only on the surface of the French popular character, for beneath is a fund of kindness, mingled with an excellent good sense. The very impulse which hurries the mob into revolution is from the more favourable side of the man. Appeal has only to be made to the sense of justice, to the love of their species, and they seek at once in arms the redress of the suspected wrong. An ultracredulous head often employs these nobler impulses on a fool's errand, and uses them to little good purpose; but they are there, nevertheless, and to them in all cases must the religious teacher who has tact address himself. These are the Archimedean lever whereby to upraise a noble but fallen nature from its degradation. These characteristics will be found marking the inhabitants of our larger towns in an exaggerated form; more vain, silly, and self-indulgent, but at the same time also more generous, easily led, and capable of a noble course of action, than the rural populations. They are eminently people of heart; their heart, their sensibility, is the honour and glory of the French nation, its characteristic genius. To other nations may belong the genius of speculative science or practical industry, but to France the genius of the heart, of the soul, of sympathy, and cha

rity. Complain not of this as a narrow dower, for it is a fair and sufficient one. Is it not by these that we dominate the human race? When God would have an idea make the circuit of the world, he drops the seed of it into a French soul. There it quickly ripens into fruit, and this heart of ours, so lofty, so communicative, so winning, and so easily won, scatters it over the globe with the rapidity of electricity. It is a kingly race, this of France. The destinies of the universe are bound up with its destinies. There is nothing stable in the wide world, when France is disturbed and uneasy.

The credit of the rhetorical flight of this paragraph belongs to our lively author, who lacks not the spirit of nationality, whatever other defects might be detected in his memoranda. The wit and wisdom of the French abbé come out in his description of the inhabitants of rural districts, and in his prescriptions to meet their peculiar faults:

The leading parts in rural parishes are played by an essentially small people. The region they inhabit is the classical land of small notions, small vanities, small triumphs, and prodigious backbiting. Every one is acquainted with every one, takes off his hat to him, and marks every hole in his coat that wants stitching. There is no greater scandalmonger on earth than the narrow-minded dweller in the country parish, unless it be said narrow-minded parishioner's wife. The weaker vessel may be called the ne plus ultra of silly tittle-tattle and scandalous oui-dire, descending to a pessimism of paltry defamations that forbids a parallel. The leading authority of the place is neither priest nor proprietor, but the stunted public opinion of the vicinage, flanked by its dwarfish sister routine. There is a kind of virtue in such populations; it is more moral, more provident, more steady, and more faithful to its domestic relations, than the populace of large towns; but its virtues spring from fear in a great degree, and from the absence of temptation. Country people, moving in small circles, are afraid of enemies and of friends, of strangers and of neighbours, of themselves, lest they be overlooked, and again of themselves, lest they become the country talk. These people have no independence of soul or freedom of action, and can only be acted upon in masses. As they are timid, so are they cunning, and as they earn their money hardly and slowly, so are they usually reluctant to part with it, and miserably stingy. Proud, moreover, in their way are they, as proud of being churchwarden or

guardian of the poor as any grand mayor or marshal of them all. The rustic, moreover, has talents and address of no very exalted kind, which show themselves in palming off a bad horse at a fair, or in exacting sixpence more in the price of a sheep than its real worth; yet exerts he in this restricted diplomacy as much finesse as the minister of state, whose protocols preserve the peace of Europe. Now, how deal with such people? Why, seize the provincial by his better side, and do not disdain to play upon his weaker one-his vanity. Be polite to him, take off your hat to him, express an interest in him, give sugar-plums to his little ones, and this will open his soul to your attentions, and gain his confidence. Aim, in short, at the man's heart, for that is the soundest part of all society, whether in country or in town. [In this style prattles on the spiritual director of the modern French apostles.] Secure the people's ears, their hearts, by legitimate and direct means, if possible, but gain them somehow, and at any cost of ingenuousness of procedure: rem, quocunque modo rem. And despair not, while using means to gain your object, of restoring the humbler classes to the Christian life, for, however immoral their practice and mistaken their sentiments, the French populace are naturally Christian (naturellement Chrêtien). [Our author does not so readily extend his indulgence to educated persons, for he proceeds to say, in vindication of his assertion] The populace are naturally Christian; there is more religion in the little finger of the common people, than our savans have in all their haughty persons.

But, notwithstanding his charitable opinion of the native goodness of the populace, the confession pervades his essay in a thousand forms, that the masses are to a great degree infidel, and the priesthood distrusted. The fact is so often conceded or assumed by one who would at any expense be on good terms with them, that it cannot be disputed; and a melancholy fact it is. It is, that respect for revelation as such has died out of the popular mind in France, that the preachers of it are regarded as deceivers, and its creed as a cunningly-devised fable. It is, that the streams of poison, descending from the upper regions of French society for the space of a century, have not shed their virus in vain on those beneath, but have infected with their fatal influence all upon whom they have played. And it is, that the priesthood are generally avoided and despised, where not insulted and assailed:

Now, what in the face of such a state of affairs is the secret by means of which the hostile poor are to be won? The answer is prompt: by listening to them. Hear sympathisingly the story of their sorrows and wrongs; listen patiently even to the scorns and personal reproaches; resent not their common sobriquet for the clergy, there goes a black crow!' nor the mocking caw-caw which too often follow your steps, and they will think favourably of the person in a higher condition than their own who has lent them an ear, or submitted to their gibes. Once taught to like the man, they will revere the exhortations of the priest.

The style of reproof recommended, when condemning faulty conduct, savours more of the wisdom of the serpent than of the innocence of the dove:

We

The language of the spiritual teacher must not deal so much in the phrases, religion forbids this, or denounces that, for religion will then be only hated, and those whom you reprove discouraged. Frenchmen are true sons of Adam and Eve; for let a thing be but forbidden, and we straightway are all on fire to get hold of it. When a man, therefore, blasphemes before you, do not call it a sin, or say it is abominable, for in that case the rascal will be sure to do it again; but say it is unpolite, that it does not comport with the usages of respectable society, with knowledge of the world or a good education, and the man will do it no more; for the most miserably poor and the most incurably vicious would yet gladly be thought to have been well brought up, and to have been taught respect for public opinion. Do not dwell, then, so much on the reprobation of vice, as upon the excellence and beauty of virtue.

To much the same effect is what follows, exhibiting the ménagement of the man of the world, more than the simplicity of the gospel of Christ:

One of the grand means of gaining the peasantry, as, indeed, of gaining the people in general, is to flatter its vanity and feed its self-esteem. Be not niggardly with your compliments, even when they are only half deserved. Teach the man to rate at their proper worth his good qualities. Be not afraid of making him too vain, or of raising too high his self-appreciation, for he has already gone too far to the contrary extreme. Would rather you could raise him to the sky of self-esteem itself! Did not our Lord Jesus Christ come to raise the dead from their graves? With the recollection of his noble origin, man resigns himself with an ill grace to be no