ashamed of your manner of burial. All this is not that you may weep and lament and afflict yourselves, but that you may render thanks to Him who has taken the departed.

When men are called to some high office, multitudes with praises on their lips assemble to escort them at their departure to their stations, so do all with abundant praise join to send forward, as to a greater honor, those of the pious who have departed. Death is rest, a deliverance from the exhausting labors and cares of this world. When, then, thou seest a relative departing yield not to despondency; give thyself to reflection; examine thy conscience; cherish the thought that after a little while this end awaits thee also. Be more considerate; let another's death excite thee to salutary fear; shake off all indolence; examine your past deeds; quit your sins and commence a happy change.

We differ from unbelievers in our estimate of things. The unbeliever surveys the heaven and worships it, because he thinks it a divinity; he looks to the earth and makes himself a servant to it, and longs for the things of sense. But not so with us. We survey the heaven and admire Him that made it, for we believe it not to be a god, but a work of God.

I look on the whole creation, and am led by it to the Creator. He looks on wealth and longs for and laments; I see poverty and rejoice. I see things in one light, he in another. Just so in regard to death. He sees a corpse and thinks of it as a corpse; I see a corpse and behold sleep rather than death. And as in regard to books, both learned persons and unlearned see them with the same eyes, but not with the same understanding. To the unlearned the mere shapes of letters appear, while the learned discover the sense that lies within those letters. So in respect to affairs in general, we all see what takes place with the same eyes, but not with the same understanding and judgment. Since, therefore, in all other things we differ from them, shall we agree with them in our sentiments respecting death? Con

sider to whom the departed has gone. He has gone where Paul is, and the whole company of the saints. Consider how he shall arise, with what glory and with what splendor.

ON APPLAUDING PREACHERS

It is a mischief when one who teaches will in words impugn the teachings by his deeds. This has been the cause of many evils in the churches. Wherefore pardon me, I beseech you, if my discourse dwells long on this evil affection. Many take a great deal of pains to be able to stand up in public and make a long speech; and if they get applause from the multitude, it is to them as if they had gained the very kingdom of heaven; but if silence follows the close of their speech the defection that falls upon their spirits from the silence is worse than hell itself. This has turned the churches upside down, because you desire not to hear a discourse calculated to lead to compunction, but one that may delight you from the sound and composition of the words, as though you were listening to singers and minstrels. When we idly busy ourselves about beautiful expressions and the composition and harmony of our sentences in order that we might not profit; when we make it our aim to be admired, not to instruct; to delight, not prick to the heart; to be applauded and depart with praise, not to correct men's manners,we do wrong. Believe me, I speak what I feel, when as I discourse, I hear myself applauded, at the moment I feel it as a man; I am delighted and give way to the pleasurable feeling; but when I get home and bethink me that those who applauded received no benefit from my discourse, but whatever benefit they ought to have got they lost it while applauding and praising, I am in pain, and groan and weep, and feel as if I had spoken all in vain. I say to myself what profit comes to me from my labors, while the hearers do not choose to benefit by what they hear from me?

Even the heathen philosophers we hear of their discours

ing, and nowhere do we find that noisy applause accompanied their words; we hear of the apostles making public speeches, and yet nowhere do the accounts add that in the midst of their discourses the hearers interrupted the speaker with loud expressions of approbation. Christ spoke publicly on the mount, yet no one said aught until He had finished His discourse. How shall the hearer be otherwise than ridiculous? Nay, he will be deemed a flatterer and his praise no better than irony, when he declares that the teacher spoke beautifully; but what he said, this he cannot tell. This has all the appearance of adulation. For when, indeed, one has been hearing minstrels and players, it is no wonder if such has been the case with him, seeing he looks not how to utter the strain in the same manner; but where the matter is not an exhibition of song or of voice, but the drift and purport of thoughts and wise reflections, and it is easy for every one to tell and report what was said, how can he but deserve the accusation, who cannot tell what the matter was for which he praised the speaker? Nothing so becomes the church as silence and good order.

Noise belongs to the theaters, and baths, and public processions, and market-places; but where doctrines, and such doctrines, are the subject of teaching, there should be stillness and quiet, and calm reflection, and a haven of much repose. These things I beseech and entreat; for I go about in quest of ways by which I shall be enabled to profit your souls. And no small way I take this to be; it will profit not you only, but us also. So shall we not be carried away with pride, not be tempted to love praises and honor, not be led to speak those things which delight, but those things that profit: so shall we lay the whole stress of our time and diligence, not upon arts of composition and beauties of expression, but upon the matter and meaning of the thoughts.

Is not all nature decked with stillness and silence? all the face of heaven is scattered the charm of repose.

Over On this

account we are evil spoken of even among the Gentiles, as though we did all for display and ostentation. But if this be prevented the love of the chief seats will also be extinguished. It is sufficient, if any one be enamored of praise, that he should obtain it after having been heard, when all is gathered in. Yea, I beseech you that doing all things according to God's will, we may be found worthy of the mercy which is from Him, through the grace and compassion of His only Son.

a man.

IV. JACQUES BÉNIGNE BOSSUET

ON THE DEATH OF THE PRINCE OF CONDÉ

Our lamentations ought to break forth at the loss of so great But for the love of truth and the shame of those who despise it, listen once more to that noble testimony which he bore to it in dying. Informed by his confessor that if our heart is not entirely right with God, we must, in our addresses, ask God Himself to make it such as He pleases, and address Him in the affecting language of David, “O God, create in me a clean heart," the Prince is arrested by the words, pauses, as if occupied with some great thought; then calling the ecclesiastic who had suggested the idea, he says: “I have never doubted the mysteries of religion, as some have reported." Christians, you ought to believe him, for in the state he then was he owed to the world nothing but truth.

What was then taking place in his soul? What new light dawned upon him? What sudden ray pierced the cloud, and instantly dissipated, not only all the darkness of sense, but the very shadows, and if I dare to say it, the sacred obscurities of faith? What then became of those splendid titles by which our pride is flattered? On the very verge of glory, and in the dawning of a light so beautiful, how rapidly vanish the phantoms of the world! How dim appears the splendor of the most glorious victory! How profoundly we despise the glory of

the world, and how deeply regret that our eyes were ever dazzled by its radiance! Come, ye people, or rather ye princes and lords, ye judges of the earth, and ye who open to man the portals of heaven; and more than all others, ye princes and princesses, nobles descended from a long line of kings, lights of France, but to-day in gloom, and covered with your grief, as with a cloud, come and see how little remains of a birth so august, a grandeur so high, a glory so dazzling. Look around on all sides, and see all that magnificence and devotion can do to honor so great a hero; titles and inscriptions, vain signs of that which is no more shadows which weep around a tomb, fragile images of a grief which time sweeps away with everything else; columns which seem as if they would bear to heaven the magnificent evidence of our emptiness; nothing, indeed, is wanting in all these honors but him to whom they are rendered! Weep then over these feeble remains of human life; weep over that mournful immortality we give to heroes. But draw near, especially ye who run with such ardor the career of glory, intrepid and warrior spirits! Who was more worthy to command you, and in whom did you find command more honorable? Mourn then that great captain, and weeping, say: "Here is the man that led us through all hazards, under whom were formed so many renowned captains, raised by his example to the highest honors of war; his shadow might yet gain battles, and lo! in his silence his very name animates us, and at the same time warns us, that to find at death some rest from our toils, and not arrive unprepared at our eternal dwelling, we must, with an earthly king, yet serve the king of heaven."

Serve then that immortal and ever merciful King, who will value a sigh or a cup of cold water, given in His name, more than all others will value the shedding of your blood. And begin to reckon the time of your useful services from the day on which you gave yourselves to so beneficent a Master. Will not ye too come, ye whom he honored by making you his friends?