that they would give me the advantage of their countenance and assistance
by appearing from time to time in the pulpit of our new University, some
of them accompanied that promise with the natural request that I, who had
asked for it, should offer them my own views of the mode and form in which
the duty would be most satisfactorily accomplished. On the other hand, it
was quite as natural that I on my part should be disinclined to take on
myself an office which belongs to a higher station and authority in the
Church than my own; and the more so, because, on the definite subject
about which the inquiry is made, I should have far less direct aid from
the writings of holy men and great divines than I could desire. Were it
indeed my sole business to put into shape the scattered precepts which
saints and doctors have delivered upon it, I might have ventured on such a
task with comparatively little misgiving. Under the shadow of the great
teachers of the pastoral office I might have been content to speak,
without looking out for any living authority to prompt me. But this
unfortunately is not the case; such venerable guidance does not extend
beyond the general principles and rules of preaching, and these require
both expansion and adaptation when they are to be made to bear on
compositions addressed in the name of a University to University men. They
define the essence of Christian preaching, which is one and the same in
all cases; but not the subject-matter or the method, which vary according
to circumstances. Still, after all, the points to which they do reach are
more, and more important, than those which they fall short of. I
therefore, though with a good deal of anxiety, have attempted to perform a
task which seemed naturally to fall to me; and I am thankful to say that,
though I must in some measure go beyond the range of the simple direction
to which I have referred, the greater part of my remarks will lie within
it.
2.
So far is clear at once, that the preacher’s object is the spiritual good
of his hearers. “Finis prædicanti sit,” says St. Francis de Sales; “ut
_vitam_ (justitiæ) _habeant homines_, et abundantius habeant.” And St.
Charles: “Considerandum, ad Dei omnipotentis gloriam, ad animarumque
salutem, referri omnem concionandi vim ac rationem.” Moreover,
“Prædicatorem esse ministrum Dei, per quem verbum Dei à spiritûs fonte
ducitur ad fidelium animas irrigandas.” As a marksman aims at the target
and its bull’s-eye, and at nothing else, so the preacher must have a
definite point before him, which he has to hit. So much is contained for
his direction in this simple maxim, that duly to enter into it and use it
is half the battle; and if he mastered nothing else, still if he really
mastered as much as this, he would know all that was imperative for the
due discharge of his office.
1. For what is the conduct of men who have one object definitely before
them, and one only? Why, that, whatever be their skill, whatever their
resources, greater or less, to its attainment all their efforts are
simply, spontaneously, visibly, directed. This cuts off a number of
questions sometimes asked about preaching, and extinguishes a number of
anxieties. “Sollicita es, et turbaris,” says our Lord to St. Martha; “erga
plurima; porro unum est necessarium.” We ask questions perhaps about
diction, elocution, rhetorical power; but does the commander of a
besieging force dream of holiday displays, reviews, mock engagements,
feats of strength, or trials of skill, such as would be graceful and
suitable on a parade ground when a foreigner of rank was to be received
and _fêted_; or does he aim at one and one thing only, viz., to take the
strong place? Display dissipates the energy, which for the object in view
needs to be concentrated and condensed. We have no reason to suppose that
the Divine blessing follows the lead of human accomplishments. Indeed, St.
Paul, writing to the Corinthians, who made much of such advantages of
nature, contrasts the persuasive words of human wisdom “with the showing
of the Spirit,” and tells us that “the kingdom of God is not in speech,
but in power.”
But, not to go to the consideration of divine influences, which is beyond
my subject, the very presence of simple earnestness is even in itself a
powerful natural instrument to effect that toward which it is directed.
Earnestness creates earnestness in others by sympathy; and the more a
preacher loses and is lost to himself, the more does he gain his brethren.
Nor is it without some logical force also; for what is powerful enough to
absorb and possess a preacher has at least a _primâ facie_ claim of
attention on the part of his hearers. On the other hand, any thing which
interferes with this earnestness, or which argues its absence, is still
more certain to blunt the force of the most cogent argument conveyed in
the most eloquent language. Hence it is that the great philosopher of
antiquity, in speaking, in his Treatise on Rhetoric, of the various kinds
of persuasives, which are available in the Art, considers the most
authoritative of these to be that which is drawn from personal traits of
an ethical nature evident in the orator; for such matters are cognizable
by all men, and the common sense of the world decides that it is safer,
where it is possible, to commit oneself to the judgment of men of
character than to any considerations addressed merely to the feelings or
to the reason.
On these grounds I would go on to lay down a precept, which I trust is not
extravagant, when allowance is made for the preciseness and the point
which are unavoidable in all categorical statements upon matters of
conduct. It is, that preachers should neglect everything whatever besides
devotion to their one object, and earnestness in pursuing it, till they in
some good in measure attain to these requisites. Talent, logic, learning,
words, manner, voice, action, all are required for the perfection of a
preacher; but “one thing is necessary,”—an intense perception and
appreciation of the end for which he preaches, and that is, to be the
minister of some definite spiritual good to those who hear him. Who could
wish to be more eloquent, more powerful, more successful than the Teacher
of the Nations? yet who more earnest, who more natural, who more
unstudied, who more self-forgetting than he?
3.
(1.) And here, in order to prevent misconception, two remarks must be
made, which will lead us further into the subject we are engaged upon. The
first is, that, in what I have been saying, I do not mean that a preacher
must aim at _earnestness_, but that he must aim at his _object_, which is
to do some spiritual good to his hearers, and which will at once _make_
him earnest. It is said that, when a man has to cross an abyss by a narrow
plank thrown over it, it is his wisdom, not to look at the plank, along
which lies his path, but to fix his eyes steadily on the point in the
opposite precipice at which the plank ends. It is by gazing at the object
which he must reach, and ruling himself by it, that he secures to himself
the power of walking to it straight and steadily. The case is the same in
moral matters; no one will become really earnest by aiming directly at
earnestness; any one may become earnest by meditating on the motives, and
by drinking at the sources, of earnestness. We may of course work
ourselves up into a pretence, nay, into a paroxysm, of earnestness; as we
may chafe our cold hands till they are warm. But when we cease chafing, we
lose the warmth again; on the contrary, let the sun come out and strike us
with his beams, and we need no artificial chafing to be warm. The hot
words, then, and energetic gestures of a preacher, taken by themselves,
are just as much signs of earnestness as rubbing the hands or flapping the
arms together are signs of warmth; though they are natural where
earnestness already exists, and pleasing as being its spontaneous
concomitants. To sit down to compose for the pulpit with a resolution to
be eloquent is one impediment to persuasion; but to be determined to be
earnest is absolutely fatal to it.
He who has before his mental eye the Four Last Things will have the true
earnestness, the horror or the rapture, of one who witnesses a
conflagration, or discerns some rich and sublime prospect of natural
scenery. His countenance, his manner, his voice, speak for him, in
proportion as his view has been vivid and minute. The great English poet
has described this sort of eloquence when a calamity had befallen:—
Yea, this man’s brow, like to a title page,
Foretells the nature of a tragic volume.
Thou tremblest, and the whiteness in thy cheek
Is apter than thy tongue to tell thy errand.
It is this earnestness, in the supernatural order, which is the eloquence
of saints; and not of saints only, but of all Christian preachers,
according to the measure of their faith and love. As the case would be
with one who has actually seen what he relates, the herald of tidings of
the invisible world also will be, from the nature of the case, whether
vehement or calm, sad or exulting, always simple, grave, emphatic, and
peremptory; and all this, not because he has proposed to himself to be so,
but because certain intellectual convictions involve certain external
manifestations. St. Francis de Sales is full and clear upon this point. It
is necessary, he says, “ut ipsemet penitus hauseris, ut persuasissimam
tibi habeas, doctrinam quam aliis persuasam cupis. Artificium summum erit,
nullum habere artificium. Inflammata sint verba, non clamoribus
gesticulationibusve immodicis, sed interiore affectione. De corde plus
quàm de ore proficiscantur. Quantumvis ore dixerimus, sanè cor cordi
loquitur, lingua non nisi aures pulsat.” St. Augustine had said to the
same purpose long before: “Sonus verborum nostrorum aures percutit;
magister intus est.”
(2.) My second remark is, that it is the preacher’s duty to aim at
imparting to others, not any fortuitous, unpremeditated benefit, but some
_definite_ spiritual good. It is here that design and study find their
place; the more exact and precise is the subject which he treats, the more
impressive and practical will he be; whereas no one will carry off much
from a discourse which is on the general subject of virtue, or vaguely and
feebly entertains the question of the desirableness of attaining Heaven,
or the rashness of incurring eternal ruin. As a distinct image before the
mind makes the preacher earnest, so it will give him something which it is
worth while to communicate to others. Mere sympathy, it is true, is able,
as I have said, to transfer an emotion or sentiment from mind to mind, but
it is not able to fix it there. He must aim at imprinting on the heart
what will never leave it, and this he cannot do unless he employ himself
on some definite subject, which he has to handle and weigh, and then, as
it were, to hand over from himself to others.
Hence it is that the Saints insist so expressly on the necessity of his
addressing himself to the intellect of men, and of convincing as well as
persuading. “Necesse est ut _doceat_ et moveat,” says St. Francis; and St.
Antoninus still more distinctly: “Debet prædicator clare loqui, ut
_instruat intellectum_ auditoris, et doceat.” Hence, moreover, in St.
Ignatius’s Exercises, the act of the intellect precedes that of the
affections. Father Lohner seems to me to be giving an instance in point
when he tells us of a court-preacher, who delivered what would be commonly
considered eloquent sermons, and attracted no one; and next took to simple
explanations of the Mass and similar subjects, and then found the church
thronged. So necessary is it to have something to say, if we desire any
one to listen.
Nay, I would go the length of recommending a preacher to place a distinct
categorical proposition before him, such as he can write down in a form of
words, and to guide and limit his preparation by it, and to aim in all he
says to bring it out, and nothing else. This seems to be implied or
suggested in St. Charles’s direction: “Id omnino studebit, ut quod in
concione dicturus est antea _bene cognitum_ habeat.” Nay, is it not
expressly conveyed in the Scripture phrase of “preaching the _word_”? for
what is meant by “the word” but a proposition addressed to the intellect?
nor will a preacher’s earnestness show itself in anything more
unequivocally than in his rejecting, whatever be the temptation to admit
it, every remark, however original, every period, however eloquent, which
does not in some way or other tend to bring out this one distinct
proposition which he has chosen. Nothing is so fatal to the effect of a
sermon as the habit of preaching on three or four subjects at once. I
acknowledge I am advancing a step beyond the practice of great Catholic
preachers when I add that, even though we preach on only one at a time,
finishing and dismissing the first before we go to the second, and the
second before we go to the third, still, after all, a practice like this,
though not open to the inconvenience which the confusing of one subject
with another involves, is in matter of fact nothing short of the delivery
of three sermons in succession without break between them.
Summing up, then, what I have been saying, I observe that, if I have
understood the doctrine of St. Charles, St. Francis, and other saints
aright, _definiteness of object_ is in various ways the one virtue of the
preacher;—and this means that he should set out with the intention of
conveying to others some spiritual benefit; that, with a view to this, and
as the only ordinary way to it, he should select some distinct fact or
scene, some passage in history, some truth, simple or profound, some
doctrine, some principle, or some sentiment, and should study it well and
thoroughly, and first make it his own, or else have already dwelt on it
and mastered it, so as to be able to use it for the occasion from an
habitual understanding of it; and that then he should employ himself, as
the one business of his discourse, to bring home to others, and to leave
deep within them, what he has, before he began to speak to them, brought
home to himself. What he feels himself, and feels deeply, he has to make
others feel deeply; and in proportion as he comprehends this, he will rise
above the temptation of introducing collateral matters, and will have no
taste, no heart, for going aside after flowers of oratory, fine figures,
tuneful periods, which are worth nothing, unless they come to him
spontaneously, and are spoken “out of the abundance of the heart.” Our
Lord said on one occasion “I am come to send fire on the earth, and what
will I but that it be kindled?” He had one work, and He accomplished it.
“The words,” He says, “which Thou gavest Me, I have _given_ to them, and
they have _received_ them,… _and now_ I come to Thee.” And the Apostles,
again, as they had received, so were they to give. “That which _we_ have
seen and have heard,” says one of them, “we declare unto _you_, that you
may have _fellowship_ with us.” If, then, a preacher’s subject only be
some portion of the Divine message, however elementary it may be, however
trite, it will have a dignity such as to possess him, and a virtue to
kindle him, and an influence to subdue and convert those to whom it goes
forth from him, according to the words of the promise, “My word, which
shall go forth from My mouth, shall not return to Me void, but it shall do
whatsoever I please, and shall prosper in the things for which I sent it.”
4.
2. And now having got as far as this, we shall see without difficulty what
a University Sermon ought to be just so far as it is distinct from other
sermons; for, if all preaching is directed towards a hearer, such as is
the hearer will be the preaching, and, as a University auditory differs
from other auditories, so will a sermon addressed to it differ from other
sermons. This, indeed, is a broad maxim which holy men lay down on the
subject of preaching. Thus, St. Gregory Theologus, as quoted by the Pope
his namesake, says: “The self-same exhortation is not suitable for all
hearers; for all have not the same disposition of mind, and what profits
these is hurtful to those.” The holy Pope himself throws the maxim into
another form, still more precise: “Debet prædicator,” he says,
“perspicere, ne plus prædicet, quàm ab audiente capi possit.” And St.
Charles expounds it, referring to Pope St. Gregory: “Pro audientium genere
locos doctrinarum, ex quibus concionem conficiat, non modo distinctos, sed
optimè explicatos habebit. Atque in hoc quidem multiplici genere
concionator videbit, ne quæcumque, ut S. Gregorius scitè monet, legerit,
aut scientiâ comprehenderit, omnia enunciet atque effundat; sed delectum
habebit, ita ut documenta alia exponat, alia tacitè relinquat, prout
locus, ordo, conditioque auditorum deposcat.” And, by way of obviating the
chance of such a rule being considered a human artifice inconsistent with
the simplicity of the Gospel, he had said shortly before: “Ad Dei gloriam,
ad cœlestis regni propagationem, et ad animarum salutem, plurimum
interest, non solum quales sint prædicatores, sed quâ viâ, quâ ratione
prædicent.”
It is true, this is also one of the elementary principles of the Art of
Rhetoric; but it is no scandal that a saintly Bishop should in this matter
borrow a maxim from secular, nay, from pagan schools. For divine grace
does not overpower nor supersede the action of the human mind according to
its proper nature; and if heathen writers have analyzed that nature well,
so far let them be used to the greater glory of the Author and Source of
all Truth. Aristotle, then, in his celebrated treatise on Rhetoric, makes
the very essence of the Art lie in the precise recognition of a hearer. It
is a relative art, and in that respect differs from Logic, which simply
teaches the right use of reason, whereas Rhetoric is the art of
persuasion, which implies a person who is to be persuaded. As, then, the
Christian Preacher aims at the Divine Glory, not in any vague and general
way, but definitely by the enunciation of some article or passage of the
Revealed Word, so further, he enunciates it, not for the instruction of
the whole world, but directly for the sake of those very persons who are
before him. He is, when in the pulpit, instructing, enlightening,
informing, advancing, sanctifying, not all nations, nor all classes, nor
all callings, but those particular ranks, professions, states, ages,
characters, which have gathered around him. Proof indeed is the same all
over the earth; but he has not only to prove, but to persuade;—_Whom_? A
hearer, then, is included in the very idea of preaching; and we cannot
determine how in detail we ought to preach, till we know whom we are to
address.
In all the most important respects, indeed, all hearers are the same, and
what is suitable for one audience is suitable for another. All hearers are
children of Adam, all, too, are children of the Christian adoption and of
the Catholic Church. The great topics which suit the multitude, which
attract the poor, which sway the unlearned, which warn, arrest, recall,
the wayward and wandering, are in place within the precincts of a
University as elsewhere. A _Studium Generale_ is not a cloister, or
noviciate, or seminary, or boarding-school; it is an assemblage of the
young, the inexperienced, the lay and the secular; and not even the
simplest of religious truths, or the most elementary article of the
Christian faith, can be unseasonable from its pulpit. A sermon on the
Divine Omnipresence, on the future judgment, on the satisfaction of
Christ, on the intercession of saints, will be not less, perhaps more,
suitable there than if it were addressed to a parish congregation. Let no
one suppose that any thing recondite is essential to the idea of a
University sermon. The most obvious truths are often the most profitable.
Seldom does an opportunity occur for a subject there which might not under
circumstances be treated before any other auditory whatever. Nay, further;
an academical auditory might be well content if it never heard any subject
treated at all but what would be suitable to any general congregation.
However, after all, a University has a character of its own; it has some
traits of human nature more prominently developed than others, and its
members are brought together under circumstances which impart to the
auditory a peculiar colour and expression, even where it does not
substantially differ from another. It is composed of men, not women; of
the young rather than the old; and of persons either highly educated or
under education. These are the points which the preacher will bear in
mind, and which will direct him both in his choice of subject, and in his
mode of treating it.
5.
(1.) And first as to his _matter_ or subject. Here I would remark upon the
circumstance, that courses of sermons upon theological points, polemical
discussions, treatises _in extenso_, and the like, are often included in
the idea of a University Sermon, and are considered to be legitimately
entitled to occupy the attention of a University audience; the object of
such compositions being, not directly and mainly the edification of the
hearers, but the defence or advantage of Catholicism at large, and the
gradual formation of a volume suitable for publication. Without absolutely
discountenancing such important works, it is not necessary to say more of
them than that they rather belong to the divinity school, and fall under
the idea of Lectures, than have a claim to be viewed as University
Sermons. Anyhow, I do not feel called upon to speak of such discourses
here. And I say the same of panegyrical orations, discourses on special
occasions, funeral sermons, and the like. Putting such exceptional
compositions aside, I will confine myself to the consideration of what may
be called Sermons proper. And here, I repeat, any general subject will be
seasonable in the University pulpit which would be seasonable elsewhere;
but, if we look for subjects especially suitable, they will be of two
kinds. The temptations which ordinarily assail the young and the
intellectual are two: those which are directed against their virtue, and
those which are directed against their faith. All divine gifts are exposed
to misuse and perversion; youth and intellect are both of them goods, and
involve in them certain duties respectively, and can be used to the glory
of the Giver; but, as youth becomes the occasion of excess and sensuality,
so does intellect give accidental opportunity to religious error, rash
speculation, doubt, and infidelity. That these are in fact the peculiar
evils to which large Academical Bodies are liable is shown from the
history of Universities; and if a preacher would have a subject which has
especial significancy in such a place, he must select one which bears upon
one or other of these two classes of sin. I mean, he would be treating on
some such subject with the same sort of appositeness as he would discourse
upon almsgiving when addressing the rich, or on patience, resignation, and
industry, when he was addressing the poor, or on forgiveness of injuries
when he was addressing the oppressed or persecuted.
To this suggestion I append two cautions. First, I need hardly say, that a
preacher should be quite sure that he understands the persons he is
addressing before he ventures to aim at what he considers to be their
ethical condition; for, if he mistakes, he will probably be doing harm
rather than good. I have known consequences to occur very far from
edifying, when strangers have fancied they knew an auditory when they did
not, and have by implication imputed to them habits or motives which were
not theirs. Better far would it be for a preacher to select one of those
more general subjects which are safe than risk what is evidently
ambitious, if it is not successful.