t as
it lies in the writer's head. A style is absolutely perfect when
it is absolutely natural.

Artificial embroidery, purple patches, and golden vapour are
often the defects and not the perfection of style.

Language can be simple, however, without being vulgar or
commonplace.

What book will ever equal the Bible for simplicity, yet what
dignity? What preacher ever approached OUR DIVINE LORD; and,
humanly speaking, what was the source of His strength?

He accommodated Himself to His hearers. From the open book of
nature He made the realms of grace familiar to the minds of
children. He pointed to the lilies of the field, to the ravens of
the wood, to the ripening bud and the angry cloud. "_Ut ex iis
quae animus novit, surgat ad incognita quae non novit_."[1]

[1] Third Nocturn for Non-Virgins.

He used the world around us to lift our thoughts to the world
above us.

When He spoke to fishermen His illustrations were taken from seas
and nets. When He preached to farmers the word of God was the
seed falling on rocky soil or the fertile furrow. When the
merchants with caravans and silken tunics surrounded Him it
becomes the pearl of great price. When amongst simple villagers
it is the lost groat in search of which the housewife sweeps the
floor and searches each nook and cranny.

Here is language coming down to the level of every hearer,
abounding in familiar pictures, yet never losing dignity.

While composing sermons for factory hands Cardinal Wiseman
employed a weaver to teach him the technicalities of the loom
that he might reach their hearts through the only channel of
thought they understood.

It is wonderful how the natural world around us can be used to
bring even the most sublime truths within the grasp of the
plainest intellects. Why do we not draw more frequently and more
abundantly from this source?

When we hear of a man whose discourses "are too sublime for the
ordinary intelligence" it is hard to forbear a smile. Our pity
goes out not to "the ordinary intelligence," but to the cloudy
dweller in Patmos. Mystic obscurity is used more frequently as a
cloak for muddle-headed thinking than as a robe with which to
drape sublimity of thought. Hence, if people do not understand
the preacher, blame not the people, but let the preacher look to
it.

Our nimble-minded imaginative people will rise to and grasp the
most elevated ideas if properly presented.

I listened to a sermon in an English church