the path of obedience and
tradition. Duty to what was above him, duty to those placed under
him, made up the whole of Bossuet's life. To maintain, to defend,
to extend the tradition he had received, was the first of duties.
All his powers as an orator, a controversialist, an educator were
directed to this object. He wrote and spoke to dominate the intellects
of men and to subdue their wills, not for the sake of personal power,
but for the truth as he had received it from the Church and from the
monarchy.

JACQUES-BENIGNE BOSSUET was born in 1627, at Dijon, of a middle-class
family, distinguished in the magistracy. In his education, pursued
with resolute ardour, the two traditions of Hellenism and Hebraism
were fused together: Homer and Virgil were much to him; but the Bible,
above all, nourished his imagination, his conscience, and his will.
The celebrity of his scholarship and the flatteries of Parisian
_salons_ did not divert him from his course. At twenty-five he was
a priest and a doctor of the Sorbonne. Six years were spent at Metz,
a city afflicted by the presence of Protestants and Jews, where
Bossuet fortified himself with theological studies, preached,
panegyrised the saints, and confuted heretics. His fame drew him to
Paris, where, during ten years, his sermons were among the great
events of the time. In 1669 he was named Bishop of Condom, but, being
appointed preceptor to the Dauphin, he resigned his bishopric, and
devoted himself to forming the mind of a pupil, indolent and dull,
who might one day be the vicegerent of God for his country. Bishop
of Meaux in 1681, he opened the assembly of French clergy next year
with his memorable sermon on the unity of the Church, and by his
authority carried, in a form decisive for freedom while respectful
towards Rome, the four articles which formulated the liberties of
the Gallican Church. The duties of his diocese, controversy against
Protestantism, the controversy against Quietism, in which Fenelon
was his antagonist, devotional writings, strictures upon the stage,
controversy against the enlightened Biblical criticism of Richard
Simon, filled his energetic elder years. He ceased from a life of
glorious labour and resolute combat in April 1704.

The works of Bossuet, setting aside his commentaries on Holy Scripture,
devotional treatises, and letters, fall into three chief groups: the
eloquence of the pulpit, controversial writings, and writings
designed for the inst