e: 'Come up to the level of
your priests, and be educated and refined,' they say: 'Go down to the
people's level.' As if any priest ever went down in language or habit
to the people's level who didn't go considerably below it."

"'Pon my word, Father Dan," said Father Letheby, "if I did not know you
so well, I would think you were talking nonsense."

"Hear a little more nonsense!" I said. "I say now that our people like
fine, sonorous language from the altar; and they comprehend it! Try them
next Sunday with a passage from Lacordaire, and you'll see what I mean.
Try that noble passage, 'Il y a un homme, dont l'amour garde la
tombe,'--'There is a man whose tomb is guarded by love,'--and see if
they'll understand you. Why, my dear fellow, fifty years ago, when the
people were a classical people, taught only their Homers and Virgils by
the side of the ditch, they could roll out passage after passage from
their favorite preachers, and enjoy them and appreciate them. It was
only a few days since, I was speaking on the subject to a dear old
friend, who, after the lapse of fifty years, quoted a passage on Hell
that he had heard almost as a child: 'If we allowed our imagination, my
dear brethren, to dwell persistently on this terrific truth, Reason
itself would totter on its throne.' But the people of to-day cannot
quote, because they cannot get the opportunity. The race of preachers is
dead."

I shut him up, and gave myself time to breathe.

"Would you say then, sir," he said meekly, "that I should continue my
habit of writing out verbatim my sermons, and then commit them to
memory?"

"Certainly not," I replied, "unless you find it necessary to maintain
the high level on which all our utterances should be placed. And if now,
after the practice of seven years, you cannot command your language, you
never will. But here is my advice to you, and, as you are a friend, I
shall charge nothing for it, but I make it copyright throughout the
universe:--

I. Study.
II. Preach not Yourself, but God.
III. Live up to your Preaching.

That's all."

He appeared thoughtful and dissatisfied. I had to explain.

"A well-filled mind never wants words. Read, and read, and read; but
read, above all, the Holy Scriptures. Never put down your Breviary, but
to take up your Bible. Saturate yourself with its words and its spirit.
All the best things that are to be found in modern literature are simple
paraphrases of Holy Writ.