s he received
into the communion of the Church.

I think this scene is grand; worthy of a great painter,--of a painter
who knows history as well as art, which so few painters do know; yet
ought to know if they would produce immortal pictures. Nor do I know
which to admire the more,--the penitent emperor offering public penance
for his abuse of imperial authority, or the brave and conscientious
prelate who dared to rebuke his sin. When has such a thing happened in
modern times? Bossuet had the courage to dictate, in the royal chapel,
the duties of a king, and Bourdaloue once ventured to reprove his royal
hearer for an outrageous scandal. These instances of priestly boldness
and fidelity are cited as remarkable. And they were remarkable, when we
consider what an egotistical, haughty, exacting, voluptuous monarch
Louis XIV. was,--a monarch who killed Racine by an angry glance. But
what bishop presumed to insist on public penance for the persecutions of
the Huguenots, or the lavish expenditures and imperious tyranny of the
court mistresses, who scandalized France? I read of no churchman who, in
more recent times, has dared to reprove and openly rebuke a sovereign,
in the style of Ambrose, except John Knox. Ambrose not merely reproved,
but he punished, and brought the greatest emperor, since Constantine, to
the stool of penitence.

It was by such acts, as prelate, that Ambrose won immortal fame, and set
an example to future ages. His whole career is full of such deeds of
intrepidity. Once he refused to offer the customary oblation of the
altar until Theodosius had consented to remit an unjust fine. He battled
all enemies alike,--infidels, emperors, and Pagans. It was his mission
to act, rather than to talk. His greatness was in his character, like
that of our Washington, who was not a man of words or genius. What a
failure is a man in an exalted post without character!

But he had also other qualities which did him honor,--for which we
reverence him. See his laborious life, his assiduity in the discharge of
every duty, his charity, his broad humanity, soaring beyond mere
conventional and technical and legal piety. See him breaking in pieces
the consecrated vessels of the cathedral, and turning them into money to
redeem Illyrian captives; and when reproached for this apparent
desecration replying thus: "Whether is it better to preserve our gold or
the souls of men? Has the Church no higher mission to fulfil than to
guard t