, observes, "Our calling is to deal with
errors, not to disgrace the man with scolding words. It is said of
Alexander, I think, when he overheard one of his soldiers railing
lustily against Darius his enemy, that he reproved him, and added,
"Friend, I entertain thee to fight against Darius, not to revile him;"
and my sentiments of treating the Catholics," concludes Bedell, "are
not conformable to the practice of Luther and Calvin; but they were but
men, and perhaps we must confess they suffered themselves to yield to
the violence of passion."

The Fathers of the Church were proficients in the art of abuse, and very
ingeniously defended it. St. Austin affirms that the most caustic
personality may produce a wonderful effect, in opening a man's eyes to
his own follies. He illustrates his position with a story, given with
great simplicity, of his mother Saint Monica with her maid. Saint Monica
certainly would have been a confirmed drunkard, had not her maid
timelily and outrageously abused her. The story will amuse.--"My mother
had by little and little accustomed herself to relish wine. They used to
send her to the cellar, as being one of the soberest in the family: she
first sipped from the jug and tasted a few drops, for she abhorred wine,
and did not care to drink. However, she gradually accustomed herself,
and from sipping it on her lips she swallowed a draught. As people from
the smallest faults insensibly increase, she at length liked wine, and
drank bumpers. But one day being alone with the maid who usually
attended her to the cellar, they quarrelled, and the maid bitterly
reproached her with being a _drunkard_! That _single word_ struck her so
poignantly that it opened her understanding; and reflecting on the
deformity of the vice, she desisted for ever from its use."

To jeer and play the droll, or, in his own words, _de bouffonner_, was a
mode of controversy the great Arnauld defended, as permitted by the
writings of the holy fathers. It is still more singular, when he not
only brings forward as an example of this ribaldry, Elijah _mocking_ at
the false divinities, but _God_ himself _bantering_ the first man after
his fall. He justifies the injurious epithets which he has so liberally
bestowed on his adversaries by the example of Jesus Christ and the
apostles! It was on these grounds also that the celebrated Pascal
apologised for the invectives with which he has occasionally disfigured
his Provincial Letters. A J