ue in a great degree to this superiority of lay preaching over
clerical. The most brilliant orators of the Christian pulpit are bad
converters; their eloquent appeals may captivate the imagination and
lead a few men of the world to the foot of the altar, but these results
are not more brilliant than ephemeral. But let a peasant or a workingman
speak to those whom he meets a few simple words going directly to the
conscience, and the man is always impressed, often won.

Thus the words of Francis seemed to his hearers like a flaming sword
penetrating to the very depths of their conscience. His first attempts
were the simplest possible; in general they were merely a few words
addressed to men whom he knew well enough to recognize their weak points
and strike at them with the holy boldness of love. His person, his
example, were themselves a sermon, and he spoke only of that which he
had himself experienced, proclaiming repentance, the shortness of life,
a future retribution, the necessity of arriving at gospel
perfection.[1] It is not easy to realize how many waiting souls there
are in this world. The greater number of men pass through life with
souls asleep. They are like virgins of the sanctuary who sometimes feel
a vague agitation; their hearts throb with an infinitely sweet and
subtile thrill, but their eyelids droop; again they feel the damp cold
of the cloister creeping over them; the delicious but baneful dream
vanishes; and this is all they ever know of that love which is stronger
than death.

It is thus with many men for all that belongs to the higher life.
Sometimes, alone in the wide plain at the hour of twilight, they fix
their eyes on the fading lights of the horizon, and on the evening
breeze comes to them another breath, more distant, fainter, and almost
heavenly, awaking in them a nostalgia for the world beyond and for
holiness. But the darkness falls, they must go back to their homes; they
shake off their reverie; and it often happens that to the very end of
life this is their only glimpse of the Divine; a few sighs, a few
thrills, a few inarticulate murmurs--this sums up all our efforts to
attain to the sovereign good.

Yet the instinct for love and for the divine is only slumbering. At the
sight of beauty love always awakes; at the appeal of holiness the divine
witness within us at once responds; and so we see, streaming from all
points of the horizon to gather around those who preach in the name of
the