M. de Malipiero threw me into the greatest
astonishment by suddenly telling me that an excellent opportunity offered
itself for me to reappear in the church and to secure ample satisfaction
from the abbe.

"It is my province," added the senator, "as president of the
Confraternity of the Holy Sacrament, to choose the preacher who is to
deliver the sermon on the fourth Sunday of this month, which happens to
be the second Christmas holiday. I mean to appoint you, and I am certain
that the abbe will not dare to reject my choice. What say you to such a
triumphant reappearance? Does it satisfy you?"

This offer caused me the greatest surprise, for I had never dreamt of
becoming a preacher, and I had never been vain enough to suppose that I
could write a sermon and deliver it in the church. I told M. de Malipiero
that he must surely be enjoying a joke at my expense, but he answered
that he had spoken in earnest, and he soon contrived to persuade me and
to make me believe that I was born to become the most renowned preacher
of our age as soon as I should have grown fat--a quality which I
certainly could not boast of, for at that time I was extremely thin. I
had not the shadow of a fear as to my voice or to my elocution, and for
the matter of composing my sermon I felt myself equal to the production
of a masterpiece.

I told M. de Malipiero that I was ready, and anxious to be at home in
order to go to work; that, although no theologian, I was acquainted with
my subject, and would compose a sermon which would take everyone by
surprise on account of its novelty.

On the following day, when I called upon him, he informed me that the
abbe had expressed unqualified delight at the choice made by him, and at
my readiness in accepting the appointment; but he likewise desired that I
should submit my sermon to him as soon as it was written, because the
subject belonging to the most sublime theology he could not allow me to
enter the pulpit without being satisfied that I would not utter any
heresies. I agreed to this demand, and during the week I gave birth to my
masterpiece. I have now that first sermon in my possession, and I cannot
help saying that, considering my tender years, I think it a very good
one.

I could not give an idea of my grandmother's joy; she wept tears of
happiness at having a grandson who had become an apostle. She insisted
upon my reading my sermon to her, listened to it with her beads in her
hands, and pronoun