Page:Sermons by John-Baptist Massillon.djvu/20

 make a last effort to deprive the orator of what he had so well merited. The means employed were to calumniate his morals; and, according to custom, ears were found ready to hear, and hearts to believe, the charge. The sovereign himself, so artful is falsehood in insinuating itself to the presence of monarchs, was shaken, if not convinced : and the same prince, who had told Massillon, " that he meant to hear him every two years," seemed to fear giving to another church the orator he had reserved to himself.

Louis XIV. died; and the Regent, who honoured the talents of Massillon, and despised his enemies, nominated him to the bishopric of Clermont. He wished also that the court should hear him once more; and engaged him to preach a Lent course before the King, then nine years of age.

These sermons, composed in less than three months, are known by the name of Petit Careme, (Little Lent). They are, perhaps, if not the master-piece, at least the true model of pulpit eloquence. The great sermons of this orator may have more animation and vehemence; the eloquence of the Petit Careme is more pathetic and insinuating; and the charm resulting from it is augmented by the interesting nature of the subject, and by the inestimable value of those simple and affecting lessons which, intended to penetrate with equal force and softness the heart of a monarch yet a child, seem to prepare the happiness of millions of men, by showing what they have a right to expect from the prince who is to govern them. Here the preacher places before the eyes of sovereigns the dangers and the evils of supreme power; truth flying the throne, and concealing herself even from the princes who seek her; the unmeasured confidence with which even the justest praises may inspire them; the almost equal danger of the weakness which has no opinion of its own, and that pride which never listens to another's; the fatal influence of their vices in corrupting and debasing a whole nation; the detestable glory of conquering kings cruelly purchased by blood and tears; in fine, the Supreme Being himself, placed between oppressor kings and oppressed people, to intimidate the one and avenge the other : such is the object of the Petit Careme, worthy of being learned by all children destined to the throne, and meditated by all men intrusted with governing the world. Some severe censurers, however, have charged these excellent Discourses with being too uniform and monotonous : they contain, according to them, but a single idea constantly recurring that of the kindness and beneficence due from the great and powerful of the earth to the little and feeble, whom nature has created their fellows, humanity has made their brethren, and fortune has doomed to wretchedness. But, without inquiring into the justice of this censure, we may say that the truth here mentioned is so consolatory to all who groan under affliction, so precious in the education of a prince, and especially so necessary to be impressed on the callous hearts of courtiers, that humanity may bless the orator who has inculcated it with so much force and perseverance.

The year in which Massillon pronounced these Discourses, was