Page:Sermons by John-Baptist Massillon.djvu/22

 and those who attacked the doctrine of this pious archbishop; but this impartiality in this negotiation produced its usual effect, of dissatisfying both parties. His sage remonstrances in favour of peace and union were fruitless; and he learned, by his own experience, that it is often easier to persuade unbelievers, than to reconcile those who have so much interest in uniting to confound them.

Deeply penetrated with the real obligations of his station, Massillon was especially attentive to fulfil that first and most respectable of episcopal duties, the duty, or rather the pleasure, of beneficence. He reduced his rights as bishop to very moderate sums, and would entirely have abolished them, had he not thought himself obliged to respect the patrimony of his successors, that is, to leave them wherewith to perform good actions. Within two years he sent twenty thousand livres to the hospital of Clermont. All his revenue belonged to the poor. His diocess preserves the remembrance of his deeds after thirty years : and his memory is daily honoured with the most eloquent of funeral orations that of the tears of one hundred thousand distressed objects. During his life time he had anticipated this testimony. When he appeared in the streets of Clermont, the people prostrated themselves before him, crying, " Long live our father !" Hence it was a frequent observation of this virtuous prelate, that his episcopal brethren did not sufficiently feel the degree of consideration and authority they might derive from their station; not, indeed, by pomp, or by a punctilious devotion, still less by the grimaces and intrigues of hypocrisy, but by those virtues which are recognised by the hearts of the people, and which, in a minister of true religion, represent to all eyes that just and beneficent Being of which he is the image.

Among the countless alms he gave, there were some which he concealed with the greatest care, not only to favour the delicacy of unfortunate individuals, but sometimes to spare whole communities the sensation of inquietude and fear, however groundless, which these donations might occasion them. A numerous convent of nuns, had, for several days, been without bread. The sisterhood had resolved to perish rather than make known their shocking distress, through the apprehension that it might cause the suppression of their house, to which they were more attached than to life. The Bishop of Clermont learned at the same time their extreme necessity and the motive of their silence. Eager to give them relief, he was fearful of alarming them by seeming informed of their situation; he therefore secretly sent them a very considerable sum, which rendered their subsistence secure, till he had found means to provide them with other resources; and it was not till after his death that they became acquainted with the benefactor to whom they were so greatly indebted.

He not only lavished his fortune upon the indigent; he farther assisted them, with equal zeal and success, by his pen. Being a witness, in his diocesan visits, of the wretchedness under which the inhabitants of the country groaned, and finding his revenue insuf-