Page:Sermons by John-Baptist Massillon.djvu/326

 by imitating  you;  your  inferiors,  your  creatures,  your  dependents, consider a  resemblance  to  you  as  the  high  road  to  your  favour: they copy  your  vices,  because  you  hold  them  out  to  them  as  virtues;  they  enter  into  your  fancies,  in  order  to  enter  into  your  confidence;  they  outrival  each  other  in  copying,  or  in  surpassing  you, because, in  your  eyes,  their  greatest  merit  is  in  resembling  you. Alas! how many  weak  souls,  born  with  the  principles  of  virtue, and who,  far  from  you,  would  have  nursed  only  those  dispositions favourable to  salvation,  have  had  their  innocence  wrecked  through the unfortunate  necessity  in  which  their  fortune  placed  them  of  imitating you?

Thirdly. A scandal  of  impunity. You could  never  reprehend, in your  dependents,  those  abuses  and  those  excesses  which  you allow to  yourself:  you  are  under  a  necessity  of  suffering  in  them what you  have  no  inclination  to  refuse  to  yourself:  your  eyes  must be shut  upon  disorders  which  are  authorized  by  your  own  manners; and you  are  forced  to  pardon  those  who  resemble  you,  lest  you condemn yourself. A woman  of  the  world,  wholly  devoted  to  the art of  pleasing,  spreads  through  all  her  household  an  air  of  licentiousness and  of  worldliness;  her  house  becomes  a  rock  from whence innocence  never  departs  uninjured;  every  one  imitates  at home  what  she  displays  abroad;  and  she  must  pass  over  these  irregularities, because  her  own  manners  do  not  permit  her  to  censure them. What excesses,  in  those  houses  kept  open  and  appropriated to everlasting  gaming,  among  that  people,  as  I  may  say,  of  domestics, whom  vanity  has  multiplied  beyond  all  number! You know the truth  of  this,  my  brethren,  and  the  dignity  of  the  Christian pulpit does  not  forbid  me  from  repeating  it  here. How dearly  do these  unfortunate  wretches  pay  for  your  pleasures,  who,  out  of  your sight, and  no  check  to  restrain  them,  fill  up  the  idle  time  which your pleasures  leave  to  them,  in  every  excess  adapted  to  the  meanness of  their  education  and  their  abject  nature,  and  which  they think themselves  authorized  in  doing  by  your  examples! O my  God, if he  who  neglects  his  people  be  worse  in  thy  sight  than  an  infidel, what then  is  the  guilt  of  him  who  scandalizes  them,  and  is  the  cause of their  finding  death  and  condemnation  where  they  ought  to  have found the  succours  of  salvation  and  the  asylum  of  their  innocence?

Fourthly. A scandal  of  employment  and  of  necessity. How many unfortunate  wretches  perish  in  order  to  feed  your  pleasures and your  iniquitous  passions! For you  alone  the  dangerous  arts subsist: the  theatres  are  erected  solely  for  your  criminal  recreations; profane  harmonies  every  where  resound,  and  corrupt  so many  hearts  only  to  flatter  the  corruption  of  yours;  the  works, fatal to  innocence,  are  transmitted  to  posterity  solely  through  the favour of  your  names  and  protection. It is  you  alone,  my  brethren, who give  to  the  world  lascivious  poets,  pernicious  authors,  and profane writers:  it  is  to  please  you  that  these  corrupters  of  the public manners  perfect  their  talents,  and  seek  their  exaltation  and fortune in  a  success,  the  only  end  of  which  is  the  destruction  of souls:  it  is  you  alone  who  protect,  reward,  and  produce  them;  who