Page:Sermons for all the Sundays in the year.djvu/25

 to all parish priests, to compose their discourses in a manner adapted to the capacity of their audience: ”Archipresbyteri et parochi per se vel alios idoneos, plebes sibi commissas pro earum capacitate pascant salutaribus verbis." (Sess. v. cap. i. de Reform.) 17. St. Francis de Sales said, that select language and sounding periods are the bane of sacred eloquence; and the principal reason of this is, that sermons composed in this style have not the divine sanction and concurrence. They may be of use to the learned, but not to the illiterate, who generally constitute the principal part of every audience. On the other hand, sermons composed in a familiar style are useful to the illiterate as well as to the learned. Muratori adds, that when the preacher addresses the humbler classes alone, or country people, he ought to make use of the most popular and familiar style possible, in order to accommodate himself to the gross understanding of such ignorant persons. He says, that the preacher, when speaking to those rude people, should imagine himself to be one of them, who was desirous to persuade a companion of something; that, on this account also, the periods of sermons addressed to the common people should be concise and broken, so that whoever has not caught the meaning of the first sentence, may be able to comprehend the second; which cannot be done when the sentences are long and connected; for then, whoever does not understand the first period will not understand the second nor the third. 18. Muratori also observes, that, in preaching to the people, it is very useful to make frequent use of the figure called antiphora; by which a