Page:Studies of a Biographer 3.djvu/84

 St. Bernard is a special favourite. Then he applies Aquinas and the schoolmen; or shows his profound familiarity with the whole Catholic theology of his time; or calls in the Protestant champions, Luther, and Melanchthon, and Calvin; or is attracted by some great writer of the day, now forgotten, such as Collius, who had investigated with untiring industry the posthumous fate of Pagan souls. Evidently his hydroptic thirst has stored his mind with masses of anecdote, argument, and reflection, over which he can range at will whenever he needs an apt illustration. Then, as he quaintly remarks, the pastor must not only distribute 'manna'—fruits known to all—but 'quails,' 'meat of a stronger digestion'—that is, be at home in whole systems of dogmatic and casuistical theology. The congregation is in the mental attitude of students in a professor's lecture-room. The preacher claims the authority of an expert, and speaks as the exponent of the judgments of countless learned doctors. The doctors did not all agree, it is true; but the mere weight of so many great names warns the ignorant that he is not to presume an opinion of his own.

This attitude of mind, the impression that the preacher is condescending from the vantage-ground