Page:The sermons of the Curé of Ars - Vianney, tr. Morrissy - 1960.djvu/213

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furniture and the books are still there, exactly as he left them when he died—can see for himself that sermons figure largely among his books, as do also works of theology and Sacred Scripture. The Curé of Ars was certainly preoccupied with the idea of “asserting himself” as a preacher. Undoubtedly he passed over the oratorical work of Bossuet of which there is no sign at all among his books. He did possess an Advent by Bourdalue. . . But it is clear that in his choice of authors he was not influenced in the slightest degree by literary considerations, In the fairly frequent trips which he made to Lyons at the beginning of his pastorate, when he was renewing the vestments for his poor little church, the Abbé Vianney did not content himself with visits to the goldsmiths and embroiderers alone; he went to the bookshops. The house of Rusand, well known at this period, had much of his custom. He bought books there that had been recommended to him or which he personally picked out. In that way he had at his disposal quite a considerable number of works to help him in composing his Sunday allocutions. It remains to be seen how much he drew from them.

The Bible is the first of the books which should not only be consulted but studied by every preacher worthy of the name. “He must,” in the opinion of St. Augustine, “have read and studied the whole of Sacred Scripture; he must reread it continually, because it is like those inexhaustible mines where there are always new treasures to be found proportionate to what is dug for, or like those exquisite pictures in which one always discovers new beauties as one studies them more.” The Fathers of the Church, and in particular St. John Chrysostom among the Greeks, and St. Augustine among the Latins, have impregnated their discourses with phrases and images borrowed from the Bible. Among ourselves the preachers of the grand siécle,