Page:The sermons of the Curé of Ars - Vianney, tr. Morrissy - 1960.djvu/27

 with the exception of three: one which was presented, in a reliquary of crystal and gilded bronze, to [St.] Pius X in 1905; a second, which was presented in a reliquary less valuable than the first, to Cardinal Coullié, Archbishop of Lyons; a third which was preserved in the collection at Ars in a frame of gilded bronze with double crystal.

The cabiers of the Curé of Ars are generally made up of three or four sheets of good “handmade” linen paper, each folded in two and sewn together. Each cabier contains thus six to eight folios of approximately 7 by 9 or 9 1/2 inches. The text of the sermon, in close handwriting, covers the front and the back of each sheet. A very narrow margin is kept at the left.

The paper, on the whole, is well preserved except that it is slightly soiled; but frequently the ink has run and for that reason several passages are difficult to read. Certain sermons, which must have been written during the winter, with semi-frozen ink or a hand trembling with the cold, can be read only with difficulty. However, there is no passage, it has been seen, that has remained indecipherable.

All these cabiers (except the three mentioned above and a fourth deposited in the archives of the Mother House of the Canons of the Immaculate Conception) have been collected together again in a casket of gilded bronze with crystal sides.

‘The appearance of the Sermons of the Venerable Servant of God, Jean-Baptiste-Marie Vianney caused a certain amount of surprise among the Catholic public and particularly among the clergy. People did not know that the humble Curé of Ars had left behind him a considerable quantity of oratorical work. They were even more surprised that his manuscripts, lost in the dust of half a century, had been considered worthy of being published. That M. Vianney, already proclaimed Venerable by the Church, had been a great saint no one doubted, but that he had been capable of writing eloquent sermons, that was quite another matter! The servant of God was the victim yet once