them? Paul formerly exaggerated, then, when the Roman governor, in spite of the pride of a false wisdom, and all the prejudices of an idolatrous worship, trembled, says St. Luke, while hearing him speak of righteousness, of temperance, and of the awful spectacle of a judgment to come? Paul, then, exaggerated, when the inhabitants of cities came striking their breasts, melting in tears at his feet, and bringing into the middle of the public places the lascivious or impious books, and all the other instruments of their passions, in order to make a sacrifice of them to the Lord?
You accuse us of adding additional terrors to the words of the Gospel; but where are the consciences which we disturb? Where are the sinners whom we alarm? Where are the worldly souls, who, seized with dread on their departure from our discourses, go to conceal themselves in the deepest solitudes, and, by holy excesses of penitence, to expiate the dissoluteness of their past manners? The ages which have preceded us have often been such examples. Do we ever witness such instances now? Ah! would to God, said formerly a holy father, that you could convict me of having inspired a single soul with these salutary terrors! Would to God, said he to some worldly sages of his time, who accused him of exaggerating the dangers and the corruption of the world, that a single instance might support your assertion! And I may say to you here, with even more reason than that grand character, Would to God that the consequences of so blessed an indiscretion could be shown to me! Would to God that you had examples with which to reproach us, in justification of your censures! Ah! we with pleasure would suffer the blame, could but the success be shown to us with which we are reproached!
Alas! we manage only too much, perhaps, your weakness; we respect, perhaps too much, customs which a long usage has consecrated, in the fear of appearing to censure the grand examples by which they are authorized; we dare scarcely speak of certain irregularities, lest our censures should appear to fall rather on the persons than on the vices; we are obliged to content ourselves with showing truths to you from afar, which we ought to place immediately under your eye; and even your salvation frequently suffers through the excess of our precautions and our timid prudence. What shall I say? Weakness often extorts from us praises, where zeal ought to place anathemas and censures: like the world, we allow ourselves to be dazzled by names and titles; that which formerly encouraged the Ambroses intimidates us; and, because we owe you respect, we often keep back from you that truth which we ought still more to respect: yet, after all this, you accuse us of exaggerating, of overstraining truths, and of fashioning from them phantoms of our own brain, in order to alarm those who listen to us.
But what advantage could we draw from an artifice so unworthy of that truth confided to us? These overstrained and puerile declamations might suit the venal eloquence of those Sophists, who, amid the Grecian schools, anxiously sought to attract disciples to themselves, by vaunting the wisdom of their sect. But for us, my
