accomplish not their own salvation, their ruin is, at least, confined to themselves, and has no influence over that of their brethren.
But persons of an exalted station, are like a public pageant, upon which all eyes are fixed; they are those houses built upon a summit, the sole situation of which renders them visible from afar; those flaming torches, the splendour of which at once betrays and exposes them to view. Such is the misfortune of greatness and of rank; you no longer live for yourself alone; to your destruction or to your salvation is attached the destruction or the salvation of almost all those around you: your manners form the manners of the people; your examples are the rules of the multitude; your actions are as well known as your titles; it is impossible for you to err unknown to the public, and the scandal of your faults is always the melancholy privilege of your rank.
I say, the scandal, first, of imitation. Men always willingly copy after evil, but more especially when held out by great examples; they then ground a kind of vanity upon their errors, because it is through these that they resemble you. The people consider it as giving them an air of consequence to tread in your steps. The city thinks it an honour to adopt all the vices of the court. Your manners form a poison which penetrates even into the provinces; which infects all stations, and gives a total change to the public manners; which decks out licentiousness with an air of nobility and spirit, and, in place of the simplicity of our ancient manners, substitutes the miserable novelty of your pleasures, of your luxury, of your profusions, and of your profane indecencies. Thus from you it is that obscene fashions, vanity of dress, those artifices which dishonour a visage where modesty alone ought to be painted, the rage of gaming, freedom of manners, licentiousness of conversations, unbridled passions, and all the corruption of our ages, pass to the people.
And from whence, think you, my brethren, comes that unbridled licentiousness which reigns among the people? Those who live far from you, in the most distant provinces, still preserve, at least, some remains of their ancient simplicity and the primitive innocence; they live in a happy ignorance of the greatest part of those abuses which are now, through your examples, become laws. But the nearer the countries approach to you, the more is the change of manners visible, the more is innocence adulterated, the more the abuses are common, and the greatest crime of the people is to be acquainted with your manners and your customs. After the chiefs of the tribes had entered into the tents of the daughters of Midian, all Judah went aside from the Lord, and few were to be found, who had kept free from the general guilt. Great God! how terrible shall one day be the trial of the great and powerful, since, besides their own endless passions, they shall be made accountable to thee for the public irregularities, the depravity of the manners, and the corruption of their age; and since even the sins of the people shall become their own special sins!
Secondly. A scandal of compliance. They endeavour to please,
