MASSILLON
I say, in the first place, the motives. I know that it is, above all, by the innocency of the intention that they pretend to justify themselves; that you continually say that your design is not to tarnish the reputation of your brother, but innocently to divert yourselves with faults which do not dishonor him in the eyes of the world. You, my dear hearer, to divert yourself with his faults! But what is that cruel pleasure which carries sorrow and bitterness to the heart of your brother? Where is the innocency of an amusement whose source springs from vices which ought to inspire you with compassion and grief? If Jesus Christ forbids us in the Gospel to invigorate the languors of conversation by idle words, shall it be more permitted to you to enliven it by derisions and censures? If the law curses him who uncovers the nakedness of his relations, shall you who add raillery and insult to the discovery be more protected from that malediction? If whoever calls his brother fool be worthy, according to Jesus Christ, of eternal fire, shall he who renders him the contempt and laughing-stock of the profane assembly escape the same punishment? You, to amuse yourself with his faults? But does charity delight in evil? Is that rejoicing in the Lord, so commanded by the apostle? If you love your brother as yourself, can you delight in what afflicts him? Ah! the Church formerly held in horror the exhibition of gladiators, and denied that believers, brought up in the tenderness
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