THE APOSTLE OF YOUTH
imitated, were now disregarded, art for art's sake spurned, before the world's crying need of instruction and his own powerful convictions, fairly burning themselves into the paper.
I am going to introduce a paragraph by one of his own devoted students which, I think, will lend a charm to the pleasant topic under discussion. How beautiful the picture of the saintly and learned theologian waiting on his mother's words for suggestion and correction in matters so weighty!
"I feel quite affected when I think of those happy years during which our beloved Father often related the trouble he took in his youth to study the composition of flowery, figurative rhetoric; and his difficulties later—the struggle and effort to write in the plain, simple style, always faultless, which makes his ideas and writings charming. I remember what he told us of his 'Ecclesiastical History,' and his venerable mother, who, though endowed with great judgment, was ignorant of literature. Wishing to make his 'History' intelligible to all, he got her to read it; then he retouched and corrected it according to her advice. Sometimes, regardless of fatigue, he re-wrote entire chapters. His wish was, without despising art in its sober beauty, to be fully understood. His works may be classed under four heads: works of piety, works of religious discussion, narratives for youth and course of classics."
Chief among his writings are "Sacred History;"
73
