Page:The Eternal Priesthood (4th ed).djvu/112

unclean lips,"^[1] what shall we judge of the sanctity and dignity of the preacher? If a prophet could hardly dare to preach in God's name, where shall the pulpit orators appear? That which was ordained for their help becomes unto them the occasion of falling. To be chosen out and to be sent by God to speak to men in His name, to come as a messenger a latere Jesu to preach penance and the remission of sins, to show the way of sanctity and of perfection in His name, in His words, and by His authority—who would dare these things if necessity were not laid upon him? To speak in God's name coldly, carelessly, and without due knowledge, without exact preparation, what rashness, what peril. To preach ostentatiously, with self-manifestation, vanity, and unreality^[2]—how provoking to our Divine Master, how scandalous to souls. The simple, the humble, and the faithful instinctively detect the preacher who preaches himself; even men of the world, accustomed to the brief and peremptory language of earnest life, at once find out the unreal and the professional. They will listen to an honest preacher, though he be rude and rough.^[3] The fewer

1. Isaias vi. 5.
2. S. Augustine says of such: "Foris tumescit intus tabescit."
3. S. Jerome says: "Multoque melius est a duobus imperfectis rusticitatem habere sanctam quam eloquentiam peccatricem."—Ep. ad Nepot. tom. iv. p. 263.