OF A MALIGNANT TONGUE[1]
Born in 1663, died in 1742; had lived in a monastery when, in 1696, was called to Paris as Director of a seminary; made Court Preacher in 1704; Bishop of Clermont in 1717, and an Academician in 1719.
The tongue, says the Apostle James, is a devouring fire, a world of iniquity, an unruly evil, full of deadly poison. And behold what I would have applied to the tongue of the evil-speaker, had I undertaken to give you a just and natural idea of all the enormity of this vice: I would have said that the tongue of the slanderer is a devouring fire which tarnishes whatever it touches; which exercises its fury on the good grain, equally as on the chaff; on the profane, as on the sacred; which, wherever it passes, leaves only desolation and ruin; digs even into the bowels of the earth, and fixes itself on things the most hidden; turns into vile ashes what only a moment before had appeared to us so precious and brilliant; acts with more violence and danger than ever in the time when it was apparently
- ↑ Other famous sermons by Massillon are those known as the "Petit Carême," being short Lenten sermons delivered before the young Louis XV. in 1718, and those on the Prodigal Son, on death, for Christmas day and for the Fourth Sunday in Advent. Massillon had learned much from Bourdaloue, who said of him, "he must increase, but I must decrease." His works, in two large volumes, have been published by Didot.
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