'
* * * * *
On one Sunday morning at Rouen we go with 'all the world' to be present
at a musical mass at the cathedral, and to hear another great preacher
from Paris. It was a grander performance than the one we attended at
Caen; but the sermon was less eloquent, less refined, and was remarkable
in quite a different way. It was a discourse, holding up to his hearers,
as far as we could follow the rapid flow of his eloquence, the delight
and glory of 'doing battle for Right'--of fighting (to use the common
phrase) the 'fight of Faith.'
But he was preaching to a congregation of shopkeepers, traders, and
artisans, and his appeal to arms seemed to fall flatly on the trading
mind; whilst the old incongruity between the building and the dress of
the nineteenth century, was as remarkable as it is in Westminster Abbey;
and the contrast between the unchivalrous aspect of the speaker, and the
tone of his language, was more striking still.[47]
What priest or cure, in these days, stands forth in his presence or
influence, as the ideal champion of a romantic faith, the ceremonials of
which seem more and more alienated from the spirit of the nineteenth
century--at least in the north of Europe, where colour, imagination, and
passion have less influence? What real sympathy has the kind, fat,
fatherly figure before us with soldiers, saints, or martyrs?[48]
He preached for nearly an hour, with frequent pauses and strange changes
in the inflexion of the voice.
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