[613] Chargˊ-er, a war horse.
[614] Yearned, desired earnestly; longed.
[615] Perˊ-jured, guilty of taking a false oath.
XCIV.—GOD GAVE TO HIS CHURCH CHARITY.
LACORDAIRE.
Father Lacordaire was born in France in 1802, and died in 1861. Of all the great modern French preachers, he was the ablest and most brilliant. His “Conferences” at Notre Dame, Paris, attracted immense crowds of the most distinguished people of the city. They have been translated into English, and published in New York in three octave volumes.
1. Society is impossible if it be not founded upon respect for authority by the people, and for the people by authority. Well, then, the Catholic Church carries the respect of the people for authority to its highest degree; she changes the master into a father, so that if the father errs, the children, like those of the patriarch, cover his faults with the mantle of their respect. At the same time she instills into the hearts of sovereigns that respect so delicate, so precious, in the eyes of their people. In their palaces, and in the midst of their pomp, she causes them to practice that saying of the Gospel, “He who would be greatest among you let him be your servant.”
2. The persuasive force which resulted from these rational advantages was immense. Whether men examined opinions, history, morality, or society, the Church was without parallel.
3. They were able to deprive her of everything, her patrimony, the help of the civil authority, the liberty common to all; they could cast her ministers into prisons, torture them on scaffolds; but men do not imprison reason, they do not burn accomplished facts, they do not dishonor virtue, they do not assassinate logic.
4. We are strong then, gentlemen, first by the spirit of God which speaks in us, but also in the human mind which, when it comes coolly to examine our history, our dogmas, our morality, is obliged to agree that nothing is more firmly established.