The thoughts which serve as starting points, should always be simple, natural, and popular. The people do not understand abstractions or the speculations of reason, which are to them a strange language. You should start from the known to lead them to the unknown. That is the mathematical and logical method. You must begin with sensible, visible, and above all with actual things, in order to draw them gently toward spiritual and invisible things, and to the life that is to come. By adopting this course, you may conduct them far onward, and elevate them to great heights, even to the sublimest aspirations of heart and soul. … As we have already said by way of example: first exhibit religion to them as grand, good, and lovely, then as true and divine; winding up by fervently and energetically insisting on the necessity of submission to its moral law.
It is an excellent plan to adopt the ordinary expressions in every-day use among the people, and to apply them in a religious sense. Thus, you might tell them to lay up in the Savings Bank of Heaven, to become members of the Refuge Fund of Eternity, and you will be understood.
Monsigneur the Archbishop of Paris, during some of his visitations, furnishes us with a delightful model of this style of addressing the people:—
"My children," said he to the operatives who had assembled in a courtyard to see and hear him, "my children, while attending to your worldly interests and material welfare—for the increase of which you have my sincere wishes—think also sometimes of that God who created us, and in whom we live, and move, and have our being. Do you know what that man resembles who lives without God and without hope? He is like a piece of wheel-work out of gear, or a faulty machine, which only mars what it ought to make, wounds the hand which it should help, and obliges the owner to break it up and throw it aside.
"Maintain, then, my beloved children, the sentiments, and practise the duties which belong to your dignity as men. As workmen, be industrious, honest, and temperate, and your condition will be as happy as it can be here below, remembering that rest will come after toil; for we are all the day-laborers of a gracious God, and life is but a day, at the end of which we shall receive ample wages, and be abundantly recompensed for all our pains.
"My children, I am glad to see that my words affect you. I regret being obliged to separate from you; but before going I give you my benediction as an earnest of my paternal tenderness, and of all the Divine graces which I invoke upon you, upon all who are dear to you, upon your families and your labors."
We should begin, then, by exhibiting the material aspects of religion, proceeding from thence to doctrines and duties, without ceasing to be simple, true, and natural throughout. This, however, is not the usual course pursued: we start with metaphysics, move onward through a redundant phraseology, and end by making religion more unintelligible than ever.
But we must be fair: preachers are not wholly to blame in this matter; for if one tries to be simple, true, natural, and evangelical, they will tell him in certain districts that his style is not sufficiently high-flown, that it does not do honor to the pulpit. This actually occurred to one of our best preachers. A member of the congregation came to him and said:— "You speak admirably; but there is one drawback to your sermons, they are too well understood." So that the poor preacher, in order to carry out the views of his adviser, felt that he would be obliged to invoke the Holy Spirit to give him grace to say unintelligible things! … What they wanted was something bombastic, academical, and highly seasoned; and such is what is generally regarded as constituting a profound, dignified, and useful sermon.