State your principles, therefore, in a clear and concise form, and then demonstrate them in prompt and vigorous language; making your audience feel from the outset that you are master of the situation; thereby precluding the possibility of resistance on the part of the ingenuous or even of the disingenuous, and that while listening to you they may be led to repeat the remark of the great Condé when he saw Bourdaloue ascending the pulpit:—"Attention! voilà l'ennemi."
Such however, is far from being the case with ourselves. … The faithful are fed with nothing but frigid, precise, dogmatic and even unintelligible discourses, which are supposed to convey solid instruction. But what if it be so, if the discourses are neither listened to nor understood? Dry bread is also solid, yet nobody likes it only, any more than you do yourself; and if you provide nothing but such food at your table, rest assured that you will find but few guests.
We should animate or impassion reason itself. Demosthenes did this, and so did all great orators. The Rev. Père Ravignan, whose reasoning is always so forcible and logical, gives sensation and life to his arguments in a masterly manner.
In his sermon on the divinity of the Lord Jesus Christ, after demonstrating that we must admit the mystery of the Incarnation or else submit to many other mysteries, he subjoins:—"But the objection is raised that a mystery is inexplicable, insolvable. So be it; nevertheless not to admit it, is to throw every thing into the most frightful chaos. … Then is Christianity false; the world believes what is false; has been converted, regenerated, civilized, by what is false; there is falsehood in the faith, in the love, and in all the other inspirations of the Christian religion; falsehood in all the blessings which have been conferred upon humanity in the name of God the Redeemer; falsehood in the heroism of innumerable martyrs; falsehood in all the master-minds who have adorned Christianity; falsehood in the whole chain of science, zeal, devotion, and superhuman virtues; falsehood in the entire series of the ages of the Church, in all its monuments, in all its testimonies; falsehood in the Catholic priesthood and in the sacred ministry of all centuries; falsehood in the happiness springing from faith and a pure conscience; falsehood in the pulpit; falsehood on my lips and in my heart. What! does your light and disdainful tongue find a lesser mystery in all these consequences which necessarily result from your principles? ME THEY TERRIFY."
We should, moreover, attempt in some way to put the truth into action, making it to come and go, to speak, question, and reply; and should always keep the scene so fully occupied that the minds of the audience may not be diverted therefrom for an instant. In this respect also, the Rev. Père Lacordaire supplies us with an excellent model.
In his discourse on the Intellectual Society founded by the Church, he points out the efforts which have been made by the world to destroy the immutability of her doctrine, in a style truly dramatic:—"When every thing else on earth is subject to change, what a weighty prerogative must the possession by others of an unchangeable doctrine be in the estimation of those who do not themselves possess it! A doctrine which some feeble old men, in a place called the Vatican, keep secure under the key of their cabinet, and which, without any other safeguard, has resisted the progress of time, the conceits of sages, the machinations of sovereigns, the downfall of empires, and maintained throughout its unity and identity. A standing miracle this, and a claim which all ages, jealous of a glory which disdained theirs, have attempted to gainsay and silence. One after another they have approached the Vatican, and knocked at the gate with buskin or boot. Whereat Doctrine has come forth under the form of a feeble and decrepit septuagenarian, and has asked:—
"'What do you want of me?'
"'Change.'