I did not praise the austerities of the good nuns, nor did I labour to please any of my hearers, their edification was my sole object.
On our return to the house, our Blessed Father said, embracing me tenderly, that though most of those present were dissatisfied, and compared my sermon most unfavourably with that of the preceding day, yet, that he, on the contrary, who had then found fault with me, was now perfectly contented and pleased, and that he believed that God was pleased also. "As for your past faults," he continued, "I give you a plenary indulgence for them all.
"If you continue to preach as you have just done, whatever the world may say, you will be doing much service for the Master of the Vineyard, and will become a fitting servant of His Testament."
One day I was preaching before him at Annecy in the church which he used as his cathedral. He was surrounded by all his canons, who, with the whole Chapter, attended him to the bench where he was in the habit of sitting to hear sermons.
This particular one of mine pleased him as regarded its matter and delivery, but I suffered an allusion to escape me referring to his own name of Sales, and implying, or rather affirming, that he was the salt (Sal es) with which the whole mass of the people was seasoned.
This praise was so distasteful to him that, on our return from the church, he took me to task for it, in a tone and with a manner as severe as was possible to his gentle nature. "You were going on so well," he said. "What could have induced you to play these pranks? Do you know that you spoilt your sermon by them? Truly, I am a fine sort of salt, fit only to be thrown into the street and trampled under foot by the people. For certainly you must have said what you did say in order to put me to shame—you have found out the right way to do that—but, at least, spare your own friends."
I tried to excuse myself, alleging that what the Bishop of Saluces once said to him had suddenly come into my heads and that, quite without premeditation, the very same words escaped my lips, "But," he replied, "in the pulpit such things must not escape our lips. I am quite aware that this time they really did escape you, but you must not allow it to happen again."
I may here explain, for your benefit, what I meant by this reference to a saying of the Bishop of Saluces. That holy prelate, who died in the odour of sanctity, and who was a disciple of Sr. Philip Neri, was an intimate friend of our Blessed Father's.
On one occasion, when the latter was passing through Saluces on his way to the shrine of Our Lady of Montdeay, the good Bishop received him with every mark of respect, and begged him to preach in his cathedral. After the sermon, he said to him, "My Lord, truly tu Sal es; at ego, neque sal, neque lux." That is to say, "You are a true salt (Sal es), and I am neither salt nor light," alluding to the word Saluces (Sal lux), his diocese.[1]
[Footnote 1: NOTE.—Another version says that it was St. Francis who answered: "On the contrary, tu sal et lux." See "Vies de S. F. de Sales." by his nephew, Charles Auguste de Sales and Hamon. Also the life of Blessed Juvenal Ancina, the said Bishop of Saluces. [Ed.]