Vyftien Catholiicke Sermoonen op t’Epistelen end Evangelien; Antwerp, 1617, fol., 4 vols.
Catholiicke Sermoonen op alle de heylichdaghen des jaers; Antwerp, 1616, fol., 2 vols.
Sermoonen op d’Epistelen van de Sendaghen,—met twee octaven; Antwerp, 1616, fol.
Francis Coster differs in style from all the other preachers whom I have quoted. He is neither eloquent nor impressive as a speaker, he is immensely long, and must have been desperately tedious in the pulpit; and yet I question whether a priest could possess a more valuable promptuarium for sermon composition or catechetical lecture than Coster’s volumes. Coster is rather an expositor of Scripture than a preacher; his insight into the significance of the sacred utterances is perfectly marvellous.
Coster relates numerous stories of different merit and point. He seldom indulges in simile. He says sharp and piquant things in a quiet unassuming manner; and unless the reader is quite on the alert, he may miss some very happy remark couched in a few pregnant words. For instance: he says on the subject of Profession not Practice, that Christ lived thirty-three years on earth, and He did many great works; but we know of only one sermon that He preached. The arms are long, the tongue is short; the hands are free, the tongue confined behind the prison bars of the teeth; to teach us that we should work freely, but talk little. Those who profess great things and practise little what they profess are in a bad spiritual condition; the clock whose hand stands at one whilst the clapper goes twelve, is wrong in the works.
The stories Coster tells are very unequal. There is one delightful mediæval tale reproduced by him which I shall venture to relate, as it is full of beauty, and inculcates a wholesome lesson. There is a ballad in German on the subject, to be found in Pocci and Göres’ Fest Kalender, which has been translated into English and published in some Roman children’s books.
The story was, I believe, originated by Anthony of Sienna, who relates it in his Chronicle of the Dominican Order; and it was from him that the preachers and writers of the Middle Ages drew the incident. With the reader’s permission I will tell the story in my own words, instead of giving the stiff and dry record found in Coster.
There was once a good priest who served a church in Lusitania; and he had two pupils, little boys, who came to him daily to learn their letters, and to be instructed in the Latin tongue.
Now these children were wont to come early from home, and to assist at mass, before ever they ate their breakfast or said their lessons. And thus was each day sanctified to them, and each day saw them grow in grace and in favour with God and man.