I think that no one can peruse these two sermons, which I have given almost entire, curtailing them but slightly, without being convinced of the overflowing charity and deep-seated piety of the holy man who wrote them. Whatever there may be of crudity in the style, every thought gushes from the pure spring of the love of God, open and flowing in the heart of the good Jesuit. He that believeth on Me, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water, may justly be applied to Philip von Hartung. Many and many a rill of the water of Life may be lighted on in the garden of delights contained in his volumes. Often, perhaps, the water is discoloured, but more often is it limpid and crystalline as when it leaped out of the fount of God.
In style Hartung resembles the more earnest preachers of dissent, because he speaks from the heart. Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. If our preachers had the zeal and the love of God which was found among the great Catholic orators, and is still to be discovered among dissenting ministers, there would be fewer complaints of the barrenness of the land, less deadness to the calls of God in professed Church-goers. It is quite impossible for a preacher to effect the slightest good unless he feels what he says from the depths of his soul; it is hopeless for him to expect to draw hearts to the love of Jesus, if he knows not what that love is. And the sermon, however eloquent and finished in style, will never convert sinners, unless its inspiration is derived from God; and that inspiration can alone be obtained by prayer.
He who prays much is filled with a power of winning souls quite inexplicable; he sheds a sort of magnetic influence upon hearts, drawing them to Christ; and, though the words be few and ill-chosen, they can do a work for God which the most polished masterpiece of elocution would be powerless to effect.
I think the story is told of Francis Borgia, that he was asked to preach at a certain church in a distant city. On his arrival he was too ill to speak, and he requested some one to occupy his place. “No!” said the priest who had summoned him; “only mount the pulpit, say nothing, and come away.” He did so; hearts were touched, people burst into tears, and the confessionals were filled with penitents. He was a man of Prayer.
JOSEPH DE BARZIA.
I know of no preacher of his age who comes so near to Paolo Segneri, the great luminary of Italian eloquence, as this Spaniard, De Barzia. He flourished at the beginning of the seventeenth century, and was Bishop of Cadiz.
His works are:—
Christianus animarum excitator. Auctore J. de Barzia, Soc. Jesu; Augustæ Vindelicorum, 1721, 2 vols. folio.