Chapter VII: Introduction (6)

John Osorius was a preacher of a high order. He was eminently Scriptural, and thoroughly practical. He neither wasted his efforts on the discussion of profitless school questions, nor wearied his hearers by abstruse disquisitions on points of Canon law. His matter is always solid, and his method sound and clear. A man of refined taste and lively imagination, he could render his discourses attractive to both educated and uneducated. He seldom breaks into a torrent of eloquence, like De Barzia, but his style is polished and graceful. He had none of the fire of the Bishop of Cadiz, but in his heart burned the pure flame of a tempered zeal, not raging forth as a furnace, dazzling and scorching all around, but calmly glowing in unruffled peace, unnoticed perhaps in the glare of day, but steadily beaming as a guiding star to the wanderer in the night.

In one point he certainly resembles his countryman De Barzia, viz. in his accurate Biblical knowledge. But the use he made of Scripture was different to that made by the Bishop, as his audience was very different from that to which the Prelate addressed his Mission Sermons. Holy Scripture was the spiritual food of this Jesuit preacher, and his discourses prove his intimate acquaintance with every portion of God’s Word. His discourses do not contain, as do so many modern sermons, crude and undigested lumps of Scripture, clumsily pieced and awkwardly inserted to distend the dull oration to its conventional limits, but the words of Inspiration float lightly and fragrantly on the stream of simple eloquence, as strands of new-mown grass and cut meadow flowers on the calm brook which softly glides past the field where the mowers mow the hay.

If De Barzia roused long-dead consciences, waking them from their sepulchres with note like a trumpet, bringing them forth bound hand and foot in the corpse-clothes of evil habits, and delivering them over to the confessors to be loosed and let go, Osorius quickened the consciences but just dead, with still small voice, taking them as it were by the hand and lifting them up with tenderness, that he might restore them to their parents—to their God, who was to them a Father, to the Church, which was to them a Mother.

But with all these rare merits, Osorius had his defects. His sermons are wanting in arrangement and in unity of design. He preached on the Gospel for the day, and aimed rather at giving a running commentary on the selected passage of Scripture, than at elaborating one text and concentrating his powers upon its application. Hence, each of his sermons, which are very long, may well be broken into six or eight short discourses with separate points, but when preached in their entirety the effect is that of a surfeit. Nothing can be better than the food he provides, but it is in too great abundance, and it is too varied; briefly, in his sermons there is what the French call an _embarras de richesses_.

There is this excuse to be made for Osorius, that he did but follow in the wake of the Patristic and Mediæval preachers, whose public orations consisted almost invariably of Scripture expositions, partaking more of the character of our modern Bible-class lectures than our set sermons; and it was only bold men like De Barzia, who set all conventionalities at defiance, that originated the class of sermon now recognized as the normal type of a pulpit discourse. Osorius, however, could divest himself of the trammels of custom when he chose, and he has left some notable specimens of sermons which have but one point and subject, in his fourth volume; and I very much question whether any more noble and more vigorous have ever been composed than those written by John Osorius, the Jesuit, on the Four Last Things, the Three Foes of Man, and the Seven Last Words.

Osorius seldom relates anecdotes, and his sermons are almost entirely free from those stories which preachers of his age delighted in introducing to illustrate their subjects; but, in their place, he brings forward similes to an extraordinary extent. His sermons are studded with them, and his similes are almost invariably graceful and neat. It may be questioned whether he does not somewhat overdo it, when one sermon contains fifteen similes. Yet these are so beautiful that we could ill spare one. Perhaps we are too critical in requiring all sermons to be cut to the same shape; perhaps the beauty of the wood hyacinth may consist in the multitude of its azure bells, and the splendour of the tulip would be lost if it grew in a bunch.

But the reader shall judge for himself. I will give him a string of similes from the Trinity sermons of Osorius.

“Aristotle says that as the sun, most visible in itself, cannot be contemplated without difficulty by our eyes, on account of their weakness; so God, of supreme entity and perfection, can hardly be grasped by us, through the imperfection of our intellect.”

“_When my father and mother forsake me, the Lord taketh me up_, says the Psalmist; and Israel exclaimed, _Make us gods to go before us_. For without God we have not power to advance. What will he say to this, who enters on a state of life without God to lead him, who undertakes hard matters forgetful of God? As the ivy trails along the earth when it finds not a tree, to which it may cling and by which it may ascend, so does the soul lie prostrate till it has found God, to whom it may cling as to its beloved; and having found Him, by Him ascend, _going on from grace to grace_.”

“_The Heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth His handiwork_: they all point wondrously to their Creator, showing themselves to be creatures fashioned by His hands.

“Cicero observes: If when travelling you came suddenly in a desert upon some magnificent palace, such as that of Solomon, and were to ask how it came thither, and the answer were made that a mountain had fallen, and that its ruins had shaped themselves, somehow, into this great mansion, you would laugh them to scorn who asserted this, for the house shows plainly the handiwork of an artificer—and that he was a famous artificer to boot—who thus ranged all in such perfect order, and this, you would say, was self-evident. So, too, he who considers the workmanship of this world with attention,—the garden of earth, the abyss of sea, the heavens wondrously adorned, the variety of stars, their varied and yet harmonious motions,—he will say that it is manifest that some master artificer has arranged them, and that their conjunction cannot be fortuitous.”

“Look first at the beauteous image of the soul, and gather from it that it has a divine artificer. If you saw a boy holding a charming image in his hand, and you asked him, Whose is this image? who fashioned it? if he were to reply, I made it; you would at once say, That is not true, for it is a masterpiece of art. So, too, the wondrous power of our souls, and their wondrous perfection, point to a Heavenly artificer.”

“Who, then, is God? He is One and Three: one in nature, one in wisdom, one in goodness; but three in Person: Three Persons but One God, one wise, one powerful, one good.

“How then three Persons and not three Gods? I and thou are two persons, but one in nature and species.

“How two persons with one nature? Because in me there is that which is not in thee, and this constitutes difference in personality.

“But thou sayest, What is there in the Father which is not in the Son?

“That thou mayest understand, take this illustration.

“I have invented a science, entirely of myself; this science I teach thee; thou and I communicate it to a third. The same science is in all three; one of us knows nothing which the other knows not; one knows as much as all the three. Yet is there this difference between us, I have the knowledge of myself, having received it of none; in thee it is derived from me; in the third it proceeds from thee and me. Now suppose that, instead of a science, this were my nature which I gave to thee, and which we two communicated to the third; then should we three be one in nature, and yet with the diversity I have specified.

“Thus, as I have said, is it with our God, in whom it is the same to be, to know, to be able, &c. This wisdom and nature is in the Father self-derived, received of none. It is in the Son also, the same, but received by intelligence from the Father. It is in the Holy Ghost, but proceeding from the Father and the Son by love: therefore the Persons are three, but there are not three Gods nor three Lords, for the nature, and the wisdom, and the power, and the goodness are one, but in three Persons; therefore there is but one God, one Lord, one Wise.”

“God is the abyss of being, as signifies His name Jehovah; in Him are all perfections, of which perfections each is infinite, all are One. What then is my God? Ask every creature, and let them show you their God, and tell you what He is; not that each can declare Him perfectly, but each in part. Does it not happen to you sometimes, as you walk abroad, that you light upon a brook, and say, I will trace it to its source, and see whence this streamlet flows? Do you now act thus, and you will attain to your God. Mark what is good in the creatures you behold, in the song of birds, in the beauty of flowers, in the wealth of metals, in the sweetness of meats; these are but rills proceeding from God the abounding Fount; all these utter the things which are in God; for all creatures are but voices manifesting Him.”

Yet we must not rest in them. “It has happened that painters have pictured fruit with such accuracy that birds have come out of the sky thinking them real, in order to feed upon them; but finding them to be painted, and that there is no food in them, they fly away to seek their true sustenance. The Divine painter has traced with His brush in His creatures the beauties which live in Himself, and in them they seem to live. Yet are they but figures, not verities, _for the fashion of this world passeth away_. Would you know how to act, knowing that these are but pictures and not realities? Act as the bird, which finding no food in the painting seeks its real meat elsewhere. Mark this, you will find in creation no true food, no satiety, no repose; mark this and fly away to your God, He is very good, He is true food, in Him alone is repose.”

“When you hear sweet harmony, you say, I hear musicians, though you see them not; so seeing the harmony of creation, acknowledge God its source. In God are all perfections. Take the opal. Look at it fixedly from one point; it is white as snow, and you see nought save whiteness in it. Turn a little aside; it flashes out in flames as a carbuncle. Look from another point, it glows a rich crimson as the ruby; again, from another point it is all green as the emerald. Lo! you have an image of God, that most precious gem, to win which we must sell all we have. He is one, yet manifold. Moses beheld God, and He was to him like to the carbuncle, a burning fire: _The Lord thy God is a consuming fire_. That same God did David behold: _The Lord is full of compassion and mercy: long-suffering and of great goodness_. To him then was He not all white? Isaiah beheld him: _Wherefore art Thou red in Thine apparel?_ and seeing Him executing vengeance, He was like to the ruby. John beheld Him, and _a rainbow round about the throne, in sight like unto an emerald_. Lo! what variety, and yet what unity!”

One of the most curious ideas of Osorius is the following. He says that as he lies in bed he hears the stroke, stroke, of his heart; and it sounds to him as though within were two wood-cutters engaged night and day in hewing down a tree. Nor am I wrong in thinking so, he continues, for Flux and Reflux are engaged every hour in laying their axes to the root of the tree of life. In another sermon he speaks of men fretting over the loss of worldly goods and neglecting their eternal inheritance as resembling the little boy who has built a mud castle, and who weeps when a passer-by overthrows it with his foot, though he cares nothing that a lawsuit is going on at the time by which a large inheritance is being wrested from him.

The following is singularly beautiful, to my mind. Osorius is speaking of the dower Christ has given to His Church. He says, that as when a traveller marries a wife in a far country he gives her a few presents, but says to her, O my beloved, when we come home to my own country, where all my wealth and property are, then you shall have ten thousand times better presents; so does Christ act with His Church. Here, in the _far country_ of this earth, He gives her a few gifts and graces, but when He leads her home to His heavenly habitation, He will crown her with endless glory.

On the subject of the Ascension, he observes, very gracefully, that when a fleet is tossing on the sea, if one vessel enters the port in safety, the others pluck up courage to follow. When the soldiers see their leader mount the wall of the besieged city, they, though below, are stirred to press onward too.

And again, speaking of Christ resuming His seat in Heaven, he says that when a costly gem is given to a king, he sets it in a golden ring, which is exquisitely wrought, and which seemed a miracle of perfection before the insertion of the gem. But when the jewel is set, its glory eclipses all the graving of the ring. So was Heaven beauteous without Christ, beauteous as the setting, but now the precious gem, for whom all was made, is again in His place, and eclipses all other glories in His own effulgent beauty.

“The joy of Heaven must have been great, and the cause of the joy is manifest. Heaven has received its sun, enlightening it more than all its stars. It has gotten its precious gem adorning that ring of eternity more than its fine gold, more than all the comely forms thereon engraved. But, earth, how canst thou rejoice this day, deprived of the sun which late illumined thee? When the sun shines in this hemisphere, all things rejoice receiving light from it; but when it retires to the other hemisphere, those things which are in it begin their rejoicing, whilst those which are in ours are veiled in darkness, and droop in gloom and tears. When the ark of God was brought to Bethshemesh, that is, the house of the sun, the calves of the cows which drew it were shut up at home, and they lowed because the mothers which gave them milk were away. This day is the ark of God, which has been held captive in the house of this world, brought back into Heaven, the true house of the sun. And we, as the calves, remaining shut up in this world’s tabernacle, without our nourishment from the breast and wounds of Christ, how shall we do otherwise than low and lament?”

This beautiful and quaint passage will show how Osorius finds illustration in Scripture. I translate a few more specimens of his style.

“_Behold how He loved him._ St. Thomas explains this passage admirably when he says, quoting the wise man, _Nothing doth countervail a faithful friend, and his excellency is invaluable_, for a faithful friend is worthy of love: and yet, _a faithful man who can find_? He is a faithful friend who is stable in friendship; not forgetting a first friend when a new one arrives, nor when exalted in prosperity forgetful of the friend in poverty, nor despising the friend who is cast down.

“God will be found the most faithful friend, in that He never forgets former friends for the sake of new ones; but those whom He chose before time was, these will He love in eternity, when time is no more. Neither does the addition of new friends make the former less the friends of God, but rather the more grateful is it to Him that many should love Him. Nor is Christ like the chief butler, who, when things went well with him, forgot Joseph; but _though the Lord be high, yet hath He respect unto the lowly_. Christ, when mortal, chose men to be His friends; when made immortal, He called them His brethren. _Go to My brethren, and say unto them_, &c. (John xx. 17). Nor is the friendship of Christ capable of change through loss of the friend, as is evident from the eleventh chapter of St. John. _Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus_, when they were hale and sound. But what will He do when Lazarus is sick? _Lord, behold he whom Thou lovest is sick_; He ceases not to love because His friend is sick. Lazarus dies, the misery increases, but friendship does not decrease; for He says, _Our friend Lazarus sleepeth_. Lazarus is not called friend because that he loves, but because he is still beloved. Now Lazarus stinketh, and still Christ is his friend, for He weepeth because of him. _Behold_, they say, _how He loved him_! Ill, O multitude, do you speak! to Him love is present, therefore rather say, Behold how He loveth him! O most faithful Friend, Thou art He who sayest, _I have loved thee with an everlasting love_!

“Far otherwise are we toward Christ. He is in bonds, and lo! Peter swears that he knows Him not. O man! if you seek a true friend, seek first Christ, who changeth not. What think you is the friendship of the world? What the friendship of the flesh? You have three friends. You are in peril, for you are summoned before the king to be tried, and sentenced for high treason. You go to your first friend, and tell him your danger, and ask of him assistance. He replies that he will accompany you as far as the judgment hall, and leave you there. ‘Do you settle your affair with the king; I can do no more for you.’ Seeing that there is no help to be gotten from this friend, you turn to the second, and ask of him succour. He replies, ‘When you are executed, I will wrap your body in some old and cast-off linen, for a shroud.’ You go to the third, and he says, ‘I will be your advocate. I will assist you, and will liberate you. I will pacify the king, and, if need be, I will die in your room.’ Is not this a faithful friend? Now those who enter into compact of friendship with their flesh, which of these friends have they got? The first, which will accompany you only to the gate of death. Cherish the flesh, love it, and it will be a Delilah to you, handing you over to your enemies, leaving your soul before the Judge, without accompanying it. The world resembles the second friend, to please which you must torture yourself, but all it will give you in the end will be the shroud to enwrap your dead body. But Christ is the third friend, the faithful one, our advocate, who, to liberate us, endured death for us; He who accompanies us to the judgment, who frees us, who protects us! Let Him be our friend who truly loves us. _We love God because He first loved us._”

I conclude with the following striking passage:—

“_Are ye able to drink of the cup that I shall drink of?_ Being desirous of alluring His disciples to drink of the cup, He expounds to them its sweetness, when He says that He will drink of it first. And, in sooth, if we were faithful to God, this reason would be sufficient to make us drink it readily. But, as says the wise man, _most men will proclaim every one his own goodness: but a faithful man who can find_? There is not a son, there is not a servant, who acts as faithlessly with his father or his master as we act towards God. Would you know that of a certainty? I tell you be loth to sin, be ready to die rather than sin.

“Ah! but you say, I like to sin. I ask you, Upon what grounds do you persist in sinning? Well, you say, God is so good; He loves me, He is ready to pardon. So this is the reason why you continue in sin! And what though you know this for certain, where is your fidelity? where is your Christian honour? Does a wife act in this manner with her husband? a son with his father? a servant with his lord? I pray you bid your wife act in this manner towards you. Say to her, ‘Be chaste.’ She will say, ‘That is no concern of mine. I know full well that you are good, that you love me, and that if I were an adulteress you would pardon me.’ And if it were so, would this answer of your wife gratify you? Why! where would be the honour of a good woman? where her fidelity? Would it be deemed sufficient by you, if she were an adulteress and were reconciled to her husband? Does any minister act thus? You say to the royal minister, ‘Beware lest thou plot treason against your master.’ He replies, ‘He is an excellent king; he loves me, he will most certainly pardon me even if I do turn traitor.’ O vilest of men! O man truly without honour! where is the fidelity which you owe to your monarch?

“Vilest Christian of the household of Faith, unfaithful and destitute of honour! how continue to sin? how do you still commit adultery against God? how are you so traitorous to your King? You say: He will pardon me. Be it so. Yet where is your fidelity? where your honour? Is it sufficient to be reconciled, to be a pardoned traitor? Is it not far better to be able to say, I never was a traitor?

“Now let us turn to the subject. If we are faithful servants of God, enough for us that He has said, _The cup that I shall drink of_, to make us thirst for that cup. He drank thereof before thee; wilt thou not quaff of it out of love for Him? Is there a faithful soldier who would see his sovereign enter the battle, and fight amongst the foe, and withdraw himself, leaving his king alone, and betake himself to his sports? Hear what Uriah said, _The ark, and Israel, and Judah, abide in tents; and my lord Joab, and the servants of my lord, are encamped in the open fields; shall I then go into mine house?_ How different also she who said, _My Beloved is mine, and I am His_. Bernard says, ‘In no other way can man respond to his God in these same words, except by love, and by drinking of the cup.’ God gives thee gifts; thou canst give Him nothing. _I will take no bullock out of thine house._ God beatifies thee; thou canst not beatify Him, except by love and suffering. God loves thee; love Him thou canst. He suffered for thee; suffer for Him thou canst. Thus mayest thou render unto Him what thou hast received of Him, and return, as it were, like for like to thy God.”

MAXIMILIAN DEZA.

Maximilian Deza, an Italian, was born in 1610, and joined the Congregation of the Mother of God, in which he soon became famous as a preacher. He seems to have been a man of fervent piety and Apostolic zeal. He had acquired a good knowledge of the Latin classics in his early years, and this he was fond of exhibiting, with some pedantry, in his discourses. But such was the taste of the times, when classic literature and art were deluging Europe, and producing a revulsion in all the laws of taste which had regulated the mediævals. This affectation of classic learning was the bane of Deza’s oratory, and it is constantly obtruding itself on the reader, in a marked and offensive manner, though nowhere perhaps so prominently as in his sermon at the marriage of the Queen of Poland with the Duke of Lorraine, in the Cathedral of Neustadt in Austria, in which sermon, for instance, he enumerates celebrated marriages, as those of Cadmus and Harmonia, Jupiter and Juno, David and Michal, Isaac and Rebecca, and that at Cana—all in one breath.

As soon as his fame was established, he was in request throughout his native land, and we find him preaching at Bonona, Turin, and Milan. In 1664 he preached before the Doge at Genoa; in 1666 he was in Malta. We have sermons of his delivered at Rome in 1672, and at Venice in 1686. There is extant a sermon by Deza on the birth of the Prince of Wales, the so-called “Pretender,” son of James II., and an oration preached at Venice on the occasion of the exhibition of the Blessed Sacrament for obtaining success against the Turks, with whom the Republic was then at war. Maximilian Deza was sent for by Leopold I. to preach before him at Vienna, and there the old man died peacefully in his seventy-seventh year, A.D. 1687.

His sermons were published in Italian, “Prediche dell’ Avvento del P. Massimiliano Deza, Lucchese della Congregatione della Madre di Dio,” by Nicolo Pezzana, Venice, 1709.

There is also a Latin edition, translated by Cassimir Moll, a Benedictine, published by Veith, Vienna, 1726, and dedicated to John Julius de Moll, Archbishop of Salzburg.

The sermons extant form three series; the first consists of sermons from the First Sunday in Advent to the Sunday after Christmas, together with two discourses on the parable of the Prodigal Son, in all nine, forming one volume. The second contains thirty-eight sermons preached during Lent; and the third part, which is immeasurably inferior to the other two, consists of orations on divers saints, such as St. Catharine of Bologna, St. Peter of Alcantara, St. Rosa of Lima, together with sermons on state occasions.

Maximilian Deza just escaped being a really great orator, like Segneri, whom he much resembles in his vehemence, zeal, fine word-painting, and brilliant transitions. There is nothing heavy or dull about his sermons; they are calculated to rivet the attention of an audience, and they appeal earnestly to the conscience. They are not sermons to be read in measured tones from the pulpit, but to be declaimed with flashing eye, modulated voice, and vehement gesture. To modern readers Deza seems to play with an idea in a manner unsuitable to our nineteenth century ideas of pulpit proprieties; but it must be borne in mind that his discourses are long, lasting sometimes two hours, and the mind of the hearer would need rest, it would only be fatigued if kept constantly on the stretch. Viewed thus, it will be seen that Deza handles his matter with great skill; he works one point of his subject to a climax,—you hold your breath even in reading him—and then he gently drops the point, and gives time for relaxation of the attention till he deems it fit to produce another effect, just as in a drama the sensational scenes are separated from each other by the talkee-talkee scenes in the front groove. But these intermediate portions of Deza’s sermons are by no means dull; they are light and pleasant trifles with which he toys, but which lead on insensibly to his point, just as the small beads of a rosary draw the fingers on to the larger ones.

Take his sermon for Ash-Wednesday as an example. He is preaching on the words, “Remember, O man, that thou art dust, and that into dust thou shalt return,” which occur in the Roman Office for the day.

He begins with the lessons drawn from the ashes sprinkled every where; and he bids his hearers look on these ashes, and remember that they shall one day be like them. He then draws with skill a picture of man’s forlorn condition, with the prospect of death before him, and no possibility afforded him of escape. He laughs to scorn the thoughts of immortality connected with name and title; he tells the story of Empedocles seeking an immortal name by jumping into the crater of Ætna; and then he warns his hearers most solemnly to keep death ever before their eyes. Remember, he cries, that you have sucked in with your mother’s milk the seeds of death. Remember that all beasts were created alive, but Adam was created a lifeless frame, till God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. Remember that from the moment of birth, the moment of death began to creep nearer. Then suddenly pointing to the hour-glass he exclaims, Look! this hour is stealing away in grains of dust, warning you to remember what you too ere long will become. And having worked this out with great solemnity, he suddenly breaks off into a description of glass and its manufacture. He says it is made of sand and ash, it is fused with heat, it is formed by the breath.

Is not that like man? he asks; man made of dust, kindled by the glow of life, vivified by the Divine breath?

Well! you will say that glass is a very brittle affair; it somewhat resembles ice, and is just as fragile; one little fall, and it is shivered into countless fragments; it is made by a puff, it is clouded by a breath, it is broken by a touch.

You consider it very fragile.—I tell you, on the authority of St. Augustine, that man is far more fragile.

Glass carefully preserved may become an heirloom, but man can never last out more than a generation.

Glass is only shattered by accident, but man is perishable by his nature.

Glass is broken by external force, but man bears about within him the seeds of dissolution.

Glass is snapped by a touch, but man untouched will crumble into his grave.

Glass once broken may be restored, not so man.

Glass though broken does not decay, but man’s flesh becomes corrupt.

Having thus amused and rested his hearers, Deza begins another earnest appeal to them; he explains that the soul of man does not descend to the grave, and he solves a difficulty in the text, Genesis iii. 19, _Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return_.

Having done this, it is proper that the congregation should be given a little breathing-time, and so the preacher takes the sentence, _Dust thou art_, and plays with it, by giving a description of dust agitated by the wind. Oh, into what fantastic shapes does the wind whirl the dust! how the dust-cloud runs along, rushes forward madly, stops and spins awhile, and tosses itself up, up, till it seems verily to fly; it ascends higher and higher, it is carried above the tree-tops, it will reach the clouds of Heaven. Stay!—the wind drops. Where is the dust? It falls, it obscures the landscape, it is scattered every where, it parches the tongue, it blinds the eyes, it clogs the throat; and that which just now dulled the air and obscured the sun, has returned to itself again; dust it was, and nothing more, and unto dust has it returned.

Is not this a picture of man? asks the preacher; man, poor dust carried up and hurried forward by the winds of his vain fancies? Ambition puffs him up on high, only to fling him to earth again; passion drives him forward, and then drops him a helpless atom to his native soil.

Look how high those giddy particles are flung—_Thou takest away their breath, they die, and are turned again to their dust_.

Yes, toss yourselves in pride, rush on in the storm of passion, eddy up in the struggle of life, spin in the giddiness of pleasure, penetrate every where in the eagerness of curiosity—_Thou takest away their breath, they die, and are turned again to their dust_.

Deza then examines the words of Solomon, _There is a time to be born and a time to die_, and he asks why the King did not say there is a time to live. Having answered this question to his own satisfaction, by showing that Solomon spoke of definite moments of time, but that life was not a point of time, but a fleeting succession of moments, he enters on the subject of the shortness of time, and quotes Wisdom v. 10. The life of man, says Solomon, is _as a ship that passeth over the waves of the water_, and leaves no trace—no trace but the foam-bubbles; and those foam-bubbles are like the life of man, now appearing in the wake of the vessel, and then brushed away by the next wave,—and this wave is like the life of man, sweeping on resistlessly to the rock on which it will be shivered with a roar—a roar like the life of man, loud and fierce for the moment, and then carried off on the wind—the wind like the life of man sinking into a lull and lost.

And so throughout the sermon.

I will now give an analysis of one of Maximilian Deza’s most characteristic and striking discourses, with a translation of a portion of it as a specimen of his style of oratory.

The sermon I have selected is that for the First Sunday in Advent, with which the Feast of St. Andrew coincided. The lessons from each holiday are very happily blended.

Maximilian Deza takes two texts, the first from the twenty-first chapter of St. Luke, _Then shall they see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory_; and the second from the Office for St. Andrew’s Day, “Blessed Andrew prayed, saying, Hail, good Cross! may He receive me by thee, Who by thee redeemed me.”

Introduction.

On this coincidence of holidays two points of consideration are
presented to us; the Cross the sign of terror and destruction
to the guilty, and the Cross the sign of joy and salvation to
the just.

I. The love of the Cross is the characteristic of the elect;
whilst the hatred of the Cross is the sign of the reprobate.

α. The Lord knoweth those that are His—by their love of His
Cross of suffering. _If any man will come after Me, let him
deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me._

β. But the wicked are called _the enemies of the Cross of
Christ, whose end is destruction_.

The day will come, the great and terrible day of the Lord, when
He will call the heavens from above, and the earth, that He may
judge His people; when the Cross, the sign of the Son of Man,
will appear in the clouds of Heaven.

II. Then God will judge the world with fire, and the Cross
alone will be the standard by which all will be tried.

God will judge the world with fire.—How with fire? When a
palace is destroyed by the flames, every thing in it is reduced
to cinder; the rags of the beggar, the gorgeous robes of the
prince, the statue of the king, and the image of the ape. So
every man will be tried with fire, and all difference between
man and man as now existing will be rendered indistinguishable.
King and subject, master and slave, will stand shivering in
nakedness beside each other; there is no respect of persons
with God, they will be but as a heap of cinders, which are
equally hideous, though some may be the ashes of costly
articles, others of vile materials.

One alone distinguishing mark will be left, the love of the
Cross, by which to judge them.

III. By the Cross will the saints be recognized, as in Ezekiel
ix. the prophet saw in vision the destruction of the last day,
when God’s command was, _Slay utterly old and young, both
maids, and little children, and women: but come not near any
man upon whom is the mark Tau_.

This Tau, Deza observes, is the Cross, the mark on the brow
by which the faithful shall be known. Tau is the last letter
of the Hebrew alphabet, and it is the last sign which shall
appear in Heaven. The preacher then goes through the list of
those slain, old and young, maids, and little children, and
women, and shows how that wisdom of grey hairs, or innocency of
childhood, or purity of virgins, are of no avail to stand the
fire of trial unless the Cross be the source of those graces.

The Cross is the banner of the King in His army on earth. It is
the tree of life in the Paradise of His Church.

IV. The Cross, as sign of safety to some and of destruction to
others, was prefigured in the Old Testament—

α. By the rod of Moses, which opened the sea for the
passage of the Israelites, and which brought it back again
to overwhelm the Egyptians.

β. By the ark of Noah.

γ. By the blood-marks on the lintel and door-post when the
destroying angel passed through Egypt.

V. A contrast is drawn between St. Peter and the penitent
thief. The former feared the Cross, and when our Lord spoke of
His approaching crucifixion, the Apostle said, _Be it far from
Thee_; and was therefore suffered to fall. But the thief who
sought Christ through the Cross found acceptance.

VI. Deza shows that people may now become enemies of the Cross
of Christ—

α. By gluttony and drunkenness.

β. By debauchery and frivolity.

γ. By injustice and dishonesty.

δ. By falsehood and calumnies.

ε. By hypocrisy.

He draws a very solemn and awful picture of the dawning of the
great day, and the flashing of the sign of the Son of Man upon
the enemies of the Cross of Christ, and then—

VII. He comments on the sentences pronounced on the good and on
the bad. This is the passage I translate.