scribe praise or approbation: When, however, we consider what the primitive Churches were, we may learn that what was done then can not be as commonly done now.

Unction. This word, taken in its etymology, and in its primitive acceptation, denotes no special quality of preaching, but rather the grace and the efficacy which are connected with it by the Spirit of God; a kind of seal and sanction which consists less in outward signs than in an impression received by the soul. But as, in ascending to the cause of this effect, we distinguish particularly certain characters, it is to the reunion of these characters that we have given the name of unction. Unction seems to me to be the total character of the Gospel; to be recognized, doubtless, in each of its parts, but especially apprehensible in their assemblage. It is the general savor of Christianity; it is a gravity accompanied by tenderness, a severity tempered with sweetness, a majesty associated with intimacy; the true contemperature of the Christian dispensation, in which, according to the Psalmist's expression, Mercy and truth have met together, righteousness and peace have kissed each other."-Ps. lxxxv., 10. It is so proper a thing to Christianity and to Christian matters, that we scarcely can think of transferring the term to other spheres, and when we meet with it applied to other things than Christian discourse, or Christian actions, we are astonished, and can only regard it as an analogy or a metaphor.

From the fact that the whole modern world has been wholly imbued with Christianity, many modern works, which are neither Christian nor even religious, can not be otherwise marked than by the word unction; while there is no work of antiquity that awakens this idea.

The idea that Maury* gives of unction is no other than that of Christian pathos. The definition of Blair is more dis

* MAURY: 'Essai sur l'Eloquence de la Chaire (chap. lxxxiii.), de l'Onction.

tinctly identical with ours. "Gravity and warmth united," according to this author, "form that character of preaching which the French call unction; the affecting, penetrating, interesting manner, flowing from a strong sensibility of heart in the preacher to the importance of those truths which he delivers, and an earnest desire that they may make a full impression on the hearts of his hearers."*

M. Dutoit Membrini thinks that, in order to define unction, an intimate and mysterious quality, we must guard against formal definition and analysis. It is by the effects of unction and by analogies that he would explain it, or, to speak better, give us a taste of it :

"Unction is a mild warmth which causes itself to be felt in the powers of the soul. It produces in the spiritual sphere the same effects as the sun in the physical: it enlightens and it warms. It puts light in the soul; it puts warmth in the heart. It causes us to know and to love; it fills us with emotion."

I willingly admit that it is a light which warms and a warmth which enlightens; and I would recall on this subject the words of St. John: "The anointing which you have received from him abideth in you, and this anointing teaches you all things."-1 John, ii., 27.

M. Dutoit Membrini continues thus: "Its only source is a regenerate and gracious spirit. It is a gift which exhausts itself and is lost if we do not renew this sacred fire, which we must always keep burning: that which feeds it is the internal cross, self-denial, prayer, and penitence. Unction, in religious subjects, is what in the poets is called enthusiasm. Thus unction is the heart and the power of the soul, nourished, kindled, by the sweet influence of grace. It is a soft, delicious, lively, inward, profound, mellifluous feeling.

Unction, then, is that mild, soft, nourishing, and, at the same time, luminous heat, which illumines the spirit, pene* BLAIR (Lect. xxix.), Eloquence of the Pulpit.

trates the heart, moves it, transports it, and which he who has received it conveys to the souls and the hearts which are prepared to receive it also.

"Unction is felt, is experienced, it can not be analyzed. It makes its impression silently, and without the aid of reflection. It is conveyed in simplicity, and received in the same way by the heart into which the warmth of the preacher passes. Ordinarily, it produces its effect, while as yet the taste of it is not developed in us, without our being able to give a reason to ourselves of what has made the impression. We feel, we experience, we are touched, we can hardly say why.

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We may apply to him who has received it these words of the prophet Isaiah : Behold, I will make thee a new sharp threshing instrument having teeth.'-Isaiah, xli., 15. This man makes furrows in hearts." ›

From all that has been said, we must not conclude that unction, which has much the same principle as piety, is exactly proportioned to piety. Unction may be very unequal. in two preachers, equal in piety; but it is too closely related to Christianity to be absolutely wanting to truly Christian preaching. Certain obstacles, some natural, others of error or of habit, may do injury to unction, and obstruct, so to speak, the passage of this soft and holy oil, which should always flow, to lubricate all the articulations of thought, to render all the movements of discourse easy and just, to penetrate, to nourish speech. There is no artificial method of obtaining unction; the oil flows of itself from the olive; the most forcible pressure will not produce a drop from the earth, or from a flint; but there are means, if I may say so, by which we may keep, without unction, even a good basis of piety; or, of dissembling the unction which is in us, and of restraining it from flowing without. There are things incompatible with unction: Such are wit,* analysis too strict, a tone too dicta

* Nevertheless, St. Bernard and Augustin have wit and unction.

FORM OF PREACHING.

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torial, logic too formal, irony, the use of too secular or too abstract language, a form too literary; finally, a style too compact and too close, for unction supposes abundance, overflow, fluidity, pliableness.

It is the absence, rather than the presence of unction, that gives us its idea. It is from its opposite that we obtain its distinct notion, not, however, that it is but a negative quality; on the contrary, it is the most positive; but positive in the sense of an odor, of a color, of a savor.

But let us not contract the idea of unction by reducing it to an effeminate mildness, a wordy abundance, a weeping pathos. We must not think that we can not have unction except on the condition of interdicting strictness and consecutiveness in argument, and that boldness of accent, that holy vehemence which certain subjects demand, and without which, in treating them, we should be in fault.

Massillon has unction, as Maury thinks, in a piece which contains nothing but reproaches.* As an example, we cite Bossuet also, in the conclusion of a sermon on final impeni

tence.

§ 7. Form of Preaching.

The true form of a sermon is composed of the double impression of the subject and of the subjectivity of the orator. The form of a sermon acknowledges only these two laws, which, so far from opposing, combine with one another.

As to general forms which we may observe among preachers, as the psychological and logical form, that of continuous discourse, and that of parallel developments, or of discourse ramified, the analytical and the synthetical sermon, they are neither conventional nor artificial; they are less differences

MAURY: Eloquence de la Chaire (chap. lxxii.), de l'Onction. See MASSILLON, the conclusion of the first part of the sermon, Sur l'Aumóne.

of form than of thought, points of view, methods of conceiv ing the subject of discourse. They exist in the subjects themselves, and in the human mind anterior to all tradition.

There is the same difference between the conventional and the spontaneous form as there is between the two physiological systems, one of which makes the prominences of the skull to depend on the internal developments of the brain, and the other these same developments to depend on the prominences of the skull; one expressing the internal by the external, the other, by the external compressing and determining the internal; one subordinating the external to the internal, the other the internal to the external. We ourselves prefer that the external should spring from the internal, and, in respect to form, we give no rule but this.

But this rule we do give; and, in order to follow it, we must resolve upon doing this with a positive and determined will; for the arbitrary forms will be incessantly besetting us with their importunity; or, rather, being born in the midst of them, we shall have trouble to withdraw ourselves from their dominion. Now let it be observed that the most natural forms constantly tend, by servile and blind imitation, to become conventional types; they are a liquid always on the point of coagulation; so that we must constantly, by warmth and by spontaneity, keep them in a fluid state, or restore them to it, that we may, as far as possible, exclude formalism from our subject, our end, and our mind.*

I understand by the form of preaching not only the frame or the architecture of the discourse, but the tone, the language, and even the topics, for to introduce new topics into it will somewhat change the form of the preaching these are nothing more than the form of an act, which is more particular or more special only as it is a discourse on divine things. Thus, in making a sermon on the life of a godly man, after the manner of Catholics in preaching on the lives

* See HERDER's Briefe das Studium der Theologie betreffend, tome i.