BIOGEAPIIICAL SKETCH. 



AViTiiiN a very few years, wc have been hearing, from lime to 

 time, of tlie fame of a great preacher of the Gospel that liad risen 

 up in France. Clad in the rough garb of a Carmelite friar, lie 

 has seemed (wc were told) to be filled with " the spirit and power 

 of Elijah." The sins of rulers and of people alike, the infidelity 

 of philosophers, and the pharisaism of priests, he has denoimced 

 with equal and intrepid severity ; and speaking in gentler tones 

 to the families of his people, he has sought, like the predicted 

 Elijah, to " turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the 

 hearts of the children to the fathers, lest the Lord should come 

 and smite the land with a curse." 



The accounts of him have been as various, in some respects, 

 as the strangely diverse channels through which they have come 

 to us. In tlie innumerable crowds that have gathered within the 

 sound of his voice about the pulpit of the venerable cathedral of 

 Notre Dame, the most opposite classes have thronged each other, 

 having no thought nor sentiment in common, save their eager- 

 ness to hear the great preacher. The bitter infidels of French 

 liberalism, who listened to no other minister of any religion, gave 

 respectful audience to him, as to a friend of the common people. 

 The strangers and novelty-hunters of Paris sought at Notre Dame 

 the revival of the palmiest days of French eloquence. Protestants 

 of the austerest schools listened in that unwonted presence to 

 discourses which, after every abatement of prejudice and of con- 

 trary conviction, they acknowledged to be the sincere and faithful 

 preaching of Jesus Christ. And Roman Catholics of liberal sen- 

 timents justly gloried in the eloquence of their great preacher, 



