BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. XVll 



tlio word of God, ;i denouncer of corruption, a liatcr of religious 

 persecution, a friend of the universal education of the people, and 

 a lover of human libert}^ The common prejudices of Protestants, 

 on this question, have been all ready to say No ! Tlie frank dec- 

 laration of the extreme papal party is Xo ! The great party of 

 liberal Roman Catholics have hitherto said Yes ! and have pointed 

 in ]iroof to the Carmelite preacher of righteousness and liberty 

 and the word of God in the pulpit of Notre Dame. But now, 

 what shall they say ? This is one of the questions that is soon to 

 be iK'uding on appeal before the Œcumeuical Council. The real 

 friends of the lloman Catholic Church may well long for a decis- 

 ion in the interest of liberty. 



Meanwhile, this illustrious preacher, following tlie most natural 

 instinct of a confessor in the cause of freedom, has come to the 

 United States. To the masses of our people, his lips arc closed 

 by reason of his foreign speech. This volume must be the pulpit 

 from which he shall mainlj'- address them. But before presenting 

 his discoui*ses to the reader, it is fit, in a few pages, to give such 

 facts concerning his history as may serve, in some measure, as a 

 personal introduction. 



Charles Loysox, since known to the whole Avorld as Father 

 Hyacinthe, was born at Orleans, on the tenth of March, 1827. His 

 family was humble, his grandfather having been a harness-maker 

 in the little city of Château Gontier, in the Department of 

 ]Mayenne. But in the last generation, the family emerged from 

 the obscurity of mechanical life into literary position. An uncle 

 of Father Hyacinthe, bearing the same name, Charles Loyson, 

 having graduated at the Normal School of Paris, became " MaUrc 

 des Conferences'^ in that institution, and afterward, entering into 

 public life at the new era which opened upon France in the year 

 1815, was chief of bureau in the Department of Justice. Anrong 

 the companions of his education or of his too brief manhood, were 

 such statesmen as de Serre, and Maine de Birau, such philosophers 

 as Cousin, Jouffroy, and Royer-Collard, and such men of letters 

 as the late Sainte Beuve, wlio all, with beautiful unanimity, have 

 contributed to lay upon the early grave of their friend the homage 



