18 DISCOURSES OF FATHER HYACINTHE. 



— a priest's voice, wliieli slionld be ever grave and 

 calm — amid the tumult of heated passions, and, so to 

 speak, under the gleam of the lightning and the roll 

 of thunder ? This, Gentlemen, is the very thing which 

 attracts me. Xot that I love danger. I remember the 

 word of our holy Book : " He who seeks peril shall 

 perish in it himself."* I do not love danger, but I go 

 throuo:h it without fear when it lies between me and 

 duty. Yes, it is a duty for the minister of the gospel, 

 at least in this presence ; the hour is solemn and pro- 

 pitious ; and because the men of error and the men of 

 hate have been speaking too loud, and because events 

 have given echo to their voice, it is full time to lift up, 

 above, far above the clamor of parties, the impartial 

 voice of righteousness and truth. 



And then. Gentlemen, what reassures me is your 

 presence — the presence of this audience, the very sight 

 of w^hich imposes on me wûsdom and moderation — the 

 presence of the eminent prelate whose benediction I 

 have just received. To tell you my inmost thought, I 

 am reassured by my own conscience. A loyal, respect- 

 ful subject of the Government of my country, lirmly re- 

 solved to follow no political flag save that which may 

 rally about it all honest citizens, the flag of the legiti- 

 mate elevation, the material, and still more the moral 

 elevation, of the most numerous and the most suffering 

 classes of society. If 1 look deeper in my heart, I And, 

 it is true, two passions ; but I am not afraid freely to 

 avow them in your presence. The first is the passion 

 — the burning ixission — of love for the holy catholic, 

 apostolic, and Roman Church, our mother, the mother 

 of J'lurope and America, the mother of the great civili- 

 zation of the AVest. And then, beside her, witli hej-, 



* EcclL'(*iasticiirt, iii. 2T. 



