good has been done by the lengthened sacrifice of all the affections which are intended to be ornaments of the career of a good man who lives a Christian life, and of all the inclinations created and placed in us by God, who has given them to man on the sole condition of yielding to them no more than His holy laws allow! What if after this long endurance the result is nothing but a fall, with risk of the salvation of the soul! Consider, my dear Ravignan, how disastrous would be such an end, and reflect well while it is yet in your power."

The Seminary life at Issy was, however, but an outer vestibule to the noviciate. "The Abbé de Ravignan aimed at complete self-renouncement; he had withdrawn from the world and consecrated himself to God, and his heart still cried with St. Francis Xavier, amplius, amplius, more, O Lord! yet more!" He wrote of his new vocation: "I had some prejudices against the society of Jesus. Pascal, and the traditions. of the Parliaments, deceived me and many others; and I must confess that the truth about the Jesuits came upon me in some sort against my will. I have no need to recount in this place by what path it pleased divine Providence to lead me forward, nor what interior struggle I went through in my conscience, a struggle known to God alone."-"I was led to the determination to become a Jesuit by the very points which are most misunderstood, most distorted, and most attacked in the Institute of the Society."

He entered the Jesuit noviciate at Montrouge, using these words in presenting himself to the Superior: "I am a poor man come to ask your hospitality. I have nothing but myself to offer; be good enough to receive me for charity." He had already in his zeal taken the four famous vows of the Jesuit order before the canonical time-viz: those of poverty, chastity, obedience, and entire submission to the will of the Pope, to do and go as he may command. "He made haste to go down into the mystic tomb where, as St. Paul expresses it, one must put off the old man to put on the new. He disappeared as though dead; and for ten years the world saw him no more, heard not his name, spoke not of him."

We cannot follow him through all that decade of religious incarceration, where by deeper and deeper steps into that living tomb, he was to become in truth, in Jesuit phrase, perinde cadaver to the world and human joys and affections. During his Novitiate of two years, and his Scholasticate of four years, his attention to the strictest rules of his order were almost unexampled; he forgot nothing and omitted nothing, and allowed no weakness of body to deter him from any act which he held to be his duty. He gained for himself the sobriquet of "Iron bar." He looked upon the religious life as a conflict, in which he unceasingly fought against himself, and judged that a bold beginning ensured a more complete victory. He submitted to all the enjoined austerities to complete this breaking down of his nature, and a terrible iron-shirt is mentioned which marked the sacred signs on the living flesh in characters of blood. His biographer says:-" He understood the regulation of the flesh in the gospel sense; he reduced his body to servitude in order to set his spirit free; and he suffered martyrdom that he might continue to be an Angel, and might become an Apostle." After having spent six years in preparation, two in practical spiritual exercises, and four in the study of the sciences, he was ordained to the priesthood in 1828, and went to the Professed House in Paris, where he continued four years longer, chiefly in the practice of the severe duties and spiritual requirements of his House, now and then preaching to other religious communities, teaching in theology and sacred rhetoric. The last year of his probation was one of redoubled austerity and attention to religious exercises, making the Exercitia Spiritualia of St. Ignatius his almost sole companion-his Bible in fact. He said to his students:-"The Book of the Exercises is the spiritual arsenal where you will find the heavenly arms which have been prepared for you. It is a present bestowed by God on the society." He said, again, speaking of St. Ignatius Loyola:-"O my blessed Father! wise is thy work and enticing, great and of much profit; the Spirit of God inspired thee. Happy is he that loves and relishes this Book with which heaven inspired our father. He will find there an unfailing spring of consolation, a prolific source of good, a remedy of all evils, be they

the greatest to which the soul of a religious is exposed.' His biographer also remarks:-" He received from on high a marked grace, the gift of understanding the Book of Exercises. From this time, that book became his manual, and served him instead of a whole library. He was filled with it; and we may express his view and our own, by saying that he was the Son of the Exercises, for by means of them he formed himself, and by means of them he accomplished all his other works."

At the age of forty he appeared for the first time in a pulpit of importance, that of Amiens. In like manner it is said that Bourdaloue entered the Society at sixteen, and first appeared in the pulpit at thirty-six. The Jesuit system aims at quality rather than quantity; it looks to thoroughness of preparation, on the principle that the well-fitted instrument will do more execution in a short time, than a poor instrument in ever so long a time. The motto of the founder of the Jesuit order was "Whatsoever we do for the glory God and the good of souls, must be done not in a slovenly manner, but in the most perfect manner."

But he was soon called to a more conspicuous field. The eloquent Lacordaire had established and rendered celebrated the so-called "Conferences" at Notre Dame; and when his fiery career was ended, the man chosen to succeed him and carry on his work of periodical preaching at Notre Dame, was F. de Ravignan. This fact itself testifies to the extraordinary ability of the Jesuit father as a pulpit orator. His eloquence, however, was of a different kind from that of his brilliant Dominican predecessor, as it was from that of the glowing Carmelite, Father Hyacinthe, who succeeded him. His power consisted in a forgetfulness of himself, an impassibility, a plain masculine logic. There was a lack of the poetic element. He chose the road that expressed the thought and nothing more. His style was a little rough, and wanting in polish; but there was constant advance; he mastered audiences by the majesty of his thought and his intellectual force. There was at first a cadence and slowness of utterance in his speaking, but when he became fully roused he shot forth each word like an arrow, and his whole soul seemed to dart forth with it. He had at times great and vehement energy, which produced

the more effect from its contrast to his usually calm style. His attitude was noble and modest, his forehead high and as it seemed, glowing; his eye bright with something of a heavenly look; and much is said of the impressiveness of his first appearance in the pulpit; his silent, recollected posture, and his sign of the cross before beginning. Immense audiences of three and four thousand, principally composed of men, were invariably attracted by his bold, argumentative, and forensic oratory, which addressed the intellect, and aimed at practical results. His weight and holiness of character added to the effect.

Father de Ravignan's own ideas upon sacred oratory and preaching, a short summary of which is given in the work, are of exceeding interest to students and preachers. In theological education he did not insist so much upon extent of erudition as upon depth of knowledge. He aimed to produce effective preachers rather than learned scholars. "What is pulpit eloquence?" he asked; "It is the power of spoken words to draw souls to their Creator." He counseled his pupils to be on their guard against metaphysical preaching, which is a shoal full of peril to one first leaving the schools. He insisted upon clearness as the first condition in every discourse. "We must have some coloring," he said; "but not every one is at will a painter. Here again St. Paul is our master. What images there are in his epistles! Our Lord speaks by images: in his discourses the deepest thoughts come clothed in sensible forms, the language becomes popular without ceasing to be noble." He advocated the French mode of

memoriter preaching—of a true kind however. "He quoted the saying of Demosthenes, placing all the force of speech in action, and another of Massillon: "my best sermon is the one I know best;" and he drew from this conclusion that we ought to know some sermons by heart, and added: "I know very well the trouble of learning by heart; but the more trouble the better-trouble is just what we ought to have. This wretched fear of taking trouble it is that does all the harm. Would you like me tell you something of the truth of which I am deeply convinced? Sloth is what chiefly palsies talent and hinders success. I remember a very sensible remark made

to me by a speaker of experience: he said that we must let a speech rot—yes, rot in the memory. Beware of losing the power of learning by heart; nothing can supply the want." He said to young preachers:-"Give yourselves full scope; the more you give way the more you will draw others with you; if you yourselves have motion, you will set the others on the swing."

His brilliant and arousing "Conferences" were followed by quiet "Retreats," in which all who were awakened and interested withdrew with him to a retired place, to receive guidance and direction in religious things, or to enter upon the regular course prescribed in the Book of Spiritual Exercises. Many conversions are said to have followed his efforts-as far as we can learn principally conversions of Protestants to Roman Catholicism-some thirty or forty of these every year during the ten years of his public preaching.

But we will not follow further step by step the career of this distinguished Jesuit father and preacher. Issuing periodically from his solitary retreat to thunder in the throne of Notre Dame with his serious and lofty eloquence; now and then mingling in the agitating questions of the day as the astute champion of the Jesuit order; holding interviews with kings, with the present emperor of France, and with the chief men of the state, numbering among his converts Marshal de St. Arnaud, and other noted men, as well as hundreds of "schismatics and heretics," brought back to the Catholic unity; devoted above all to severe spiritual exercises, studies, and contemplations; this faithful servant of the Church, of Mary, and of the society of Jesus, found rest from his labors, having hastened his death by self-exposure in his efforts to bring a poor Protestant woman into the fold of the Catholic Church. He died in the triumph of the Catholic faith on the 26th of Feb. 1857, and was buried from Notre Dame with extraordinary honors, Mgr. Dupanloup, the Bishop of Orleans, pronouncing a most affecting and eloquent discourse upon his memory. We have room to quote but a sentence or two toward the close of this oration. "Weep not, then, for him. He is living, and soon we shall see him again; yes, we shall again see the bright, deep, pure glance of his eye; we shall again see his calm and