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Show I I Pert 'fflotisahiv. ' I (Written for The Ir.termountain Calr.oHr) Pert Monsabre, the distinguished Dominican preacher, is short of ytat- ure and rather portly of figure; but the mobile face and his perfect gestures I mote than comper.sat2 mm :or imbe u;- 1 f'H ts. He has at times in social life a i laughing eye, and there lurks a smile 1 in the corner of his mouth. The Paris I Figaro, while admitting that he was 1 thu most illustrious preacher of our era, ventured the opinion that if he had a vocation for the actor's profession, in-f in-f stf-ad of for the priesthood, he would f! become the best comedian in France. j Though he is C6 years old, he is hale II and hearty and is as exuberant in smr- its as a young man of 25. if I had an interview with Father Mon- sabre in the advent of 1SS7 in the pres- bytery of the Notre Dame cathedral. I lie has occupied the pulpit of that I temple during the lents and advents of ft seventeen years. "During that period." !! he said, "I consecrated some six months of the year to a careful preparation of I the sermons which I preach in Notre I Dame during the lent and advent. These ten annual sermons, the delivery of which would cover one hour and a ' half, were written in the calm seclusion Sof my cell in a Dominican monastery on the coast of Brittany. After my Easter day sermon, delivered before the I Cardinal Archbishop of Paris, I leave I this city. I take a few weeks, holiday I in the Rigi mountains or on the banks I of Lake Como. There I luxuriate, ban- I . i-li thought, as 1 would a demon, and I :i. tuallv revel in complete rest of mind I mi.) body. This stage of Recuperation I ever, I hasten to the monastery of, my i ' t dt r. and shut myself in my cell till I i!ppr..ach of advent. Th? first few I m mt lis are devoted to mapping out the si;l.j.-cts of my bermons. jotting down i vari-ius ideas on revealed truths, and 1 compiling notes for those I select. I I then write the sermons, and often re- i write ihem three or four times over, I - erasing a word here, correcting a 1 Phrase there, condensing or expanding, f as my judement dictates. The last 'J t two months are spent in committing J the sermon to memory." I After Father Monsabre became a Do- fi minican monk, he passed by command I -f Li.-, superior most of his time during almost twenty years of his life in studying St. Thomas, the "Angel of the Schools," his favorite author, all the Fathers, including Duns Scotus, St. Augustine and Cornelius a Lapide. The wealth of knowledge which he had gathered from these writers rendered I the Dominican priest a safe and sure guide to his future congregations. When the e studies- were completed, he was ordered by the provincial of his ' order in France to go forth from the monastery ?nd deliver sermons in the churrhts in the various departments of the French provinces. Father rdontsa-bre rdontsa-bre went forth and preached in Bordeaux. Bor-deaux. Amiens. Douay and other cities. His eloquent periods were not understood under-stood by the bourgeois, who devoted all their time to business affairs and to their stores, and none to the cultivation of their ' intellects. This failure only encauraged ln'm all the more to continue con-tinue preaching. Subsequently his or- atcrical talents were appreciated in a small church in aPris, where the members mem-bers of his congregation were educated. educat-ed. The Catholic newspapers of that city, the Univers. edited by Louis Venillot. and the Monde, complimented the monk on nis super n eloquence, m ecclesiastical circiea he became a favorite, favor-ite, owing to their admiration of his sound theology, his marvelous logic and e'eiuence. The chair of Notre Dame has throughout past centuries been occupied occu-pied by the several great masters of eloquence el-oquence Bossuet, who was gifted with the magic oratory of St. John Chrysos-tom, Chrysos-tom, and who preached in the court chapel before Louis XVI. and his courtiers; cour-tiers; Bourdalone, a preacher of eminent emi-nent merit; Massilon, the Juvenal of his age, the vices of which he denounced de-nounced in scathing and contemptuous terms: Lacordaire, the famous scholar, and Pere Felix; Mgr. Darboy appointed Perc Monsabre to the vacant chair after af-ter Pcre Hyacinth's apostacy. The Dominican Do-minican monk declined the appointment, appoint-ment, on the plea that he was unworthy un-worthy to preach from a chair which Bossuet, Bourdalone and Massilon had occupied. Mgr. Darboy refused to ac- j cept the plea, and instructed the i preacher to prepare his sermons for the forthcoming advent. On the first Sunday Sun-day of that holy season, after the gos-I gos-I pel of the day had been sung, the I white-robed, black-caped monk walked t out of the sacristy, jrenufiected before the high altar, received the blessing of Archbishop Darboy, and ascended the winding staircase of the pulpit with a firm step. Hf.s fnme as a preacher induced all the distinguished men of Paris to attend at-tend High Maas in Notre Dame Cathedral Ca-thedral on that Sunday. Scattered through the congregation were the fs.-m,ii; fs.-m,ii; nptiirf. Dcl.mnnv. thn P.i-others Coquelin and their colleagues of the Theatre Francais; Alexander Dumas and Victorien Sardou: Fiar.cois Coppee and Isan Richepin: Do Le.-eps. then the idol of the people of Paris; Renan. Juics Ferry, the free thinker; most of the French academicians: a large number num-ber of senators-and deputies; the supreme su-preme court judges; and all the dukes, earls, marquises and barons of the Faubourg Fau-bourg St. Germain. The preacher's subject was "The Revealed Truths of Religion." While ho spoke within easy graso and comprehension of his less distinguished hearers, yet he soared to the highest theology. Lifting his hearers hear-ers to his own place of thought, he reasoned for them, as a teacher with his pupils; and" the solidity of his doctrine, doc-trine, together with the facility of ita tiatmcnt, inspired and commanded the respec t and confidence of his hearers. Painting to his the unity of the truths, he showed they rest upon God. and the Word of God for their immutable foundation: foun-dation: and are substantiated by unalterable un-alterable traditions. He conquered the rashness of objecting minds by showing show-ing the necessity of the evangelical precepts, pre-cepts, and by demonstrating the superiority super-iority of gospel law for the Christian's daily life; he subdued his hearers under un-der the influence of his soothing,' persuading per-suading eloquence. His gestures were as perfect as those of the most Illus trious actors; his voice was loud, but it was tempered by the sweet 'harmony of his sentences. After his twenty years' I Lent and Advent rrermom?, he is reported re-ported to have said to a friend: "In all that time, 150,000, I kept an account of i them in my diary freethinkers in Paris, who attended at Notre Dame to hear my sermons, approached me in groups of ten, twenty and sometimes 500 every Sunday in the sacristy and avowed their conversion to the Catholic Catho-lic faith." His last sennon in Notre Dame Cathedral Ca-thedral was on Easter day of 1S90, and was delivered in the presence of the Cardinal Archbishop of Paris, Mgr. Richard. When Father Monsabre was enjoying his rest in the valley of the Righi, a message arrived at his address ad-dress from Leo XIII. inviting him to deliver a series; of sermons in advent in the Church of San Anurea, Delia Vail, in Rome. On the 'irst Sunday n Advent, Nov. 30," 1S90. the eloquent Monk stood in the pulpit of this church where the illustrious Abbate Ventura had stood before him. The preacher' audience was compose d of an exceptionally excep-tionally distinguished company, most of whom understood the French language. lan-guage. Several Cardinals were present on this occasion, but they had entered the church disguised. Bishops and monsignori, arrayed in purple and silk, abbates in. sombre costumes, all the students of the Piopoganda university, : the German college students garbed in purple cassocks of the alumni of the Roman seminary and the seminario di St. Pietnr; the Grecian students draped in black costumes with ied sashes; velvet vel-vet rcbed and scarlet sashed students of the Collegio Scozzsse (Scotch); the students stu-dents of the. Irish and English colleges arrayed in black cassocks, and the alumni of the American college garbed in black robes, with pale blue facings, and pipings and crimson sashes. Mon-tabre Mon-tabre was equal to the occasion. For a moment criticism was staggered. The speaker's eloquence paralyzed any vain efforts to define his faults. With a logic above reproach, he could not fail to convince, while the vigor, the precision and purity of his . doctrines rendered him as eafe as the .."Angel of the Schools." The audience hung enraptured enrap-tured upon the words of the orator of Notre Dame, and the preacher of Paris graciously entwined in the capital of Christendom a new wreath of glory for the brethren of the Saintly Thomas, and the gentle Lacordaire. Cardinal Parocchi, the vicar of Leo XIII, pronounced Pere Monsabre "a profound theologian, and the most elo-' elo-' quent of orators." An English Bishop declared him to be "a model on rhetoric rhet-oric and a master in tbeolor;" while an American prelate said that "'the monk's methods were to popularize religion, re-ligion, and his merits lay in adapting minds to revealed truths." EUGENE DAVIS. |