In dealing with SAURIN we are irresistibly reminded of the train of historic misfortunes that age after age have visited France. It bears eloquent, if tragic testimony to the enduring noble qualities of the French people, that they have survived so splendidly so much national suicide. What other great nation is there that has continued great and spilled so often her own best blood? The Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, with its sequel of frightful hemorrhage in the loss to France of her Huguenots, the guillotine of the Revolution, the decimations of Napoleon, the madness of the Franco-German war, the Commune! To such reflections we are forced; for Jacques Saurin preached his great sermons in French as a compulsory exile from France. He had a year or two's experience as French preacher in London; but from his twenty-eighth year till he died at fifty-two he was pastor of the French church at The Hague in Holland. Saurin's living renown was great; and his renown has never been less, though it has been less resounding, since he died. This is as it could not but be; for the reputation of Saurin as preacher rested from the first on solid foundations that were not to be shaken. If he had been a loyal Roman Catholic, he would have been twinned with Bossuet, whom he somewhat resembles, in the acclamations of general fame. It is far more in name than in merit that Bossuet surpasses him. Bossuet's quasi-pontifical relation to the Gallican Church indeed engaged him in various activities which seemed to display a talent in him correspondingly more various than that of Saurin, who remained almost exclusively a preacher. But the difference is probably a difference of fortune rather than a difference of original gift. The intellect that expresses itself in Saurin's sermons is certainly a spacious intellect. Saurin is in mere intellect as distinctly "great" as is Bossuet. In imagination, however, that attribute of genius as distinguished from talent, to Bossuet we suppose must be accorded superiority over Saurin. Clearness, French clearness; order, French order; solidity of matter; sobriety of thought; soundness of doctrine; breadth of comprehension; sagacity and instructedness of interpretation; solemnity of inculcation; progress and cumulation of effect; strength and elevation, rather than grace and winningness, of style; address to the understanding, rather than appeal to the emotions; certitude of logic, rather than play of imagination; a theological, more than a practical, tendency of interest--such are the distinguishing characteristics of Saurin as preacher.