He was, however, at this period of his life occupied with more serious duties, and soon found among them a higher mark for his wit. From the age of twenty-four he had been a successful preacher, and continued such until he was cruelly expelled from his own country. But he perceived how little worthy of its great subjects was the prevalent style of Spanish pulpit oratory,--how much it was degraded by bad taste, by tricks of composition, by conceits and puns, and even by a low buffoonery, in which the vulgar monks, sent to preach in the churches or in the public streets and squares, indulged themselves merely to win applause from equally vulgar audiences, and increase the contributions they solicited by arts so discreditable. It is said that at first Father Isla was swept away by the current of his times, which ran with extraordinary force, and that he wrote, in some degree, as others did. But he soon recognized his mistake, and his numerous published sermons, written between 1729 and 1754, are marked with a purity and directness of style which had long been unknown, and which, though wanting the richness and fervor of the exhortations of Luis de Leon and Luis de Granada, would not have dishonored the Spanish pulpit even in their days.[326] [326] Vida de Isla, § 3. Sermones, Madrid, 1792-93, 6 tom. 8vo. Vulgar preaching in the streets was common as early as 1680, when Madame d’Aulnoy was in Spain. Voyage, ed. 1693, Tom. II. p. 168. Isla, however, was not satisfied with merely setting a good example. He determined to make a direct attack on the abuse itself. For this purpose, he wrote what he called “The History of the Famous Preacher, Friar Gerund”; a satirical romance, in which he describes the life of one of these popular orators, from his birth in an obscure village, through his education in a fashionable convent, and his adventures as a missionary about the country; the fiction ending abruptly with his preparation to deliver a course of sermons in a city that seems intended to represent Madrid. It is written throughout with great spirit; and not only are the national manners and character everywhere present, but, in the episodes and in the occasional sketches Isla has given of conventual and religious life in his time, there is an air of reality which leaves no doubt that the author drew freely on the resources of his personal experience. Its plan resembles slightly that of “Don Quixote,” but its execution reminds us oftener of Rabelais and his discursive and redundant reflections, though of Rabelais without his coarseness. It is serious, as becomes the Spanish character, and conceals under its gravity a spirit of sarcasm, which, in other countries, seems inconsistent with the idea of dignity, but which, in Spain, has been more than once happily united with it, and made more effective by the union.