Although the whole epistle, except in the elegant last part, is written in the plain style, nevertheless the apostle inserts a certain passage of such moving force that it must be called great even though it has no such embellishments as those just cited.... Is there here either antithesis, or subordination for climax, or rhythm in phrase, clause, or period? None the less for that there is no cooling of the great emotion with which we feel the style to glow. xx. After quoting without further comment examples from Cyprian and Ambrose, Augustine shows (xxii, xxiii) the need of variety. More even than other forms of oratory, preaching seems to suffer from a stylistic level. No one of the three styles, least of all the third, can effectively be prolonged; the change from style to style gives relief; and subordination of what might be heightened may enhance the emotion of what must be. What must be heightened is what is to rouse the audience to action. So the test of achievement in the third style is not applause, but tears and change of life (xxiv). So also the end of all eloquence, in whatever style, is persuasion (xxv). In the restrained style the orator persuades of truth. In the great style he persuades to action. In the elegant style is he to persuade himself that he is speaking beautifully? With such an end what have we to do? Let them seek it who glory in language, who display themselves in panegyrics and such exercises, in which the hearer is neither to be instructed nor to be moved to any action, but merely to be pleased. But let us judge this end by another end. xxv. Thus Augustine is more explicit than Cicero in showing that the three typical styles are but three ways (xxvi) of achieving a single end, even as the three corresponding tasks, though one of them absorbs attention at a time, are but three aspects of the single task. Nor can persuasion dispense with a means beyond art, the appeal of the speaker’s life[25] (xxvii). Though the Church speaks not merely through a man, but through his office, persuasion needs for full effect his whole influence. Because his life is without shame, the preacher speaks not shamelessly (xxviii), not only with restraint and charm, but with power, to win obedience to the truth.