Volume after volume passed through the press from his pen, many of them composed in the vernacular, so as to be read by the vulgar. He is said to have brought back multitudes to the Church who had fallen away at the first blush of Protestantism, and to have strengthened numerous souls which wavered in doubt. He taught astronomy and lectured on the Holy Scriptures in Cologne. He was afterwards Rector of several Colleges, thrice Provincial, and present at three General Congregations of the Order. After a life of controversy, yet with a soul full of peace and goodwill to men, Francis Coster entered into his rest in 1619, aged eighty-eight years; of which he had spent sixty-seven in the Society of Jesus. He died at Brussels. His works are too numerous for me to give a list of them here. A complete catalogue will be found in the _Bibliothèque des Écrivains de la Compagnée de Jésus, par Aug. et Alois Backer_, vol. i. pp. 218-224. I mention the sermons alone. R. P. Costeri Conciones in Evangelia Dominicalia a Dom. Adventus usque ad initium Quadr.; Coloniæ, Ant. Hierat. 1608, 4to. Conciones ab initio Quadr. usque ad Domin. SS. Trinitates; ibid. id., 1608, 4to. Conciones a Domin. post Fest. SS. Trinit. usque ad Adventum; ibid. id., 1608, 4to. R. P. Fr. Costeri Conciones in Evangelia; ibid. id., 1613, 4to.; 1626, 8vo., 3 part., 4 vol. This last the best edition. Vyftien Catholiicke Sermoonen op t’Epistelen end Evangelien; Antwerp, 1617, fol., 4 vols. Catholiicke Sermoonen op alle de heylichdaghen des jaers; Antwerp, 1616, fol., 2 vols. Sermoonen op d’Epistelen van de Sendaghen,—met twee octaven; Antwerp, 1616, fol. Francis Coster differs in style from all the other preachers whom I have quoted. He is neither eloquent nor impressive as a speaker, he is immensely long, and must have been desperately tedious in the pulpit; and yet I question whether a priest could possess a more valuable promptuarium for sermon composition or catechetical lecture than Coster’s volumes. Coster is rather an expositor of Scripture than a preacher; his insight into the significance of the sacred utterances is perfectly marvellous. Coster relates numerous stories of different merit and point. He seldom indulges in simile. He says sharp and _piquant_ things in a quiet unassuming manner; and unless the reader is quite on the alert, he may miss some very happy remark couched in a few pregnant words. For instance: he says on the subject of Profession not Practice, that Christ lived thirty-three years on earth, and He did many great works; but we know of only one sermon that He preached. The arms are long, the tongue is short; the hands are free, the tongue confined behind the prison bars of the teeth; to teach us that we should work freely, but talk little. Those who profess great things and practise little what they profess are in a bad spiritual condition; the clock whose hand stands at one whilst the clapper goes twelve, is wrong in the works.