(2.) Profane eloquence is transferred from the bar, where Le Maître, Pucelle, and Fourcroy[832] formerly practised it, and where it has become obsolete,[833] to the Pulpit, where it is out of place. Clergymen contest even the prize of eloquence at the altar and before the holy mysteries; every person in the congregation thinks himself a judge of the preacher, censures or applauds him, and is no more converted by the sermon he approves of than by the one he condemns. The orator pleases some and not others; but agrees with all in this: that as he does not endeavour to render them better, they never trouble their heads about becoming so. An apprentice ought to be obedient and do what his master tells him; he profits by his instructions, and in time becomes himself a master; but man is more untoward, for he criticises the preacherʼs discourses as well as the philosopherʼs works, and thus becomes neither a Christian nor a philosopher. (3.) Orators and declaimers will attract large congregations until that man returns who in a style, based on the Holy Scriptures, shall explain to the people the Word of God in a simple and familiar manner.[834] (4.) Quotations from profane authors, dull allusions, bathos, antithesis, and hyperboles are no longer in vogue, and portraits[835] will also cease to be in fashion, and give way to a plain exposition of the gospel, accompanied by other means that produce conversion. (5.) At length a man has made his appearance for whom I so impatiently longed, but whom I dared not expect to behold in this age. The courtiers, from delicacy of taste and a feeling of decorum, have applauded him; and what is almost incredible, have left the kingʼs chapel to mingle among the crowd, and hear the Word of God preached by a truly apostolic man.[836] The town was not of the same opinion as the court, and in whatever city-church he spoke not one of the parishioners came, and the very churchwardens left their pew; the clergymen indeed stuck to him, but the flock was scattered and went to swell the congregations of neighbouring orators. This is what I should have foreseen; and therefore, I ought not to have advanced that such a man, whenever he appeared, would be universally followed, and would only have to open his mouth to be listened to, for I know how difficult it is to eradicate force of habit in mankind in all things. During the past thirty years, rhetoricians, declaimers, and enumerators have been listened to; and people run after preachers who depict in a grand style or in miniature. Not long since sermons were full of points and clever transitions, sometimes even so smart and pungent that they might have served for epigrams: now, I confess, these are somewhat softened, and may pass for madrigals. Three things, these preachers argue, are always absolutely indispensable, mathematically necessary, and worthy of your entire attention; one thing they prove in the first part of their