Remember that you have a difficult part to play in a small town. There, you may not say all that may be said in a large city. There, the most paltry things assume huge proportions. One of our best preachers entirely failed of success through having omitted to repeat the _Ave Maria_ after the exordium, and for not having allowed his audience time to cough, to expectorate, and to take breath. It is a wonder that he escaped without having his orthodoxy suspected. Moreover, the residents in small towns are excessively fond of finely-turned phrases, rhetorical displays, and pomposity. They call such rodomontade poetry, and think it sublime. You may adopt it occasionally by way of accompaniment. Nevertheless, don't be led into the delusion that any essay in that style will prevent the _sturdy bourgeois_ from slandering his neighbor, from cheating him if he can, and from doing many other things of a similar kind. {214} Good manners have great weight in France, and many things are excused in him who says them cleverly. A celebrated preacher was expected to preach a charity sermon in one of the Paris churches. A crowded audience had already assembled, when, to their surprise and disappointment, they saw the parish priest enter the pulpit, and heard him announce that, owing to the sudden indisposition of the eminent preacher, he was obliged to supply his place. Thereat the congregation rose and began to leave the church. Meanwhile the priest, seeing the crowed on the move, and the anticipated collection disappearing with them, suddenly arrested them with a _bon mot_. "My brethren," said he, "when everybody has left the church, I will begin." This so delighted the audience that they remained where they were; the priest preached an excellent sermon, and the collection was most liberal. We should endeavor to acquire and practise all the breeding and politeness of good society, with sincerity superadded. By birth, we are for the most part children of the people; that is neither a fault nor a disgrace; it forms an additional resemblance between ourselves and the Apostles. But our primary education was neglected, and we should fill up the gap by retaking from the world those forms which it has borrowed from Christianity, and fill them up with the substance. Then we shall be powerful men. {215} The present age has given us a great model of this tact, kindliness, and urbanity of speech in the person of the Cardinal de Cheverus.