In another place he assails the vanity of the women. "Why are you so proud of your fine clothes? You reply: 'Only look at this stuff and see how beautiful it is: touch it, and feel how silky it is.' True: but that is no merit of yours. 'But how exquisitely this dress fits me!' True, again, but the merit of that is due to the sempstress." {229} "Alas! for human weakness," he exclaimed; "it takes the produce of a plant, an animal, or a vile insect, bedizens itself therewith, then goes abroad and asks the world's admiration, saying: Look at me, for I am worth something to-day." All our great modern orators, both of the tribune and pulpit, abound in trenchant sallies; which almost always carry conviction, because they are universally understood. "France," says M. de Falloux, "repels equally those men who can do every thing, and those who can do nothing." The Rev. Père Lacordaire excels in epigrams of this kind. He has a peculiar talent in that line, and has succeeded in winning over many of his hearers by his pithy humor. One day his object was to show that rationalism does not possess that charity which distinguishes the Christian faith and ministry. Instead of entering into a long dissertation on the subject, he expressed himself thus:-- "I shall only say a few words about rationalism in connection with the topic before us. I have never heard of a rationalist having been beaten by the Cochin-Chinese. Minds like theirs are too highly polished and too ingenious to risk encountering such distinction in behalf of the truth. It will, therefore, be time enough to trouble ourselves about them, when the next vacancy occurs in the Academy. We are too well bred to offer them any thing else than a laurel branch, which they unquestionably deserve." {230} On another occasion he remarked with a smile, addressing those who affected unbelief:--"Yes, sirs, I admit that you have mind, that you have plenty of mind; but know this, that God has endowed you with it--a clear proof that He entertains no fear of it." Even the Rev. Père Ravignan, who is generally so austere, ever and anon adopts a similar style. One day, in recapitulating the philosophical errors of the present time, he remarked:--"Rationalism is another error, and has the largest following. It comprises a class of thinkers who are devoid of faith; men who are eternally seeking but never find; jaded in their search by the oscillations of doubt, the sport of grand and pretty phrases. According to them, the day is at length about to dawn; the solution of all questions is at hand. If, by any chance, we may have still to wait a long time for it ... in that case, you must exercise patience; the religion of the future will come at last;" [then, taking off his cap and bowing ironically, he added,] "for which, of course, we are much obliged." {231}