An orator of high intellectual powers occupies a pulpit, and leaves scarcely any results behind him. He is succeeded by one of ordinary attainments, who draws wondering crowds and converts many. The local sceptics are amazed. "This man's logic and style," say they, "are weak; how comes it that he is so attractive?" It comes from this, that he has a heart; that he loves and is loved in return. So when a venerable superior of missionaries [Footnote 7] wished to learn what success a priest had met with on his tour, he generally asked, "Did you really love your congregations?" If the answer was in the affirmative, the pious man remarked--"Then your mission has been a good one." [Footnote 7: This clearly refers to Home Missionaries. ED.] {33} Have a heart, then, in dealing with the people; have charity; love, and cause others to love, to feel, to thrill, to weep, if you wish to be listened to, and to escape the criticisms of the learned as well as the ignorant. Then let them say what they like, let them criticise and inveigh as they please, you will possess an invincible power. What a grand mission, what a glorious heritage is that of loving our fellow-men! Let others seek to lord it over them, and to win their applause; for my part, I prefer holding-out a hand to them, to bless and to pity them, convinced by a secret instinct that it is the best way to save them. I have already remarked that our language has not always breathed this broad and tender charity. The injustice and unreason which we have had to encounter have made us somewhat querulous, and we have become champions when we should have remained fathers and pastors. We have followed the world too much into the arena of discussion. We have fancied that it was enough to prove a truth in order to secure its adoption into the habits of life. We have forgotten that Saint François de Sales converted 70,000 Protestants by the sweetness of his charity, and not one by argument. {34} Nevertheless, strange enough, much is urged on the young clergyman as regards the necessity and mode of proving a truth and of constructing a sermon, but scarcely any thing on the necessity and manner of loving his audience.