He answered: "When the vine is thick in leaves it always bears less fruit, multiplicity of words does not produce great results. You will find that a powerful and spirited horse will always start off promptly, and as promptly pull up. A poor post hack, on the contrary, will go on several paces after his rider has reined him in. Why is that? Because he is weak. So it is with the mind and intellect. He who is strong leaves off speaking when he pleases, because he has great control over himself, and readiness of judgment. A weak-minded man speaks much, but loses himself in his own thoughts, nor thinks of finishing what he has to say. Look at all the homilies and sermons of the ancient Fathers and observe how short they were, yet how much more efficacious than our lengthy ones! Wise St. Francis of Assisi, in his Rule, prescribes that the preachers of his Order shall preach the Gospel with brevity, and gives an excellent reason: 'Remembering,' he says, 'that: _a short word shall the Lord make upon the earth_.'[1] The more you say, the less your hearers will retain. The less you say, the more they will profit. Believe me in this, for I speak from experience. By overloading the memory of a hearer we destroy it, just as lamps are put out when they are filled too full of oil, and plants are spoilt by being too abundantly watered. When a discourse is too long, by the time the end is reached, the middle is forgotten, and by the time the middle is reached the beginning has been lost. Moderately good preachers are accepted, provided they are brief, and the best become tiresome when they are too lengthy. There is no more disagreeable quality in a preacher than prolixity." Our Blessed Father sometimes surprised me by saying that we ought to be pleased if, when going up into the pulpit to preach, we saw before us a small and scattered audience. "Thirty years of experience," he said, "have made me speak thus: I have always seen greater results from the sermons which I have preached to small congregations than from those which I have delivered in crowded churches. An occurrence which I am going to relate will justify what I say. "When I was Provost, or rather Dean, of my church, my predecessor in this diocese, sent me, in company with some other Priests, to instruct in the Faith the inhabitants of the three bailiwicks of the Chablais, namely, Thonon, Ternier, and Gaillard. The towns being full at that time of Huguenots, we had no access to them, and could only say Mass and give instruction in some scattered and rather distant chapels.