What would modesty
have done for M. de Chateaubriand? You were right to be severe upon
the stagey ways of a theology reduced so low as to bid for applause
by resorting to worldly tactics. But what does one ever hear of your
theology? It has only one defect, but that is a serious one; it is
dead. Your literary principles were like the rhetoric of Chrysippus,
of which Cicero said that it was excellent for teaching the way of
silence. Whoever speaks or writes for the public ear or eye must
inevitably be bent upon succeeding. The great thing is not to make
any sacrifice in order to attain that success, and this is what your
serious, upright and honest teaching inculcated to perfection.
In this way St. Sulpice with its contempt for literature is perforce
a capital school for style, the fundamental rule of which is to
have solely in view the thought which it is wished to inculcate, and
therefore to have a thought in the mind. This was far more valuable
than the rhetoric of M. Dupanloup, and the teaching of the new
Catholic school. At St. Sulpice, the main substance of a matter
excluded all other considerations. Theology was of prime importance
there, and if the way in which the studies were shaped was somewhat
deficient in vigour, this was because the general tendency of
Catholicism, especially in France, is not in the direction of very
high and sustained efforts. St. Sulpice has, however, in our time
turned out a theologian like M. Carriere, whose vast labours are in
many respects remarkable for their depth; men of erudition like M.
Pages:
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175