Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 57:227 (Jul 1900)
Article: The Making Of A Great Preacher: Bossuet
Author: Albert Henry Currier

BSac 57:227 (July 1900) p. 585

The Making Of A Great Preacher: Bossuet

Prof. Albert Henry Currier

Adorning the four sides of the imposing fountain in the public square before the Church of St. Sulpice, Paris, are four sitting statues of heroic size. They represent four great French preachers, Bossuet, Fléchier, Fenelon, and Massillon, the fame of whose eloquence, as it was most signally displayed in Paris, the city now cherishes as an important part of her civic glory. Of these interesting figures with their noble faces, that of Bossuet is fittingly reckoned the most striking, as he was the most distinguished of the four in life for his pulpit eloquence. He was the greatest, indeed, of all the illustrious preachers that adorned the reign of Louis XIV and made it the Golden Age of the French pulpit. A study of his life is interesting and instructive as revealing the method by which a great preacher may be said to have made himself. We have found a delightful guide to such study in M. Eug. Gandar, the author of an elaborate French work entitled “Bossuet Orateur; Études Critiques sur les Sermons,”1 a work crowned with honor by the French Academy.

As shown by this interesting work, Bossuet became the great preacher he was, not by any easy development of his powers, but by a course of strenuous toil, and studious, intelligent self-discipline. Endowed by nature with a remarkable genius, born an orator if any man ever was, he combined with this native genius and its rare capabilities

BSac 57:227 (July 1900) p. 586

an industry quite as remarkable, so that he illustrated in his person the saying, “Great genius is an infinite capacity for hard work.” He early revealed his extraordinary gifts. In the Jesuit school of Dijon, his native city, he showed especial aptitude for the ancient classics, the translation of which into modern speech has always proved an excellent discipline for the development of the power of ready, precise, and copious expression of thought. He was dedicated by his parents to the ministry. St. Bernard of Clairvaux was born in the same province, in the neighborhood of Dijon, and was constantly held up to him, in the conversations about the home fireside, as a model of piety and eloquence. To complete his preparatory course for the ministry, Bossuet was sent to Paris, at the age of fifteen, to the famous College of Navarre. Its head-master at that time was Nicolas Cornet, whose virtues and skill as a teacher were thus gratefully acknowledged by Bossuet in the funeral oration he pronounced in his honor: “I, who found in this man, with many other rare qualities, an inexhaustible treasure of sage counsel, faithfulness, sincerity, and constant, unfailing friendship, cannot refuse to him her...