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The Popular Preachers of the Ancient Church; Their Lives, Their Manner, and Their Work
The Popular Preachers of the Ancient Church Their Lives Their Manner and Their Work Author:William Wilson General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1859* Original Publisher: J. Hogg Subjects: Fathers of the church Religion / Christianity / History Religion / Christian Ministry / Preaching Religion / Christian Church / History Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and ... more »there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: THE HOMELY PREACHER: AUGUSTINE OP HIPPO. Before the art of " stealing a thought and clipping it round the edge" had reached its present perfection ; in the days when authors were more studious of displaying their erudition than affecting originality, and a false taste made them garnish their compositions with scraps of learned quotation; Latin sentences headed with, " as St Augustine saith," did not rarely occur in sermons. The faithful, no doubt, were greatly edified and refreshed by the mouthing of the Latin of the Father, and it is to be hoped they were still more so by the translation into vernacular speech of his quaint golden sayings, stuck on the thorns of scholastic theology, through which shepherds not a few delighted to lead their flocks. Indeed, few authors are better adapted for quotation. The writings of Augustine are auriferous to an uncommon degree, and have attracted swarms of diggers -- philosophical, theological, psychological, and pietistic; for the precious metal not only is held in suspension by the full-flowing stream of language, or is detected sparkling in minute grains amid much that is mere sand, but is found abundantly in solid nuggets. Interspersed through the ten folio volumes filled by the Benedictine edition of his works, are many sentences of compressed wisdom, and many pithy, profound, and pious sayings -- to adopt a metaphor of his own -- strung like pearls on the links of a golden chain of...« less