The Famous Preacher, Friar Blas
He was in the full perfection of his strength, just about three-and-thirty years old, tall, robust, and stout; his limbs well set and well proportioned; manly in gait, inclining to corpulence, with an erect carriage of his head, and the circle of hair round his tonsure studiously and exactly combed and shaven. His clerical dress was always neat, and fell round his person in ample and regular folds. His shoes fitted him with the greatest nicety, and, above all, his silken cap was adorned with much curious embroidery and a fanciful tassel—the work of certain female devotees who were dying with admiration of their favourite preacher. In short, he had a very youthful, gallant look; and, adding to this a clear, rich voice, a slight fashionable lisp, a peculiar grace in telling a story, a talent at mimicry, an easy action, a taking manner, a high-sounding style, and not a little effrontery—never forgetting to sprinkle jests, proverbs, and homely phrases along his discourses with a most agreeable aptness—he won golden opinions in his public discourses, and carried everything before him in the drawing-rooms he frequented.
It was well known that he always began his sermons with some proverb, some jest, some pothouse witticism, or some strange fragment, which, taken from its proper connections and relations, would seem, at first blush, to be an inconsequence, a blasphemy, or an impiety; until at last, having kept his audience waiting a moment in wonder, he finished the clause, or came out with an explanation which reduced the whole to a sort of miserable trifling. Thus, preaching one day on the mystery of the Trinity, he began his sermon by saying, “I deny that God exists a Unity in essence and a Trinity in person,” and then stopped short for an instant. The hearers, of course, looked round on one another scandalised, or, at least, wondering what would be the end of this heretical blasphemy. At length, when the preacher thought he had fairly caught them, he went on, “Thus says the Ebionite, the Marcionite, the Arian, the Manichean, the Socinian; but I prove it against them all from the Scriptures, the Councils, and the Fathers.”
In another sermon, which was on the Incarnation, he began by crying out, “Your health, cavaliers!” and, as the audience burst into a broad laugh at the free manner in which he had said it, he went on, “This is no joking matter, however; for it was for your health and for mine, and for that of all men, that Christ descended from heaven and became incarnate in the Virgin Mary. It is an article of faith, and I prove it thus: ‘Propter nos, homines et nostram salutem decendit de cœlo et incarnatus est,’”—whereat they all remained in delighted astonishment, and such a murmur of applause ran round the church that it wanted little of breaking out into open acclamation.
Trans. Ticknor.