irregular propensities, he was unable to find peace, because he never sought it but in the source of all his troubles and disquiets. Philosophers made a boast of being able to bestow it on their followers; but that universal calm of the passions which they gave hopes of to their sage, and which they so emphatically announced, might suppress their sallies, but it left the whole venom in the heart. It was a piece of pride and ostentation; it masked the outward man; but under that mask of ceremony, man always knew himself to be the same.
Jesus Christ comes to-day upon the earth, to bring that true peace to men which the world had never hitherto been able to give them. He comes radically to cure the evil; his divine philosophy is not confined to the promulgation of pompous precepts, which might be agreeable to reason, but which cured not the wounds of the heart; and, as pride, voluptuousness, hatred, and revenge, had been the fatal sources of all the agitations experienced by the heart of man, he comes to restore peace to him, by draining them off, through his grace, his doctrine, and his example.
Yes, my brethren, I say that pride had been the original source of all the troubles which tore the heart of men. What wars, what frenzies, had that fatal passion not lighted upon the earth! With what torrents of blood had it not inundated the universe! And what is the history of nations and of empires, of princes and of conquerors, of every age and people, but the history of those calamities with which pride from the beginning had afflicted men! The entire world was but a gloomy theatre, upon which that haughty and senseless passion every day exhibited the most bloody scenes. But the external operations were but a faint image of the troubles which the proud man inwardly experienced. Ambition was a virtue: moderation was looked upon as meanness: an individual overthrew his country, overturned the laws and customs, rendered millions miserable, in order to usurp the first place among his fellow-citizens; and the success of his guilt insured him every homage; and his name, stained with the blood of his brethren, acquired only additional lustre in the public annals which preserved its memory: and a prosperous villain became the grandest character of his age. That passion, descending among the crowd, became less striking; but it was neither less animated nor furious: the obscure was not more at his ease than the public man; each wished to carry off the prize from his equals: the orator, the philosopher, wrangled for, and tore from each other that glory, which, in fact, was the sole end of all their toils and watchings; and, as the desires of pride are insatiable, man, to whom it was then honourable totally to yield himself up to it, being unable to rest in any degree of elevation, was likewise incapable of peace and tranquillity. Pride, become the sole source of human honour and glory, was likewise become the fatal rock of the quiet and happiness of men.
The birth of Jesus Christ, by correcting the world of this error, re-establishes on the earth that peace which pride had banished from it. He might have manifested himself to men, with all the
