advisers.  The allied armies were marshalling their hosts against the new republic.  Every means must be used to add to the public resources, and the decree went forth that even the tombs should be robbed of their coffins.  The republican administrator of the District of Cambray, Bernard Cannonne, in company with a butcher and two artillery-men, entered the cathedral and went down into the vault which held the ashes of so many prelates.  The leaden coffins with their contents were carried away and placed upon the cars; but when they came to the inclosure whose tablet bore the name of Fenelon, and lifted it from its bed, it appeared that the lead had become unsoldered and they could take away the coffin and leave the sacred dust it had contained.  Years passed, and the reign of Napoleon bringing a better day, rebuked the Vandalism that would dishonor all greatness and spoil even its grave.  The facts regarding the acts of desecration were legally ascertained and the bones of the good archbishop triumphantly reserved for a nobler than the ancient sepulchre.  There was a poetical justice in the preservation of them from violence.  It was well that the bloody revolutionists who went to the tombs for metal to furnish their arsenals, were made, in spite of themselves, to respect the ashes of one whose counsels of duty heeded would have averted that revolution by a system of timely concessions and benignant legislation.

Now that we virtually draw near the resting-place of this good man, let it not be to furnish material for bullets of lead or paper to hurl against theological antagonists.  Appreciating the beauty of his spirit, let us learn and apply the rebuke and encouragement it affords.  A genius so rare we may not hope to approach or imitate.  Graces still more precious and imitable are associated with that genius and create its highest charm.  Our time has been worse than thrown away, and our study of his works and his biographies has been in vain, if we are not better, more wise, and earnest, and gentle for the page of history, the illustration of divine providence that has now come before us.  Placed in the most perplexing relations, he never lost hold of the calm wisdom that was his chosen guide.  Exposed to the most irritating provocations, he never gave up the gentle peacefulness of his spirit.

Our age is not peculiarly ecclesiastical, yet we have not done with the church and its teachers.  Many a time of late we have had cause to think with regret of the persuasive eloquence of the Archbishop of Cambray, of the sacred Art that could make truth lovely to wayward youth, and religion beautiful to hard and skeptical manhood.  Has it not sometimes seemed as if ambitious prelacy had forgotten the purer example for the baser, and copied Bossuet’s pride instead of Fenelon’s charity?  Nay, has not priestly assumption coveted the talons and forgotten the wings of the Eagle of Meaux and lost sight wholly of the Dove of Cambray?  What government or ruler in Christendom would not be the better for a counsellor as eloquent and fearless as he who dared rebuke without reserve the great Louis of France in words like these: