It is not to be expected that in such a vast collection all should be of equal merit; and yet few of Faber’s sermons would be put down as bad. The vast majority of them are remarkably good, and full of matter. Not one, perhaps, could be found which does not contain more suggestive remarks than we are accustomed to hear from the modern pulpit in a month. Faber is brief, but what he says he has thought well over, and it is always worth the hearing. He is almost too brief sometimes, for he throws out a brilliant remark, and goes on to another without making the most—without, indeed, making any thing of the former.
How great is the contrast between him and a modern preacher, who every Sunday labours through a polished and carefully worded essay, containing in many words the feeblest whiff of an idea! And Faber could vary his matter to suit his hearers. Preaching before his University, he discussed learned questions in Divinity with great lucidity; but preaching to the good citizens of Ingolstadt, he confined himself to practical instructions.
His style is dignified and earnest, but it is not eloquent, though many of the passages in his sermons are very graceful. And he is perfectly free from the bombast which supplied the place of eloquence among certain preachers of his day.
Matthias Faber does not shrink from telling a story, and a story with a good practical moral to it, but he does not attempt simile to any extent.
There is an apparent crudity in his discourses. Probably this is owing to their being printed from the
