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53. If frequent and vehement applause follows a speaker, we are not
to suppose on that account that he is speaking in the majestic style;
for this effect is often produced both by the accurate distinctions of
the quiet style, and by the beauties of the temperate. The majestic
style, on the other hand, frequently silences the audience by its
impressiveness, but calls forth their tears. For example, when at
Caesarea in Mauritania I was dissuading the people from that civil,
or worse than civil, war which they called Caterva (for it was not
fellow-citizens merely, but neighbors, brothers, fathers and sons
even, who, divided into two factions and armed with stones, fought
annually at a certain season of the year for several days continuously,
every one killing whomsoever he could), I strove with all the
vehemence of speech that I could command to root out and drive from
their hearts and lives an evil so cruel and inveterate; it was not,
however, when I heard their applause, but when I saw their tears,
that I thought I had produced an effect. For the applause showed
that they were instructed and de lighted, but the tears that they were
subdued. And when I saw their tears I was confident even before the
event proved it, that this horrible and barbarous custom (which had
been handed down to them from their fathers and their ancestors of
generations long gone by and which like an enemy was besieging their
hearts, or rather had complete possession of them) was overthrown;
and immediately that my sermon was finished I called upon them with
heart and voice to give praise and thanks to God. And, lo, with the
blessing of Christ, it is now eight years or more since anything of
the sort was attempted there. In many other cases besides I have
observed that men show the effect made on them by the powerful eloquence
of a wise man, not by clamorous applause so much as by groans,
sometimes even by tears, finely by change of life.
54. The quiet style, too, has made a change in many; but it was
to teach them what they were ignorant of, or to persuade them of what
they thought incredible, not to make them do what they knew they ought
to do but were unwilling to do. To break down hardness of this sort,
speech needs to be vehement. Praise and censure, too, when they are
eloquently expressed, even in the temperate style, produce such an
effect on some, that they are not only pleased with the eloquence of
the encomiums and censures, but are led to live so as themselves to
deserve praise, and to avoid living so as to incur blame. But no one
would say that all who are thus delighted change their habits in
consequence, whereas all who are moved by the majestic style act
accordingly, and all who are taught by the quiet style know or believe
a truth which they were previously ignorant of.
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