Many were the priests associated with him in that great central metropolitan church; “but upon him was laid the duty of especially preaching to the people,—­the most important function recognized by the early Church.  He generally preached twice in the week, on Saturday and Sunday mornings, often at break of day, in consequence of the heat of the sun.  And such was his popularity and unrivalled power, that the bishop, it is said, often allowed him to finish what he had himself begun.  His listeners would crowd around his pulpit, and even interrupt his teachings by their applause.  They were unwearied, though they stood generally beyond an hour.  His elocution, his gestures, and his matter were alike enchanting.”  Like Bernard, his very voice would melt to tears.  It was music singing divine philosophy; it was harmony clothing the richest moral wisdom with the most glowing style.  Never, since the palmy days of Greece, had her astonishing language been wielded by such a master.  He was an artist, if sacred eloquence does not disdain that word.  The people were electrified by the invectives of an Athenian orator, and moved by the exhortations of a Christian apostle.  In majesty and solemnity the ascetic preacher was a Jewish prophet delivering to kings the unwelcome messages of divine Omnipotence.  In grace of manner and elegance of language he was the persuasive advocate of the ancient Forum; in earnestness and unction he has been rivalled only by Savonarola; in dignity and learning he may remind us of Bossuet; in his simplicity and orthodoxy he was the worthy successor of him who preached at the day of Pentecost.  He realized the perfection which sacred eloquence attained, but to which Pagan art has vainly aspired,—­a charm and a wonder to both learned and unlearned,—­the precursor of the Bourdaloues and Lacordaires of the Roman Catholic Church, but especially the model for “all preachers who set above all worldly wisdom those divine revelations which alone can save the world.”

Everything combined to make Chrysostom the pride and the glory of the ancient Church,—­the doctrines which he did not hesitate to proclaim to unwilling ears, and the matchless manner in which he enforced them,—­perhaps the most remarkable preacher, on the whole, that ever swayed an audience; uniting all things,—­voice, language, figure, passion, learning, taste, art, piety, occasion, motive, prestige, and material to work upon.  He left to posterity more than a thousand sermons, and the printed edition of all his works numbers twelve folio volumes.  Much as we are inclined to underrate the genius and learning of other days in this our age of more advanced utilities, of progressive and ever-developing civilization,—­when Sabbath-school children know more than sages knew two thousand years ago, and socialistic philanthropists and scientific savans could put to blush Moses and Solomon and David, to say nothing of Paul and Peter, and other reputed oracles of the ancient world,