discover to them, the snares which are laid for them by the evil spirit, and teach them the means of shunning them.  But, moreover, you shall tell them, that if they suffer themselves to be surprised by them, they are to expect the worst that can happen to them; and by this you shall gain their attention; for a man never fails of attentive audience, when the interest of the hearer is the subject of the discourse.  Stuff not out your sermons with sublime speculations, knotty questions, and scholastical controversies.  Those things which are above the level of men of the world, only make a noise, and signify nothing.  It is necessary to represent men to themselves, if you will gain them.  But well to express what passes in the bottom of their hearts, you must first understand them well; and in order to that, you must practise their conversation, you must watch them narrowly, and fathom all their depths.  Study then those living books; and assure yourself, you shall draw out of them the means of turning sinners on what side you please.

“I do not forbid you, nevertheless, to consult the holy scriptures on requisite occasions, nor the fathers of the church, nor the canons, nor books of piety, nor treatises of morality; they may furnish you with solid proofs for the establishment of Christian truths, with sovereign remedies against temptations, and heroical examples of virtue.  But all this will appear too cold, and be to no purpose, if souls be not disposed to profit by them; and they cannot profit but by the ways I have prescribed.  So that the duty of a preacher is to sound the bottom of human hearts, to have an exact knowledge of the world, to make a faithful picture of man, and set it in so true a light, that every one may know it for his own.

“Since the king of Portugal has ordered, that you shall be allowed from the treasury what is needful for your subsistence, make use of the favour of so charitable a prince, and receive nothing but from his ministers.  If other persons will give you any thing, refuse it, though they should offer it of their own mere motion.  For as much, as it is of great consequence to the liberty of an apostolical man, not to owe his subsistence to those whom he ought to conduct in the way of salvation, and whom he is bound to reprove, when they go astray from it; one may truly say of those presents, that he who takes, is taken.  And it is for this, that when we are to make a charitable reprehension, to such of whom we receive alms, we know not well how to begin it, or in what words to dress it.  Or if our zeal emboldens us to speak freely, our words have less effect upon them, because they treat us with an assuming air of loftiness, as if that which we received from them had made them our masters, and put them in possession of despising us.  What I say, relates chiefly to a sort of persons, who are plunged in vice, who would willingly be credited with your friendship, and will endeavour by all good offices to make way to your good will.  Their design