when you add a tongue thoroughly sldUed by exercise and
122 ON CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. [BOOK IV.
faculty of eloquence is available for Loth sides, and is of very great service in the enforcing either of wrong or right, why do not good men study to engage it on the side of truth, when bad men use it to obtain the triumph of wicked and wbrtliless causes, and to further injustice and error ?
Chap. hi.— The proper age and the proper means for acquiring rhetorical skill.
4. But the theories and rules on this subject (to which, when you add a tongue thoroughly sldUed by exercise and habit in the use of many words and many ornaments of speech, you have what is called eloquence or oratory) may be learnt apart from these writings of mine, if a suitable space of time be set aside for the purpose at a fit and proper age. But only by those who can learn them quickly ; for the masters of Eoman eloquence themselves did not shrink from saying that any one who cannot learn this art quickly can never thoroughly learn it at all.^ Whether this be true or not, why need we inquire ? For even if this art can occasionally be in the end mastered by men of slower intellect, I do not think it of so much importance as to wish men who have arrived at mature age to spend time in learning it. It is enough that boys should give attention to it ; and even of these, not all who are to be fitted for usefulness in the Church, but only those who are not yet engaged in any occupation of more urgent necessity, or which ought evidently to take precedence of it. For men of quick intellect and glowing temperament find it easier to become eloquent by reading and listening to eloquent speakers than by following rules for eloquence. And even outside the canon, which to our great advantage is fixed in a place of secure authority, there is no want of ecclesiastical writings, in reading wliich a man of ability will acquire a tinge of the eloquence with which they are ^vritten, even though he docs not aim at this, but is solely intent on the matters treated of; es^^ecially, of course, if in addition he practise himself in writing, or dictating, and at last also in speaking, the opinions he lias formed on grounds of piety and faith. If, however, such ability be wanting, the rules of rhetoric are either not understood, or if, after great labour has been spent
' Cicero, dc Oralore, iii. 31 ; Quinctil. Iiist. Ora(. i. 1, 2.