A WONDERFUL PREACHER.

Waikato Times, Volume 2188, Issue XXVII, 17 July 1886, Page 2 (Supplement)

A WONDERFUL PREACHER.

A new preacher, the Padre Agostina, is creating a sensation in Italy, such as has not been witnessed sicce the days -of Savonarola. He was originally a soldier in the army of Garibaldi, where he won a medal and his epaulettes by his bravery. After the war he married, and losing his wife, to whom he was passionately attached, he buried' himself in a cloister, from whence he came forth to electrify his countrymen by his eloquence, his sincerity, and his fervour. When he preached in 'the Church of San Petronio, at Bologna, its vast nave scarcely sufficed to contain the thousands of persons who flocked tft hear him. It is the same at Florence and Pisa, where the people be. siege the cathedral two hours before the commencement of his discourse. University professors forsake their classes, professional men desert their offices, workmen lay aside their tools, and women abandon their household duties to listen to his enthralling eloquence. For a full hour he holds the listening thousands spell- bound, and then he descends the pulpit stairs, takes his departnre by a side door, and hurries home in a hack cab, in order to prevent an excited multitude from drawing him to his house in triumph. He avoids doctrinal subjects, and preaches the gospel of brotherly kindness, denouncing «goism and enjoining self-effacement for the good of others. Sometimes his audience are so carried away by the whirlwind of his passionate pleading that they break into a frenzy of irrepressible applause. What is most re* markable about his preaching is that it seems to possess the same fascination for, the atheist, the pantheist, and the agnostic as it does for the [believers in the truths of Christianity.

Euoen'E Isabey, the well-known French artist, and inheritor of a great name from his father, who was court painter to the first Napoleen, haa just died in Paris at the age of 82. His first picture in the Salon was exhibited as far hack as 1824, and was awarded a medal. Two of his latest works, painted in 1878 — " Saint Bartholomew " and " The Wedding Breakfast " were among the French masterpieces in the Exposition Universelle of that year. He executed many historical subjects, aud among others, the arrival and departure of the Queen of England when Her Majesty and the Prince Consort visited Louis Phillipe *t the Chateau d'Eau. Of the late Archbishop Trench, who, before his elevation to the see of Dublin, was Dean of Westminster, and also ex officio Dean of the Order of the Bath, it is told, that very soon after his appointment to the Deanery, he went to preach at the adjoining church of S. Margaret's, and his old friend the Bishop of Oxford (Wilberforce) went to hear him. While Trench was robing in' the vestry before the service he had to put on the badge of the Order of the Bath, the same which had been worn by his deceased predecessor, Dr Buckland, "I suppose, " said he in a somewhat dolotous tone, as he hung the token around his neck, •'I must take this as a memento mori." " Oh, no," promptly replied the Bishop, who had himself also worn the Order for a short time as Dean of Westminster, before his elevation to the Bench. "I found its meaning to be ltct>urijam—l. shall rise again"