thing in the study of elocution peculiarly adapted to awaken vanity. Nor is there any more inducement for an eloquent man to make display his end, than for a learned man.

Others fear that they shall be tempted to turn their attention in the pulpit, to gestures and tones; and thus infinitely degrade their high vocation. This again is a possible, but by no means a necessary consequence. It is a perversion of oratory. There is no more need of bringing the rules of oratory into the pulpit, than the rules of grammar or rhetoric. Both must be studied, and both must exercise a powerful influence in the pulpit; but neither must be seen there, for an instant diverting the current of thought or feeling in the speaker. The greatest orator, in an extemporaneous address, pays strict attention to the minutest rules of grammar. In constructing a long and complex sentence, he observes with scrupulous exactness the bearing of grammatical rules upon the inflection and position of each word; but there is no interruption in all this to the concentrated action of his understanding, no extinction of the fiery current of his feeling. The rules of elocution are designed to form the man, to correct the bad habits of attitude, speech, and gesture, to make the body, in every way, the fit instrument for a mind full of noble thoughts and powerful emotions. There may be cases of half-fledged orators or of pedantic speakers turning the rostrum or the pulpit into the platform of a school, and showing off the attitudes and tones and gestures which they admire as mere attitudes, tones and gestures. But all this, we repeat, is perversion, equally disgusting with the parade. of scholarship or any other form of pedantry in the sacred place, but no more a reason against the study of elocution than against that of Hebrew or rhetoric.

The considerations in favour of this study are so obvious, that we seem to be uttering common places in presenting them. But since it is evident that these considerations have not yet produced their proper effect on our students of theology; since we are still compelled to witness the bodily distortions, the croakings and jerkings and screamings, the false

emphasis, and the unmeaning modulations which now are, to some extent, eclipsing the brightest lights of the American pulpit, we feel compelled to utter common-place truths.

We design, then, to show that good speaking is better than bad speaking, that propriety in speaking is more proper than impropriety. And if our chapter appears to be unworthy of a place in this work, let it be set down to the fact that men, wise men, need to be told such obvious truths, as when written, appear childish.

A preacher of the gospel is to perform the most important of his ministerial services in the pulpit. Within that sacred enclosure he spends some of the most important hours of his life. There he exhausts his physical energies; there he strikes the chord that shall vibrate in the joys or sorrows of his hearers, forever. In every view of the case, then, the best. mode of occupying the pulpit, and of exercising his functions in it, cannot be unimportant. If there be a way of diminishing the weariness of the speaker; if there be a way of preventing some of the disastrous physical effects of public speaking, surely a wise man will not think the matter beneath his notice. If there be one way of standing and speaking more agreeable to an audience than another, surely a benevolent man will choose the better way. And much more if there be a way of making one's self better understood, and one's sentiments more deeply felt by an audience, no honest preacher can undervalue the instruction that will make him to know it, nor the discipline by which he may attain to it. But all these things are capable of demonstration. If we begin with the least important, the ease and health of the preacher; we may see that a speaker who has learned to stand in the pulpit on two feet, will be less fatigued, at the end of an hour, than if he has been limping and hopping on one foot, as we have seen preachers do; twining one limb around the other, as the ivy embraces the oak. By the disastrous effects of public speaking, we mean the derangement of the functions: of the throat and chest. There is a mode of employing the vocal muscles, which seriously and needlessly wastes the ner

vous energy of the system, inflames the membrane of the throat and the delicate structure of the bronchia. All this could be avoided by learning to use the muscles that were designed for the purpose, and so to speak, that the respiration and pulsation and vocal utterance shall move in harmony; and an hour's speaking will then be, for the body, merely a healthful exercise. This is not exaggeration. The recent experience of some preachers, who, by proper exercises have totally recovered the use of their vocal powers, and have learned to speak with an ease to which they were formerly strangers in the pulpit, confirms it. A young minister will find difficulties enough in his work, to make the diminution of those which are merely physical, a matter of some moment to him.

Nor do we deem it unworthy of a preacher's attention that he should remove everything unnecessarily disagreeable from his speaking, and add to it everything that is adapted to satisfy the refined taste of his hearers. When Cowper expresses his abhorrence of the 'start theatric practised at the glass,' all the world approves the censure, because all the world understands him to mean the affected and contemptible exhibition of one's self as the object of admiration to an assembly, who are waiting to hear a message from God. There certainly is neither piety nor power in clownishness. And it cannot be denied that if some speakers had practised their attitudes and starts before a glass, they would never have inflicted them on their hearers. It is true, that people of good taste will bear much from the pulpit, which, in the parlour, would seem to them offensive. But there is an evident impropriety and disadvantage in so taxing their respect for the office and its incumbent. The preacher is often called to speak unpalatable truths. There is thus a sufficient degree of offensiveness in his employment, to spare him from superadding that which may arise from uncouth positions and motions of the body, grimaces and frowns, monotony and false emphasis. An audience is often wearied under a sermon full of sound sense, distinctive remarks, and the fervent spirit of piety. They

often associate with a preacher of sterling excellence some uncomfortable feelings. They know not why; for he is a good man, a sensible man, a man of true piety and a good theologian. The true reason is, that he wearies the ear.

The mind of every hearer is so constituted, that variety pleases, and monotony wearies it. This is true of the body also. The muscles of the limbs, the organs of taste, the eye, the ear, all demand variety. And while the highest moral effect from discourse, demands unity, this law of the mind requires, at the same time, variety in unity. This principle should control alike the thought, the style, and the delivery. The unity of delivery depends upon the pitch and general current of the voice; the variety depends not only upon the occasional variation of pitch and direction, but upon another circumstance which we would briefly explain. The spoken English language contains upwards of forty distinct sounds. Some of them are very grateful to the ear; and all of them together make the music of our language. Now it generally happens that every uncultivated speaker fails to utter several of them; and usually those which are the most musical. He likewise gives those which he does employ, too much in the same mould. Indolence has made every one pronounce his words as much alike as is consistent with being understood. Hence it results that some of the most musical sounds of our language, are not heard from the lips of many speakers; and instead of more than forty, uttered in their varied combinations, we are confined to a greater or less number below this. The hearers do not know why, but their minds seldom continue aroused to the end of some discourses, when they know, at the same time, that the preacher thinks well and writes well. The monotony of sound itself is sufficient to account for it. To overcome this indolent and inelegant habit, requires the careful cultivation of the ear, to distinguish these sounds, and of the vocal organs to utter them with precision and purity.

But these considerations are still inferior to another, which is, that the perspicuity and impressiveness of a discourse re

quire a correct delivery. The shades of thought in the mind depend for their correct expression, not merely upon words, but also upon the mode of pronouncing them. It scarcely needs to be repeated here that a bad emphasis may make a true statement become a falsehood. It is not merely the tongue that speaks; the whole frame utters a language definite and powerful. The moment a speaker rises before an audience, he makes an impression. His attitude is a language. If he be a man of true dignity, and his soul be elevated by the noblest sentiments; he may, for want of a proper cultivation of his body, produce the contrary impression on his hearers. An erect attitude is dignified, and becomes no man more than him who approaches his fellows with messages from God. And every man of true dignity should accustom his body to correspond to his mind, and not to belie it. Physical uprightness is not an unbecoming representative and expression of moral rectitude. There is more moral effect on an audience in a posture which presents the expanded front, than in the side-posture of a fencing-master. There is also more power in the gestures which are made by a body firmly sustained, than by one which reels upon its base. The voice, too, is capable of countless inflections, each one of which is itself a language to the soul. Every shade of sentiment in a discourse has an appropriate modulation of the voice; and if that modulation be not made, that sentiment must lie buried in the bosom of the speaker: the hearer fails just so far to participate in it. With many preachers the exercise of reading the Scriptures and the hymns, appears to be a mere form. This is a great loss to their hearers. The reading of the Scriptures by Dr. John Mason, was said to be a commentary on them. The reading of the hymns by Mr. Nettleton, was often a sermon to the assembly.

All this may be admitted, however, and yet the conviction not be received, of the importance of cultivating elocution. Let it then be repeated, that the powers of utterance come under the great law of education, which pertains to the entire man. No physical function of man is capable of greater im