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which some preachers assume, under the impression that such a manner is the proper way to be easy and natural in utterance, and thus to gain access to the minds of their hearers. The line, in such cases, is not drawn between conversation and mere talk,-much less between private and public conversation. Simplicity, naturalness, and directness of style, all demand an analogy to serious and elevated conversation, in the utterance of the preacher. But the dignity of the pulpit forbids all talking familiarity and slipshod ease which border on carelessness of air and manner. The sacredness of association with which the place and the man are invested, should be felt by the preacher, not less than the people, as a barrier of sanctity against every freedom which tends to desecrate the pulpit.

The leaning and lounging attitudes, and the slack, familiar gestures in which some preachers permit themselves to indulge, bear more resemblance to the air of the toil-worn rustic, resting his wearied frame on the fence-rail, as he chats with his neighbour at the close of the day, than to the deportment of one who is or should be fulfilling a nobler function than was ever imagined in the highest conceptions of the ancient orator. It is true that dignity is not stiffness, nor decorum constraint. But some speakers in the pulpit seem never to have drawn the line that separates freedom from negligence and slovenliness of manner, ease and self-possession from low familiarity and nonchalance. If there is one spot on earth where the stamp of vulgar habit and association is disgusting, it is the pulpit, which even the grossest minds are inclined to regard with veneration. Nor is it going too far, to assert, that nothing has so strong a tendency to diminish the proper influence of the pulpit, as the remissness of its occupant, regarding the first requirements of personal dignity in him who conducts the office of public worship, and presents, for the time, the living impersonation of religious sentiment.*

* The slovenly habit of former years, of allowing the hand to repose in the pocket, used to extend itself to some pulpits. A negative rule of at

A few hours' attention to the subject would enable the preacher to recognize the appropriate traits of becoming dignity and elevation of manner, and to avoid habits which are offensive to the general sense of propriety, not less than to refined taste. A single glance at the mirror in his room, while the speaker was at practice, would be the most effectual admonition to guard against those writhings of the body, noddings of the head, and jerkings of the arm, which degrade the preacher into the free and easy debater at a club-meeting. A few weeks' study of the principles of gesture, would open up to the mind a whole world of association, and of law and principle, regarding attitude and action. It would mould the speaker's whole outward man anew, and, at least, cut off the glaring errors of habit, if it did not inspire appropriateness and grace.

The stately dignity of deportment, which, in former years, was the distinguishing trait of the Christian gentleman and accomplished scholar, in the pulpit, has passed away with the noble race of men who exemplified its effects. The polish of private life from which it sprung, has, to say the least, obviously declined. But the change leaves something wanting to the heart. The authoritative mien of the old divine, had,

titude is, in all forms of address, that the speaker's right hand should be by his side, when not raised in gesture, as the very dropping and the stillness of the hand are properly parts of the effect of gesture. The act of addressing a public assembly, implies that the speaker is in possession of sufficient health and strength to stand on his feet, and to support his own weight. It forbids, therefore, the sluggish habit of leaning on surrounding objects. Dignity of carriage forbids equally the indolent air produced by resting one hand on the side, on the back, or anywhere on the speaker's person. Convenience and freedom of manner allow the left hand to repose on or near the speaker's notes, so as to execute, when needful, the indispensable act of turning the leaves. But nothing can warrant the unseemly, uncouth, and awkward habit of supporting the body with each hand resting on one side of the cushion, or that of reposing with one elbow embedded in it. The former trick leads, unavoidably, to the consummation of ungainly appearance, by rendering it necessary that, when the speaker becomes earnest, he should manifest it by wriggling his vertebral column, instead of obeying nature's law, and using his hand in gesture.

perhaps, something in it of the arrogance of office. But in taking away the conventional elevation of manner, we have removed with it, a portion of genuine dignity. The reformation which has 'popularized' the pulpit, has lowered its tone, and limited its influence on the preacher as well as on the people.

FORMALITY, PRIMNESS, RIGIDITY.

One effect of manner, which impairs the life of pulpit eloquence, is formality of style. A professional, ceremonious intonation, and a technical, measured solemnity of mien and action, are the characteristics of this mode of delivery. The speaker's whole aspect, his voice, and his gestures, are, in consequence of this fault, thrown, apparently, into a mechanical mould which has left its impress on the whole man, and prevents the possibility of his expressing himself with a natural, life-like effect.

Preachers of this class are distinguished by a marble fixedness of features, an habitual upturned eye, a heavy, hollow, and uniform tone, a rigid and laborious style of movement and action. This stereotype manner precludes everything like adaptation to change of circumstances or of subject. The man becomes, in such cases, too much of an automaton, to impart spiritual or intellectual life to others. He kills rather than awakens sympathy: he renders himself incapable of arousing or interesting the mind. His fixed formality of manner converts devotion into ceremony, and worship into soulless routine: it renders preaching an unmeaning and unprofitable piece of custom.

Solemnity and decorum are, undoubtedly, the aim of the speaker, in all such instances of manner. But the mechanical and laboured style, and the literal character of the whole affair, produce, unavoidably, an exterior rather than an interior effect. The origin of the fault of formality, seems to be

the general impression, stamped in early life, that the pulpit is necessarily associated with certain looks and tones. The preacher himself yields unconsciously to the influence of such impressions, and complies with it, in his manner of speaking. The result is that he moulds his style into a decorous gravity, or a deep solemnity, more than into an earnest and living expression of his personal sentiments. He assumes, uninten-tionally, an air and an utterance which are not, properly, his own, but part and parcel of his profession.

The study of elocution prescribes the easy and certain remedy for such habits, by accustoming the speaker to analyze his tones, and trace distinctly the difference between the mode of voice which betrays a factitious utterance, and that which comes warm and true from the heart, with the inspiration of the moment fresh upon it. The preparatory discipline in elocution would enable the student to awaken and vivify his voice, and modulate its expression into the natural variations of personal feeling, without which there can neither be life nor eloquence in speech.

Formality, in the case of some speakers, assumes the feeble form of primness of manner, with its sparing voice, precise articulation, nice emphasis, fastidious inflection, meagre tone, and mincing gesture. This prudery of style is not unfrequently exemplified in the pulpits of New England, in con-sequence of the anxious precision and exactness of habit which are so general as local traits. The speaker's whole manner seems, in consequence of this tendency, to be weighed and given out with the most scrupulous and cautious regard to rigorous accuracy of effect in petty detail. Elocution becomes, in such cases, a parallel to the transplanted tree, trimmed of all its natural life and beauty, and, for the time, resembling, in its quaintness and rigidity, rather a bare pole, than a product of vegetable nature.

The result of such a manner is to anatomize and kill feeling, not to inspire it: the head is, in this way, allowed to take the place of the heart. Exact discrimination and subtle nicety of intellect, preponderate, usually, in the effect of such

speaking on the hearer: his affections are left unmoved: he is unconscious, throughout the discourse, of one manly impulse or strong impression. The prim, guarded, neutralizing manner of the preacher, seems, in such instances, the appropriate style of coldness and scepticism, rather than of a warm and living faith.

The fault of undue precision of manner, may be traced partly to the influence of undue anxiety about mere literal exactness, partly to the absence of manly force and independence of character, and partly to faulty education, which has led the speaker to pay more regard to the effect which he produces on the understanding and the judgment, than that which he exerts on the moral sympathies of his audience.* The last of these influences accustoms the school-boy to precision and point of emphasis, and speciality of inflection, more than to earnest energy of utterance and impressive emotion. Early habit, thus directed, leads the student and the preacher to a corresponding mode of address, and involves all the defects of an over-pruned manner, with its unavoidable results of cool and fastidious preciseness, which offers nothing to the heart, and therefore leaves undone the great business for which the preacher addresses mankind.

Formality of manner in speaking, is sometimes caused, in part, by an unbending rigidity of habit, which is plainly legible in the unyielding features, stiff postures, and stiff gestures, of some preachers. These faults of habit in address, are partly owing to false impressions regarding manly firmness and dignity, partly to the want of free and genial and extensive intercourse with the world, and partly to an early culture

* An impressive lesson on the futility of mere preciseness, used to be given by a popular lecturer on local peculiarities of character, to his audiences at the West, in a humorous delineation, in which two worthy Eastern deacons were represented as discussing, at great length, and with much earnestness, the comparative significance of the synonymous terms rules and regulations. The parties, after much expenditure of logic, "concluded upon the whole, that 'rules' would best apply to a canal, and 'regulations' to a railroad.”

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