fulfilment of their wishes.* The author takes peculiar pleasure in acknowledging the effectual aid which, in the following instances, has been so liberally afforded to his undertaking. The sentiments of such individuals, will carry their own commendation to every mind; and in contributing them to the objects of this volume, the compiler feels assured that their authors have rendered an invaluable service to the purposes of the profession which they sustain.

THE ELOCUTION OF THE PULPIT.

[Contributed by the Rev. Dr. Edwards A. Park, Bartlet Professor of Sacred Rhetoric, in Andover Theological Seminary.]

The Author of our being has made the various organs of the body expressive of thought and emotion. The eye, the cheek, the lip, the hand, the foot, the attitude of the limbs and chest and head, may all show forth a sentiment of the soul. It is a singular fact, that the choicest selection of words will sometimes fail to exhibit a certain cast of thought, which may be indicated at once by the natural signs consisting in certain movements and appearances of the physical organs. In the person of Garrick, a mere position of the elbow or the knee, yea, a particular adjustment of the hair, has vividly portrayed a state of mind which artificial language is too inflexible to express.

Written words, even when they embody the general idea, the substantial meaning, are often unable to exhibit those evanescent shades of sentiment which are clearly expressed by tones and gestures. The inflection with which a word is

*The late Rev. Dr. Nettleton expressed his earnest desire, in case of the restoration of his health, to give his express testimony on this subject; and, among the students attending the Theological Institute at East Windsor, during the latter years of his life, several will recollect how eloquently he urged this matter on their attention, in the counsels which he gave them, when he was lying disabled by the disease which terminated his life.

uttered, conveys sometimes a delicate thought, which the word itself does not even intimate. Now this natural expressiveness of the human frame is an essential concomitant of oral language. It is the first instrument which man uses in order to communicate his thoughts, for he knows the meaning of signs before that of articulate phrases; and it is his last resort when speech fails him.

Our Creator never intended, that we should utter our words without the appropriate tones and the corroborative appearances of the body. These accompaniments of speech are as necessary to its full effect, as animal life is needful for the completeness of physical beauty. There can be no perfect speech without them. The imperfect manner in which they are frequently exhibited, results from that obtuseness of sensibility, that indolence of mind, that ignorance of the fitnesses of things, that want of executive power, which are remote consequences of our apostate moral condition. A complete orator must be a completely holy man; and our natural selfishness has superinduced such habits of thought and feeling as make us awkward and inexpert in our attempts to express what passes within our minds. The various developments of affectation are the result of our pride and love of display; the different forms of dullness in our speech are occasioned by that callous sensibility which the Bible denominates hardness of heart.'

The natural language of the human body, being indispensable to the full effect of arbitrary language, is, of course, an essential accompaniment of all earnest address. A proper use of this natural language, is involved in a good elocution; and such an elocution is thus a constituent part of the preaching of the gospel. A man would not be considered as preaching the word which maketh wise unto salvation, if he should proclaim it in an unknown tongue, or in any such manner as would render it unintelligible; if, for instance, he should make no pauses at the end of sentences, and should let his voice fall at those words only which cannot be understood unless uttered with a rising inflection; if he should use the

interrogative tones for affirmative remarks, and the exclamatory accent for the simplest didactic phrase. This might be trifling with the gospel, or disfiguring it, but not preaching it. Now a poor elocution does make certain portions of the proclaimed word unintelligible. It fails to express those delicate shades of thought, which are elementary parts of the gospel itself. It suggests positive ideas, which the words uttered do not mean, and which are sometimes hostile to the whole spirit of divine truth. The most injurious impressions have been produced, by what are technically called 'immoral tones,' in the utterance of Christian doctrine.

It is evident, then, that a good elocution in the pulpit is as really important as any elocution at all. If it be useful to preach the gospel, then it is useful to preach it so that it will be understood and felt. If its truths ought to be expressed, they ought to be expressed fully and properly. To proclaim them, and yet adopt such a manner as will obscure or pervert their meaning, and blunt their force, is to do and to undo a thing at the same time. The advantages resulting from a true, natural elocution, in the pulpit, are the same with the advantages of Christian doctrine well exhibited. The evils ensuing from a false, unnatural elocution, are the same with the evils of misrepresenting the word of God. He who undervalues the right method of enunciating religious truth, undervalues also the niceties of sentiment, the delicate mouldings of thought, which are a constituent portion of that truth; and which are lost from the view, when a preacher's elocution hides behind itself the ideas which ought to be delivered to his hearers. An affected delivery is often a delivery of mere words, often words conveying a thought never intended by the speaker.

If, then, the preaching of the gospel be the appropriate enunciation of divine truth, we see why it was ordained as the chief means of impressing this truth upon the mind. The Deity might have required, that his word should be merely read in silence, or that it should be repeated in a whisper from a single individual to another, or that it should be only

chanted or sung. But he chose to ordain that it should be preached, i. e. uttered in the appropriate style, by a sacred orator to a listening congregation. Long before the New Testament was committed to writing, were its truths impressed upon the public mind by the living voice of the presbyter. He who made man, knew what was in man. He knew those latent sensibilities of the soul, which can be touched by nothing so well as by truth eloquently spoken. The means for our spiritual renovation he thus wisely adapted to the principles of our nature. Hence when his word is preached, as it ought to be, in an earnest and an emphatic manner, it produces a peculiar effect upon the soul. It acquires a meaning which it does not seem to possess upon the written page. When a Whitefield utters the words, Oh! wretched man that I am,' they have an intensity of expression which a silent reader will not perceive. The power of those and of many similar phrases, is communicated, in some degree, by their conventional signs; in some degree, by the tones which are their life;-by the speaking eye, the flushed face, the whole air and mien of the impassioned orator.

Being endued with physical and spiritual susceptibilities, man is the most deeply impressed when an appeal is made to both parts of his sentient nature; when the eye and the ear are delighted, as well as the mind and heart. And such is the sympathy between the corporeal and the mental powers, that when the former are in a state of appropriate excitement, the latter act with increased vigour and success. The soul perceives the more of truth, and feels it the more keenly, when the eye traces the lineaments of this truth upon the countenance of the speaker, and the ear catches the vibrations of it from lips which have been touched as with a live coal from off the altar.

Valerius Maximus says of the Athenian orator, that a great part of Demosthenes is wanting, for it must be heard and not read.' Quintilian says of Hortensius, that 'there was something in him which strangely pleased when he spoke, which those who perused his orations could not find.'

The younger Pitt remarked that he could never conjecture, from reading his father's speeches, where their eloquence lay hidden. And there have been thousands of preachers, who uttered truths which no stenographer could seize; which no ready writer, with a command of the most extensive vocabulary, could transfer to the silent page, for they were truths that beamed from the eye, and were breathed out in the tones of the voice, and were visible in the gesture, but could not be circumscribed within arbitrary symbols.

Conventional terms form the body of the preacher's utterance, but the soul of it is that natural language which God has made indispensable to the life-giving power of artificial speech. The ordinance of preaching, then, is no arbitrary appointment of Heaven. It was wisely chosen, as the means most philosophically adapted to impress the mind with religious truth. The more perfect the preaching is, so much the more exquisite is its adaptation to produce the intended effect. Other things being equal, that sermon will be the most efficacious which is delivered in the best manner. The very principle, on which the preaching of the gospel is more useful than the publication of it from the press, makes a natural and expressive style of preaching it more useful than a style which does not correspond with the demands of the subject. The very reason, for which God requires us to preach the word, makes it necessary to preach it well, to speak according to the best rules of elocution, which are no other than the rules prescribed by nature, by the God of nature.

Much of that which passes under the name of preaching, does not deserve the name. It may be called a poor kind of singing, a tedious method of drawling, a soporific way of reading, but it is not the living utterance of such thought as enkindles the eye, the gushing forth of those emotions which cannot be fully expressed except in the forms of eloquence. One reason why preaching is less effective than we should antecedently expect it to be, is the fact that there is less of it than we ordinarily suppose. All the dull, clumsy, turgid, weak, insipid, and in any way affected methods of delivery,