the wayside, to pluck flowers, when urgent business demands speed.

All true grace is inherent in the sentiment which the speaker utters. It is not a thing which he can superadd in tone or action. It requires no attention, apart from that which is due to the thought and the language of the composition. To linger on poetic tones, or to delay for studied graces of action, on occasions demanding earnest and direct speech, betrays an utter ignorance of the first principles of expression. Beauty itself must, in such circumstances, lose its character, and become deformity. A single gratuitous flourish of voice or hand, seals the doom of the speaker, as to any effect on intelligent and cultivated minds. The only effect of such obtrusions of manner, is to lower the hearer's estimation of the speaker, and to mar the impression made by his subject.

REFINEMENT AND GRACEFULNESS.

Elocution, as an art, while it rejects all spurious beauty of ornament in manner, as a hinderance to effect, cherishes a just regard for that refinement which is the natural accompaniment of a cultivated taste. Education is ineffectual, if it does not extend to the whole mental character. Classical learning has fallen short of its design, if it has not left its graceful impress on the imagination, and moulded the expressive powers into habits of symmetrical and harmonious action. Its office, in the formation of the intellectual character, is to quicken the sensibility to beauty and elegance, by the admirable perfection of the models which it presents for imitation, and which ought to exert a silent but enduring influence on the associa tions and tendencies of the mind.

Society has a right to demand, in the educated speaker,

the fruits of the highest culture, and, among these, a true elegance and a genuine refinement of manner. The educated clergyman owes to society the results of scholarship, embodied in an oratory which is, at least, correct and graceful. There are, no doubt, qualities and accomplishments which are of vastly higher value than mere gracefulness of elocution. No degree of elegance can atone for the absence of natural, manly, free, and appropriate manner. But if there is any form of eloquence which naturally and justly invests itself with the associations and the language of the highest beauty, it is that of the pulpit. The wonted themes of sacred oratory, are themselves the highest species of poetry; and the preacher who does not cause this truth to be felt, loses his hold of one of the most powerful influences on the human soul. The transcendent beauty of the language of the Scriptures, seems to haunt the ear of all men, as a charm equally powerful in all stages of life, from childhood to old age; and the preacher who drinks deepest at the sacred fount, will ever be found the most eloquent in expression; his whole manner will evince the influence of the discipline of that school in which he has trained himself.

Nothing can be further from the accustomed associations of every mind, than the remotest idea of anything odd, blundering, awkward, or coarse, in the language of the sacred writers. The principle which causes us to revolt from such effects in the style and manner of the preacher, is of the same nature: it is the shrinking of the mind from the thought of desecration. Yet how often are our pulpits occupied by men on whom all the beauties of nature, of art, and even of revealed truth, seem to have fallen without one perceptible effect on the soul, and who apparently address themselves to the delivery of a sermon, in the spirit of a laborer setting about a coarse job of work!

How often we hear from the pulpit the tones of the

lowest passions and of the vilest associations, the coarse bawling of utter rudeness, or the harsh guttural sounds of the "malignant emotions," which cause the voice of man to approach that of the lower animals! How frequently we hear the pulpit, which should be looked up to, as the model of intellectual refinement and of true culture, degraded by an utterance which, in the very pronunciation of words, bespeaks the ascendancy of low associations in the personal habits of the speaker! The elocution of the pulpit should, in the simplicity and chastened dignity of its inflection, and in the well attempered moderation of its tones, furnish lessons of true eloquence to every other form of address. The impression is utterly false, that the way to bring religion home to "the business and bosoms" of men, is to discourse in the dialect of the market-place, and to use the tones and gesture of the street. Lessons of directness and earnestnes, may, it is true, be gathered from these. But the literal transference of them to the pulpit, can be suggested only by a taste which relishes what is low, and a judgment utterly blind to the fitness of things. The preacher's office is not to bring down his subject to the level of his hearers, but to assist them in rising to that of his subject. Neither is the rudest mind at all insensible to the becoming grace of refinement, as the natural attendant of eloquence, on themes which are sacred and spiritual in their relations.

FALSE TASTE, ARTIFICIAL STYLE.

But while a coarse and low style of address, is revolting to every one's natural sense of propriety, the manner which betrays artificial and studied elegance, seems to solicit attention to the speaker rather than to his subject. All merely arbitrary and conventional forms of grace,

seem ridiculous, when brought into contact with those vast conceptions of the soul to which it is the preacher's business to give utterance. The speaker who adopts them, incurs all the degradation of "voluntary humiliation," and "worshipping the angels" of vitiated custom, -a thing directly opposite to the idea of the service of God.

The world justly shrinks from the preacher who, in the delivery of his discourse, serves up some choice delicacy of finical manner, some fantasy of ultra pronunciation, some elegance of mere elocution, when he ought to be dealing out the bread of life. A mincing, affected manner, in the tone or action of a preacher, can excite only the feeling of deep disgust. Nor can the prevalence of coarseness or awkwardness in others, form any plea for the individual who betrays an artificial and affected manner, which pleases only his own fancy, but disgusts the taste of every body else. The coarse and vehement speaker may justly claim that we pardon something to his earnestness and rough force. But the affected speaker can do nothing to redeem the littleness to which he voluntarily descends.

A spurious elegance of manner, it is true, is, not unfrequently, the result of false notions of grace, and of a misIt is not guided desire to obey the indications of taste. always an intentional fault: it is contracted, perhaps, from the unconscious imitation of an esteemed model: it is a vice inculcated, in many instances, by false instruc tion. But, from whatever source it springs, its effect on delivery is that of insincerity and artifice, or of display: it is not merely an obstacle but a positive nuisance. No matter how studiously it aims at grace, it proves but labored deformity.

The only effectual corrective for false taste in elocution, consists in the attentive study of genuine beauty, as it embodies itself in the simple forms of nature and of true art. Perfect simplicity is perfect grace. Elegance, if it

would not degenerate into fantasy, must not deviate from simplicity. The highest ornaments of eloquence, are the truest touches of nature, in utterance and action. Elocution, as the art which moulds the exterior of eloquence, necessarily recognizes and obeys the laws which regulate the higher art to which it is tributary. The best elocution, therefore, is that which preserves a perfectly simple and natural manner.

ADAPTATION OF MANNER TO THE DIFFERENT PARTS OF A DISCOURSE.

One of the common results of defective early instruction in reading, is the habit of uttering all the portions of a discourse, particularly when it is read and not spoken, -in nearly the same tone; and along with this fault. usually goes that of using, throughout, the same style and form of action. Appropriate manner would, on the contrary, exhibit an obvious change of voice, in passing from the explanatory and quiet utterance of the opening paragraphs to the argument and illustration by which the subject is exhibited and sustained, and a still more impressive variation of tone, in the closing application, or direct address, which appeals immediately to the feelings of the audience. The whole discourse, (if constructed on the plan now implied,) would exhibit a progressive force of voice, from the quiet to the earnest, and thence to the vivid, effects of utterance. Appropriate elocution thus renders the reading of a sermon one continuous climax of effect to the ear, by which the hearer becomes more and more deeply interested or forcibly impressed, till the close.

A similar remark would apply to the proper style of action in the successive parts of a discourse. The merely