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limits of New England? Tell me, politician, how long did this shadow of a colony, on which your conventions and treaties had not smiled, languish on the distant coast? Student of history, compare for me the baffled projects, the deserted settlements, the abandoned adventures of other times, and find the parallel of this.

Earnest Interrogation.

"Quality" and Force, as before,-"Radical Stress," "High" Pitch, 66 Rising Inflection" of the "Third," "Moderate Movement," Long Pauses, Earnest Emphasis and "Expression." "Was it the winter's storm, beating upon the houseless heads of women and children; was it hard labor and spare meals; was it disease,- was it the tomahawk,— was it the deep malady of a blighted hope, a ruined enterprise, and a broken heart, aching in its last moments, at the recollection of the loved and left, beyond the sea: was it some, or all of these united, that hurried this forsaken company to their melancholy fate?

Astonishment.

Slightly" Aspirated Quality," "Declamatory" Force, "Compound Stress," "Highest" Pitch, "Rising Inflection," of the "Fifth' and "Octave," "Slow Movement," Long Pauses, Intense Emphasis and "Expression."

"And is it possible that neither of these causes, that not all combined, were able to blast this bud of hope? * Is it possible, that from a beginning so feeble, so frail, so worthy, not so much of admiration as of pity, there has gone forth a progress so steady, a growth so wonderful, an expansion so ample, a reality so important, a promise, yet to be fulfilled, so glorious?"

*The effect of increasing astonishment is to produce "empassioned " force, "vanishing stress," and "falling inflections" of the "fifth," in the last sentence.

READING OF THE SCRIPTURES.

THE mechanical and unmeaning style of reading, which arises from prevalent defects in early education, is nowhere more perceptible or more injurious in effect, than when exemplified in a passage of Scripture. With the language of the sacred volume are associated all the highest thoughts and profoundest emotions of which the soul is susceptible; and our utterance, in the reading of its pages, ought to be the expression of such states of mind. But no book, generally speaking, is read with less of appropriate feeling or expressive sense.

The Scriptures are not unfrequently read with tones. which do not indicate any personal interest, on the part of the reader, in the sentiments which he is uttering. The effect of the cold, dry style, commonly adopted in reading the Bible, is often, indeed, rendered utterly absurd, when the attention happens, for a moment, to fall on the oriental fervor and sublimity of the style of language, in contrast with the meagre and shabby effect of the readers' voice. The words, in such cases, speak of God and of eternity, in strains which the undebased mind associates with the vastness of the overhanging firmament, and the grandeur of the reverberating thunder; but the reader's tone is that of the coolest indifference, or of an affair ordinary and trivial. The fault of a cold, inexpressive voice, is often the result of an anxiety to shun all appearance of assumed and imposing style, and to allow the hearer to feel for himself, the solemnity of the subject. But as it is destitute of the natural indication of

earnestness, in the reader, it deadens the sympathy of the hearer.

Another error in the style of reading, is that of loading the words of Scripture with a formal, unwieldly, and unmeaning tone, which aims at a certain solemn dignity of effect, but only reaches a very unmusical song.

Sometimes, a third fault is incurred, by a desire to break through the trammels of conventional restraint, and produce a lively impression on the mind, by familiar and vivid tone, which savors too much of ordinary talk by the fireside. But coldness and familiarity are alike forbidden, on subjects which appeal to the deepest susceptibilities of the heart.

The monotonous solemnity of tone, which is exemplified by many readers of the sacred volume, defeats its own purpose, by a dull uniformity of effect; as a painter would spoil a picture by the exclusive use of one sombre tint, applied indiscriminately to scenes of evening, morning, and midday. The cold, indifferent reader seems to forget the vivid interest which appropriately belongs to every subject introduced in the pages of Scripture; the lively reader seems, by his familiar and anecdotic style, to overlook the majesty of the sacred volume; but the formal reader seems blind to all the varied beauties of language, and the natural and simple expression, which pervade, and so peculiarly characterize, both the Old Testament and the New.

The dignity of the subject, the sublimity of the style, the simplicity of the language, demand, in every passage of Scripture, the mingling effects of grave, full, and vivid expression. To the reading of the sacred page should be brought every aid arising from the deepest impressions. on the heart, the most vivid effects of poetic imagination, the most refining influences of the highest intellectual culture. All the treasures of knowledge, gathered by excursive thought from the fields of science and literature, all the richer and truer wealth of life and experience,

which an individual possesses, and which never fails to modify the qualities and expression of the voice,should be made tributary to the exercise of reading the sacred Scriptures, in the offices of devotion. The spiritual and the intellectual nature of man is then, if ever, at its maximum of experience and of power, when permitted to mingle its workings with those of the Divine mind in revelation.

The defectiveness and poverty of our modes of education, together with the deadening effects of habit and routine, convert the reading of the most impressive of all books into an ineffectual ceremony. A living and a genuine culture in early life, -a culture which should cherish the expressive powers of man, would effectually prevent these and similar results. That such would be the general issue, no one can doubt, who has observed the effects of faithful self-culture, in a single instance. Who can ever forget the impressions left on his mind by hearing, even once, a passage of Scripture read by the late Dr. Nettleton, with that characteristic depth and vividness of effect, which seemed to bespeak a soul communing, face to face, with the Invisible? Who, that was ever present on such an occasion, can forget the hushed and profound attention with which a congregation would listen to the deep and quiet, but thrilling tones of Channing, in the exercise of reading the sacred volume?

The mindless and heartless style in which the Bible is read, at school, when it is made a part of the requisite exercises for acquiring a merely mechanical facility in the process of reading, fastens itself upon the ear, as an unconscious standard of manner, for life; so much so, that the majority of readers in the pulpit, seem never to imagine, that they can ever so far identify themselves with what they read, as to render it the common justice of a single true or natural tone of the voice.*

*The weekly reading of the Bible, as a Saturday exercise, in the parish schools of Scotland, is usually accompanied by oral explanations

Could we, for a moment, divest ourselves of the influ ence of association, and, standing aloof from "things as they are," in the "second nature" of habit,- fasten our minds on the great thought, that the world contains a volume stamped with the legible impress of Revelation, would not our just expectation be that those whose duty it is to minister at the altar, would covet, above all acquisitions, the ability to read it worthily and impressively? At present, the thing is not even thought of. The very idea startles the theological student, as something odd. But when you come to inquire into the case, you find that he has, all along, had his mind on a certain shabby, dingy-looking, much worn volume, out of which, in common with others of his age, he had, in the days of his boyhood, to learn to read, at school; or from which he had to read a single detached verse, in the daily routine of family devotion; or which, in the long, weary, warm, summer sabbaths, he used to hear droned over in the pulpit.

Mere animation, or a rhetorical style, in reading the Scriptures, is unquestionably offensive, both to just sentiment and good taste, and to be as carefully avoided as the other faults which have been enumerated. But while all artificial and fancied excellence, is, in the utterance of the words of sacred truth, a thing that only disgusts or shocks a sober mind, it is not less true, that genuine cultivation and diligent practice, are as successful in this, as in any other form of human effort, and that when the occupants of our pulpits shall have acquitted themselves in this as in other parts of their public duties, the power and authority, and the daily influence of the sacred volume, will penetrate society to an extent corresponding to the difference between a dormant and an active life, tent and an operative power.

-a la

from the teacher, and thus rendered an aid to good reading as well as to religious instruction

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