the hymn, a soul baptized into its inmost sentiment and its deepest effect. His low-pitched, solemn, but sweet intonation could quell and absorb every heart in an assem bled multitude, and cause the very frame of the hearer to thrill with the deep-felt sense of the reality of spiritual truths. The unlettered working-man felt, then, the efficacy of a human voice hallowed by genuine devotional feeling; and the cultivated student became aware how imagination, and taste, and ear, might all be rendered tributary to the deepest spiritual impressions.

But, in addition to the usual disadvantages of imperfect culture, the clergyman, in the daily routine of life's active duties, has a host of impediments to the appropriate and impressive use of the voice, in conducting the part of public worship to which we now refer. He needs peculiar preventives to counteract unfavorable influences. He is called, not unfrequently, from the midst of active duties of a merely temporary, but, perhaps, of an exciting and absorbing character, to conduct the devotions of a week. day prayer meeting. He commences, perhaps, with the reading of a hymn, with the din and the bustle of business yet sounding in his ears, and its unavoidable cares yet lingering about his heart. Happy for him then, if his early culture had given him that instant susceptibility of feeling, by which the charm of poetry, lending its tributary aid to the spirit of devotion, the lines which he begins to read should instantly raise his soul to the height of seeing Him who is invisible, and inspire the power of uplifting the heart of the worshipping assemblage, by the utterance of a spirit attuned to the vivid tones of deep and genuine emotion! Without a degree of such effect, the reading of the hymn is but a desecration, and the meeting but a ceremony. Yet how often are such occasions found to pass unprofitably by, from, in part, this very circumstance! It were, perhaps, well worth while to inquire whether the coldness and deadness of heart which are so often lamented at such meetings, are not, in

degree, owing to the absence of those appropriate expressions of the heart, which devotional poetry was meant to secure in the voice. Here, as elsewhere, there is a plain question of means and ends often overlooked, amidst a vain inquiry after remote rather than present sources of evil.

The student, in practising the following exercises, should fix his attention on two points mainly, the deep feeling of the sentiment in each example, and the full expression of the heart in the tones of the voice. Next to these points ranks the correct "intonation," by means of inflection and "melody;" so as to keep the voice in tune, according to the form of poetry presented in each

stanza.

The full expression of feeling, is conventional habits in daily social

from our corrupted life, which withhold

the utterance of the heart, and muffle the sounds of the voice, a thing which most students are apt to shrink from, under the very erroneous impression, that, if they give full and free vent to the emotion which a hymn inspires, they will appear affected or theatrically excessive in style, or deficient in judgment and taste. The elocutionist replies that genuine feeling can never be mistaken, and that such fears are unfounded. It is by listening to such suggestions that our prevalent coldness in hymnreading is produced. True elocution was perfectly exemplified in the noble and beautiful and impressive reading of the eminent individual before mentioned: no one ever ventured the insinuation that his manner was artificial or theatrical. What is needed is a full heart and a natural utterance, not labor and effort to reach a certain style or effect.

Another source of defective hymn-reading, is the want of discrimination as to the proper difference between the tones of ordinary conversation and of prose reading, — in contrast with the appropriate style of utterance, which applies to the language of poetry; more especially when

the latter assumes the form of sacred lyrics, the highest species of all verse. Many readers shrink from the full expression of feeling and imagination, in the high-wrought . forms which these justly assume in the composition of psalms and hymns, because, say they, such expression is not natural or habitual to us; it seems forced and-excessive: we prefer to read in a plain, unpretending style. Such is, usually, the plea offered for reading poetry, in its sublimest and most sacred forms, as if it were not only flat prose but hum-drum, or familiar talk. It is forgotten, in such cases, that the standard of conversation and of prose reading cannot apply to poetry of a lofty or a solemn character, and that the tones in which we talk of domestic incidents and ordinary affairs, can never be those in which we can properly discourse of God, eternity, and immortality.

But the prevalent fault of some readers, is, to utter cvery stanza of every hymn with one uniform, heavy, and unwieldly solemnity of voice, which observes no distinction of subject, style, or versification, and kills the effect of every form of sentiment by a dull monotony. The peculiar vividness and fire, the pathos and the fervor, the sublime force of lyric compositions, are thus altogether lost to heart and ear. The whole design of the composition of hymns, is thus defeated; and the soul

remains uninspired, the feelings untouched.

The minor details of defective elocution in the reading of hymns, regard chiefly the application of the rules of inflection. False "intonation" commonly consists in overlooking the distinctive slide of verse, as contrasted with those of prose. The former varies but little in effect from the "monotone," and does not, in most passages, transcend the limits of the interval of the "second," or the slightest rise of voice except the plaintive "semitone." The use of the larger intervals of "thirds" and "fifths,” turns poetry into prose, so far as the ear is concerned. To persons whose ear is not trained to these distinctions

in music and in elocution, it may be sufficient to say that the fault lies in raising or lowering the voice too much in a style approaching to that of question and answer, instead of keeping it nearly level.

The fault of sing-song reading is usually caused by allowing the voice to drop at the end of the second line of a stanza, instead of keeping it up till the proper cadence at the close. Thus

"There is a land of pure delight,

Where saints immortal rèign;
Eternal day excludes the night,

And pleasures banish pain."

There are two obvious reasons why the fall, or downward slide, at the word "reign," should not be used: 1st, the sense is not independently completed there, since the words and where are required, mentally, to fill up an ellipsis between the second and third lines of the stanza; 24, if the word "reign" is allowed the "downward slide," the corresponding rhyming word "pain" having necessa rily the same "slide" at the cadence, a painful sameness of melody is produced to the ear, as if the reader were, in the last two lines of the stanza, repeating, in a mocking tone, his own melody used in the first two.

The rule of appropriate intonation in stanza, is, Keep the voice up, at the end of the second line, unless emphasis, or independent sense, or abrupt style authorizes or requires a downward slide; and let the voice take a lower pitch, at the beginning of the third line.

But the worst of all faults, the doggerel see-saw, is that which is produced by throwing the voice up and down alternately in the penultimate line of a stanza,and alternately down, up, and down again, in the last line. Thus

"Etérnal dày excludes the night,

And pleasures banish pàin.”

The following exercises should be repeated till a perfect command of "expression" and "melody," is attained.

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2. "Thy throne eternal ages stood,
Ere seas or stars were made:
Thou art the everliving God,
Were all the nations dead.

3. "Eternity, with all its years,
Stands present in thy view:
To thee there's nothing old appears;
Great God! there's nothing new.

4. "Our lives through various scenes are drawn,
And vexed with trifling cares;

While thine eternal thought moves on
Thine undisturbed affairs.

5. "Great God! how infinite art thou!-
What worthless worms are we!-

Let all the race of creatures bow,
And pay their praise to thee."

"The house appointed for all living.” — Anon.
1. "How still and peaceful is the grave,
Where, life's vain tumults past,

The appointed house, by heaven's decree,
Receives us all at last!

*The classification of hymns for the purposes of elocution, is similar to that of the Book of Psalms, exemplified before. The style of reading as to quality" "of voice, force, "stress," pitch, "inflection," "movement," pauses, emphasis, and "expression," should be defined, in every instance, before commencing the reading. The examples of this elocutionary analysis which occur in previous pages, may serve as guides to the mode of performing this exercise.