attractive grace. There is a living reality, a glowing life, in their utterance, a genuine refinement, a persuasive eloquence of manner, which rivet the attention, and command the whole mind and heart. They excel the preacher who is merely an eloquent writer or composer of sermons, as much as the orator does the essayist. Intellectual force, aided by scholarship and taste, will ensure all the merits of the latter. But assiduous self-culture, and resolute practice, in special and appropriate forms, are indispensable to him who would secure the power of the former; and while the young preacher may well be excused from the usurping demands on time and labor, indispensable to the attainments of a consummate orator, no unreasonable amount of exertion is required to make him an effective and successful speaker, or, in other words, to enable him to accomplish all the true objects of oratory, by uttering his thoughts earnestly, appropriately, and persuasively.

THE EFFECTS OF MANNER

IN THE

ELOCUTION OF THE PULPIT.

ANIMATION AND DULLNESS.

COMMUNICATION by speech and action, is one of the noblest functions of man's complex nature. It is the product of reason, feeling, and imagination, moulded by the expression of the countenance, the attitude of the body, the action of its members, and the modifications of the voice. It implies the activity of the whole man, in the unity of his feeling. It is the result of will; it appeals to sympathy; it is invariably a moral act; it recognizes the invisible chain which links man to man; it involves the power of choice, and the condition of responsibility, in the impartation of pleasure or of pain; it evokes, - whether by violating or observing its decisions, the highest power within the human breast, - conscience. Its range of action is as wide as the capacities of man; it utters his conceptions of the universe and its Author, and the feelings to which these give origin; it gives language, also, to the humblest of his own daily wants, or the slightest of his transient emotions. It compasses the stars, and defines the minutest particle of dust; it breathes the winning tones, and wears the inviting aspect of love; or it utters the accents and assumes the attitude of destructive hate. Its forms and modes are as various, therefore, as its sources, its subjects, and its objects.

Regarded, however, as an act which is the result of will, it always implies life, spiritual and animal. Death seals, irrevocably, the lips of man; despair, despondency, dejection, disease, exhaustion, languor, may close them for a time. But the natural renovation of life, by joy or by repose, revives the law of sympathy and communication: animation prompts to speech and action. So uniform is this effect, that silence and reserve, in man, are recognized as the indications of illness, displeasure, depression, gloom, or dissatisfaction. The taciturn individ

ual, in society, seems morose, dispirited, or timid.

It is a law of expression, therefore, in accordance with these facts, that life and animation are conditions of speech, both as regards the language of audible utterance, and that which exists, to the eye, in the attitudes and actions of the body. Conversation, destitute of the inspiring effect of animation, becomes dull and tedious while the spirited interchange of thought is one of the purest sources of mental and social pleasure, and, at the same time, one of the most powerful springs of intellectual action and development.

So it is in regard to the premeditated and formal communications of public address. Deprive these of life, on their wonted occasions, —and the prosing technicalities of the pleader seem but a heavy burlesque on the vaunted connection between law, eloquence, and justice; the "popular" orator, when dull, immediately becomes unpopular, or, in the language of Dogberry, "most tolerable, and not to be endured." Can the preacher who drones and drawls, and stands motionless and lifeless in the pulpit, reasonably hope to be exempt from the influence of the law of association which identifies dullness with stupidity?

In vain does he plead the solemnity of his themes, the gravity of his profession, and the depth of tone, and the sedateness of manner which belong to these. Profound emotion and decorous action are not dullness: they are a

genuine part of living eloquence on great subjects; they are the very opposite of drawling, lagging, monotonous utterance, unemphatic expression, and lifeless, automaton-like gestures.

Want of life and animation in the preacher, extends itself, necessarily, to the congregation. Nothing is so Mesmeric in its influence as dullness. The lifeless soporific tone, like the droning hum of the bec, lulls the sense and the soul, alike, to slumber. The torpor of the preacher diffuses itself over his audience; and his own somnolent manner is soon reflected to him, in the "lack-lustre eyes" of those of the congregation, who, in such circumstances, can any longer be called hearers.

The chief source of dullness in the pulpit, is, no doubt, that want of tact in the handling of a subject, which makes the great themes of religion commonplace to the preacher himself, and therefore to his audience. Education, it must be acknowledged, does little to empower the preacher to breathe fresh life into old themes. The theologian enters upon his office, but little disciplined in that free, natural, original, and inspiring use of his faculties, which enables the poet to find ever new life and beauty in every component atom of the creation, and to expatiate, with an eloquence which we feel to be divine, on the common light and air of heaven, or the most ordinary plant by the wayside. The preacher seems, too often, to be consciously handling trite themes, to which it is a hopeless attempt to endeavor to impart life and interest. He speaks, accordingly, as if the utmost reach of his ambition were to invest dullness with a tolerable decency, and to get through the routine of his function, in the best way he can.

The power of taking interesting, impressive, and striking views of common things, implics, unquestionably, a higher talent than mere education can impart. But while this important acquirement remains, as at present, one of the unattempted prizes of diligence, it is certain that the

obvious and palpable advantages of even a partial culti vation, are entirely overlooked, as respects the express training of preachers for the public duties of their office."

It surely is not absolutely necessary that, to want of original power, and to want of due intellectual discipline, in the occupants of the pulpit, there should invariably be added an utter want of skill in expression, as regards the use of the voice, and the appropriate accompaniments of action.

The dull and lifeless speaker may become animated, if he will resolutely set about accomplishing the task. The training prescribed in the practice of elocution, will present him with subjects of exercise, drawn from the most inspiriting passages of the most powerful writers. It will accustom him to glow over inspiring themes. It will show him the natural modes of uttering and imparting vivid emotions. It will train his organs to lively exertion. It will invigorate his tones, enhance his emphasis, sharpen his inflections, enliven his accents, breathe life into his whole expression, mould his frame into pliancy and eloquent effect, impel his arm, kindle his eye, flush his cheek with genuine emotion, and light up his whole manner with a feeling which radiates from within. All men are thus eloquent in childhood: all who have the force of resolution and the persevering diligence requsite for the endeavor, may recover "the buried talent."

The style of the pulpit, while it requires, in common with all modes of expression, the due animation of a living effect, forbids, of course, that mere animal vivacity which is incompatible with dignity and sobriety of manner, and borders on puerility, by incessant motion and gesticulation, a talkative style of utterance, with high pitch, unreserved loudness, rapid enunciation, half-mimetic tones, abrupt and startling variations, grotesque. expression, and dramatic attempts at humor.

Original and eccentric characters, such as Rowland Hill and John Campbell, can be tolerated, and even occasion