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ness betrayed in his voice. Earnestness warms and impels the heart; and, by the law of our constitution, the same nerve which glows and quivers at the fountain head thrills along the arm to the expressive hand, and solicits its action. The rigid speaker who attempts to counteract this effect, kills, equally, his own emotions and those of his audience: he destroys the natural character of communication, and defeats its purposes.

PROPRIETY OF MANNER.

Nothing so effectually prevents the existence of eloquence in a speaker's manner, as a fastidious primness in his style of utterance and action, which hems him in on every side, and allows him no latitude of tone or scope of expressive action. There can be no interest felt in the address of a preacher whose whole elocution is so pruned and pared that it is utterly destitute of the natural freedom and flow of life.

It is not less true, however, that if there is any form of public speaking, in which a strict regard to propriety is demanded, it is that of a discourse delivered from the pulpit. The comparative freedom of manner, in the accustomed forms of general society, among us, ought to inspire a noble dignity of address, in our public speakers. Its actual effect, however, on individuals, is often to create an indifference, or even recklessness of deportment, which is anything but appropriate, in connection with sacred oratory.

The following is as literal a delineation as the writer's command of words enables him to give of impressions received by him, from the manner of an eminent preacher. At the appointed hour for commencing services, the minister came bustling along the aisle, -ran rapidly up the

pulpit steps, and, on entering the pulpit began rubbing his hands in compliment to the cold air of the wintry morning, dashed open the leaves of the Bible,- rattled off a few verses in the style of the most violent hurry, calling out the words in rapid succession, — implored a blessing on the services in nearly the same style of voice, -read the hymn after the fashion of a lively paragraph in a newspaper, - called out a prayer in which every portion-adoration, confession, thanksgiving, and petition, all alike, had no slight resemblance to the style of military command, or of popular harangue. The sermon, in its bold, rapid, and vehement style, was eloquent with the tones of the most indignant invective, accompanied by the effects of the most arrogant and dogmatic expression of head, eye, and person. The speaker's whole manner embodied the language of natural signs, in a style so marked and fierce, that a phrenologist would have found his eye instinctively wandering over the surface of the preacher's head to trace its associated indications in the regions of "combativeness" and "self-esteem," in confir mation of his theory of human tendencies.

The moral proprieties of the pulpit, are not, it is true, very often violated to this extent. Yet we frequently hear tones, in the exercise of devotion, which the ear is accustomed to recognize as those of deciding, ordering, and commanding, rather than of supplicating. We hear, sometimes, a strain, in prayer, which reminds us rather of familiar talking than of devotion; we hear, sometimes, in a sermon, the tone of domestic scolding; and we see, occasionally, in the speaker's manner, the frown of personal anger, and the clinched fist of the popular partizan.

All these undeniable indications of misdirected and unmodified habit, are unintentional, in effect, at least. They are the natural results of unrestrained and undisciplined violence of personal tendency in the individual: they are, to him, but the expressions of earnest feeling. Yet could a friendly hand present to the speaker's eye,

in one of his paroxisms of excitement, the reflection of his own countenance and figure in a mirror, he would need no other monitor to remind him, that how natural soever these results of emotion might have become in his own habits, or innocuous to himself personally, they are grossly immoral in their effect on others.

A very moderate degree of attention to the study and practice of elocution, would assist speakers of this stamp to subdue the voice to the tones of decency, and the person to the aspect of decorum, and to win the hearers whom they otherwise disgust and repel. The discipline of elocution, in its connection with the pulpit, if it is true to its purposes, suggests to the speaker, that, in sacred oratory, the chastening spirit of Christian meekness, is ever a most eloquent though silent effect.

Many preachers, whose temperament and habit secure them from the moral improprieties of manner, fail in the due observance of that species of propriety, which has been termed obedience to the code of minor morals. The legion of negligent, not to say low, personal habits, which defective early education, at home, leaves so generally prevalent among us, as a people, are by no means excluded from the pulpit. It may be sufficient, here, to allude to the Scottish preacher stopping, in the midst of his discourse, to regale his nostrils with their wonted portion of snuff, as finding his "pendant" in the picture of our own Southern preacher attending, in the face of his congrega. tion, to the nauseating process which necessity or habit entails on the chewing of tobacco. We forbear, likewise, to enlarge on the gross offences committed against decency, in the not unusual act of combing the hair with the fingers, during the intervals of active duty;—the public exhibition and display of the handkerchief which has just been employed to prove its very serviceable character in cases of catarrh ;- the tooth-pickings and nail-cleanings, which are sometimes deferred to be done in the pulpit; the copious indulgence in coughing and expectoration,

which is often more a necessity of habit than of disease; the lollings, and loungings, and leanings, and multiform free and easy postures occasionally exhibited.

When, amid sights of this description, the hearer happens to advert to the fact, that the preacher is, for the moment, the ambassador of Infinite Majesty, the shock of incongruous feeling is too much to be endured. The preacher's standard of personal manner ought certainly to be at least as high as any that the highest elevation of genuine taste and refinement has ever established.

The study of elocution would, in relation to propriety of effect in aspect and bearing, suggest, in a single lesson of a few minutes' duration, the few practical rules which are requisite to mould the outward man in habit. Even a very slight attention to the preliminary rules of posture and movement, would exert such an influence on the associations of the mind, as would insure a tendency to becoming style in personal carriage and demeanor. The preacher might thus be saved from habitually committing revolting offences against taste and propriety, and so avoid the barrier which, otherwise, he builds up, with his own hands, between himself and his hearers.

WARMTH OF MANNER.

Feeling, when it is earnest and vivid, rises naturally to those stages which we designate by the terms "warmth " and "fervor." These qualities bear the same relation to eloquence, that the "lyric fire" does to the higher species of poetry. The element of "passion" is indispensable to all the transcendent effects of expression, in whatever form or in whatever art they are exemplified. Homer and Horace, among the poets of antiquity, and Milton and Watts, in modern times, display, in high perfection, this genuine trait of excellence in expression.

Empassioned utterance, or that which rises to the full height of inspired and inspiring emotion, and attains to a vivid eloquence, is indebted, for its characteristic effect, to the "celestial fire" with which it glows. Intensity and ardor in the desires and aspirations of the soul, the very fervor of its highest devotional feeling, all are evinced by the "burning words" which seem to issue directly from the heart.

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This highest form of emotion demands a correspondent intensity and empassioned power of utterance. We hear it in the voice of the orator, when kindled by vivid personal feeling transcending the formal limits of art. We hear it in the recitation of poetry, when the speaker gives forth the poetic fire of genuine, intense emotion. We hear it in the true and appropriate reading of the rapturous strains of the prophets and the psalmist, in the sacred Scriptures. It belongs, also, to the empassioned aspirations and devout ecstasies of the soul, in the language of the higher species of hymns. Its effect may be heard in the utterance of the preacher whose lips have been touched with the "live coal from the altar," and whose soul is aglow with those emotions which spring from near intercourse with God and fervent feeling for man.

The inspiring thrill of genuine passion pervades all earnest eloquence, in whatever form it kindles the heart and fires the imagination of man. As a mood of emotion, it exists, in degree, even in the humbler forms of public address on ordinary occasions, if these imply life and spirit in expression. Its effect is, in all cases, analogous, more or less, to the communicative heat which imparts itself from object to object, till all are enveloped in the common flame. The electric spark from the vivid and eloquent speaker, is thus transmitted to the sympathies of his audience, till all are thrilled by the common impulse, and fired with the common glow.

The speaker who never rises to warmth and fervor of feeling, falls short of the highest and noblest purposes of

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