eloquence. To the preacher in the pulpit there is an im pressive lesson to be caught from the spirit of the poet's phrase, when he speaks of "the seraph that adores and burns." A noble zeal cannot exist without ardor; devotion cannot inspire the soul, without fervor; the heart cannot beat for man's highest good, without warmth.

Some preachers, it is true, give themselves up too exclusively to the influence of this element of eloquence: their fire degenerates into frenzy: excessive passion is, with them, allowed to usurp the whole man: their manner becomes that of animal excitement, and deviates into extravagance and excess. Hence the ungovernable violence of voice, in such speakers, and their frenzied veĥemence of gesture.

Other preachers, however, err on the other extreme, and by their uniform coldness of utterance and frigidity of gesture, chill the feelings of their hearers. The special office of sacred eloquence, is to incite and inspire and enkindle the soul. But the effect of the too common style of the pulpit, is to cool and to benumb. How can the preacher cause the heart to glow with the sacred fire of love or joy, whose accents "freeze as they fall," and whose torpid frame seems to have been transmuted to marble?

Questions of intense interest are justly expected to excite ardor of feeling and glow of expression. Men, in relation to such subjects, are generally more willing to pardon something to the spirit of warm emotion, than to be content with deliberate coolness. Heartfelt and earnest conviction will not stop short at ordinary manifestations; it will incline rather to a fervor of utterance and action, at which fastidiousness might be apt to take offence. There is, occasionally, something irrepressible in genuine emotion. He who speaks from the inmost soul, is himself sometimes carried away in the common rush of feeling which his own eloquence has caused. The preacher who deeply feels the worth of the human

soul, the brevity and uncertainty of life, and man's proneness to callous indifference regarding his eternal wellbeing, cannot contemplate the case coolly, and treat of it in well-ordered sentences, and quiet tones, and remon strate upon it with tranquil mien and composed action. The deeper sources of feeling must, in such circumstances, necessarily be stirred within him: the inner fire of the soul must be kindled: his whole being will glow with intense emotion: his tones, if true to his heart, will be fired with a sacred fervor: his features will beam with empassioned expression: his whole frame will be inspired, his arm impelled, by the zeal and ardor of his spirit.

Coldness of manner is, in some speakers, a fault of habit which originates partly in constitution and temperament. But, in most, it is the consequence of imperfect or ill-directed culture. Faults of the former description are by no means so obdurate as is sometimes imagined. The testimony of the physiologist is clear and decisive on the point that, with adequate attention and care, we can, by processes of cultivation, change the temperament of individuals from the muscular to the nervous character. The discipline of education, in ancient Greece, was conducted so as to blend and unite these temperaments, in every indididual, by a high-toned physical training, accompanied by the most elevated forms of intellectual culture, and an intense incitement applied to the sentiments and passions. The magnificent ideal of human excellence which Grecian education set up as its standard, was fully attained in the personal and mental character of such men as Xenophon and Epaminondas, -instances in which the attainments of the philosopher, the states-. man, the general, the scholar, the poet, the orator, the artist, the athlete, the moral enthusiast, were all blended in the individual man.

Modern education aims principally at the development of a few of the intellectual faculties. It leaves the general character cold and feeble, from the absence of health

ful vigor of body, and inspiring energy of heart and will. It represses emulation, and limits ambition, but substitutes no inciting motives of equal force and of higher character. Its tendency to excite the cerebral organ, by too great intensity of action, causes, by its morbid excess, a correspondent depression of genial emotion and ennobling sentiment: it leaves feeling and fancy, - the main sources of expression,- to languish and subside. It furnishes no adequate instruction in the art of speaking, but rather quenches or cools the spirit of eloquence, by inap propriate influences.

Few, accordingly, among our youth, retain the natural glow of utterance, through the various stages of education, so as to come out warm, energetic, and effective speakers. The young minister in the pulpit, commences his career of public duty, disabled, to a great extent, for the discharge of its functions. He has, in his academic life, lost, not gained, tone and power, as a living man, whose office it is to exert, by eloquent address, the most momentous of all influences on his fellow-men. The cold and powerless being who rises to address us from the pulpit, bears, not unfrequently, on his very frame, and in his voice and aspect, the traces of infirmity - not of strength. His words fall lifeless on the ear: his sentiments take no effect on the heart.

The introduction of elocution into our means of education, would do much to obviate the impediments to effective speaking, under which professional men generally labor. The systematic practice of elocution, as an art, involves a healthful preparatory training in muscular exercise and in the energetic, varied, and graceful forms of oratorical action. It prescribes an extensive course of daily practice in all the modes of voice which tend to invigorate and enliven the organs of respiration and of speech. It imparts the inspiring influence of eloquent emotion, in the themes with which it makes the student conversant.

It incites his whole mental being to vivid and glowing activity.

These invaluable results may all be secured, to a great extent, by whatever individual has the requisite decision of purpose and perseverence in resolution, to commence and prosecute the business of self-cultivation. The theological student who feels the importance of elocution to the purposes of his profession, will not shrink from the toil which a thorough renovation of habit demands for this purpose. His own progress will open to him, continually, new objects to be accomplished, — both as regards an intimate knowledge of his own corporeal structure, and a distinct perception of the nature of expression, in all its manifold relations to man. It will disclose to him more fully the sympathetic influences by which the heart is actuated, as well as those outward analogies and effects which eloquence implies. He will allow himself the full benefits of a regenerating physical and æsthetic discipline, to compensate for the defects of formal education. He will resort to the instructive lessons furnished by all the expressive arts. Music, in particular, he will cultivate, as one of the most effective and inspiring of all influences that operate on the human soul, as the best adapted to create the expressive mood and the glow of utterance.* He will omit no means of cherishing the life and activity of imagination, that faculty which, in our prevalent modes of culture, is left nearly dormant, but which, by its tendencies, decides the character of the orator, not less than of the poet; the power of expression, in every man, being as his ability to find a vehicle or a mould for his thought, which must otherwise be "without form and void."

Elocution, in its details of exercise and of tuition, fur

*The exhibitions of dramatic art are, by far, the most instructive of all schools of eloquence; and it is much to be regretted that their usual accompaniments, and the general impression of society, debar any class of public speakers from resorting to them.

nishes, in ample abundance, to the diligent student, the means of acquiring and cherishing expressive power in voice and action. It enables him, by analysis, to detect the peculiar nature of every tone of feeling,—to trace the effect of life and warmth in every element, to sympathize with these, and to acquire them as habits of utterance and gesture. A few exercises, attentively performed, will enable him to recognize the breathing warmth of a fullhearted utterance, the vivid force and fire of genuine emotion, the flash of the kindled eye, the sweep and energy of a gesture which springs from the inmost soul.

SERENITY OF MANNER.

The tendencies of constitution and habit, in some individuals, incline them to speak, on all occasions, under a strong impulse of emotion; so that their manner never possesses the dignity of repose. Speakers of this class seem to demand excitement, as a condition of eloquence, and, when interested in their subject, are apt to flash out abruptly into intensity of utterance and action: they do not possess the power of holding emotion in check, and of rising equably, from the ordinary level of their subject to the higher strains of empassioned style: their delivery is consequently irregular, abrupt and unequal. The beautiful symmetry and perfect unity of manner, which tranquility and self-possession impart, are wanting in the delivery of such speakers; and their effect on their hearers is correspondent: it resembles that of the fitful gleams of lightning between successive clouds, rather than the growing brightness which "shineth more and more unto the perfect day." When the flash and the peal are over, there remains "but the cold pattering of rain."

A general composure and serenity of manner are by no