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                                ORATORY
                          SACRED AND SECULAR:
                                OR, THE
                        Extemporaneous Speaker,
                                  WITH
           SKETCHES OF THE MOST EMINENT SPEAKERS OF ALL AGES


                          BY WILLIAM PITTENGER,
                    Author of “Daring and Suffering.”

                 _INTRODUCTION BY HON. JOHN A. BINGHAM_,
                                   AND
                                _APPENDIX_
 CONTAINING A “CHAIRMAN’S GUIDE” FOR CONDUCTING PUBLIC MEETINGS ACCORDING
                    TO THE BEST PARLIAMENTARY MODELS.

                                New York:
                SAMUEL R. WELLS, PUBLISHER, 389 BROADWAY.
                                  1869.




        Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1868,
                          By SAMUEL R. WELLS.
 In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States, for
                   the Southern District of New York.


      EDWARD O. JENKINS,
   PRINTER AND STEREOTYPER,
   20 North William Street.

------------------------------------------------------------------------




                                PREFACE.


When we first began to speak in public, we felt the need of a manual
that would point out the hindrances likely to be met with, and serve as
a guide to self-improvement. Such help would have prevented many
difficult and painful experiences, and have rendered our progress in the
delightful art of coining thought into words more easy and rapid. In the
following pages we give the result of thought and observations in this
field, and trust it will benefit those who are now in the position we
were then.

We have freely availed ourself of the labor of others, and would
especially acknowledge the valuable assistance derived from the writings
of Bautain, Stevens and Holyoake. Yet the following work, with whatever
merit or demerit it may possess, is original in both thought and
arrangement.

We have treated general preparation with more than ordinary fullness,
for although often neglected, it is the necessary basis upon which all
special preparation rests.

As the numerous varieties of speech differ in comparatively few
particulars, we have treated one of the most common—that of preaching—in
detail, with only such brief notices of other forms as will direct the
student in applying general principles to the branch of oratory that
engages his attention.

We are not vain enough to believe that the modes of culture and
preparation pointed out in the following pages are invariably the best,
but they are such as we have found useful, and to the thoughtful mind
may suggest others still more valuable.




                               CONTENTS.


 PREFACE.—Objects of the Work stated                                   3

 INTRODUCTION—By Hon. JOHN A. BINGHAM, Member of Congress              7


                    =PART I.=—_GENERAL PREPARATIONS._


                               CHAPTER I.

 THE WRITTEN AND EXTEMPORE DISCOURSE COMPARED—Illustrative Examples   13


                               CHAPTER II.

 PREREQUISITES—Intellectual Competency; Strength of Body; Command of
   Language; Courage; Firmness; Self-reliance                         18


                              CHAPTER III.

 BASIS OF SPEECH—Thought and Emotion; Heart Cultivation; Earnestness  27


                               CHAPTER IV.

 ACQUIREMENTS—General Knowledge; of Bible; of Theology; of Men;
   Method by which such Knowledge may be obtained                     35


                               CHAPTER V.

 CULTIVATION—Imagination; Language; Voice; Gesture; Confidence;
   References to Distinguished Orators and Writers.                   42


                         =PART II.=—_A SERMON._


                               CHAPTER I.

 THE FOUNDATION FOR A PREACHER—Subject; Object; Text; Hints to Young
   Preachers                                                          69


                               CHAPTER II.

 THE PLAN—Gathering Thought; Arranging; Committing; Practical
   Suggestions; Use of Notes                                          80


                              CHAPTER III.

 PRELIMINARIES FOR PREACHING—Fear; Vigor; Opening Exercises;
   Requisites for a Successful Discourse                              96


                               CHAPTER IV.

 THE DIVISIONS—Introduction, Difficulties in Opening; Discussion,
   Simplicity and Directness; Conclusion                             104


                               CHAPTER V.

 AFTER CONSIDERATIONS—Success; Rest; Improvement; Practical
   Suggestions                                                       115


                     =PART III.=—_SECULAR ORATORY._


                               CHAPTER I.

 INSTRUCTIVE ADDRESS—Fields of Oratory; Oral Teaching; Lecturing     123


                               CHAPTER II.

 MISCELLANEOUS ADDRESS—Deliberative; Legal; Popular; Controversial;
   the Statesman; the Lawyer; the Lecturer; the Orator               127


                               =PART IV.=

 EMINENT SPEAKERS DESCRIBED—St. Augustine; Luther; Lord Chatham;
   William Pitt; Edmund Burke; Mirabeau; Patrick Henry; George
   Whitefield; John Wesley; Sidney Smith; F. W. Robertson; Henry
   Clay; Henry B. Bascom; John Summerfield; C. H. Spurgeon; Henry
   Ward Beecher; Anna E. Dickinson; John A. Bingham; William E.
   Gladstone; Matthew Simpson; Wendell Phillips; John P. Durbin;
   Newman Hall, and others                                           133


                               =APPENDIX.=

 THE CHAIRMAN’S GUIDE—How to Organize and Conduct Public Meetings
   and Debating Clubs in Parliamentary style                         199

------------------------------------------------------------------------




                          INTRODUCTORY LETTER.


 REV. WM. PITTENGER:                       CADIZ, O., _19th Nov., 1867_.

DEAR SIR,—I thank you for calling my attention to your forthcoming work
on Extemporaneous Speaking. Unwritten speech is, in my judgment, the
more efficient method of public speaking, because it is the natural
method. The written essay, says an eminent critic of antiquity, “is not
a speech, unless you choose to call epistles speeches.” A cultivated
man, fully possessed of all the facts which relate to the subject of
which he would speak, who cannot clearly express himself without first
memorizing word for word his written preparation, can scarcely be called
a public speaker, whatever may be his capacity as a writer or reader.
The speaker who clothes his thoughts at the moment of utterance, and in
the presence of his hearers, will illustrate by his speech the admirable
saying of Seneca: “Fit words better than fine ones.”

It is not my purpose to enter upon any inquiry touching the gifts,
culture and practice necessary to make a powerful and successful
speaker. It is conceded that in the art of public speaking, as in all
other arts, there is no excellence without great labor. Neither is it
the intent of the writer to suggest the possibility of speaking
efficiently without the careful culture of voice and manner, of
intellect and heart, an exact knowledge of the subject, and a careful
arrangement, with or without writing, of all the facts and statements
involved in the discussion. Lord Brougham has said that a speech written
before delivery is regarded as something almost ridiculous; may we not
add, that a speech made without previous reflection or an accurate
knowledge of the subject, would be regarded as a mere tinkling cymbal. I
intend no depreciation of the elaborate written essay read for the
instruction or amusement of an assembly; but claim that the essay, read,
or recited from memory, is not speech, nor can it supply the place of
natural effective speech. The essay delivered is but the echo of the
dead past, the speech is the utterance of the living present. The
delivery of the essay is the formal act of memory, the delivery of the
unwritten speech the living act of intellect and heart. The difference
between the two is known and felt of all men. To all this it may be
answered that the ancient speakers, whose fame still survives, carefully
elaborated their speeches before delivery. The fact is admitted with the
further statement, that many of the speeches of the ancient orators
never were delivered at all. Five of the seven orations of Cicero
against Verres were never spoken, neither was the second Philippic
against Mark Antony, nor the reported defence of Milo. We admit that the
ancient speakers wrote much and practised much, and we would commend
their example, in all, save a formal recital of written preparations.
There is nothing in all that has come to us concerning ancient oratory,
which by any means proves that to be effective in speech, what is to be
said should be first written and memorized; there is much that shows,
that to enable one to express his own thoughts clearly and forcibly,
reflection, culture and practice are essential.

Lord Brougham, remarking on the habit of writing speeches, says: “That a
speech written before delivery is something anomalous, and a speech
intended to have been spoken is a kind of byword for something laughable
in itself, as describing an incongruous existence.” This distinguished
man, in his careful consideration of this subject, says: “We can hardly
assign any limits to the effects of great practise in giving a power of
extempore composition,” and notices that it is recorded of Demosthenes,
that when, upon some rare occasions, he trusted to the feeling of the
hour, and spoke off-hand, “his eloquence was more spirited and bold, and
he seemed sometimes to speak from a supernatural impulse.” If this be
true of the great Athenian who notoriously would not, if he could avoid
it, trust to the inspiration of the moment, and who for want of a
prepared speech, we are told by Æschines, failed before Philip,—might it
not be inferred that one practised in speaking, would utter his thoughts
with more spirit and power when not restrained by a written preparation
and fettered by its formal recital?

Did not