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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 Fox often, in the Parliament, achieve the highest results of
speech without previous written preparation; and is it not a fact never
to be questioned, that the wonderful speech of Webster, in reply to
Hayne, was unwritten?

In his admirable lecture on Eloquence, Mr. Emerson says: “Eloquence that
so astonishes, is only the exaggeration of a talent that is universal.
All men are competitors in this art. * * A man of this talent finds
himself cold in private company, and proves himself a heavy companion;
but give him a commanding occasion, and the inspiration of a great
multitude, and he surprises us by new and unlooked for powers.” * *

Indeed, there is in this lecture of Mr. Emerson, in few words, much to
sustain your theory. He says, “the word eloquence strictly means
out-speaking; the main power, sentiment—the essential fact is heat, the
heat which comes of sincerity. Speak what you know and believe, and are
personally answerable for. This goes by weight and measure, like
everything else in the universe. A man to be eloquent must have faith in
his subject, and must have accurate knowledge of that subject. * * The
author of power—he is the great man who always makes a divine
impression, a sentiment more powerful in the heart than love of country,
and gives perceptions and feelings far beyond the limits of thought.
Eloquence is the power to translate a truth into a language perfectly
intelligible to the person to whom you speak. Such a practical
conversion of truth, written in God’s language, is one of the most
beautiful weapons forged in the shop of the Divine Artificer. God and
Nature are altogether sincere, and art should be as sincere.” How can
sincerity be fully attained in the great art of public speech, if every
word to be uttered must be previously written down in the closet, and
memorized and recited? Was not Lord Brougham right in saying a speech
written before delivery is inconsistent with the inspiration of the
moment, and the feelings under which the orator is always supposed to
speak? What feelings? The felt-conviction of the truth of what he has to
say. What inspiration? The inspiration which, at the moment, clothes and
expresses the honest thought in appropriate words.

Surely the living voice, rightly cultivated, and rightly employed, is a
power in the world, and to condemn you for calling attention to what you
believe to the most efficient method of human speech, would be one of
those decisions of ignorant arrogance which it costs no labor and needs
no intellect to pronounce.

Is not the man who well and truthfully speaks his own thoughts, as
Shakspeare and Bacon wrote, in some sense their peer? Is not the mere
reciter of their words, but their shadow?

It is said of Plato, that he poured forth the flood of his eloquence as
by inspiration, and that, had the Father of the gods spoken in Greek, he
would have used none other language than Plato’s; and yet this master of
language takes pains, in reporting the apology of Socrates on trial for
his life, to represent him as saying that it would not become him to
speak “studied terms and expressions, but only the truth expressed in
the plainest language.” I quote the words of Socrates as given by Plato:

“Among the false statements which my accusers made, there was one at
which I especially marveled, namely when they warned you to take care
not to be led astray by me, inasmuch as I was a powerful speaker. It did
appear to me supremely audacious in them to make such an assertion,
Which must immediately afterwards be disproved by the fact; for you will
see that I have no skill in speaking, unless they call a man a powerful
speaker because he says what is true. If they mean this, I certainly
must allow that I am a speaker of a very different kind from them; for
they, as I have said, have not spoken a word of truth; from me you shall
hear the whole truth; and that not clothed in ornate sentences with
studied terms and expressions; you will have from me plain facts
expressed in the plainest language. Indeed, Athenians, it would ill
become me at my age to come before you with a studied discourse like a
boy. And there is one thing, O Athenians, which I must beg and entreat
of you: if I use, in my defense, the same terms which I have been
accustomed to use in the market-place and in the shops where most of you
have heard me talking, do not wonder at that, nor take offence. For this
is the fact, I now enter a court of justice for the first time, though I
am more than seventy years old; I am, therefore, altogether strange to
the kind of language used here; and therefore excuse me, as if I really
were a stranger, if I speak to you in that tone and in that manner in
which I have been brought up. I ask you a thing which is, I think,
reasonable, that you take no account of the manner of my address to
you—it might be better, it might be worse, perhaps—but to consider this,
to attend to this, whether I say what is right or not, for that is the
virtue of the judge, as to speak truly is the virtue of the advocate.”

No matter if the speech be not clothed in ornate sentences with studied
terms, it is the virtue of the judge to consider whether the speech is
right, as to speak truly is the virtue of the advocate.

It is only, it seems to me, when men speak wisely, truly and naturally,
that the full significance of Quintillian’s words can be realized: “May
I perish, if the all-powerful Creator of nature and the Architect of
this world has impressed man with any character which so eminently
distinguishes him as the faculty of speech.” Let him who would use this
faculty effectively, and attain to that great power which rules the
minds of men, and moves the passions and affections of the soul, see to
it, that he speaks what he knows and believes, plainly and directly from
the heart to the heart.

                                              Very truly your friend,
                                                        JOHN A. BINGHAM.




                                PART I.
                          GENERAL PREPARATION.




                               CHAPTER I.
             THE WRITTEN AND EXTEMPORE DISCOURSE COMPARED.


The special object of the following pages is to show the manner and
requirements of extempore preaching. But as this differs from other
methods of speech in its objects rather than in its external qualities,
many of the thoughts we present will apply as well to the bar and forum
as to the sacred desk.

There is need that this subject should be enforced, particularly on the
ministry. A growing desire is manifested to give up plain, direct
speech, and indulge in the ease and certainty of written sermons. Young
men find themselves in places where it requires unwearied exertion to
sustain their reputation, and satisfy the demands of a cultivated
audience. They begin to fear that their spoken sermons may be deficient
in polish and style, and at last they write. The people nearly always
protest against the innovation, but to no purpose, for having convinced
himself that he is right, the minister treats their murmurs as the
effect of vulgar prejudice, and as a frequent result, his usefulness is
permanently impaired.

This evil cannot be diminished by denouncing those who engage in it, for
the supposed necessity they labor under is stronger than any other
consideration. But it may be lessened by showing that there is a better
way, and making it plain. Such will be our endeavor.

The two extremes of speech are, the discourse which is written and read
verbatim, and that in which both words and thoughts are left to the
impulse of the moment. Between these there are many intermediate grades.
The latter may be excluded from the classification altogether, for no
wise man will adopt it except in some unforeseen emergency. True
extemporization relates to the words alone, and leaves full room for the
complete preparation of thought. Between this and the manuscript
discourse there are various compromises which seek to combine the
advantages of both. These, for the sake of convenience, may be called
the recited, composite, premeditated and sketched discourses.

It is useless to deny that the method of writing in full and reading,
possesses many and great advantages. It secures time for the
consideration of every thought. If the mind fags, the writer can pause
until it is rested and begin again; and in this way all the ideas and
expressions that occur for several days can be concentrated into one
sermon. Then it can be revised, and the language improved to an
indefinite extent, and the sermon, in its completeness, laid away for
future use.

But there are great disadvantages. Such a sermon may, by solidity of
thought, and brilliancy of expression, command approval, but it will
seldom move and sway the people. The very idea that all has been written
out, and is merely read, will tend powerfully to neutralize its effects.
We may remonstrate against this if we will, and declare that our sermons
should be judged by their substance, but this does not abate the
preference of our auditors. They will retort, with truth, that they can
read even better sermons at home, and dwell on them at their leisure.
What they want in preaching is the living sympathy and guidance of the
preacher; his soul burning and glowing, and thus lighting up other
souls; his eye beaming on theirs; his clear, far-seeing mind, excited by
the magnetism of truth, and appealing to their hearts with an
earnestness that will take no denial. This fills the popular ideal of
preaching, and no elaboration, no word music will atone for the want of
it. Men of great genius may succeed otherwise, but the mass of speakers
cannot.

The plan of memorizing and reciting sermons would seem, upon a
superficial view, to secure the advantages of reading without its
defects. But another and formidable class of disadvantages come into
being. Very few men can declaim well. For one who can speak from memory
with ease and naturalness, twenty can pour forth their ideas in the
words of the moment with energy and effect. A few have mastered the
difficult art, and won enduring laurels in this way, but their number is
too small to encourage others to imitation.

This practice also imposes a heavy burden on the mind. To write and
commit two or three sermons in a week, is a task that only those who are
strong in mental and physical health can perform with impunity, and even
then it requires too much time; for no matter how perfect a minister’s
sermons may be, unless he fulfills other duties, he cannot be wholly
successful. Most preachers who memorize, inevitably neglect pastoral
work because they have not time for it. And another effect follows that
is, if possible, still worse. Instead of growing daily in knowledge by
diligent study, the mind is kept on the tread-wheel task of writing and
committing sermons, and thus permanently dwarfed. A young man may take a
higher rank at first by memorizing, than otherwise, but he will not
retain it long, for the knowledge others accumulate while he is conning
his discourses, will soon place them above him.

The practice of committing brilliant passages to be recited with the
eyes withdrawn from the paper, or thrown into the current of
unpremeditated discourse, we have termed the composite manner. It is
open to all the objections urged against the last method, and a most
formidable one in addition—the difficulty of making these sudden flashes
fit into their proper places, and of preventing them from destroying the
unity of the whole discourse. They differ so widely from the rest of the
composition, that the audience are apt to see the artifice and despise
it. A skillful man may join them properly, but even then his own
attention, and that of the audience will, probably, be so closely fixed
upon them that the main design of the sermon will pass out of sight.

These three varieties are much alike, and may be called branches of the
word-preparation method. In them, words are carefully chosen, and form
the groundwork of discourse. The next three are based on thought.

The premeditated discourse comes nearest to the word method. It was the
medium of the wonderful eloquence of the late Bishop Bascom. In it the
ideas are first arranged, and then each thought pondered until it
resolves itself into words, which are mostly recalled in the moment of
speech. Men who speak thus usually have great command of language and
much fixity of impression. Those who receive ideas readily, and lose
them again as easily, could not adopt this method, for words previously
arranged could not be recalled in the same order, unless they had been
fixed by the pen. There is little objection to this mode of preparation
in the case of those who are adapted to it, provided they do not carry
it so far as to feel burdened or confused. No words should be left in
charge of the memory, and no conscious effort made to recall particular
expressions.

Stevens, in his admirable book called “Preaching Required by the Times,”
advises ministers, when revolving and arranging their ideas, not to let
them run into words. We can see no ill effect in this, provided the
result is a natural one. All the words must be retained easily in the
memory, and not sought for if they do not spontaneously present
themselves in the act of speech. President Lincoln, who was a most
effective off-hand speaker, said, that he owed his skill in this art to
the early practice of reducing every thought he entertained to the
plainest and simplest words. Then when he desired to enunciate an idea
he had no difficulty in giving it a form that even a child could
understand.

The sketched discourse approaches very closely to the purely extempore
method, and only differs from it in writing the whole matter in full,
with no care for style, simply to practice in the art of expression, and
to test our mastery of the plan arranged. In it there is no intention of
memorizing, or of using the same words again, except so far as the ideas
in their simplest form may suggest them. This is only doing on paper
what, in the last method, was done mentally. It may be of great
advantage to those who have had but a limited experience, and cannot so
clearly grasp their ideas in the domain of pure thought as to be sure
that they are fully adapted to the purposes of their sermons.

But at the slow rate of writing in the common hand, this requires too
much time. If a person have mastered Phonography, or Tachygraphy, a
valuable improvement of the former, more easily acquired and retained in
practice, he may write a sermon in little more than the time it will
take to preach it, if he only work at full speed and do not stay for the
niceties of style. Then the defects in the arrangement or material, that
before escaped his attention, will be brought to light. We can judge a
sermon more impartially when it is placed outside of the mind, than if
it were only mentally reviewed, and we still have time to correct
whatever may be amiss.

But the great method of which the two former are mere branches, and
which in fact underlies every other, is that of pure extemporization. In
this there is a firm, compact road of previously prepared thought
leading directly to the object aimed at. When thus speaking, we always
feel on solid ground, and each moment have the proper, selected idea,
seeking expression, and clothing itself in the needed words. All men
talk thus, and we cannot but regard it as the highest form of oratory.
When we have obtained complete mastery of expression, and the ability to
so arrange facts and ideas, that at the fitting moment they will resolve
themselves into words, the high problem of eloquence is in a great
measure solved.




                              CHAPTER II.
   PREREQUISITES—INTELLECTUAL COMPETENCY—STRENGTH OF BODY—COMMAND OF
                       LANGUAGE—COURAGE—FIRMNESS.


Almost every speaker has at some time longed to obtain the golden power
of eloquence. It always insures to its fortunate possessor a strong
influence in the affairs of men. It is needed in the promotion of every
reform, and is the only means by which the minds of a community can be
at once moved in a new direction. When employed in the service of error
and injustice it is like a fallen archangel’s power for evil. But its
highest and purest sphere is in the promulgation of revealed truth. It
there brings the word of God into living contact with the souls of men,
and by it molds them into a higher life. It is sublime to be a co-worker
with God, and thus assist him in peopling heaven.

Only the method of eloquence can be taught. Its refined and ethereal
substance lies beyond the reach of all art. No preacher can be truly
eloquent without the baptism of the Holy Spirit, and even the excited
passion and burning enthusiasm which are the human sources of this
quality, can be acquired by no formularies. But they may be developed
and properly directed where a capability for them exists. In this
respect there is the widest difference of talent. Some men never can
attain the wondrous power of swaying their fellow-beings. Others are
born orators. The latter class is small, and it is never safe to
conclude that we belong to it until the fact has been incontestably
proved. Neither is the class of incapables very large. The great mass of
men lie between the extremes. Their talents do not make them great in
spite of themselves; but if they make the proper effort, and are favored
by circumstances, they may become effective, and even eloquent speakers.
To these it is of great importance to have the right road pointed out,
along which they may travel, and by earnest toil gain the desired end.
There is no “royal road” to eloquence, but here, as elsewhere,
application and study will produce their proper effects. Yet certain
prerequisites must be received from God himself, without which all
cultivation will be vain as the attempt to fertilize the sands of the
seashore.

The first quality to which we will refer, is intellectual competency. By
this, we mean a strength of intellect that can grasp an idea, and form a
complete image of it; one who is not able to think out a subject in its
leading features, cannot speak on it, and if the deficiency be general,
he is unfitted to speak in public at all. We would not assert that none
but men of commanding intelligence can profitably address their
fellow-beings. It is not even necessary that the orator should be above
the average of mental power possessed by his audience. Franklin was
entranced by the preaching of Whitefield, though in grasp and compass of
mind almost infinitely his superior. A man of comparative dullness may,
by brooding over a particular subject, so master it, that the greatest
intellect will listen to him with reverence and profit. The great German
poet, Goethe, said that he met few men from whom he did not learn
something valuable. But no man ought to address the people unless he can
clearly comprehend the nature of his subject, mark out its limitations,
understand its relations to other subjects, and so arrange and simplify
it as to convey these ideas to his hearers. The Christian minister has
to deal with a great variety of topics, and requires mind enough to
grasp not one only, but many subjects.

It is hard to determine just how much mental power is required to secure
a moderate degree of success as an orator. No precise rules can be given
on this point, and if they could, egotism would prevent each from
applying them to himself however correctly he might gauge his neighbor.
The presumptuous would do well to remember that oratory is the highest
of all arts, and to measure themselves with becoming humility; perhaps
the following questions may aid in self-examination. Can you grasp an
idea firmly? can you follow its ramifications, perceive its shades of
meaning, and render it familiar in all its bearings? Can you analyze it
clearly, so that each separate part will be understood by itself, and
then again link these together and make each serve as a stepping-stone
to the comprehension of that which follows? If you can do this with a
single subject, you have the mental power to speak on that subject; if
on all, or many of the subjects of the Christian religion, vast and
varied as they are, you can preach. No deficiency of intellectual power
or originality need dishearten you.

The fact of the close and mutual influence of body and mind is beyond
dispute, although their connection is a subject of deep mystery. When we
see how much the faculties of reason and imagination—nay, even of hope,
love, and faith—are affected by bodily conditions, we can only exclaim
with the Psalmist, “I am fearfully and wonderfully made.” Especially is
this mutual dependence forced upon the attention of the extempore
speaker. In every effort he feels the subtle effect of physical causes,
and often under the pressure of disease, strives in vain to realize the
grand but intangible thoughts that float through his brain. The body is
the instrument of the mind in its communication with the outward world,
and even if the most sublime and glorious conceptions existed within,
they would be powerless if the bodily organs were unequal to the task of
expressing them.

A dumb man cannot be an orator, no matter how richly endowed; and all
other bodily defects will be felt as hindrances even if they fall short
of the deprivation of an organ of sense. The preacher needs to be a
completely developed man physically, as well as mentally, though he may
succeed in spite of many disadvantages. Feeble health will always
detract from his power. The mind may for a time rise superior to it, but
a crushing recoil will follow. This takes place when the ill-health is
not extreme; but when it fetters the ability of expression, and prevents
the manifestation of living power, the barrier is absolute. Many
ministers utterly fail, because they forget that eloquence is the
offspring of health; others, perhaps, still more unfortunate have
battled against disease and bodily infirmity for years, and yet have
been doomed to feel, amid their brightest aspirations, that a power
beyond their control was conquering them. It is terrible to sit
helpless, and see a cloud stealing over the brightness of genius, and
shading the whole future of life. Yet this has been the experience of
thousands. We remember an impressive illustration of this in the case of
one who possessed the richest endowments. He was almost unequaled as a
pulpit orator, yet, in the middle of life, saw his powers of usefulness
withdrawn, and his fame fading—only because his body could not bear the
strain he unwisely put upon it.

In view of the many facts of this kind, it would be well for the man who
aspires to eminence in the fields of eloquence, to examine himself, and
see if he have the needed physical strength. With some the incapacity is
no doubt total. How many ministers have had their light turned into
darkness by a diseased throat, a cerebral affection, or a nervous
disorder? But the majority of men only need care and obedience to the
laws of life to bring their bodies up to the standard of efficiency. In
youth, at least, there is nothing so easily improved as health. By the
golden rule of temperance in all things—in voice and thought, as well as
food and drink—nearly all may render the body adequate to the
manifestation of mind.

To an orator, the power of readily clothing his thoughts in words is
indispensable