pared with the poor one, other things being equal, will have the best matter. Certainly, as a general thing, he will have his matter in the best shape. May not the delivery influence the style, and the very strength of the matter in the following way? A good, forcible, emphatic delivery, abiding as a living idea in the mind, constitutes a standard, to which the expression or wording of the thoughts is brought. The writer, having this idea of emphatic speaking, will not be satisfied, till he has formed an emphatic sentence. If he has wrought himself to pith and point in his delivery, he will be likely to work himself to pith and point in his preparation. Indeed, the process and approach to this desired form will be almost spontaneous. The mould being in the mind, if the matter be warm and pliable, it can hardly avoid the shape prescribed by the standard. If admitted to the secrets of oratorical composition, I doubt not we should find, that the best thoughts are brought out and thrown into a harmonious and vigorous expression, by the aid of a simultaneous and real, though perhaps, mental enunciation of them. In this way, they are brought to the mould and admeasurement of a powerful delivery. If they are not large enough, he will throw them away. If they will not take a bold shape, he will throw them away, and gather up his strength and toil at the fountain, till something proceeds, which better comports with his standard, and which will better answer his purpose. Perhaps it will be denied, that our matter is essentially better for having a better shape: in other words, that the manner of the matter is of much importance. To the man who speaks his matter, the shape of it is of the very first importance. The matter may be good, very sensible, and seemingly powerful, and on being spoken, fail, to a great extent, of its designed effect, for the want of the oratorical shape and spirit. It should be brisk, pointed, of a certain close, solid texture; projectile in its tendency, so that we can seem to throw the sentences at, and into, the minds and hearts of men. Our doctrine is, the true oratorical manner, not the artificial and declamatory, but the good, natural, earnest delivery, will help those who have it, in the production of the true, cogent, oratorical style. They will be far more likely to execute that style, than the dull, unmeaning, monotonous speaker.

A good manner is of service to a preacher in furnishing

him with a field, where he may stand and proclaim the truths of the gospel. Having first helped him to matter of a better sort and shape, it then helps him to a place, where he may statedly deliver it and witness and cherish its effects upon the souls of men. If any doubt that mere manner renders any service of this sort, let the experiment be tried. Let there be sent forth into the great field, two candidates for settlement. One of them shall be respectable in the customary talents and acquisitions, but shall excel as a speaker; his voice and manner shall be uncommonly good-his delivery both pleasing and impressive. The other shall excel the preceding, very much, in power and richness of mind, and in the extent of his acquisitions; but he shall be tame and ordinary, in all respects, as a speaker. The former will be called for settlement three times, while the latter will be once. Every body knows this, who has taken any notice of the judgments which our parishes generally form of successive and differing candidates. We may exclaim for our comfort, that they are fools for being caught with mere wind and manner,-for thus preferring show and sound to sense. Yes, and fools they will be, as long as they live, or the world stands. Indeed, fools in this respect, God has made them; and it is our business to accommodate ourselves to the natures they have; for they do think and will think, a great deal of manner; not only the accomplished, the most uncultivated want a good manner. It comes to us

from the hill-top and the valley, from the woods and the cleared land-"send us a smart man," which, in most cases, means, to no small extent, send us a good, animated, stirring speaker.

When the preacher is fixed in his field, a good delivery will help him to an auditory. It will increase the number of his hearers. It has great power to draw in those who are not interested in the truth. Even those, who are stupidly indifferent and positively opposed, will be drawn out by the attraction of manner; and to no small extent, by a simply agreeable manner. Whitfield had an extraordinary manner. It is true, that what he was, and did, in this respect, few, perhaps no others, can be and do. Still it was his manner, the way he said things, more than the things he said, which brought around him those assemblages of five, ten, and twenty thousand, who hung upon his lips and

were swayed by his appeals. Where the preacher is propounding new truths, as Whitfield did; or is laboring in a new field, where the work is, the bringing together of rough and scattered materials and the building of them into a spiritual edifice, as is the case in a large proportion of the fields in our land, it is even more important that a good, earnest manner be employed, than in the more cultivated sections; where the attachments and habits of the people will, in part, make up for the deficiencies of the preacher. We feel tempted to stop here just long enough to rap that mischievous old heresy, that an inferior and feebler style of matter and manner will answer for the newer places. It is a monstrously perverse idea. It would be well for us even to turn about our notions on this point, and send the strongest men where there is the heaviest and most difficult labor to be done. If you send forth into a new field a sensible man, of good energetic delivery, the people will turn out to hear him. But if he is awkward, especially if he is dull, no matter how wise, the people will mind their own business, and leave him to discourse to pine boards or empty seats, or to explode his wisdom into vacuity.

A good delivery will not only help the preacher to hearers, but also to a hearing. It will not only attract attendance but attention. Sometimes the attendance is much better than the attention. There is a multitude together, but they are listless, lounging, drowsy, while the discourse is advancing;—a house full of ears, which for the time are recreant to their office. There is a tendency this way in most assemblies, brought together to hear sermons. Assuredly, then, if you put a sleepy man into the pulpit, you will have sleepy men and women too in the pews. If the preacher is monotonous, dull, heavy, he will infallibly turn the church into a dormitory. The farther he goes on, the lower they go down into the regions of lethargy. Most persons, probably, have seen an assembly under this pervading and shameful torpidity;-hearing nothing; feeling nothing; caring for nothing, mainly because the man in the pulpit was a miserable speaker,-throughout the same frozen, depressing thing, the unchangeable monotony of dullness. But just put another man in the place, another voice of cultivated and varying tone, another eye and action, diffusing the warmth of the awakened spirit within; and the profane

loungers will begin to look and listen; prostrate ears to stand erect; lethargic minds to move; benumbed consciences to throb; frigid hearts to feel. There is always hope of this, when the people hear; for faith comes by hearing, not by being in the place of hearing, in the attitude of hearing;-if it comes at all, it comes by actually hearing. I do not then exaggerate the importance of hearing, nor of good delivery, as adapted to secure hearing. Every public speaker soon finds that it depends about as much upon the power and tones of his voice, the glance of his eye, the propriety and force of his action, as upon any thing else, whether he shall hold or lose the attention of his auditory. This undoubted and almost invariable experience, constitutes a very weighty argument, for the ability to deliver our matter with significance and effect.

This leads me to say, further, that a good delivery does augment the force and effect of the matter upon the minds of those who really attend to it. It has already been said, that a good manner ensures an increased intrinsic force to the matter we produce. It is now added, that a good manner augments the force of the matter executively, that is, the same matter will do more execution upon those who listen, when well delivered, than when ill delivered. Said Æschines to an assembly, who were greatly moved by the reading to them of one of the orations of Demosthenes, "What if you had heard him?" This rival and enemy of the orator knew, that the effect would have been tenfold greater.

The delivery is an exposition. More meaning comes out in the case of apt delivery; and the meaning, which does come forth by the fitness and force of delivery, acquires thereby a vivacity and impulse, that carries it more largely and deeply into the minds of the listeners. Indeed, manner has a power often beyond exposition. It conveys meaning where otherwise there would be none. Itself is the meaning and the matter; and occasionally, in the hands of a master, it has an almost incredible power. When Lord Chatham turned upon the House of Commons in one of their insolent moods and pronounced the word, "sugar," (with which he had just commenced his speech,) three times, with a mien, tone and look, which made the whole body to tremble and quail before him, he showed the truly terrible

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meaning, mere manner can give to that which by itself has no meaning.

It must be confessed, that there is, sometimes, a kind of illusion wrought upon us by manner. What is strong, seems stronger, when skilfully pronounced, than it really is; what is rich, a little richer; what is beautiful and tender, a little more so, than they really are. And if by some mishap of the brain, there falls out a feeble paragraph, or a whole barren discourse, the man of cultivated voice and manner will contrive, by the music of the one, and the charm of the other, to carry his hearers over the heath, both comfortably to them, and reputably to himself. When through, they will really think, and some will say, "It was very fine." It is a fact, all the land over, that a smooth tongue is no mean apology for an empty head.

But let it be distinctly understood, that this is not the ground, on which we urge the cultivation of that member. This very power of illusion only shows more clearly, the power and the worth, to the honest man-the man of Godof a good delivery. We have seen-indeed, a world full of facts compels us to see-that by the help of it he draws around him a broader and thicker field of heads and hearts; wields against them better prepared instruments, with stronger and sharper purpose and aim; and, of course, produces upon them more extensive and lasting effects. It comes then to this; that the character of deathless souls, their redemption or perdition, is directly affected by the preacher's attainments and deficiences in respect to manner.

A question here springs forth :-How much is practicable? May preachers, as a general thing, reach the agreeable and forcible in delivery, or are they, with a few exceptions, shut up, by the very structure of their "outer man" doomed to dullness and stupidity? No: the agreeable and forcible in manner, may be reached by us with as much certainty as we obtain other things, if we would only try for this, as we try for other things. The opinion is advanced from an authoritative quarter, "that if there were effort and painstaking at all corresponding to the value of the attainment, the proportion, as now existing, would be reversed; and instead of nine out of ten being dull, the nine would, at times, be truly eloquent, and the one only inveterately dull." Those who have attempted reformation and