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improvement with every thing against them, have brought about wonders for themselves and the world. The late Dr. Porter informs us that, in middle life, he went to work and broke up a stiff and clumsy pair of jaws, and from an afflictive monotony passed, as we know, to a range and flex. ibility of tone, adequate to the highest purposes of the orator. Demosthenes was, in the first instance, hissed from the rostrum for very badness of manner. He went out and went to work, and ere long returned with a power of manner, by which, with the aid of well compacted matter, he agitated, swayed, and impelled the nation at his pleasure. These results came from effort; an earnest attention to the thing.

But the difficulty now is, we refuse to give any tolerable degree of attention to it: not that a good manner is really despised, but we think, if it comes at all, it will come of its own accord. True, we have to labor for other attainments, and we are willing to labor. Years must be expended in effort before we can master the flute or the organ. "Yet we will imagine," says Prof. Ware, "that the grandest, the most various, the most expressive of all instruments which the Creator has fashioned, by the union of an intellectual soul with the powers of speech, may be played upon without study or practice. We come to it uninstructed, unpractised, and think to manage all its stops, and command the whole compass of its varied and comprehensive power." True, all men of finished and powerful address, in far preceding time, reached their high position by study, toil, and practice, which continued even through life. The labor and painstaking of the great Grecian orator have been alluded to. It is said, that he shaved one half of his head, that he might compel himself to continue in a course of solitary drilling and training, till the utmost skill and power were reached. We are told, "that Cæsar, at the head of an army, surrounded by the anxieties and perils of war, maintained the practice of daily declaiming in his tent." are told, that Cicero was constant and earnest in the same practice, not only through his novitiate, but even after he had attained the pre-eminent position of prince of orators. Whitfield was indefatigable in the same way. His cultivation of manner continued through life. "Foote and Garrick were accustomed to maintain that his oratory was not at its full height, till he had repeated a discourse forty times." From this interest in, and attention to, their manner, came

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the power of these men in the delivery of their thoughts. But most now are pretty much willing to let this thing take care of itself, and if they come out tolerable speakers, very well; if they come out intolerable ones, so be it; those who hear must endure the infliction as well as they can. Hence it is, in the severe and castigating language of Dr. Rush, "that we need not be surprised, that the pulpit, the senate, the bar, and the chair of medical professorship, are filled with such abominable drawlers, mouthers, mumblers, clutterers, squeakers, chanters, and mongers in monotony."

Now as all this dread discord and mischief proceed from neglect of the art in question, we have only to turn the thing about, and give a reasonable attention to it. There is no other way: we must consent to do as other and better men have done before us. The high resolution and persevering practice, they manifested, will do almost any thing. Let any man of tolerable powers try,-enter upon the work of correction and improvement; let him fix in his mind some common sense principles for his guidance; then let him, in some vigorous portion of every day, address himself, heart and soul, lungs and limbs, to the grand achievement of becoming a good speaker; and he will pretty certainly become one. There will ere long be, propriety of action, ease and freedom of utterance; and he will be enabled to baptize, and thoroughly imbue, the sterling sense of his head, with the flowing and gushing sensibilities of his heart, and throw it forth into the minds and hearts of his hearers. To the private practice, there should be added, when practicable, a degree of exposure, particularly in young There cannot be spared, even in our highest seminaries, the immemorial exercise of public declamation. True, it is despised by many, as boyish business; still it is one of the best ways to give our students the front and bearing of men. Itis valuable for the drilling it ensures. It is valuable for the exposure to which it compels. In this way, Whitfield first learned, as he informs us, to face the thousands that thronged around him. What can any one do without self-possession? Awkwardness and blunders are inevitable without it. It is by exposure alone that we acquire this self-possession. Surely, it is well for the young man to try and obtain it, in the preparatory stage ;-far better than, through fear or some other cause, to forego the exposure and the practice, in this stage, and thus to let the

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fear and awkwardness grow upon him, as he grows older and larger, and then when obliged to make his public appearance, to go into the holy place more like a culprit than a preacher, and stand there through the discomfiting hour, as on Belshazzar's knees, and imagine that he beholds, on every section of the wall, terrifically inscribed, the "mene tekel" of failure.

The fear might be avoided, and a commendable aptness and power of address obtained, if those interested would only set themselves, in the way intimated, to the work of correction, and prosecute it to a just extent. Even large portions of time, in the case of many students, may be devoted, with a good conscience, to the accomplishments of manner. Better do it, and then go forth to the work, with this potent auxiliary, than neglect the cultivation, and go forth, the replete and finished scholar within, and the stupid, unpractised stammerer without.

Let us look, for a moment, at the reason, the fitness of the thing. Is it not altogether reasonable and proper, that preminent and continued regard be had to the attainment, by which, as preachers, all the rest are to be made available, to the high purposes of our profession? Is it not monstrous folly, to spend the best years of life, in devoted study, in disciplining the mind, enlarging its capacities, and filling them as they grow, with truth and knowledge, there to stay pent up in darkness, because the power of communication was shamefully neglected-the rich and swelling resources, of little credit to himself, and less use to the world, because the voice and manner, the appointed agents to diffuse and impress, were never trained to their office? We need a little of the spirit manifested by Richard Brinsley Sheridan, who, having grievously failed in an early effort on the floor of the Commons, and being thereupon advised by his friends to abandon the idea of becoming a speaker in that connection, replied, with an erect, undaunted mien: "Never. I know it is in me, and I am determined that it shall come out." We have heard the opinion expressed, that there is more in most of our educated preachers, than they succeed in getting out. There is enough in them, if they would but get it out. Certainly, it can do no good, until they do get it out, and send it forth upon the world, under a vigorous form and impulse.

In this view there is solemn obligation resting upon us.

Are we not, as ambassadors of Christ, bound, by the law of love, to attend more to this thing? To the warmly benevolent mind, what an incitement to the culture of the power of address, lies in the fact, that among all the endowments of the Creator, it is our greatest and best power of good. The living voice is the grand, ordained instrument of the world's awakening and redemption. Shall not heaven's unchanging ordinance be regarded and obeyed in the better cultivation of that voice?

"Whitfield," says his biographer, "sought out acceptable tones and gestures and looks, as well as acceptable words. Was Whitfield right? Then many, like myself, are far wrong. Let the rising ministry take warning. Awkwardness in the pulpit is a sin;-monotony is a sin ;-dullness is a sin;—and all of them sins against the welfare of immortal souls." As preachers of the gospel, how can we get clear of the conviction, that we are as really in fault before God, if our hearers go to perdition because our manner is stupid and wrong, needlessly so, as we shall be, if they go there because our heart is wrong. And how should we feel, to know, that some are hopeless wailers in the pit, because we were incorrigible drawlers in the pulpit?

The attainment of a good delivery is, in the preacher surely, a beneficent attainment, reaching forward and upward, in its results, to the world of celestial glory.

The nobleness of the attainment is another consideration. The tongue, according to the sacred poet, is the glory of our. frame. An eloquent tongue, joined with an eloquent mind, rich in knowledge, powerful in conception, fitting and forcible in delivery, is a double glory; especially when employed in the advocacy of the gospel,-imparting greatness to its disclosures, worth and weight to its interests, and urgency to its claims,-making men see the majesty and feel the power of truth, in their recovery to the image and spirit of the Holy. It is the most noble, and on the last day, destined I doubt not, to be amongst the most honored of all earthly powers, the power of persuading guilty men to become reconciled to God. Those who cultivate and exercise this power, under the impulsive influence of a holy mind, may expect to abound here in truly imperishable achievements, and will there be raised to shine, as the brightness of the firmament, and as the stars for ever and ever.

ARTICLE V.

THE PIETY OF THE EARLY CHRISTIANS.

By C. E. Stowe, D. D., Prof. of Biblical Literature, Lane Seminary, Cincinnati.

An inspired writer and the wisest of kings has said, "Say not thou, What is the cause that the former days were better than these? for thou dost not inquire wisely concerning this." Eccl. 7: 10. It is however the declaration of a prophet, "Thus saith the Lord, Stand ye in the ways and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls." Jer. 6: 16.

Certainly it is not every old way that is a good way, in which one can find rest for his soul, for we also read in the Bible. of "the old way which wicked men have trodden, who were cut down out of time." Job 22: 16. Indeed, as human nature is always the same depraved fountain of ill, old ways, so far as men are concerned, are quite as likely to be wrong as new ones. As the truth of God, however, is one and unchangeable, if there has ever been a time when the truth was clearly manifested on the earth, and exerted its legitimate influence, that period must, on this point, be a safe pattern for all subsequent time.

There was once a time when the Christian church, without any aid from miraculous power, without any support from the institutions and customs of society, or any protection from the civil government, but in direct opposition to all the habits and professions of the civilized world, and en-` countering the bloodiest persecutions from the secular arm, did hold its ground and make its way by its own native energies; when it did manifest itself as the kingdom of God, which cometh not with observation or outward show, swaying men in masses by an external power; but like the little leaven leavening the whole lump, gradually and silently converting the surrounding mass into its own substance, by moving from heart to heart, subduing each individual will, and embracing in its empire only voluntary subjects. There was a time when the church, by its internal power only, without any thing else in its favor, "subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped

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