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long and familiar communion with the most finished models of eloquence in ancient and in modern times.

13. Our enthusiasm must be inspired and fed in the endeavor to realize this idea. The ravishing beauties of discourse compact and solid with thought, animated with passion, and invest ed with a rich, graceful drapery of words, must be pointed out and contemplated; the glorious achievements of a finished ora tory, the pure and exalted pleasures which line the path of progress as more and more perfect forms come forth from the forming mind like the successive stages of perfection in original creation, all good, but the better ever last; these must be pressed home to the heart till it warms and glows into a quenchless ardor of passion.

14. With the idea and the enthusiasm well developed, the training in its strictest sense is to be pursued. A ready command of thought is to be acquired. Knowledge is so to be stored as that its various depositories shall be known; and the thoughts laid up can be as promptly furnished to use as his various wares by the accomplished tradesman. The powers of invention, trained under other hands, must here be subjected to the speak er's will, to be sent forth at once into any field of thought, and bring back any assigned fruit or flower of intellect. The trea sures of knowledge must not only be possessed, but each casket must be known, its position, its contents. Spirited eloquence awaits not the slow process of a tardy association that must grope around the whole chamber of thought, before it can bring forth to light its appointed truth. Practice must make its motions true at the first effort, and quick as the minstrel's touch, whom long exercise has taught to strike each note with the precision and suddenness of thought: which, at first, could be reached only by long and tedious reflection on the structure of the scale, the relations of pitch, and all the details of the musical art. "It is not the dilatory precision of thought and words, stored up in memory, which qualifies mind for its high action in victorious elocution; but the electric flash of thought, and the broad circumference of illuminated vision, filled with words for perspicuity, precision, strength or beauty, and familiar by use, offering everywhere and constantly their willing aid -a body-guard clustering by affinity and affection unseen around the orator, as guardian spirits attend the saints.”

15. The command of feeling is to be acquired. Not only must the various passions of the soul be known, be cultivated and expanded in the symmetry of virtue, but the different chords of emotion must, like the strings of the harper, be under

command, so that any can be touched at pleasure. Here is a higher advance of art. For the will has access to the feelings only over the domain of the understanding; and its power must be established over both. It is the prerogative only of the highly accomplished orator to hold thus all the voices of passion, and to make any speak as he may desire. He can only do this who has learned how to present at once the objects. of feeling, and has trained his sensibilities to the most ready obedience. Especially is much training requisite here to enable the orator to force the ardor of passion into the forms of thought; to keep up both the fires of intellect and soul together and in due proportion.

16. Next, method requires distinct attention-long, severe, patient study. Of the very first importance is this branch of the orator's training. It is, perhaps, more by his accurate method than by any other quality that his intellectual rank will be determined by men of discernment. It was to his method more than to any thing else that the celebrated Reinhard, of the modern German pulpit, attributes his success and renown as a preacher. No common discipline will suffice to give this power of expression. It is no slight task achieved, even, to develope fully the idea of method, although an essential element of mind;-to get out distinct and complete the notion of what method is—that " progressive transition" which implies a beginning and an end; which presupposes unity, which neither admits of the amputation of essential parts, nor of the forcible assertion of foreign heterogenial matter to maim or enfeeble the one, complete, living principle of the thought; which, with undeviating aim, is ever pressing forward towards its end; and which is naturally so pleasing and is so essential in the great work of convincing, instructing, and persuading. How rarely, indeed, is this important element to be found in the common oratory of the day, whether of the forum, the senate, or the pulpit! How little is there of this exhausting, orderly, symmetrical method-either of that gradatory kind, if I may so term it, where, by the power of the mind's keen gaze and forcible impulse or firm pressure, the subject is cleft and laid open, and its natural parts, as of an orange, are spread out, are complete, proportionate, and in place, following each other by regular intervals or steps; or of that other continuous kind, which, seizing with almost instinctive promptness and sagacity the ends of the fibres, skilfully unwinds, as in the throwster's art, the entire ball of the thought unbroken, and untangled! The method that we commonly discover, if it be worthy of the name, is that of the careless breaker of stone for macadamizing,

who chips off a piece here and a piece there from the rocky mass, but can neither tell why he began here, or stopped there, or why he passed round this way rather than that, only that, perhaps, it so happened, and he ceased when the cart was full. How little is there of that keen penetration and discriminating study which pierces to the heart of the subject, and then follows out the various arteries or veins to the extremities, which is the fruit only of much training and discipline.

17. A body of language, moreover, is to be furnished to methodized thought and passion; and here lies another rich and extensive province to be entered, explored, and subjected by the orator. But on this point it is unnecessary to dwell, as it is both trite and has already received, perhaps, sufficient notice. The general means of training are the same here as elsewhere. It is by much practice under the direction of experi enced taste and exercised judgment; by frequent and careful labor in putting thought into language. This is the the process adopted and most faithfully applied by all who have gathered laurels in the field of eloquence. This is the great leading direction given by the most philosophical of orators and the most eloquent of philosophers. Caput antem est, quod (ut vere dicam) minime facimus, (est enim magni laboris, quem anquirentibus nobis, omnique acie ingenii contemplantibus ostendunt se et occurrunt, plerique fugimus,) quam plurimum scribere; STILUS ÓPTIMUS ET

PRAESTANTISSIMUS DICENDI EFFECTOR AC MAGISTER.

It is here we discover the secret of Edwards' power as a preacher; who, although he professedly despised the whole art of expres sion, and was extremely careless and almost slovenly in his style, yet was so effective a speaker. He owed that power to his constant practice, from boyhood, of thinking with his pen. He thus acquired that copiousness of language and power of expression which redeemed his productions from their other

faults.

18. One thing more demands the preacher's careful attention before he can be deemed thoroughly furnished for his great work of teaching and persuading. It is the command of a pleasing and energetic delivery. He must acquaint himself with all the various functions of speech; he must understand the kind and degree of expression belonging to each; he must, moreover, have those functions of speech so perfectly familiarized by practice and subjected to his control, that he can employ them at pleasure. Here is an art; an important, a most interesting art by itself. As he cannot justly claim the name of an accomplished artist who does not know all the implements of his art with their respective uses, and can handle

them with skill and effect, so neither can he be called an accomplished speaker who does not know all the movements of the voice; who does not understand precisely what is their office in the expression of the various degrees of thought and passion; and who cannot, whatever may be the circumstances in which he is placed, whatever even may be his own feelings, command just that vocal movement which nature has appropriated to the sentiment he desires to utter. This, in the present advanced state of the art of elocution, now established on the basis of a science, the principles of which are clearly set forth, he may do; and he who enters the responsible office of a preacher of the gospel without this preparation, may well consider whether he has not seized a sword for the battle, on which he has put no edge. There is a resistless charm and power in utterance that sits closely and elegantly upon the thought and feeling, or rather into which, as into their own native body, intellect and soul send their own life and fire.

19. Such is the training which the student must go through to become an effective speaker. To the point of making the power of expression his own, which this course of training will give him, he cannot be indifferent, if he rightly appreciate his own peculiar office work, if he realize at all its importance to his success.-Bib. Rep.

THE BANKRUPT MERCHANT'S DWELLING.

BY ANNE RIVERS.

The flowers bloom for another;
The fountain floweth there
With cool and quiet murmur,
Upon the summer air:

But no fond heart is near it

To listen to its play;

The hand that nursed the roses
Is far, oh! far away!

The sad deserted dwelling

Stands lonely by the stream;
The windows shuttered closely,
Close out the sun's glad beam:
And grass grows o'er the foot-path
Where once the happy trod,
Nor children's steps pass lightly
Across the bright green sod.

And he who reared the homestead

Comes not the thought to him Of this old place of meeting, When life looks drear and dim; While the city's hum is round him, In his low pent-up home, Where scent of summer roses And cool winds never come?

Oh! oft his heart must linger
On days when hope was bright,
Nor seemed upon his fortunes
A sign of change or blight;
When he stood here at evening
Beneath his own roof-tree,
His gentle wife beside him,
His children at his knee :

Or out upon the water

His boat danced far and wide,
Beneath the silver moon-light
Upon the flowing tide.
And now he catches only
Some glimpses of the sky,
Through piles of city dwellings
And spires that stretch on high.

Oh! lone, deserted dwelling!
Thou art a place of gloom,
Although the sun is on thee,
And gaily roses bloom :
For human steps and voices,
That make the desert glad,
Are not around thee standing,
Thou lonely place and sad!

Earth! thou art full of changes,
From hope unto despair,
And darkness cometh ever

To all whose hopes are there.
And yet thou bringest tidings
Of shores where change is not,
Where blessings vanish never,
And sorrows are forgot.

Look up! ye sons of sorrow!
Ye children of the earth!

Care cometh sadly ever

To all of mortal birth!

But there the flowers are fadeless,
The fountains never cease;
Look up from change and trouble
Unto that shore of peace!

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