few minutes' duration, the few practical rules which are requisite to mould the outward man in habit. Even a very slight attention to the preliminary rules of posture and movement, would exert such an influence on the associations of the mind, as would insure a tendency to becoming style in personal carriage and demeanour. The preacher might thus be saved from habitually committing revolting offences against taste and propriety, and so avoid the barrier which, otherwise, he builds up, with his own hands, between himself and his hearers.

WARMTH OF MANNER.

Feeling, when it is earnest and vivid, rises naturally to those stages which we designate by the terms 'warmth' and 'fervour.' These qualities bear the same relation to eloquence, that the lyric fire' does to the higher species of poetry. The element of 'passion' is indispensable to all the transcendent effects of expression, in whatever form or in whatever art they are exemplified. Homer and Horace, among the poets of antiquity, and Milton and Watts, in modern times, display, in high perfection, this genuine trait of excellence in expression.

Impassioned utterance, or that which rises to the full height of inspired and inspiring emotion, and attains to a vivid eloquence, is indebted, for its characteristic effect, to the 'celestial fire' with which it glows. Intensity and ardour in the desires and aspirations of the soul,-the very fervour of its highest devotional feeling,-all are evinced by the 'burning words' which seem to issue directly from the heart.

This highest form of emotion demands a correspondent intensity and impassioned power of utterance. We hear it in the voice of the orator, when kindled by vivid personal feeling transcending the formal limits of art. We hear it in the recitation of poetry, when the speaker gives forth the poetic fire of genuine, intense emotion. We hear it in the true and

appropriate reading of the rapturous strains of the prophets and the psalmist, in the sacred Scriptures. It belongs, also, to the impassioned aspirations and devout ecstasies of the soul, in the language of the higher species of hymns. Its effect may be heard in the utterance of the preacher whose lips have been touched with the 'live coal from the altar,' and whose soul is aglow with those emotions which spring from near intercourse with God and fervent feeling for man.

The inspiring thrill of genuine passion pervades all earnest eloquence, in whatever form it kindles the heart and fires the imagination of man. As a mood of emotion, it exists, in degree, even in the humbler forms of public address on ordinary occasions, if these imply life and spirit in expression. Its effect is, in all cases, analogous, more or less, to the communicative heat which imparts itself from object to object, till all are enveloped in the common flame. The electric spark from the vivid and eloquent speaker, is thus transmitted to the sympathies of his audience, till all are thrilled by the common impulse, and fired with the common glow.

The speaker who never rises to warmth and fervour of feeling, falls short of the highest and noblest purposes of eloquence. To the preacher in the pulpit there is an impressive lesson to be caught from the spirit of the poet's phrase, when he speaks of the seraph that adores and burns.' A noble zeal cannot exist without ardour; devotion cannot inspire the soul, without fervour; the heart cannot beat for man's highest good, without warmth.

Some preachers, it is true, give themselves up too exclusively to the influence of this element of eloquence: their fire degenerates into phrenzy: excessive passion is, with them, allowed to usurp the whole man: their manner becomes that of animal excitement, and deviates into extravagance and excess. Hence the ungovernable violence of voice, in such speakers, and their phrenzied vehemence of gesture.

Other preachers, however, err on the other extreme, and by their uniform coldness of utterance and frigidity of gesture, chill the feelings of their hearers. The special office of

sacred eloquence, is to incite and inspire and enkindle the soul. But the effect of the too common style of the pulpit, is to cool and to benumb. How can the preacher cause the heart to glow with the sacred fire of love or joy, whose accents 'freeze as they fall,' and whose torpid frame seems to have been transmuted to marble?

Questions of intense interest are justly expected to excite ardour of feeling and glow of expression. Men, in relation to such subjects, are generally more willing to pardon something to the spirit of warm emotion, than to be content with deliberate coolness. Heartfelt and earnest conviction will not stop short at ordinary manifestations: it will incline rather to a fervour of utterance and action, at which fastidiousness might be apt to take offence. There is, occasionally, something irrepressible in genuine emotion. He who speaks from the inmost soul, is himself sometimes carried away in the common rush of feeling which his own eloquence has caused. The preacher who deeply feels the worth of the human soul, the brevity and uncertainty of life, and man's proneness to callous indifference regarding his eternal well-being, cannot contemplate the case coolly, and treat of it in well-ordered sentences, and quiet tones, and remonstrate upon it with tranquil mien and composed action. The deeper sources of feeling must, in such circumstances, necessarily be stirred within him the inner fire of the soul must be kindled his whole being will glow with intense emotion: his tones, if true to his heart, will be fired with a sacred fervour: his features will beam with impassioned expression: his whole frame will be inspired, his arm impelled, by the zeal and ardour of his spirit.

Coldness of manner is, in some speakers, a fault of habit which originates partly in constitution and temperament. But, in most, it is the consequence of imperfect or ill-directed culture. Faults of the former description are by no means so obdurate as is sometimes imagined. The testimony of the physiologist is clear and decisive on the point that, with adequate attention and care, we can, by processes of cultivation,

change the temperament of individuals from the muscular to the nervous character. The discipline of education, in ancient Greece, was conducted so as to blend and unite these temperaments, in every individual, by a high-toned physical training, accompanied by the most elevated forms of intellectual culture, and an intense incitement applied to the sentiments and passions. The magnificent ideal of human excellence which Grecian education set up as its standard, was fully attained in the personal and mental character of such men as Xenophon and Epaminondas,-instances in which the attainments of the philosopher, the statesman, the general, the scholar, the poet, the orator, the artist, the athlete, the moral enthusiast, were all blended in the individual man.

Modern education aims principally at the developement of a few of the intellectual faculties. It leaves the general character cold and feeble, from the absence of healthful vigour of body, and inspiring energy of heart and will. It represses emulation, and limits ambition, but substitutes no inciting motives of equal force and of higher character. Its tendency to excite the cerebral organ, by too great intensity of action, causes, by its morbid excess, a correspondent depression of genial emotion and ennobling sentiment: it leaves feeling and fancy, the main sources of expression,-to languish and subside. It furnishes no adequate instruction in the art of speaking, but rather quenches or cools the spirit of eloquence, by inappropriate influences.

Few, accordingly, among our youth, retain the natural glow of utterance, through the various stages of education, so as to come out warm, energetic, and effective speakers. The young minister in the pulpit, commences his career of public duty, disabled, to a great extent, for the discharge of its functions. He has, in his academic life, lost, not gained, tone and power, as a living man, whose office it is to exert, by eloquent address, the most momentous of all influences on his fellow-men. The cold and powerless being who rises to address us from the pulpit, bears, not unfrequently, on his very frame, and in his voice and åspect, the traces of infirmity—not

of strength.

His words fall lifeless on the ear: his sentiments

take no effect on the heart.

The introduction of elocution into our means of education, would do much to obviate the impediments to effective speaking, under which professional men generally labour. The systematic practice of elocution, as an art, involves a healthful preparatory training in muscular exercise and in the energetic, varied, and graceful forms of oratorical action. It prescribes an extensive course of daily practice in all the modes of voice which tend to invigorate and enliven the organs of respiration and of speech. It imparts the inspiring influence of eloquent emotion, in the themes with which it makes the student conversant. It incites his whole mental being to

vivid and glowing activity.

These invaluable results may all be secured, to a great extent, by whatever individual has the requisite decision of purpose and perseverance in resolution, to commence and prosecute the business of self-cultivation. The theological student who feels the importance of elocution to the purposes of his profession, will not shrink from the toil which a thorough renovation of habit demands for this purpose. His own progress will open to him, continually, new objects to be accomplished, -both as regards an intimate knowledge of his own corporeal structure, and a distinct perception of the nature of expression, in all its manifold relations to man. It will disclose to him more fully the sympathetic influences by which the heart is actuated, as well as those outward analogies and effects which eloquence implies. He will allow himself the full benefits of a regenerating physical and æsthetic discipline, to compensate for the defects of formal education. He will resort to the instructive lessons furnished by all the expressive arts. Music, in particular, he will cultivate, as one of the most effective and inspiring of all influences that operate on the human soul, as the best adapted to create the expressive mood and the glow of utterance.* He will omit no means of cherishing the

* The exhibitions of dramatic art are, by far, the most instructive of all