his vitals. He can summon his powers and direct them to a point at pleasure; because he can endure strong excitement, without the distraction of his faculties. When he rises, and stretches himself, some proof is forth-coming that he is a living man and is awake. His heart beats with a vigorous pulsation, that braces his muscles, gives glow to his conceptions, and meaning to his look. His soul kindles with the impulse of his subject, as he goes on; and his strength is felt and acknowledged,--acknowledged with a sort of enthusiastic homage, by his fellow-men.

Wright, in his Philosophy of Elocution, in urging upon the Christian student of eloquence, "earnestness of manner, and energy of expression," relates the following:

"A citizen of Athens came to Demosthenes, and besought him to plead his cause, against one by whom he had been treated with great cruelty. Now the person having made his complaint with an air and style of perfect coldness and indifference, the orator was not inclined to believe him.

"This affair cannot be as you represent it! You have not suffered hard usage!" Here merely from the want of earnestness and expression, the veracity of the person was disputed; and that too by Demosthenes. A pathetic address, with finely interwoven phrases, was not essential to convince the orator of the fact. He only required, perhaps, a probable picture of the mind of the sufferer, or an earnest recital of the transaction.

When the orator intimated his disbelief of the fact, Plutarch informs us that the citizen immediately expressed himself with the utmost emotion-"I not harshly used! I not ill-treated !" Nay, now, says Demosthenes "I begin to believe you—that is the form,—that is the language of an injured man. I acknowledge the justice of your cause, and will be your advocate." "We shall find the object of this illustration," continues the author, "shown more at length by the Roman orator." perfectly remember," said Cicero, " that, when Calidius prosecuted Q. Gallius for an attempt to poison him, and pretended that he had the plainest proofs of it, and could produce many letters,

'I

witnesses, informations, and other evidences to put the truth of his charge beyond a doubt, interspersing many sensible and ingenious remarks on the nature of the crime, I remember, that when it came to my turn to reply to him, after urging every argument which the case itself suggested, I insisted upon it as a material circumstance in favor of my client, that the prosecutor while he charged him with a design against his life, and assured us that he had the most indubitable proofs of it then in his hands, related his story with as much ease, and as much calmness and indifference as if nothing had happened."—" Would it have been possible," exclaimed Cicero, (addressing himself to Calidius,)" that you should speak with this air of unconcern, unless the charge was purely an invention of your own ?—and, above all, that you whose eloquence has often vindicated the wrongs of other people with so much spirit, should speak so cooly of a crime which threatened your life ?"*

In the consideration of this subject, the CAUSES which influence our intellectual and moral habits, also demand attention. These include the objects that awaken excitement, and the kind of excitement which they produce.

Eloquence then, does not depend on mechanical or ephemeral excitements, but on great, and permanent, and powerful causes, affecting the intellectual habits of a country or an age, perhaps a series of ages. Look at the facts to which I have before alluded. What produced the mighty effort of eloquence in Athens? A train of causes that made mighty men; that produced a collision of mighty minds; that set in motion the intellectual machinery of Greece, and carried the excitement to the highest pitch, when Philip threatened the extinction of her liberties. The convulsions of Rome, as connected with the history of Brutus, and Cæsar, and Anthony, brought Cicero up to that energy and majesty which held in awe the minds of other men. To the events of the American Revolution, our country owes the fame of her Hamilton and Patrick Henry. We do not *Phil. of Elocution, pp. 198-202.

search for secular orators, amid the darkness and despotism of modern Turkey. We do not search for Christian orators, amid the ecclesiastical darkness and despotism of the eleventh century. At that period, the moral world was like a vast, dead sea, without a breath of wind to move its surface. In the fifteenth century, a hurricane broke up the repose of these stagnant waters, and from the conflict of elements arose the powerful minds that led on the Reformation.

But in estimating the efficacy of those general causes which give character to an age, or nation, or community of nations, we may be assisted by looking at their influence on single men. Would you learn by what process any individual, who is distinguished by the power of his eloquence, gained that power? You must look back on a train of causes, that have combined to shape all the habits of his mind. And you will see that the energies of his mind are not awakened at random, but are brought to bear on a single subject according to laws which are applicable to other minds. Take the case of the British Statesman whom I recently mentioned. The love of his country was not in him an occasional emotion, but a steady, deep seated principle. The interests of that country were committed to his special management in a period, when the nations were dashing one against another, in distress and perplexity; and "men's hearts were failing them for fear." The welfare of a great nation at stake calls for expanded views, and great efforts in her prime Minister. This is the subject of his unremitted care; the subject that goes with him to his pillow, that occupies his first waking thoughts, that engrosses his mind in the social circle, and hastens him back to his retirement. Call him now to engage in public debate, on some measure involving this chief subject of his thoughts, and you see the actual result of those intellectual laws, which I wish to illustrate. You see all the man's native and acquired powers thrown into an effort;-all his genius, his knowledge, his patriotism, unite to form one current of argument and emotion, which a host of puny opponents cannot withstand. A mere stranger, in wit

nessing that effort, would know that powerful causes must have been at work, to form the man who made it.

We may take another example from among ourselves. Could an illiterate man have been introduced on the floor of the American Congress, to take part in its debates on the British treaty, he might as well have attempted to form a new planetary system as to make a speech like that of Fisher Ames. In Ames himself that speech would have been a miracle, had not a set of causes of long continued and steady operation, united to create the man, and confer on him the powers which such an effort demanded. Besides those general principles, under the influence of which a new era was then opening on the world;-within himself were united a vigorous and cultivated mind; an easy native elocution; rapid conception; vivid imagination; practice in speaking; a soul glowing with patriotism, and inspired to high emotion by the subject and the occasion. Here again I say, a mere stranger must have perceived that such an effort was not produced by the transient excitement of a common mind. Just as a stranger in Africa, falling on the banks of the Nile, would know that this river comes from distant mountains, and is fed by many streams; and would not suspect that it was produced to day by a shower on some adjacent region, or that it will cease to flow to-morrow.

Ames was thirty eight when he made that speech. Suppose that some great emergency in the church should require any of you, at the same age, to make a similar effort in your own sacred calling ;-what preparatives are necessary that you may do it with similar success? Though scarcely one man in a million, has all the native gifts of Ames for high effect in oratory; yet the question how far you would succeed or fail, in the case supposed, with the talents which you do possess, depends chiefly on the intellectual and moral habits which you are now forming. No momentary incitement would answer on such an occasion. You must act under a strong, steady impulse, resulting from principles that have established their permanent influence over your powers.

LECTURE V.

PERSONAL PIETY IN THE PREACHER, ESSENTIAL TO GENUINE ELOQUENCE IN THE PULPIT.

With the foregoing principles in view, I am prepared now to lay down the broad position, that genuine eloquence in the pulpit, cannot exist without PERSONAL PIETY in the preacher. Strong as this statement may seem, its truth I presume is unquestionable. To a certain extent, the fundamental principles of oratory are the same in all professions, and at all times; and thus far the examples I have adduced from secular orators are pertinent to my main purpose ;-but beyond this they fail. Will these examples be said to show that eloquence of the first order has existed without piety? Certainly it has,-but not in the pulpit. Great emotion I have said is necessary to produce eloquence, and great objects to produce such emotion. But these objects must correspond with the governing temper and business of the speaker. A motive which would kindle the soul of one man, to another may be no motive. Demosthenes and Paul were in some respects kindred spirits. Strong sensibility, fervid imagination, vigorous conception, and bold expression, were characteristic of both. But suppose, that Demosthenes, with an unsanctified heart, could have stood up at Athens or Corinth, to preach the cross of Christ; would he have been eloquent? To him, as to later Greeks, that same subject, which swelled the Apostle's bosom with unutterable emotion, would have been foolishness. The secular orator may find objects in mere worldly concerns to awaken his utmost