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Says a late issue of the London Law Times:

"Another observation made by the same writer is that the late judge (Lord Thesiger) laid no claim to the gift of eloquence. No barrister making a large income in the present day does, or would wish to do so. The occasions for its display rarely occur, and in ordinary business to be eloquent is a fatal disqualification, unless counteracted by a large development of prosaic common sense. Fortunes are now being made by bar.

risters to whom oratory is an unknown art."

The Albany Law Journal does not regret this loss of forensic eloquence. It says:

"But if eloquence has declined there is some consolation in the fact. Reason is a safer guide for courts of justice than eloquence. The carrying of a bad cause by sheer force of appeals to the sympathies, the prejudices, or the passions, is a degradation of a noble art.”

But we may suggest to the Albany Law Journal that, perhaps, in the cause of justice and humanity, "the sheer force of appeal " might be of service.

NOTE XLIV. (Page 153.)

Smith, in his Longinus, thus speaks of this figure, as used by Paul and in the Book of Job: "The king knoweth of these things, before whom I also speak freely.' Then in the following he turns short upon him: 'King Agrippȧ, believest thou the prophets?' and immediately answers his own question: I know that thou believest.' 26, 27. The smoothest eloquence, the most insinuating complaisance, could never have made such impression on Agrippa as this unexpected and pathetic address.

66

Acts xxvi.

To these instances may be added the whole thirty-eighth chapter of Job; where we behold the Almighty Creator expostulating with his creature in terms which express at once the majesty and perfection of the one, the meanness and frailty of the other. There we see how vastly useful the figure of interrogation is, in giving us a lofty idea of the Deity, while every question awes us into silence, and inspires a sense of our own insufficiency."

NOTE XLV. (Page 161.)

John B. Gough relates that he was once introduced to a London audience as the greatest orator who had ever lived, the introducer ending a long and fulsome eulogy by telling the people to prepare themselves for such a burst of eloquence as they had never before listened to. Gough, knowing that the best effort he had ever made would, under such circumstances, fall far short of anticipation, determined to practise a trick of oratory- that being, to affect stupidity. He opened by stammering and hesitating, by beginning his sentences and leaving them unfinished, until, as he said, the poorest speaker in England could not have done worse. He soon overheard those on the platform whispering their disapprobation and censure, one man saying, "Oh, this will never do here, you know. It may be all very well in America, you know; but in England, you know, it is quite a different thing." He still continued in his dull, disconnected way until he saw that he had a background for his verbal pictures. Then he gradually adopted his natural manner; and, as sentence after sentence rolled out vivid and resonant from his lips, his audience grew enthusiastic, and fairly roared with applause. He had never been more rapturously greeted than he was then and there. Those who heard him declared that they had never known a man to change so after he had once warmed up.

NOTE XLVI. (Page 168.)

The following quotations are confirmatory:

"Sentences or apophthegms lend much aid to eloquence.

One reason

of this is, that they flatter the pride of the hearers, who are delighted when the speaker, making use of general language, touches upon opinions which they had before known to be true in part. Thus, a person who had the misfortune to live in a bad neighborhood, or to have worthless chil. dren, would easily assent to the speaker who should affirm that nothing is more vexatious than to have any neighbors; nothing more irrational than to bring children into the world."— Aristotle, Rhet. Lib. 11. c. xxi.

"It's a great mistake to think anything too profound or rich for a popular audience. No train of thought is too deep, or subtle, or grand, but the manner of presenting it to their untutored minds should be pe culiar. It should be presented in anecdote, or sparkling truism, or telling illustration, or stinging epithet; always in some concrete form, never in a logical, abstract syllogistic shape." — Choate.

"I have known a great many most admirable preachers who lost almost all real sympathetic hold upon their congregations because they were too literary, too periphrastic, and too scholastic in their diction. They always preferred to use large language rather than good Saxon-English. But let me tell you, there is a subtle charm in the use of plain language, that pleases people, they scarcely know why. It gives bell-notes which ring out sug. gestions to the popular heart. There are words which men have heard when boys at home, around the hearth and the table; words that are full of father and of mother, and full of common and domestic life. These are the words that afterward, when brought into your discourse, will pro. duce a strong influence on your auditors, giving an element of success; words which will have an effect that your hearers themselves cannot understand. For, after all, simple language is loaded down and stained through with the best testimonies and memories of life."- Beecher.

NOTE XLVII. (Page 168.)

See Tyng's Christian Pastor, pp. 41, 58.

NOTE XLVIII. (Page 169.)

After the breaking up of the court on the last day of a long Yorkshire Assize, Wightman, then at the bar, found himself walking in the crowd cheek-by-jowl with a countryman whom he had seen serving day after day on the jury. Liking the look of the man, he got into conversation with him, and finding that this was his first attendance at the assizes, asked him what he thought of the leading counsel.

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Well," was the reply, "that Lawyer Brougham be a wonderful man; he can talk, he can; but I don't think nowt of Lawyer Scarlett." Indeed!" exclaimed Wightman; “you surprise me. Why, you have been giving him all the verdicts." 66 Oh, there's nothing in that," said the juror; "he be so lucky, you see, he be always on the right side."

"He the best player!" exclaimed a self-constituted critic, after seeing Garrick in Hamlet; "why, I could act as well as he myself. I am sure, if I had seen a ghost, I should have looked in the same manner and done just as he did. The king for my money; he speaks all his words distinctly, half as loud again as the others; anybody may see he is an actor."

NOTE XLIX. (Page 176.)

The purpose of the preacher, in every sermon, should be twofold - subordinately, to convince the people of some specific religious truth, by the presentation of reasons, and, primarily, to persuade the people to accept the truth presented by the presentation of motives. Says President Finney:

"There were two young ministers who had entered the ministry at the same time. One of them had great success in converting sinners, the other none. The latter inquired of the other, one day, what was the reason of this difference. Why,' replied the other, the reason is, that I aim at a different end from you, in preaching. My object is to convert sinners, but you aim at no such thing.' And then you go and lay it to the sovereignty of God, that you do not produce the same effect, when you never aim at it. Here, take one of my sermons and preach it to your people, and see what the effect will be.' The man did so, and preached the ser. mon, and it did produce effect. He was frightened when sinners began to weep; and when one came to him after meeting to inquire what he should do, the minister apologized to him, and said, 'I did not aim to wound you, I am sorry if I have hurt your feelings.'"

John Smith, the Wesleyan preacher, used to say:

"God has given me such a sight of the value of precious souls, that I cannot live if souls are not saved."

Matthew Henry said:

"I would think it greater happiness to gain one soul to Christ than mountains of gold and silver to myself."

Doddridge, writing to a friend, remarked:

"I long for the conversion of souls more than for anything beside. Methinks I could not only labor, but die for it with pleasure."

Brainard said he cared not what hardships he went through, so that he might win souls. When he was asleep, he dreamed of these things, and when he awoke his first thought was of this great work. A friend asked Dr. Lyman Beecher, when upon his deathbed, "What is the greatest of all things?" and he replied:

"It is to save souls. It is not theology; it is not controversy; it is to save souls."

NOTE L. (Page 195.)

Professor Huxley, in Lay Sermons, thus speaks upon these two methods of reasoning:

"The vast results obtained by science are won by no mystical faculties, by no mental processes, other than those which are practised by every one of us in the humblest and meanest affairs of life. A detective policeman discovers a burglar from the marks made by his shoe, by a mental process identical with that by which Cuvier restored the extinct animals of Montmartre from fragments of their bones. Nor does that process of induction and deduction by which a lady, finding a stain of a particular kind upon her dress, concludes that somebody has upset the inkstand thereon, differ in any way from that by which Adams and Leverrier discovered a new planet. The man of science, in fact, simply uses with scrupulous exactness the methods which we all habitually, and at every moment, use carelessly."

Says Whately:

NOTE LI. (Page 221.)

"A moderate portion of common sense will enable any one to perceive, and to show, on which side the presumption lies, when once his attention is called to this question; though, for want of attention, it is often overlooked; and on the determination of this question the whole character of a discussion will often very much depend. A body of troops may be perfectly adequate to the defence of a fortress against any attack that may be made on it; and yet, if, ignorant of the advantage they possess, they sally forth into the open field to encounter the enemy, they may suffer a repulse. At any rate, even if strong enough to act on the offensive, they ought still to keep possession of their fortress. In like manner, if you have the presumption on your side, and can but refute all the arguments brought against you, you have, for the present at least, gained a victory; but if you abandon this position, by suffering this presumption to be forgotten, which is, in fact, leaving out one of, perhaps, your strongest

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