can be a noted orator who is not of a nature earnest and passionate.

Ancient writers were accustomed to speak of two qualities in successful oratory, namely, clearness in stating a subject, and dignified ardor in waking the passions of the hearer." Quintilian condemns, upon this ground, those elocutionists who advocate the exclusive use of a simple, unimpassioned, and conversational mode of speech: "It was not, assuredly, in a straightforward tone of voice that Demosthenes swore by the defenders of Marathon and Platea and Salamis, nor was it in the monotonous strain of daily talk that Eschines bewailed the fate of Thebes."

Says Bautain:

"The coarsest, the most ignorant, man may occasionally be eloquent, if he feel vividly and express himself energetically in words and gesture."

In a similar vein Hazlitt says:

"The orator is only concerned to give a tone of masculine firmness to the will, to brace the sinews and muscles of the mind; not to delight our nervous sensibilities, or soften the mind into voluptuous indolence. The flowery and sentimental style is, of all others, the most intolerable in a speaker. He must be confident, inflexible, uncontrollable, overcoming all opposition by his ardor and impetuosity. We do not command others by sympathy with them, but by power, by passion, by will.”

Emerson expresses a like opinion when he says that eloquence is "the appropriate organ of the highest personal energy."

The conviction is quite general that modern public speech, especially that of the pulpit, needs a new baptism of earnestness and passion. One reason assigned why the "empty-headed vociferator" on the next corner fills his house, and the man of diplomas and titles preaches to empty pews is, that the vociferator really is, or seems to be, passionately earnest, while the doctor of divinity seems to be dead. Horace speaks of one Novius, an officeholder at Rome, who was elevated to the position of tribune chiefly by the force of his lungs." "Has he not a voice," demanded his supporters, "loud enough to drown the noise of two hundred wagons and three funerals meeting in the forum? It is this that pleases us, and we have therefore made him tribune.” The mass of the people feel as a teacher in elocution, Professor Monroe, was accustomed to say, "Man has no majesty like earnestness." Garrick once was asked by a minister how it is that the stage produces a deeper impression than the pulpit He replied: "You preach truth as if it were fiction. We speak fiction as if it were truth." Betterton the actor, after listening to a dull sermon, said to a friend: "The dullness and coldness that empty the meeting-house would empty the play-house, if players spoke like preachers." He told the Lord Bishop of London, almost in the words of Garrick, that the reason why the clergy, speaking of things real, affect the people so little, while the players, speaking of things unreal, affect them so much, is because the actors speak of things imag

inary as though they were real; the preachers.too often speak of things real as though they were imaginary."

We are deeply interested in theological schools; but if their training is to disarm the pulpit candidate of that earnest and passionate enthusiasm which he has by nature, and in which are directness, force, vividness, and fearlessness of delivery, then every such school may as well be closed, for, as Charles Dickens says, "There is no substitute in this world for thorough-going, ardent, and sincere earnestness;" at least, nothing that schools of theology teach can be a substitute for oratorical earnestness. "Infidelity," says Professor Phelps, "will outstrip Orthodoxy, if it has lightning and if Orthodoxy has nothing but fog." Authorities upon this point can easily be multiplied.

Says Augustine: "It is more by the Christian fervor of his sermons than by any endowment of his intellect that the minister must hope to inform the understanding, catch the affections, and bend the will of his hearers.' "True preaching," says John Calvin, "must not be dead, but living and effective. There is a force, there is an energy, which should be found in those who desire to be good and legal ministers of the Word. No parade of rhetoric, but the Spirit of God must resound in their voice, in order to operate with power." "Let us speak to our people," says Baxter, "as for their lives.” "Gather your materials and set fire to them in the pulpit," is a rule of Thomas Binney.

Says Fénelon :

"I would have every minister of the gospel address his audience with the zeal of a friend, with the generous energy of a father, and with the exuberant affection of a mother.

"A preacher nowadays gets little credit, unless he comes out of the pulpit sweating and breathless, and unable to do anything the rest of the day."

Bishop Simpson, speaking of this subject, says:

"This earnestness is not to be evinced merely in motion, but in each and every step of the preparation and delivery of the sermon: earnestness in reading, earnestness in writing, earnestness in prayer, earnestness in clearness and distinctness and force of enunciation, earnestness in managing the vocal organs, and earnestness in addressing the congregation in view of the immense issues constantly at stake. A mother is in earnest when she pleads in tears with her wayward boy. A father is in earnest when, from a dying bed, he gives his last messages to his weeping children. Mr. Wesley was remarkable for his general quietness of manner, and yet his congregations felt and sympathized with the deep earnestness of his spirit."

If the opinions of these men have any weight, and who would venture to say they have not?then the unfortunate tendency, as men become learned, to disparage or ignore forceful and passionate expression should be vigorously guarded against by the speaker; it certainly will be rebuked by the people. Since the mass of men do not like cold victuals, do not pass them, is a dictation that might well be placarded on a multitude of pulpits. The importance of this point justifies the presentation

of certain historic facts. The speeches of Demosthenes, like those of other great orators, ancient and modern, have, almost without exception, been the outgush of an intense soul aroused by contact with vital subjects, and then uttered with vehement expression. Macaulay thus characterizes Demosthenes' oratory: "Reason, penetrated and, if we may venture on the expression, made red-hot by passion."

Eschines compared the energy of Demosthenes to the roarings of a wild beast. 14 Cicero was likewise a man of vehemence, though it was vehemence under masterly control. He puts these words into the lips of Crassus :

"What do you think is wanting to you, Cotta, but a passionate inclination, and a sort of ardor like that of love, without which no man will ever attain anything great in life, and especially such distinction as you desire?"

In modern times Mirabeau is one of the most remarkable examples of oratorical energy. It seemed at times, says a recent reviewer, that his "arguments were fastened to an electric battery, every link of which gave you a shock." "Herculean force," was the description given of Mirabeau by Thomas Jefferson.

Lord Chatham's oratory was likewise the embodiment of force. The intense earnestness of Fox, too, an earnestness that led him to "forget himself and everything about him,”—is thought by Sir James Mackintosh to be the chief seat of his power. Says Macaulay, speaking of Fox, "He was one of