562 The Economy of Attention. that the strongest effects are produced by interjections-words condensing entire sentences into syllables. Next to these, those words which are sugges tive of pictures-which appeal and afford the freest play to the imagination-will be found best to economize the recipient's attention. Hence the Let it value of figures of speech. And of these, those which compel the best attention will be found the most effectual. Thus the metaphor, condensing, as it does, a picture into a single word, ranks all other rhetorical figures. be granted that, as Whateley suggests, this superiority of the metaphor may be attributed in part to the fact that men are more gratified at catching the resemblance themselves than in having it pointed out to them, particularly in case the implied comparison is sufficiently obvious to flash, with something like startling suddenness, upon the mind. There is something very grateful in the start, in the quick yet effortless impulse, thus imparted to the imagination. Yet the great force of the metaphor is, doubtless, as already intimated, to be attributed to its brevity, and hence the marked economy it achieves of the reader's or hearer's attention. Did space permit, it would be interesting to notice also how attention is greatly economized and corresponding vivacity imparted to style by the condensing of relative clauses into phrases. Thus, instead of saying "the man who was called for, say man called for. "the The successful writer and public speaker, therefore, will be one who aims constantly, by means of signs and symbols, by appropriate and significant gestures, by lucid statements and a perspicuous method, by striking illustrative imagery and extraordinary pictorial representation, by avoiding all unnecessary technical terms and scholastic terminology or abstract metaphysical nomenclature, and by a strict adherence to simple Saxon words and nervous, incisive, idiomatic forms of expression, to beguile the reader or [DEC., hearer of all sense of fatigue-to economize his attention, so that, as nearly as possible, without conscious effort, he will read or listen to and receive what the speaker or writer may have to say. We sometimes hear people who have failed to command a hearing or to make themselves understood say, “We cannot afford to find tongue and brains too." This is precisely what we are to do. The man who will be listened to, or read, with fixed and delighted attention, is he who sufficiently mixes "brains" with his vocabulary to make himself clearly and easily understood. Prof. Dugald Stewart, the distinguished Scotch metaphysician, tells us that with far less labor than he had expended on his pages he could have easily revealed the obscurity of Kant, and so, because not understood, possibly have won an enviable reputation for profundity. It is because of this manifestly prime necessity of economizing the reader's time and attention-of doing indeed as much as possible of his mental work for him that the prime characteristic of a good style is perspicuity. Let there be such a choice of words, such a structure and management of sentences, such a plan and method of discourse, as to admit of the sense being apprehended with the least possible effort on the part of the recipient. Rhetorical figures should be used not for purposes of embellishment chiefly, but illustration. All meretricious ornament, especially that peculiar ornateness of diction calculated to invite special attention and to win admiration on its own account, is obviously to be discarded. This same necessity of economizing to the utmost extent the reader's or hearer's attention supplies the public speaker-a preacher, for examplewith his apology for hugging, as closely as he prudently may in the selection of his topics and in his modes of treatment and illustration, to the "times" and to the sensations of the hour. His motive, as a true artist, will not be to create, but rather to take advantage of, a sensation to fix and enforce attention. It seems clear that, unless a public speaker manages in a measure thus to drop into the current or to catch the breeze of popular thought and senti ment to keep somewhat in touch with or abreast of the so-called sensation of the day-the people will scarcely care, whatever its real value, to give special or thoughtful heed to his message. PREACHERS EXCHANGING VIEWS. Conference, Not Criticism-Not a Review Section-Not Discussion, but Experiences and Suggestions. The Long Prayer. WHILE in full sympathy with what has often been written upon this subject in criticism of those ministers who prolong the prayer before the sermon till worshipers are physically, if not spiritually, exhausted, I confess myself an offender. But my offense is one of which, at the time, I am altogether unconscious. So rapidly does the time pass when I am contemplating the glory and the grace of God and recounting the reasons for public gratitude, and considering the spiritual needs of my people and the destitution of the world of human souls, that, before I am aware, ten and even twelve minutes perhaps more - have been spent in the prayer, and this though I have given time to the preparation of what I shall say, holding, as I do, that no minister should be less careful in approaching his God than in approaching his people. Will some of my brethren who have known and overcome this difficulty, please tell me how they have been enabled to do so? NEWARK, N. J. L. Y. S. Manliness in Preaching. QUITE possibly, the reason why there are so few men, comparatively, in attendance upon the ministrations of not a few pulpits is because there is a marked lack of true manliness in the preaching, for it is a fact that there is a good deal of flaccid effeminacy in a very large number of pulpits in the land. In such pulpits the Gospel may be, to a considerable extent, preached, but it is not presented with that wholesome virility which should characterize the utterances of a "man sent from God" to represent the throne of heaven. The These were Manly men of the world, even though they try hard to remain unbelievers of the Gospel, in a practical sort of a way admire manliness in the pulpit. manly preacher may and will tell such hearers some very straight truthstruths which wing their way with penetrating power to their hearts; but these hearers expect such preaching from such a preacher, and they respect him for it. This was true of Mr. Spurgeon and his hearers. It was true also of Bishop Brooks. preeminently manly preachers, and they drew a very large number of strong men to their ministry. When Bishop Brooks preached at midday in New York, it was noticeable that brainy, hard-headed business men and many others of mental ability, in very large numbers, heard him with eagerness. And Christ found no trouble in getting multitudes of men to hear Him preach. His was a manly ministry. The pulpit of to-day needs a man in it. C. H. WETHERBE. IN our analytic age we sever thought from life. When the synthetic era comes, we shall discover that all thought lives, and that life itself is but thought vitalized. EDITORIAL SECTION. LIVING ISSUES FOR PULPIT TREATMENT. The Present Crisis and the Church's Opportunity. BY REV. A. LEHMANN, MOOREFIELD, Оно. Behold, I have set before thee an open door.-Rev. iii. 8. I. THAT we have come to what may be called a crisis in the industrial history of our country every one seems willing to admit. For years there has been a growing discontentment among the laboring classes, a widespreading dissatisfaction with prevailing conditions, expressing itself in the organization of new political parties, the formation of labor unions, the movement of so-called " commonweal" armies, labor strikes of growing frequency and threatening results. Besides, there is throughout this country and through all Europe a growing spirit of anarchy-a protest against all existing law and order. Anarchy is the sworn enemy of every form of gov ernment, indeed of the whole present social system. It has shouldered the immense task of subverting all existing political institutions. The time was when sober-minded men only smiled at the mention of anarchy-gave it but a passing notice. It was looked on as a temporary craze. gone by. But that time has This spirit of anarchy has forced itself to the front. By its murderous use of dagger and dynamite, it has compelled the civilized world to take notice of it. It has even in this country become a most dangerous enemy. Of course a vast difference must be made between this spirit and that other of mere discontentment which prevails among the industrial classes. The two have necessarily little or nothing in common, either as to origin or desire, save only the discontentment. Yet they overlap at points. Anarchy is taking advantage of the growing discontentment-hails the restless condition of society as fruitful soil into which to scatter the seeds of its pernicious doctrines. Labor unions and even new political parties are in danger of imbibing some of this spirit. So much has this restless, discontented feeling throughout the social world grown that the "Social Unrest" has become a leading topic for pulpit and platform discussion. The press is full of it. And what is most strange, almost without parallel in history, this discontentment has grown up in the midst of plenty. Never have the resources which God has stored for man's use been so accessible, machinery of all kinds, for high-grade and cheap production, so well perfected; never have the products of all kinds of industry been so abundant as just now-so that not a few resolve the whole difficulty into overproduction. We have almost come to that situation of the children of Israel in the wilderness when their trouble was not famine or pestilence, but their plenty. Their curse was their abundance. Whatever may be its evil sources and possible evil results, no thoughtful person would feel prepared to pronounce this spirit of social discontent itself an unmixed evil, any more than he would the unrest of air or sea which may prelude the storm or the destructive wave. For it is the unrest of air and sea that renders both pure and habitable. The storm and the mighty ocean wave carry in them great possible destruction, but also great possible good. It is so in the social atmosphere, in this great sea of humanity. Agitation is the condition of higher life, of purity and progress. If all were content with present conditions and attainments, or indiffer ent to them, society would come to stagnation. Life in the ascending scale would be impossible. But it is here in the social as it is in the material. Agitation produces friction. Social fric tion creates social electricity; and when the social atmosphere becomes charged, nobody can tell just where the lightning is going to strike. It is far better to have a moving atmosphere, with an occasional storm, even a tornado, if need be, than to have always a dead calm. But just when the storm will come, where the path of the tornado will lie, no one can tell. It is the unstable balancing between the forces of good and evil in society that renders the outlook uncertain. And this it is that constitutes a crisis. To such a condition in the political and industrial history of our country we seem to have come when no one can be quite sure whether the immediate outcome will be good or evil. That there are great possibilities of evil nobody will deny. Suppose that capital should go on as it has in the past, organizing itself in great trusts, so as, by and by, to bring its tremendous power centralized in the fewest possible hands. Suppose that, at the same time, labor goes on as it has, organizing itself into unions, consolidating unions until the mighty laboring force of the land engaged in every kind of industry, with its millions of men of brawny muscle, is also completely centralized. These two great forces, capital and labor, instead of standing in friendly cooperation, become pitted against each other. pose that, in the case of some demand on either side, be it ever so local and trivial, the laboring force in the land is ordered out, union after union, as was in fact attempted in the recent Pullman strike, and all the industry of the whole country in every branch tied up, and all trade and commerce paralyzed as it was threatened. Suppose, in this juncture, as it did occur in Chicago, the bloodhounds of anarchy and of worthless humanity congregated in the great Sup centers of wealth and population are let loose, with torch and dynamite, to go forth to murder and destroy-the whole saloon force behind to fire the heart of this demon. Suppose, too, as it did actually occur in an attempt on the part of the Government to protect life and property, governors of States and city officials side with the disturbers of peace-in the midst of such a conflict of civil authority, when the passions of men are aroused and the social atmosphere is everywhere charged with electric power, who can foretell the tremendous storm that might result, and how vast the destruction of life and property, to say nothing of the danger to existing, long-cherished institutions? Surely the time has come when a great Christian nation ought to lay aside all strife for party preeminence, and address itself soberly to look after the cause and to seek the remedy; for, however prosperous our past, we have no mortgage on the future. The only promise of a prosperous future is in a righteous present. II. If we inquire after the source of the discontentment among us, the answer is not far off, so far as anarchy is concerned. Europe is mainly responsible for that. Anarchy is the legitimate child of unbelief and of oppressive civil government. Atheism, pantheism, materialism, agnosticism, all the isms of unbelief in the Old World, have for centuries, in the name of philosophy and science, proclaimed that there is no personal, intelligent Creator and Governor of the world. From professor's chair and even from pulpit it has been persistently taught that there is nothing beyond matter and its forces-no God, no immortal soul, no moral responsibility, no hereafter to receive us and to gather up the results of the present life. This "gospel of dirt, as it has been lightly styled, has gone to fruit in dirt. It has brought forth its kind. Anarchy is the logical conclusion. For if it be even so, as unbelief would have it, then what foundation is there for govern ment of any kind-nay, what reason for self-restraint. If the animal nature be all that there is of us, then why not eat, drink, and be merry, for to-morrow we die? Is it any wonder that the materialism of the Old World has brought forth, under manifold political oppressions, such a progeny as this? But we are not, as it has been said of France, a nation of infidels. We have not given birth to anarchy on our own shores. We have permitted Europe to lay this unruly child as a foundling at our doors. While we have not brought forth anarchy as yet, we have given birth to a vast deal of discontentment throughout the whole land, furnishing the best of soil for anarchy to grow and flourish in. Whence this discontentment? Whatever other sources, the chief seems to be this: While not materialists in belief, we have become materalists in practice. While we have not preached the gospel of dirt in our political business and social affairs, we have lived it. We have exalted the material over the spiritual. In our eager pursuit after this world we have come as a nation to bow to mammon. We worship the god of wealth. are this day laying immense treasures not only of gold and silver, but of precious human life, on the altar of Bacchus, whose shrines are in every city, town, and hamlet of our land. And so it comes, in the way of this kind of idolatry, worshiping the things that are seen, making gods of our bellies, that righteousness has departed largely from the counsels of the nation, from business, and from social life. We It is a notorious fact that truth and honesty, a righteous patriotism looking toward the public good, has been driven from our political party management and largely from our legislative halls. Such men as ex-Senator Ingalls are bold to acknowledge that the Golden Rule the moral law-has no place in politics. In other words, righteousness has no claim on political parties, no demand to make that men acting professedly for the public good must heed. To such a pass it has really come in our American political life. The question is no longer-is it right, is it for the common good? but how will any measure demanded affect the next election? Will it minister to party dominance? It is in the line of such secularism as this, which rules righteousness out of public affairs, that the United States Government has itself become a notorious lawbreaker. Almost every State in the Union has on its statute-books laws regulating Sunday observance; and the United States Government overrides all Sunday laws in the land by her Sunday transmission of mails, compelling thousands in her employ to trample on the laws of God and of man. It is in keeping with such secularism as this that the United States Government is to-day chief partner in the most nefarious business on the face of the earth and partaker in the crime. Everybody concedes it. All the courts in the land, including the United States Supreme Court, have declared the liquor traffic to be a dangerous public enemy, which the State has the right to suppress, if it so choose. And yet the United States Government as administered by both dominant parties makes herself chief partner in this crime by granting the Government license in exchange for the principal share of the profits. To cite the facts in the case: Yonder is a distillery. Upon every barrel of liquor that goes out from that ginshop the Government puts its revenue stamp, returning to its own treasury ninety cents for every gallon of liquor contained; that is to say, of the gross profit of the first sale, when liquor is worth $1.20 per gallon, the United States Government pockets 75 per cent., and the distiller 25 per cent., out of which he must meet cost of production. This is not all. That barrel of liquor is followed up by the United States Government to the retail dealer, and he is charged $25 United States license. This is not all. When the United |