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The preacher should train himself to take tight hold of his thought, to grip it with mental firmness and fervor, that he may afterward convey it to others with definiteness and vigor. Thoughts vaguely conceived and held tremblingly in the mind will manifest a like character when uttered. Into the writing of the sermon put vitality and intensity, and these qualities will find their natural place in delivery. Thrill of the pen should precede thrill of the voice. The habit of Dickens of acting out the characters he was depicting on paper could be copied to advantage by the preacher, and frequently during the writing of his sermon he might stand and utter his thoughts aloud to test their power and effectiveness upon an imaginary congregation.

There should be the most thorough cultivation of the inner sources of the preacher, whereby the spiritual and emotional forces are so aroused and brought under control as to respond promptly and accurately to all the speaker's requirements. There should be assiduous training of the speaking voice as the instrument of expression and the natural outlet for thought and feeling. In the combined cultivation of these two essentials of expression--spirit and voice--the minister will find the true secret of effective pulpit preaching.

CARE OF THE SPEAKER'S THROAT

The throat as a vital part of the public speaker's work in speaking is worthy of the greatest care and consideration. It is surprising that so little attention is given to vocal hygiene, when it is remembered that a serious weakness or affection of the throat may disqualify a speaker for important work. The delicate and intricate machinery of the vocal apparatus renders it peculiarly susceptible to misuse or exposure. The common defects of nasality, throatiness, and harshness, are due to wrong and careless use of the speaking-instrument.

In the training of the public speaker the first step is to bring the breathing apparatus under proper control. That is to say, the speaker must accustom himself, through careful practise, to use the abdominal method of breathing, and to keep his throat free from the strain to which it is commonly subjected. This form of breathing is not difficult to acquire, since it simply means that during inhalation the abdomen is expanded, and during exhalation it is contracted. It should be no longer necessary to warn the speaker to breathe exclusively through the nose when not actually using the voice. While speaking he must so completely control the breath that not a particle of it can escape without giving up its equivalent in sound.

"Clergyman's sore throat" is the result of improper use or overstraining of the voice. Sometimes the earnestness of the preacher causes him to "clutch" each word with the vocal muscles, instead of using the throat as an open channel through which the voice may flow with ease and freedom. Many speakers, in an endeavor to be heard at a great distance, employ too loud a tone, forgetting that the essential thing is a clear and distinct articulation. To speak continuously in high pitch, or through half-closed teeth, almost invariably causes distress of throat. Most throat troubles may be set down to a lack of proper elocutionary training. To keep the voice and throat in order there should be regular daily practise, if only for ten minutes. The example might profitably be followed of certain actors who make a practise of humming occasionally during the day while engaged in other duties, as a means of keeping the voice musical and resonant.

A public speaker should not engage in protracted conversation immediately after a speech. The sudden transition from an auditorium to the outer air should remind the speaker to keep his mouth securely closed. The general physical condition of the speaker has much to do with the vigor and clearness of his voice. A daily plunge into cold water, or at least a sponging of the entire surface of the body, besides being a tonic luxury, greatly invigorates the throat and abdominal muscles. After the "tub" a vigorous rubbing with towel and hands should produce a glow.

To the frequent question whether smoking is injurious to the throat, it is safe to say that the weight of authority and experience favors abstinence. Any one who has spoken for half an hour or more in a smoke-clouded room, knows the distressing effect it has had upon the sensitive lining of the throat. It must be obvious, therefore, that the constant inhaling of smoke must even more directly irritate the mucous membrane.

The diet of the public speaker should be reasonably moderate, and the extremes of hot and cold avoided. The use of ice-water is to be discouraged. Many drugs and lozenges are positively injurious to the throat. For habitual dryness of throat a glycerine or honey tablet will usually obviate the trouble. Dr. Morell Mackenzie, the eminent English throat specialist, condemns the use of alcohol as pernicious, and affirms that "even in a comparatively mild form it keeps the delicate tissues in a state of congestion which makes them particularly liable to inflammation from cold or other causes."

It must not be assumed that the throat is to be pampered. A reasonable amount of exposure will harden it and to this extent is desirable. To muffle the throat with a scarf, unless demanded by special conditions, may make it unduly sensitive and increase the danger of taking cold when the head is turned from side to side.

A leading physician confirms the opinion that the best gargle for daily use is that of warm water and salt. This should be used every night and morning to cleanse and invigorate the throat. Where there is a tendency to catarrh a solution made of peroxide of hydrogen, witch-hazel, and water, in equal parts, will prove efficacious. Nothing should be snuffed up the nose except under the direction of a physician, lest it cause deafness.

Many speakers and singers have a favorite nostrum for improving the voice. The long and amusing list includes hot milk, tea, coffee, champagne, raw eggs, lemonade, apples, raisins,--and sardines! A good rule is to eat sparingly if the meal is taken just before speaking. It need hardly be said that serious vocal defects, such as enlarged tonsils, elongated uvula, and abnormal growths in the throat and nose are subjects for the specialist.

Whenever possible a speaker should test beforehand the acoustic properties of the auditorium in which he is to speak for the first time. A helpful plan is to have a friend seat himself at the back of the hall or church, and give his opinion of the quality and projecting power of the speaker's voice. It is difficult to judge one's own voice because it is conveyed to him not only from the outside but also through the Eustachian tube and modified by the vibratory parts of the throat and head. A speaker never hears his own voice as it is heard by another.

Nothing, perhaps, is so taxing to the throat as long-continued speaking in one quality of tone. There are two distinct registers which should be judiciously alternated by the speaker. These are the "chest" register, in which the vocal cords vibrate their whole length, and the quality of tone derives most of its character from the chest cavity; and the "head" register, in which the vocal cords vibrate only in part, and the quality of tone is reenforced by the resonators of the face, mouth, and head. The first of these registers is sometimes called the "orotund" voice from its quality of roundness, and is employed principally in language of reverence, sublimity, and grandeur.

The head tone is the voice of ordinary conversation and should form the basis of the public-speaking style.

No one who has to speak in public should be discouraged because of limited vocal resources. Many of the foremost orators began with marked disadvantages in this respect, but made these shortcomings an incentive to higher effort. One well-known speaker makes up for lack of vocal power by extreme distinctness of enunciation, while another offsets an unpleasantly heavy quality of voice by skilful modulation.

A few easily remembered suggestions are:

DON'TS FOR PUBLIC SPEAKERS

Don't rant. Don't prate. Don't fidget. Don't flatter. Don't declaim. Don't be glib. Don't hesitate. Don't be nasal. Don't apologize. Don't dogmatize. Don't be slangy. Don't antagonize. Don't be awkward. Don't be violent. Don't be personal. Don't be "funny." Don't attitudinize. Don't be monotonous. Don't speak rapidly. Don't sway your body. Don't be long-winded. Don't "hem" and "haw." Don't praise yourself. Don't overgesticulate. Don't pace the platform. Don't clear your throat. Don't "point with pride." Don't tell a long story. Don't rise on your toes. Don't distort your words. Don't stand like a statue. Don't address the ceiling. Don't speak in a high key. Don't emphasize everything. Don't drink while speaking. Don't fatigue your audience. Don't exceed your time limit. Don't talk for talking's sake. Don't wander from your subject. Don't fumble with your clothes. Don't speak through closed teeth. Don't put your hands on your hips. Don't fail to stop when you have ended.

DO'S FOR PUBLIC SPEAKERS

Be prepared. Begin slowly. Be modest. Speak distinctly. Address all your hearers. Be uniformly courteous. Prune your sentences. Cultivate mental alertness. Conceal your method. Be scrupulously clear. Feel sure of yourself. Look your audience in the eyes. Be direct. Favor your deep tones. Speak deliberately. Get to your facts. Be earnest. Observe your pauses. Suit the action to the word. Be yourself at your best. Speak fluently. Use your abdominal muscles. Make yourself interesting. Be conversational. Conciliate your opponent. Rouse yourself. Be logical. Have your wits about you. Be considerate. Open your mouth. Speak authoritatively. Cultivate sincerity. Cultivate brevity. Cultivate tact. End swiftly.

POINTS FOR SPEAKERS

As far as possible avoid the following hackneyed phrases:

THE BIBLE ON SPEECH

How forcible are right words!

To every thing there is a season, a time to keep silence, and a time to speak.

Set a watch, O Lord, before my mouth; keep the door of my lips.

Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying.

Be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath.

Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man.

Be ye holy in all manner of conversation.

Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamor, and evil speaking, be put away from you.

Know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary.

Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in Thy sight, O Lord, my strength, and my redeemer.

THOUGHTS ON TALKING

To make a good talker, genius and learning, even wit and eloquence, are insufficient; to these, in all or in part, must be added in some degree the talents of active life. The character has as much to do with colloquial power as has the intellect; the temperament, feelings, and animal spirits, even more, perhaps, than the mental gifts. "Napoleon said things which tell in history like his battles. Luther's Table-Talk glows with the fire that burnt the Pope's bull." Caesar, Cicero, Themistocles, Lord Bacon, Selden, Talleyrand, and, in our own country, Aaron Burr, Jefferson, Webster, and Choate, were all, more or less, men of action. Sir Walter Scott tells us that, at a great dinner party, he thought the lawyers beat the Bishops as talkers, and the Bishops the wits. Nearly all great orators have been fine talkers. Lord Chatham, who could electrify the House of Lords by pronouncing the word "Sugar," but who in private was but commonplace, was an exception; but the conversation of Pitt and Fox was brilliant and fascinating,--that of Burke, rambling, but splendid, rich and instructive, beyond description. The latter was the only man in the famous "Literary Club" who could cope with Johnson. The Doctor confessed that in Burke he had a foeman worthy of his steel. On one occasion, when debilitated by sickness, he said: "That fellow calls forth all my powers. Were I to see Burke now, it would kill me." At another time he said: "Burke, sir, is such a man that, if you met him for the first time in the street, where you were stopped by a drove of oxen, and you and he stepped aside to take shelter but for five minutes, he'd talk to you in such a manner, that when you parted you'd say--'This is an extraordinary man.'" "Can he wind into a subject like a serpent, as Burke does?" asked Goldsmith of a certain talker. Fox said that he had derived more political information from Burke's conversation alone than from books, science, and all his worldly experience put together. Moore finely says of the same conversation, that it must have been like the procession of a Roman triumph, exhibiting power and riches at every step, occasionally mingling the low Fescennine jest with the lofty music of the march, but glittering all over with the spoils of a ransacked world.

The fear of being silent strikes us dumb.

There are some people whose good manners will not suffer them to interrupt you, but, what is almost as bad, will discover abundance of impatience, and lie upon the watch until you have done, because they have started something in their own thoughts, which they long to be delivered of. Meantime, they are so far from regarding what passes, that their imaginations are wholly turned upon what they have in reserve, for fear it should slip out of their memory; and thus they confine their invention, which might otherwise range over a hundred things full as good, and that might be much more naturally introduced.

There is a sort of rude familiarity, which some people, by practising among their intimates, have introduced into their general conversation, and would have it pass for innocent freedom or humor; which is a dangerous experiment in our northern climate, where all the little decorum and politeness we have are purely forced by art, and are so ready to lapse into barbarity. This, among the Romans, was the raillery of slaves, of which we have many instances in Plautus. It seems to have been introduced among us by Cromwell, who, by preferring the scum of the people, made it a court entertainment, of which I have heard many particulars; and, considering all things were turned upside down, it was reasonable and judicious; although it was a piece of policy found out to ridicule a point of honor in the other extreme, when the smallest word misplaced among gentlemen ended in a duel.

There are some men excellent at telling a story, and provided with a plentiful stock of them, which they can draw out upon occasion in all companies, and, considering how low conversation runs now among us, it is not altogether a contemptible talent; however, it is subject to two unavoidable defects, frequent repetition, and being soon exhausted; so, that, whoever values this gift in himself, has need of a good memory, and ought frequently to shift his company, that he may not discover the weakness of his fund; for those who are thus endued have seldom any other revenue, but live upon the main stock.

The highest and best of all the moral conditions for conversation is what we call tact. I say a condition, for it is very doubtful whether it can be called a single and separate quality; more probably it is a combination of intellectual quickness with lively sympathy. But so clearly is it an intellectual quality, that of all others it can be greatly improved, if not actually acquired, by long experience in society. Like all social excellences it is almost given as a present to some people, while others with all possible labor never acquire it. As in billiard-playing, shooting, cricket, and all these other facilities which are partly mental and partly physical, many never can pass a certain point of mediocrity; but still even those who have the talent must practise it, and only become really distinguished after hard work. So it is in art. Music and painting are not to be attained by the crowd. Not even the just criticism of these arts is attainable without certain natural gifts; but a great deal of practice in good galleries and at good concerts, and years spent among artists, will do much to make even moderately-endowed people sound judges of excellence.

Tact, which is the sure and quick judgment of what is suitable and agreeable in society, is likewise one of those delicate and subtle qualities or a combination of qualities which is not very easily defined, and therefore not teachable by fixed precepts. Some people attain it through sympathy; others through natural intelligence; others through a calm temper; others again by observing closely the mistakes of their neighbors. As its name implies, it is a sensitive touch in social matters, which feels small changes of temperature, and so guesses at changes of temper; which sees the passing cloud on the expression of one face, or the eagerness of another that desires to bring out something personal for others to enjoy. This quality of tact is of course applicable far beyond mere actual conversation. In nothing is it more useful than in preparing the right conditions for a pleasant society, in choosing the people who will be in mutual sympathy, in thinking over pleasant subjects of talk and suggesting them, in seeing that all disturbing conditions are kept out, and that the members who are to converse should be all without those small inconveniences which damage society so vastly out of proportion to their intrinsic importance.

Think as little as possible about any good in yourself; turn your eyes resolutely from any view of your acquirement, your influence, your plan, your success, your following: above all, speak as little as possible about yourself. The inordinateness of our self-love makes speech about ourselves like the putting of the lighted torch to the dried wood which has been laid in order for the burning. Nothing but duty should open our lips upon this dangerous theme, except it be in humble confession of our sinfulness before our God. Again, be specially upon the watch against those little tricks by which the vain man seeks to bring round the conversation to himself, and gain the praise or notice which the thirsty ears drink in so greedily; and even if praise comes unsought, it is well, whilst men are uttering it, to guard yourself by thinking of some secret cause for humbling yourself inwardly to God; thinking into what these pleasant accents would be changed if all that is known to God, and even to yourself, stood suddenly revealed to man.

In speaking of the duty of pleasing others, it will not be necessary to dwell on the ordinary courtesies and lesser kindnesses of our daily living, any further than to observe that none of these things, however trifling, is beneath the notice of a good man, ... but I mention one thing, because I think that we are most of us apt to be rather deficient in it, and that is in the trying to suit ourselves to the tastes and views of persons whose professions or inclinations, or situation in life, differ widely from our own.... As a general rule, no man can fall into conversation with another without being able to learn something valuable from him. But in order to get at this benefit there must be something of an accommodating spirit on both sides; each must be ready to hear candidly and to answer fairly; each must try to please the other. We all suffer from the want of acquaintance with the habits and opinions and feelings of different classes of society.

If you would be loved as a companion, avoid unnecessary criticism upon those with whom you live. The number of people who have taken out judges' patents for themselves is very large in any society. Now it would be hard for a man to live with another who was always criticising his actions, even if it were kindly and just criticism. It would be like living between the glasses of a microscope. But these self-elected judges, like their prototypes, are very apt to have the persons they judge brought before them in the guise of culprits.

Let not familiarity swallow up old courtesy. Many of us have a habit of saying to those with whom we live such things as we say about strangers behind their backs. There is no place, however, where real politeness is of more value than where we mostly think it would be superfluous. You may say more truth, or rather speak out more plainly to your associates, but not less courteously than to strangers.

Much of the sorrow of life springs from the accumulation, day by day and year by year, of little trials--a letter written in less than courteous terms, a wrangle at the breakfast table over some arrangement of the day, the rudeness of an acquaintance on the way to the city, an unfriendly act on the part of another firm, a cruel criticism needlessly reported by some meddler, a feline amenity at afternoon tea, the disobedience of one of your children, a social slight by one of your circle, a controversy too hotly conducted. The trials within this class are innumerable, and consider, not one of them is inevitable, not one of them but might have been spared if we or our brother man had had a grain of kindliness. Our social insolences, our irritating manners, our censorious judgment, our venomous letters, our pin pricks in conversation, are all forms of deliberate unkindness, and are all evidences of an ill-conditioned nature.

If this be one of our chief duties--promoting the happiness of our neighbors--most certainly there is nothing which so entirely runs counter to it, and makes it impossible, as an undisciplined temper. For of all the things that are to be met with here on earth, there is nothing which can give such continual, such cutting, such useless pain. The touchy and sensitive temper, which takes offence at a word; the irritable temper, which finds offence in everything whether intended or not; the violent temper, which breaks through all bounds of reason when once roused; the jealous or sullen temper, which wears a cloud on the face all day, and never utters a word of complaint; the discontented temper, brooding over its own wrongs; the severe temper, which always looks at the worst side of whatever is done; the wilful temper, which overrides every scruple to gratify a whim,--what an amount of pain have these caused in the hearts of men, if we could but sum up their results! How many a soul have they stirred to evil impulses; how many a prayer have they stifled; how many an emotion of true affection have they turned to bitterness! How hard they sometimes make all duties! How painful they make all daily life! How they kill the sweetest and warmest of domestic charities! The misery caused by other sins is often much deeper and much keener, more disastrous, more terrible to the sight; but the accumulated pain caused by ill-temper must, I verily believe, if added together, outweigh all other pains that men have to bear from one another.

Wicked is the slander which gossips away a character in an afternoon, and runs lightly over a whole series of acquaintances, leaving a drop of poison on them all, some suspicion, or some ominous silence--"Have you not heard?"--"No one would believe it, but--!" and then silence; while the shake of the head, or the shrug of the shoulders, finishes the sentence with a mute meaning worse than words. Do you ever think of the irrevocable nature of speech? The things you say are often said forever. You may find, years after your light word was spoken, that it has made a whole life unhappy, or ruined the peace of a household. It was well said by St. James, "If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, that man's religion is vain."

There are three kinds of silence. Silence from words is good, because inordinate speaking tends to evil. Silence, or rest from desires and passions, is still better, because it promotes quietness of spirit. But the best of all is silence from unnecessary and wandering thoughts, because that is essential to internal recollection, and because it lays a foundation for a proper regulation and silence in other respects.

The example of our Lord, as He humbly and calmly takes the rebuff, and turns to go to another village, may help us in the ordinary ways of ordinary daily life. The little things that vex us in the manner or the words of those with whom we have to do; the things which seem to us so inconsiderate, or wilful, or annoying, that we think it impossible to get on with the people who are capable of them; the mistakes which no one, we say, has any right to make; the shallowness, or conventionality, or narrowness, or positiveness in talk which makes us wince and tempts us towards the cruelty and wickedness of scorn;--surely in all these things, and in many others like them, of which conscience may be ready enough to speak to most of us, there are really opportunities for thus following the example of our Saviour's great humility and patience. How many friendships we might win or keep, how many chances of serving others we might find, how many lessons we might learn, how much of unsuspected moral beauty might be disclosed around us, if only we were more careful to give people time, to stay judgment, to trust that they will see things more justly, speak of them more wisely, after a while. We are sure to go on closing doors of sympathy, and narrowing in the interests and opportunities of work around us, if we let ourselves imagine that we can quickly measure the capacities and sift the characters of our fellow-men.

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