to severe discipline, to submit to rules and tasks,
to go through a tedious process of training, to acquire by much labor
the needful sway over his thoughts and words, so that they shall come at
his bidding, and not be driven away by his own diffidence, or the
presence of other men. To do all this, is a long and disheartening
labor. He is exposed to frequent mortifications, and must endure many
grievous failures, before he attain that confidence which is
indispensable to success. But then in this discipline, his powers,
mental and moral, are strained up to the highest intenseness of action;
after persevering practice, they become habitually subject to his
control, and work with a precision, exactness, and energy, which can
never be the possession of him, who has depended on his native,
undisciplined gift. Of the truth of this, examples are by no means
wanting, and I could name, if it were proper, more than one striking
instance within my own observation. It was probably this to which Newton
referred, when he said, that he never spoke well till he felt that he
could not speak at all. Let no one therefore think it an obstacle in his
way that he has no readiness of words. If he have good sense and no
deficiency of talent, and is willing to labor for this as all great
acquisitions must be labored for, he needs not fear but that in time he
will attain it.

We must be careful, however, not to mistake the object to be attained.
It is not a high rank in oratory, consummate eloquence. If it were, then
indeed a young man might pause till he had ascertained whether he
possessed all those extraordinary endowments of intellect, imagination,
sensibility, countenance, voice, and person, which belong to few men in
a century, and without which the great orator does not exist. He is one
of those splendid formations of nature, which she exhibits but rarely;
and it is not necessary to the object of his pursuit that the minister
be such. The aim and purpose of his office are less ambitious, to impart
instruction and do good; and it is by no means certain that the greatest
eloquence is best adapted to these purposes in the pulpit. But any man,
with powers which fit him for the ministry at all,--unless there be a
few extraordinary exceptions--is capable of learning to express himself
clearly, correctly, and with method; and this is precisely what is
wanted, and no more than this. I do not say eloquently; for as it is not
thought indispensable