. Then I taught myself
to play the organ, and before I was twenty I was the organist and
choir-master of one of the largest Congregational churches of my
native town, having often helped my father in the past years to drill
and conduct oratorios such as _The Messiah, Elijah, The Creation_,
etc. When I began to speak in public the only special instruction I
had for the cultivation of the voice was a few words from my father to
this effect: Stand before the looking-glass and insist that your face
appear pleasant and agreeable. Speak the sentence you wish to hear.
Listen to your own voice, you can tell as well as anyone else whether
its sound is nasal, harsh, raucous, disagreeable, affected, or in
any way displeasing or unnatural. Insist upon a pure, clear, natural,
pleasing tone, and that's all there is to it. When you appear before
an audience speak to the persons at the further end of the hall and
if they can hear you don't worry about anyone else. Later, when I had
become fairly launched as a public speaker, he came to visit me, and
when I appeared on my platform that night I found scattered around on
the floor, where none could see them but myself, several placards upon
which he had printed in easily-read capitals: Don't shout--keep cool.
Avoid ranting. Make each point clear. Don't ramble, etc.

When I was about fourteen I took up phonography, or stenography as
it is now known. This was an aid in reporting speeches, making notes,
etc., but one of its greatest helps was in the matter of analysing the
sounds of words thus aiding me in their clear enunciation.

At this time I was also a Sunday school teacher, and at sixteen years
of age, a local preacher in the Methodist church. This led to my
becoming an active minister of that denomination after I came to the
United States, and for seven years I was as active as I knew how to
be in the discharge of this work. In my desire to make my preaching
effective and helpful I studied unweariedly and took up astronomy,
buying a three inch telescope, and soon became elected to Fellowship
in the Royal Astronomical Society of England. Then I took up
microscopy, buying the fine microscope from Dr. Dallinger, President
of the Royal Microscopical Society, with which he had done his great
work on bacilli--and which, by-the-way, was later stolen from me--and
I was speedily elected a Fellow of that distinguished Society. A
little later Joseph Le Conte, the beloved geologist of the Califo