hat everywhere else carries
conviction is abandoned for such a musty instrument as an
unctuous whine or a holy drone. The young priest should avoid it:
it spells ruin.

[Side note: Voice dropping]

It is wonderful how few the speakers are who sustain the same
pitch and energy of voice from the beginning of a sentence to its
closing syllable.

[Side note: Cause of the defect]

The temptation to exhaust the air in the lungs, and therefore
permit the final words to drop, is so strong that unless a
student watch it and assiduously guard against it he will
discover that he has fallen victim to this weak point before he
is twelve months a priest.

[Side note: It destroys a sermon]

Whenever you hear the last words of each sentence of a sermon
growing faint, like Marathon runners staggering feebly towards
the goal, and the final word dropping completely under, that
sermon, no matter how beautiful its conception or eloquent its
composition, is doomed to failure.

The entire meaning of many a sentence is completely lost if the
last words fail to reach the listeners' ears. Very often the last
word is the important member of a sentence, the others being
merely ancillary to it. In oratory, especially, many a sentence
has to depend for its driving force on the energy with which the
final words are sent home.

Now, when people give a preacher attentive interest, the least
they are entitled to expect is that he should let them hear every
word. But finding themselves invariably baffled by the last word
becoming inaudible, it is small wonder if, tantalised and
disgusted, they abandon all effort to follow him.

[Side note: The cure]

It is therefore of great importance that this defect, so fatal
yet so common, should be provided against in time. But how?

Since it comes from exhaustion, consequent on the mismanagement
of the voice, the remedy is obvious.

Let the student daily practise reading aloud in the open air,
preferably sermons or speeches by the best authors.

Let him nervously guard against allowing his voice to show the
slightest trace of fatigue in the final words of each sentence.
This can be accomplished by inhaling fully, going slowly, and not
only giving full value to the punctuation stops, but resting at
the rhetorical and logical pauses.

[Side note: Advantages of the remedy]

By this excellent practice he strengthens his lungs and vocal
organs, cultivates his ear, and acquires a control over his v