preached before a
congregation of Irish poor. The keynote was lofty, but
beautifully sustained throughout. The range of thought was high,
but the truths clarified by an abundance of happy illustration.
That discourse was so classic in its beauty that it might be
preached before an Oxford audience, yet not an idea was lost on
that breathless congregation, where every female head was covered
by a shawl. The speaker possessed in an eminent degree three
gifts that must command success:--He could think clearly; he
could so express his thoughts that his language became the mirror
of his mind; he made a large demand on the familiar scenes of
nature with which to illustrate his ideas and send his reasoning
home; he possessed a mind at once logical and imaginative and a
manner of expression that formed a definition of perfect
style--_Le style c'est l'homme_--the style is the man.

[Side note: 3.--Be natural in delivery]

The faintest suspicion of art immediately sets your audience up
in arms. Their teeth are on edge; their heart locked against you.
"This is acting and not preaching" seals your fate.

Do not imagine for a moment that I advocate the neglect of
elocutionary graces. So far from that I hold that every young
priest leaving college should be a past master of all rhetorical
arts. Gesture, articulation, voice production and inflection
should be at his finger tips. No book on the subject should be
unread. No year of college life should pass without contributing
materially towards the elocutionary equipment of the future
preacher. The college that neglects this training and permits
young men to go into the ministry without this needful art is
guilty of a most serious sin of omission.

What I do mean is _preach_ your sermons and do not _declaim_
them. How is this accomplished?

For the first year bend all your powers to capturing the
intellects of your auditors, holding in reserve, for the time
being, the elocutionary forces. Then, when you have acquired the
habit of convincing the intelligence, let the elegancies of
finished declamation insinuate themselves gradually into your
delivery. Thus art will so engraft itself on nature, the
rhetorical graces so entwining and dovetailing into your
convictions and passions that they will appear as growing out of
and not added on to them. Here is perfection--

_Ars artium celare artem_.

Reverse this: make declamation your first concern, and let us
even suppose the a