re, for the most part, the time in which people in
church examine their neighbors' clothes. Milliners and tailors get the
advantage of the first three-quarters of an hour. The "preliminaries" are
the time to scrutinize the fresco, and look round to see who is there, and
get yourself generally fixed.

This idea is fostered by home elocutionary professors who would have the
minister take the earlier exercises of the occasion to get his voice in
tune. You must not speak out at first. It is to be a private interview
between you and heaven. The people will listen to the low grumble, and
think it must be very good if they could only hear it. As for ourselves, we
refuse to put down our head in public prayer until we find out whether or
not we are going to be able to hear. Though you preach like an angel, you
will not say anything more important than that letter of St. Paul to the
Corinthians, or that Psalm of David which you have just now read to the
backs of the heads of the congregation. Laymen and ministers, speak out!
The opening exercises were not instituted to clear your voice, but to save
souls. If need be, squeeze a lemon and eat "Brown's troches" for the sake
of your voice before you go to church; but once there, make your first
sentence resonant and mighty for God. An hour and a half is short time
anyhow to get five hundred or five thousand people ready for heaven. It is
thought classic and elegant to have a delicate utterance, and that loud
tones are vulgar. But we never heard of people being converted by anything
they could not hear. It is said that on the Mount of Olives Christ opened
His mouth and taught them, by which we conclude He spake out distinctly.
God has given most Christians plenty of lungs, but they are too lazy to use
them. There are in the churches old people hard of hearing who, if the
exercises be not clear and emphatic, get no advantage save that of looking
at the blessed minister.

People say in apology for their inaudible tones: "It is not the thunder
that kills, but the lightning." True enough; but I think that God thinks
well of the thunder or He would not use so much of it. First of all, make
the people hear the prayer and the chapter. If you want to hold up at all,
let it be on the sermon and the notices. Let the pulpit and all the pews
feel that there are no "preliminaries."

CHAPTER XXXI.

MASCULINE AND FEMININE.

There are men who suppose they have all the annoyances. They say