ght which has shed so brilliant a glow, and
enriched the arts with a new splendor.

Preface.

Orators, you are called to the ministry of speech. You have fixed your
choice upon the pulpit, the bar, the tribune or the stage. You will
become one day, preacher, advocate, lecturer or actor; in short, you
desire to embrace the orator's career. I applaud your design. You will
enter upon the noblest and most glorious of vocations. Eloquence holds
the first rank among the arts. While we award praise and glory to great
musicians and painters, to great masters of sculpture and architecture,
the prize of honor is decreed to great orators.

Who can define the omnipotence of speech? With a few brief words God
called the universe from nothingness; speech falling from the glowing
lips of the Apostles, has changed the face of the earth. The current of
opinion follows the prestige of speech, and to-day, as ever, eloquence
is universal queen. We need feel no surprise that, in ancient times, the
multitude uncovered as Cicero approached, and cried: "Behold the
orator!"

Would you have your speech bear fruit and command honor? Two qualities
are needful: virtue and a knowledge of the art of oratory. Cicero has
defined the orator as a good man of worth: _Vir bonus, dicendi peritus_.

Then, above all, the orator should be a man of worth. Such a man will
make it his purpose to do good; and the good is the true end of
oratorical art. In truth, what is art? Art is the expression of the
beautiful in ideas; it is the true. Plato says the beautiful is the
splendor of the true.

What is art? It is the beautiful in action. It is the good. According to
St. Augustine, the beautiful is the lustre of the good.

Finally, what is art? It is the beautiful in the harmonies of nature.
Galen, when he had finished his work on the structure of the human body,
exclaimed: "Behold this beautiful hymn to the glory of the Creator!"

What, then, is the true, the beautiful, the good? We might answer, it is
God. Then virtue and the glory of God should be the one end of the
orator, of the good man. A true artist never denies God.

Eloquence is a means, not an end. We must not love art for its own sake,
that would be idolatry. Art gives wings for ascent to God. One need not
pause to contemplate his wings.

Art is an instrument, but not an instrument of vanity or complaisance.
Truth, alas! compels us to admit that eloquence has also the melancholy
powe