said that a great speaker only gives back to his hearers
in flood what they have already given to him in vapour.

3. 'I was always pleased,' says Calvin, 'with that saying of Chrysostom,
"The foundation of our philosophy is humility"; and yet more pleased with
that of Augustine: "As," says he, "the rhetorician being asked, What was
the first thing in the rules of eloquence? he answered, Pronunciation;
what was the second? Pronunciation; what was the third? and still he
answered, Pronunciation. So if you would ask me concerning the precepts
of the Christian religion, I would answer, firstly, secondly, thirdly,
and for ever, Humility."' And when Ill-pause opened his elocutionary
school for the young orators of hell, he is reported to have said this to
them in his opening address, 'There are only three things in my school,'
he said; 'three rules, and no more to be called rules. The first is
Delay, the second is Delay, and the third is Delay. Study the art of
delay, my sons; make all your studies to tell on how to make the fools
delay. Only get those to whom your master sends you to delay, and you
will not need to envy me my laurels; you will soon have a shining crown
of your own. Get the father to delay teaching his little boy how to
pray. Get him on any pretext you can invent to put off speaking in
private to his son about his soul. Get him to delegate all that to the
minister. And then by hook or by crook get that son as he grows up to
put off the Lord's Supper. And after that you will easily get him to put
off purity and prayer till he is a married man and at the head of a
house. Only get the idea of a more convenient season well into their
heads, and their game is up, and your spurs are won. Take their arm in
yours, as I used to do, at their church door, if you are posted there,
and say to them as they come out that to-morrow will be time enough to
give what they had thought of giving while they were still in their pew
and the minister or missionary was still in the pulpit. Only, as you
value your master's praises and the applause of all this place, keep
them, at any cost, from striking while the iron is hot. Let them fill
their hearts, and their mouths too, if it gives them any comfort, with
the best intentions; only, my scholars, remember that the beginning and
middle and end of your office is by hook or by crook to secure delay.'
And a great crop of young orators sprang up ready for their work under
th