aking.

Bear in mind, however, that this does not mean you are always to confine
yourself to a conversational level. There are themes which demand large
treatment, wherein vocal power and impassioned feeling are appropriate
and essential. But what Lord Brougham meant, and it is equally true
to-day, was that good public speaking is fundamentally good talking.

_Edmund Burke_

Edmund Burke recommended debate as one of the best means for developing
facility and power in public speaking. Himself a master of debate, he
said, "He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves and sharpens our
skill. Our antagonist is our helper. This amiable conflict with
difficulty obliges us to have an intimate acquaintance with our subject,
and compels us to consider it in all its relations. It will not suffer
us to be superficial."

Burke, like all great orators, believed in premeditation, and always
wrote and corrected his speeches with fastidious care. While such men
knew that inspiration might come at the moment of speaking, they
preferred to base their chances of success upon painstaking preparation.

_Massillon_

Massillon, the great French divine, spoke in a commanding voice and in a
style so direct that at times he almost overwhelmed his hearers. His
pointed and personal questions could not be evaded. He sent truth like
fiery darts to the hearts of his hearers.

I ask you to note very carefully the following eloquent passage from a
sermon in which he explained how men justified themselves because they
were no worse than the multitude:

"On this account it is, my brethren, that I confine myself to you who at
present are assembled here; I include not the rest of men, but consider
you as alone existing on the earth. The idea which occupies and
frightens me is this: I figure to myself the present as your last hour
and the end of the world; that the heavens are going to open above your
heads; our Savior, in all His glory, to appear in the midst of the
temple; and that you are only assembled here to wait His coming; like
trembling criminals on whom the sentence is to be pronounced, either of
life eternal or of everlasting death; for it is vain to flatter
yourselves that you shall die more innocent than you are at this hour.
All those desires of change with which you are amused will continue to
amuse you till death arrives, the experience of all ages proves it; the
only difference you have to expect will most likely be a larger