yourself which are not your own, and could never be your own. You are not to take the place of the original speaker, and give forth the words as if they were now uttered for the first time. It is little short of impious to say, "Let there be light!" as if a sovereign voice were now uttering that creative fiat, and that voice were yours. You are not to cry, as in frenzied alarm, "Fall on us, ye rocks and mountains!" You are not to say, as if the words came from your own heart, "Crucify him!" Nor even, properly speaking, are you reporting that they were said, as one might do who had been amongst the original bystanders on Calvary. You are merely reading an account which others have furnished, coming to you as well as to your contemporaries at second-hand. According to the true idea of reading, you are in the position of Auditor as well as Speaker, taking in for your own instruction what you are at the same moment offering to the attention of others. How loudly, how derisively, in what tones of indignation, pity, sorrow, surprise, contempt, defiance, must you speak if you are to obey this specious but most hollow and misleading rule! You would need the powers of a ventriloquist if you are to talk at one moment as the child Samuel, and the next as the aged Eli. The people would be absolutely distressed if you gave them, amidst sobs and tears, the agonizing lament of David. They would be as absolutely disgusted if you reproduced the taunts of those who

mocked the Chief of sufferers. You have not lost Absalom; and as little can you adopt as your own that cry, "Himself he cannot save!" Considering your relation to the record, to the facts put before us, and to those who with yourself are to seek instruction, a reverent and thoughtful perusal of the narrative in our hands is all that is becoming or edifying. At the same time the recital will, in a gentle and quiet way, derive its tone from the incidents described, the words reported. Your own mind will be affected up to a certain degree by both, and the heart is beyond all comparison. the best regulator of the voice-the heart chastened, however, and moderated by the judgment. Very often a Speaker will excite more sympathy by putting a restraint upon his feelings, than by abandoning himself to excitement, or labouring to give them vent.

PERSONAL INTEREST IN THE SUBJECT

MATTER.

"NEVER think how you read, but what

you read," said one of the greatest of modern Speakers. And certainly if there be any rule of transcendent importance it is this-that the speaker, or reader, should be absorbed in his subject. He should be not only interested in it, but engrossed by it-and this, whether he is speaking extempore, or is giving forth the fruits of careful preparation. Be the subject what it may, he should not have a thought beyond it. Nay, if it have been reasoned out or excogitated beforehand, he must think it all over again. Argument, description, narrative, dialogue, appeal, come under the same law. Concentration of thought is our first necessity. Intention and impression go together. The more the Speaker's mind is given up to the subject, the more will be that of his hearers. He must bring into his mental view, and must individualise, the sort of characters he may be addressing, or haply describing. The eminent Richard Cecil was wont to insert initials in his manuscript, when he would hold up before his people some particular class to whom his state

INTEREST IN THE SUBJECT-MATTER. 49 ments would apply. If the Preacher is describing a scene, he must picture it to himself as vividly as possible, and stimulate the imagination of others by allowing scope to his own. He will thus be moved in a way corresponding to the statements he is giving forth. There will be admiration, awe, sympathy, fear, indignation; and there will be the natural, unforced indications of such feeling in voice, and even to some degree in gesture. This will tell on the minds of others; and beyond the traceable agency of cause and effect there will. come into play that undefinable sympathy which, independently of words, makes mind answer to mind, and hearts beat in unison and feel as one. To apply to this a very humble test. Give out an ordinary pulpit-notice, or announce the number of a hymn, without fixing your thoughts on what you are saying, and though the words be clear and the place seem to be filled with sound, the meaning will fail to be caught by the audience, except so far as there is on their part a distinct intention and effort to hear. On the other hand, think of what you are saying; fix your thoughts on the fact that your Public Meeting is on Wednesday and not Thursday; or that the number of your hymn is seventy-one and not sixty-one; and then, with far less exertion, your voice is heard throughout the building, and the people can not only hear what you are saying, but cannot help hearing it. In other words, in spite of themselves they cannot think of

anything else. Thought, mental intenseness, and concentration will produce fulness, distinctness, vivacity, of utterance. It energizes everything. It is absolutely necessary to suitable expression, and, beyond all rules of art, will command the "sympathy" so indispensable to effect. It is for want of

thought that the parrot-like sounds we hear at Railway Stations seem scarcely like language at all; and that the Street calls and cries almost lose their significance, as they certainly have lost, what it would seem so easy to retain, the distinctness of articulated words. We do not question that some listen, and correctly interpret the sounds emitted even thoughtlessly, but these are persons who have some individual end to answer. Animation will atone for many defects: nothing will supply the place of animation. We are told of a sculptor who, after comparing a horse of which he had prepared a model, with the work of another and more fortunate artist, and finding a thousand faults with the latter, ended by saying " After all, however, his wretched creature is alive, and mine is dead!"

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