CHAPTER VI. "Sit quidvis simplex duntaxat et unum."-HORACE. ICERO recognizes the following quinque quasi membra eloquentiæ:-the selection and arrangement of the subject-matter, the clothing it in suitable language, the charging the whole upon the memory, and lastly, the delivery of the speech so prepared with appropriate gesture and elocution.* The course to be adopted by a speaker, as by a traveller, is, first, to decide what point he wishes to make for, and then to set about finding the readiest means of arriving at it. Many speakers resemble the men of an exploring party, in a newly settled country, who have no particular object in view; as long as they do but get over a certain amount of ground, they are careless as to the direction they may have taken, and are not much surprised if they find at last that they have been walking in a circle, and have arrived at the very spot from which they ori * Invenire quid dicas, inventa disponere, deinde ornare verbis, post memoriæ mandare, tum ad extremum agere ac pro nuntiare. ginally started on the other hand, a good speaker may be compared to a native of the same country, who, striking unhesitatingly into the right path, never once pauses or turns aside until he attain the object of his journey. Absurd as it may seem, experience would lead us to believe that a large number, even of those who speak after considerable preparation, never clearly decide in their own minds the exact purpose which their speech is to effect; the consequence of which is, that, having neither method nor concentration, they fritter away, in slight skirmishes and it may be in trivial successes, opportunities and resources which, if rightly used, would have enabled them at once to strike a decisive blow. Such men generally excel, more or less, in that style of speaking which Mr. Addison has humourously denominated "high nonsense. "'* The pecu * "On the contrary, your high nonsense blusters, and makes a noise, it stalks upon hard words and rattles through polysyllables. It is loud and sonorous, smooth and periodical. It has something in it like manliness and force, and makes one think of the name of Sir Hercules Nonsense in the play called the Nest of Fools. In a word, your high nonsense has a majestic appearance, and wears a most tremendous gait, like Æsop's ass clothed in a lion's skin." "Low nonsense is the talent of a cold phlegmatic temper, that in a poor dispirited style creeps along servilely through darkness and confusion. A writer of this complexion gropes his way softly amongst self-contradictions and grovels in absurdities." "Hudibras has defined nonsense (as Cowley does wit) by negatives. Nonsense,' (says he,) 'is that which is neither true nor false. These two great properties of nonsense, which are liar characteristic of which he shows to be that the speaker without really having any meaning seems to have it, and so imposes upon the hearers by the range and sound of his words, that they are apt to fancy they signify something; "a deceit," he says, "which is only to be detected by those who lie under this delusion asking themselves what they have learnt from it." Let a speaker, however, only apply this test to himself, and throughout the whole course of his preparation keep prominently before his mind the lesson which he really wishes to convey, and he will hardly fail to see, even at a glance, what portions of his subject-matter are superfluous, and what parts he may with advantage enlarge upon. It struck me, at the time, as a very significant fact, always essential to it, give it such a peculiar advantage over all other writings, that it is incapable of being either answered or contradicted. It stands upon its own basis like a rock of adamant, secured by its natural situation against all conquests or attacks. There is no one place about it weaker than another, to favour an enemy in his approaches. The major and the minor are of equal strength. Its questions admit of no reply, and its assertions are not to be invalidated. A man may as well hope to distinguish colours in the midst of darkness, as to find out what to approve and disapprove in nonsense; you may as well assault an army that is buried in intrenchments. If it affirms anything, you cannot lay hold of it; or, if it denies, you cannot confute it. In a word, there are greater depths and obscurities, greater intricacies and perplexities, in an elaborate and well written piece of nonsense, than in the most abstruse and profound tract of school-divinity."" that when twelve able and gifted men of our Church were selected to conduct the first series of Exeter Hall services, every one of them chose for his text a simple question; eleven of the twelve, a question contained in some half-a-dozen words, while the twelfth preacher selected a passage so familiar that it would be next to impossible for it to escape the memory of any of his hearers.* Most persons try to remember the text, and just in proportion as they have a clear recollection of it, *Bishop of Carlisle :-"What saith the Scripture ?"— Rom. IV. 3. Rev. W. Cadman:- "Can the Ethiopian change his skin?" Jer. xIII. 23. Rev. C. Molyneux :—“ What think ye of Christ ?”—Matt. XXII. 42. Rev. Dr. Miller:-" And Nicodemus answered and said unto him, How can these things be ?"-John 111. 9. Rev. J. C. Ryle :-For what shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?”—Mark VIII. 36, 37. Dean of Canterbury :-" Why will ye die ?"—Ezek. xviii. 31. Rev. R. Burgess :-" What must I do to be saved?"Acts XVI. 30. Rev. Dr. McNeile :-" Who then can be saved?". - Matt. XIX. 25. Dean of Carlisle :-" Understandest thou what thou readest?"-Acts XVIII. 30. Rev. Hugh Stowell:-" How long halt ye between two opinions ?"-1 Kings xvIII. 21. Rev. W. W. Champneys: - "How are the dead raised up?"-1 Cor. xv. 35. Bishop of Ripon :-"How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation?"-Heb. II, 3. and a definite idea of its meaning, so will they be able to remember the general scope of a sermon. They have it in a portable shape, and can expand it at will, while the chances are, that, if a long text has been selected, many of the congregation have never throughout the whole sermon got a clear notion of what duty or what truth the preacher is endeavouring to enforce. I once had the following criticism of a very intelligent working man retailed to me. Speaking of the sermons I had preached for two or three Sundays, he had said :-" Well, sir, I never can make out just what he's a driving at!" On looking over the criticised sermons I confess that I was myself quite unable to tell really what I had been “driving at." It is told, if I remember right, of Sidney Smith, that he was in the habit of reading his sermons over to some of his own household, and of altering any passages which they did not seem clearly to understand. If something of the same plan were adopted by a speaker, to discover whether a person of average intelligence understood fully, not so much particular words or passages, but the general drift of the whole discourse, we might expect that the results would be highly conducive to the edification of many a congregation. If the poor were but honest enough to tell us so, or were not afraid of being thought wanting in intelligence, how often would they pass some such criticism as the above upon what we may have regarded as our most |