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*"A person who is possessed with an habitual good intention, enters upon no single circumstance of life, without considering it as well pleasing to the great Author of his being, conformable to the dictates of reason, suitable to human nature in general, or to that particular station in which Providence has placed him. He lives in the perpetual sense of the Divine presence, regards himself as acting, in the whole course of his existence, under the observation and inspection of that Being who is privy to all his emotions and all his thoughts, who knows his 'downsitting and his uprising, who is about his path and about his bed, and spieth out all his ways.' In a word, he remembers that the eye of his Judge is always upon him; and, in every action, he reflects that he is doing what is commanded or allowed by Him who will hereafter either reward or punish it. This was the character of those holy men of old, who, in the beautiful phrase of Scripture, are said to have 'walked with God.'"

Declamatory Force.t
Energetic Emotion.

The Slave Trade.-Webster.

"I deem it my duty, on this occasion, to suggest, that the land is not yet wholly free from the contamination of a traffic at which every feeling of humanity must revolt,

I mean the African slave trade. Neither public senti

*The usual rule of slackening the tension of voice at the opening of a new paragraph, is exemplified here; as, in such cases, the train of thought is either resumed, or commenced anew. The force, therefore, is progressive in the sentence. All well composed sentences are naturally read with the growing force of climax. The same remark applies to paragraphs and larger portions of a discourse.

† The word "declamatory" is used, in elocution, as the designation of the full, bold style of oratory, in warm and forcible address. The sense thus attached to the word, it will be perceived, is special and technical, merely, and implies no imputation on the character of the sentiment or the language, as in the rhetorical and popular uses of the term.

ment nor the law has yet been able entirely to put an end to this odious and abominable traffic. At the moment when God, in his mercy, has blessed the world with a universal peace, there is reason to fear, that, to the disgrace of the Christian name and character, new efforts are making for the extension of this trade, by subjects and citizens of Christian States, in whose hearts no sentiment of justice inhabits, and over whom neither the fear of God nor the fear of man exercises a control. In the sight of our law, the African slave trader is a pirate and a felon; and in the sight of Heaven, an offender far beyond the ordinary depth of human guilt. There is no brighter part of our history, than that which records the measures which have been adopted by the government, at an early day, and at different times since, for the suppression of this traffic; and I would call upon all the true sons of New England, to coöperate with the laws of man and the justice of Heaven.

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"If there be, within the extent of our knowledge or influence, any participation of this traffic, let us pledge ourselves here, upon the Rock of Plymouth, to extirpate and destroy it. It is not fit that the land of the pilgrims should bear the shame longer. I hear the sound of the hammer I see the smoke of the furnaces where manacles and fetters are still forged for human limbs. I see the visages of those who, by stealth, and at midnight, labor in this work of hell, foul and dark, as may become the artificers of such instruments of misery and torture. Let that spot be purified, or let it cease to be of New England. Let it be purified, or let it be set aside from the Christian world; let it be put out of the circle of human sympathies and human regards; and let civilized man henceforth have no communion with it.

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I would invoke those who fill the seats of justice, and all who minister at her altar, that they execute the wholesome and necessary severity of the law. I invoke the ministers of our religion, that they proclaim its denun

ciation of these crimes, and add its solemn sanctions, to the authority of human law. If the pulpit be silent, whenever or wherever there may be a sinner, bloody with this guilt, within the hearing of its voice, the pulpit is false to its trust."

Empassioned Force.*
Imprecation.

Faliero's Dying Curse on Venice. - Byron.

"Ye elements! in which to be resolved

I hasten, let my voice be as a spirit

Upon you! - Ye blue waves! which bore my banner, -
Ye winds! which fluttered o'er as if ye loved it,
And filled my swelling sails, as they were wafted
To many a triumph! Thou, my native earth,
Which I have bled for! and thou foreign earth,
Which drank this willing blood from many a wound!
Ye stones, in which my gore will not sink, but
Reek up to heaven! Ye skies, which will receive it!
Thou sun! which shinest on these things, and Thou!
Who kindlest and who quenchest suns! — attest!
I am not innocent—but are these guiltless?
I perish, but not unavenged: far ages
Float up from the abyss of time to be,

And show these eyes, before they close, the doom
Of this proud city; and I leave my curse

On her and hers forever.

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Then, in the last gasp of thine agony,

Amidst thy many murders, think of mine!

Thou den of drunkards with the blood of princes!
Gehenna of the waters! thou sea Sodom!

* The style in which utterance becomes intense, and greatly transcends even the usual energy or vehemence of declamation. This degree of force is, generally speaking, restricted to poetry, or to prose of the highest character as to emotion.

Thus I devote thee to the infernal gods
Thee and thy serpent seed!"

Shouting.*

Exultation.

The Exclamations of Tell, on his Escape.- Knowles.
"Ye crags and peaks, I'm with you once again!
I hold to you the hands you first beheld,

To show they still are free!

"Ye guards of liberty,

I'm with you once again!

I call to you

With all my voice! I hold my hands to you,
To show they still are free!"

Calling.†

[As in the case of the greatest distance between the speaker and the

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hearers.] Command.

The Herald's Message.- Shakspeare.

Rejoice ye men of Angiers! Ring your bells!
Open your gates, and give the victors way!"

EXERCISES IN "STRESS."

"Stress" may be briefly defined as the term used in elocution to designate the mode and the place of forming

* This form of voice, although seldom exemplified in actual oratory, unless in vehement address in the open air, is of immense value, as an exercise for invigorating the organs and strengthening the voice, in orotund quality. Its effects, when practiced a few times daily, for even a few weeks, are such as to impart great volume and power of utterance to persons who commence the exercise with weak organs and imperfect tone.

†The effect of this exercise is to give compactness, and clearness, and purity of tone, to the utmost extent of voice. The call, although rising to a high note, with great loudness, should always be kept perfectly vocal or musical in its sound, resembling the easy, smooth effect of the loudest singing, in its gradual and skilful swell. It is nothing else than the maximum of "pure" or "head tone."

the maximum of force in a single sound. Thus, in the appropriate utterance of some emotions, the force of the voice bursts out suddenly, with a percussive explosion; as in angry command, in which vocal sound is intended to vent the passion of the speaker, and to startle and terrify the hearer. An example occurs in the burst of fierceness and wrath with which Death replies to Satan: “Back to thy punishment, false fugitive!" We may contrast with this form of stress the gentle swell of reverence and adoration, in the devotional language of Adam and Eve in their morning hymn, in paradise: "Hail! universal Lord!" The utterance of the word " Back," in the former instance, exemplifies "explosive” “radical” (initial) "stress,” which bursts out, with percussive abruptness, on the initial or first part of the sound; that of the word "Hail,” in the latter, "median," (middle,) as gently swelling out to its maximum on the middle of the sound, whence it diminishes to the end or vanish." Another mode of stress, termed "vanishing," withholds the abrupt explosion till the last particle (so to speak) of the empassioned sound, and then throws it out with a wrenching and jerking violence on the very "vanish," or last audible point of voice. This form of stress occurs in the tones of ungovernable impatience, deep, determined will, and excessive or inconsolable grief. Of the first of these emotions we have an example in the mad impatience of Queen Constance, when protesting against the peace between France and England, which was to sacrifice the rights of her son. "War! war! no peace! Peace is to me a war!" Of the second we have an instance in the reply of the Swiss deputy to Charles the Bold, when he is announcing to the Duke the final determination of the cantons to resist, to the last, the invasion of their rights. "Sooner than submit we will starve in the icy wastes of the glaciers!" Of the third, in the Psalmist's exclamation, "My God! my God! why hast thou forsaken me?"

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A fourth mode of stress unites the "radical and the

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