delivering accurately and without error; and, while their minds are absorbed in the plan, the style and the general arrangement, (the marshalling) of their piece, they are necessarily inattentive to the tone of voice in which it is delivered; they acquire a monotonous tone, or fall into a whine or sing-song manner of, uttering their sentences: and hence it has happened, that some of our best composers and most accurate scholars have been the least animated in their delivery, and the least able to keep their hearers awake. It may truly be said of some of these men, that they cast their pearls before swine; and that, if they consulted the taste of their hearers, together with the state of their minds, they would provide a very different portion to serve up to their homely but hungry appetites.. No one can be ignorant of the difference between the tone of voice in which we relate an event that has happened within our knowledge, and. that in which we should read the same from a book or a newspaper. In the latter instance our attention is engaged by the words, which we are anxious to read correctly, and we lose all the interest of conversation; the eye, which most of all discovers the passions and affections of the mind, is fixed on the paper, its influence is lost to the listener, and the hands and arms give no help to the story: while the words are delivered with a certain' solemnity, and at such regular distances, that they must inevitably be to a certain extent monotonous. But in extemporary delivery we distinguish the passion and emotion of the speaker, by the various quickness with which the words are delivered, and by the tone of voice, which varies as he proceeds. It is almost impossible that a sermon or a prayer when it is read, should be delivered with the same energy, with the same natural pauses, and the same variation of voice, as a free address, and therefore it is less interesting and moves far less the persons who are the hearers. Here lies, I apprehend, the true secret of producing effect: could our reading ministers be so well acquainted with their compositions before they deliver them in public, and so feel the sentiments they contain, as to accompany them with the same variation of voice and the same pauses and motions which they would employ in saying the same off-hand, such are the advantages that the composer of a prayer or sermon possesses, in point of style, of correctness and of variety, that there would soon be an universal approval of the reading of sermons and prayers in our societies. Let but a man read with the life and ease of colloquial address, he would inevitably rivet the attention of his audience, and move their feelings in the highest degree. This is actually done on the stage, and with surer success might be done from the pulpit. The evil is, perhaps, yet more increased by another practice, which has of late been finding its way into our societies, of reading in a dull and lifeless manner prayers which have been previously composed with precision and art. Could written prayers be delivered in such a way as that they seemed to come fresh from the heart, no reasonable objection could be urged against them; because all that anxiety is removed by them from the breast of the congregation, and all that embarrassment from the minister, which are surely destructive of devotion. But the evil is in this, that, while the service of the church is proverbially-gabbled over from the mere habit of repeating it, our reading ministers go sometimes through their prayers with so much heaviness and stupidity, as to lead the congregation to conceive they have no interest in them, and that they are meant only for the people's use. There are indeed ministers who read their prayers in a manner so serious and impressive, that no one would suspect them to have been pre-composed but from watching their eye; and certainly there may be as much, nay there should be more deep and true devo-, tion in the man who reads a solemn address to the Almighty, which he have, said that the Christian has digested, and to which he has minister has a part to act. I wish formed his mind in his study, than that this truth was more considered there can be in the loose chance-di- than it is, and that ministers would rected effusions which are poured not be either afraid or ashamed to forth on the spur of the moment. regard themselves in the capacity of VOL. XII. actors, and actors too in the highest and most honourable of characters; and that they would think a little more, not only of the sentiments they have to deliver, but also of the manner in which these sentiments are to proceed from their mouths. I would have them consider, that the great object for which they mount the pulpit is to produce a most important effect, and that there are certain means by which alone that effect can be produced. It is not often that a valuable moral impression is produced by the skill of the rhetorical artist in a formal and dry discourse; while the homely language of the extemporaneous speaker, who is warmed by his subject and speaks from the dictates of his heart, provided only that he observe a moderation and a chastity in his language, is always gratifying to the audience, and will sooner carry conviction to the heart. It is well known to be a rule in the colleges in Scotland, to encourage the young divines to prepare their sermons in their study, and deliver them me moriter, or from such copious notes as will supply them with an abundance of matter to fill up the half or three quarters of an hour. If a man have self-command, and possess a tolerable stock of modest assurance, the latter mode is preferable, and by degrees he will acquire a fulness of utterance, and be a workman that needs not to be ashamed. This plan therefore is recommended to their young men; and I believe it is also recommended in the most respectable of those institutions that are educating ministers for the Independent or moderately Calvinistic societies. But some of the Scotch professors rather prefer the entire composition of the sermon, and committing it to memory; assuring their students, that, however difficult it may at first be found by a person who is not accustomed to the exercise of the memory, it will become by industry and diligence inconceivably easy. This is manifest in the experience of even the common actors on a stage, and in the exercise of school boys, whose memories are found to strengthen in an extraordinary manner by frequent and regular exercise. Dr. Alexander Gerard, of Aberdeen, was a remarkable instance of what may be done by the exercise of the memory. When he first as sumed the office of a preacher, "his recollection was so inert, that with the greatest difficulty he committed a sermon to memory in a fortnight, and never ventured to preach more than once during that tinie, unless he could deliver the same sermon in another place. But as he practised the art of learning his sermons, he found his memory strengthen perceptibly, till at length he could repeat the whole of a discourse accurately after reading it only twice. Here is an instance of a man's acquiring by mere dint of industry the mastery of an art for which he did not appear to be fitted by nature, which may serve as an encou ragement to a young man of the most obtuse recollection. There have been amongst the En glish Dissenters a few instances of eloquent preachers; but none, I bẹlieve, in which they have not ob tained their celebrity by other means than by the stiff rules of a college. Of Dr. Foster I can say nothing from personal knowledge. I knew something of Dr. Fordyce; both men greatly celebrated in their day. I believe the cause of their popularity might be found in a happy art of delivering their addresses well, and giving them an interest which was strictly their own. The most distinguished character which the present generation of Dissenters has known as a preacher was Mr. Fawcett, who was many years morning preacher to the society at Walthamstow, where he resided, and who delivered a Sunday evening lecture during the winter season at the Old Jewry. His eloquence was of a rare and striking kind. Not only Dissenters of all classes, but Church men of the highest rank, and some of the leading dramatic characters of the day, were his hearers. Mrs. Siddons and her brothers were frequent attenders on his evening services. But Mr. Fawcett, of Walthamstow, in the morning, was a very different man from Mr. Fawcett, of the Old Jewry, in the evening: a manifest proof that his great excellence was assumed, and therefore that it was acquired by art. He may have had a natural aptitude of speech and gracefulness of manner: but it is well known that he improved these by great care. When he was a student at Daventry, he was so impressed with the importance of manner to a public speaker, that he formed the resolution, after the example of Demosthenes, to acquire a correct one at any cost. Upon Burrow Hill he expended his powers of youthful elocution; and often have the cowherds and the company that were walking on its delightful sod, stopped to listen with surprise indeed, but also with pleasure, to his eloquent addresses to the thorn bushes and the fern that grew thick around him. "Surely that man is out of his head," was no uncommon exclamation, on hearing his vociferation and seeing the wildness of his gestures. But thus he acquired the power of charining the largest and most genteel London audience that ever assembled in a Dissenting place of worship. Nor can one doubt that the oddest ideas would have been also formed of the Athenian orator, had he been seen in his cellar, with his face half shaven, practising before his large glass, by the light of his lamp, and a sharp pointed sword hanging over his shoulders. These were both the pupils of art, and both obtained a merit of the highest kind.. But the late Hugh Worthington, of Salters' Hall, was perhaps the most extraordinary of the pulpit orators that England has known; with no superior stock of knowledge, and far from a happy knack of getting up a sermon, he possessed the art of riveting the attention and pleasing even those who went to criticise. Never shall I forget his upright posture, his piercing eye, his bold and decisive tone, his pointed finger, the interest he gave to what he delivered, and the entire nothingness of what he often said. He retained his popularity to the very last; and if he had held religious opinions which were decided and clear, and had conceived it to be of importance to defend them, he would have been a valuable cham. pion, and his popularity would have acquired a farther celebrity from his decision. There was one part of his plan which may be recommended to young preachers, and without much difficulty might be followed by them. When he was drawing towards the close of his discourse, he usually shut his book, and went on for a few minutes, the book in his hand, either extempore or memoriter, I cannot say which, and thus by an energetic, conclusion, added weight to what he had already delivered. Although acquainted personally with Dr. Barnes, I had no knowledge of his pulpit powers, but have been informed that he was far inferior in point of composition to many whom he altogether eclipsed in the town and neighbourhood of Manchester. And I doubt not that your readers may supply the names of many more, who have owed their celebrity and the power they possessed of doing more good than, I fear, they cared about, to natural powers of voice and manner, which were improved by observation on the world and a desire to rise high in the popular esteem. A well known writer, in his usual odd but striking way, has thus exemplified the importance of manner, - "Are we not here now,' continued the corporal, striking the end of the stick perpendicularly upon the floor, so as to give an idea of health and stability, and are we not,'-dropping his hat upon the floor-gone! in a moment.' There was nothing in the sentence; it was one of the self-evident truths we have the advantage of hearing every day; and if Trim had not trusted more to his hat than to his head, he had made nothing of it." Now, Sir, there is generally speaking little besides these self-evident truths that the Christian minister has to deliver; and it is too common for him to make nothing of them, merely owing to this circumstance, that he trusts to very little besides the words themselves, and has no machinery at hand to help the effect. I have heard of one gentleman who may ascribe, it is said, a part of his oratorical celebrity to a noted county election, and of another who probably would never have been thought an orator, had he not frequented the playhouse and caught some of the manners of the stage. Nor let them be censured for the means they have employed to improve and enrich themselves. Ministers have no reason to dread the charge of having recourse to stage effect. For what is stage effect, but a simultaneous impression on the senses and on the understanding of the audience, in order to pro duce a virtuous moral feeling? Much might they learn from the most chaste and most admired of our actors. From them might be selected much that would give an interest to the preacher; and above all, they might learn those easy unaffected man ners which often appear to be most distant from the pulpit. "Follow nature," is the best rule the Christian orator can observe: but do they follow nature who adopt the artificial modes of composition and delivery, checking the impulses of nature and supplying their place with the formalities of art? There is seldom fear of going wrong in the breast of the extemporaneous speaker; he intends to deliver what the impulse of the moment suggests, and he is not apprehensive that he shall deliver it in an unnatural manner. But the case is generally different with him who abandons the leadings of nature, and relies upon a well-digested and well-arranged composition. It is his fear that he shall mistake in reading it, and not give the words their proper emphasis; and he not unfrequently meets with the misfortune of which the Roman poet sings; "Frangere dum metuis, frangis crystal lina; Securæ nimium, solicitaque manus pec cant." Not any thing can be of more conséquence to a young man who is to become a public speaker, than that he should obtain a certain degree of modest assurance, and conceive himself to be placed in a rank somewhat above the people who have raised him into their pulpit. "Always think," said an old preacher to a young man who was to take his place in the pulpit," that you are addressing men that are beneath you. If you don't point out your own blunders by your irresolution and alarm, they probably will not find them out; and if they do, go on, and give them something else to think about." I recollect that between twenty and thirty years ago, it was a disputed point whether the institutions for educating our ministers ought to be near the metropolis or at a remote distance from it. It was argued that the vicinity of London was peculiarly onfavourable to study that perpetual engagements and visits took off the attention of the students from their books and their lectures; and that; they could pursue with greater steadi ness their course of study in a place where were few temptations to dissi-a pation and pleasure. Actuated I presume by these considerations, the trus tees of Coward's fund removed the students that were at Hoxton to Daventry, and broke up that academy. altogether in the year 1785. Now I humbly conceive they were guided by a mistaken principle. It may be true that more book-learning might be stuffed into them at Daventry or at a York, than they would acquire at. London or at Paris; but at the same time they lose in those places every chance of gaining a knowledge of the world, they lose the opportunity of mixing in good company and of investigating the different ingredients of which society is made up. And when they quit their secluded college walls, they know no more of the world which they will be called upon to instruct, than Parson Adams or the Recluse of the Convent. There are two ways of educating a Dissenting Linister: the one is inaking him the human brain which are crowded acquainted with all the vagaries of lectures of a college, and at the same into the metaphysical and theological time indeed with some of its finest and most valuable thoughts; the other is sedulously reading his Bible and studying men as they are, and from the character which he finds them to bear, and that which they ought to maintain, to prepare the addresses he will make to them on the day of pulpit instruction. The venerable Theophilus Lindsey once said to a man who expressed his apprehension that he was not qualified to undertake the business of public teaching, from having in cone sequence of a succession of unavoids able embarrassments neglected his book learning," If you have not been studying books you have been studying men, and I don't know whether that is not better." Indeed we have had many strong proofs of the acceptableness and the usefulness of men who have enjoyed few ad vantages of collegiate learning, but have been students of life and man ners, and by observation on the wants of society have furnished the requisite instruction. It is unquestionably a great loss to our young students to be excluded from the benefits of a mixed society and an extensive observation of men and nianners. It must also be important for them, when engaged in preparation for pulpit services, that they should study the manner of those who are already engaged in those services: and I know not a greater evil that can possibly attach itself to the situation of a student in divinity, than to be compelled or to be expected, which is about the same thing, to attend public worship always in the same chapel, and generally to hear the same preacher. This is an evil to which all students must be liable who are educated in the country. Those of York and Wymondley are in this respect unfortu nate; and there is more than a chance that, while they are acquiring the erudition of their theological and other rutors, they will not outstrip them in energy and in eloquence. Young men who have a manner to acquire which shall render them acceptable and useful in our congregations in future life, ought to have opportunities of hearing the most eloquent men both in the Church and out of it, and amongst Unitarians, Arians, Arini nians and Calvinists. And he who will not take a lesson from an ecclesiastic or orthodox orator, because he is to be a Dissenting Unitarian, has but a little soul and probably will never make a great man. Fas est, &c. And if the tutors of Homerton Old Academy are alarmed when they hear of their young men visiting the Gravel Pit Meeting, we shall not return them the compliment of a similar alarm when our's are seen entering their houses of worship. We want some of their manners to mix up with our principles, and then probably we shall make a more savory and better relished dish for, unpopular as our notions are, it is against our mode of presenting them that the greater fault is found. On this ground the institution at Durham House is the best calculated to bring forward young men of popular talents; and I will express my hope that it will not be expected of the students there to confine themselves to the preaching at the Gravel Pit Meeting, however great the advantages they there enjoy. The Claytons, the Collyers, and even the Hawkers, may suggest to them some useful hints, and especially, if there be a natural turn for oratory, a patient hearing of them, and a free investigation of their respective manners. I even regret that Mr. Aspland's students cannot now go to Salters' Hall, and there learn to give! to airy nothings a name; for it may sometimes happen to them also, in searching for variety, to address their congregations in sermons of little. worth a misfortune that occasionally befals most men. It may perhaps suggest itself to some one, that imitation will never make an orator, that it is generally accompanied by a betraying of the design, and is disgusting. It may sometimes be so. Perhaps, not only a poet, but also an orator, is born and is not made. But, as a poet will render himself far more illustrious if he studies the works of other poets most esteemed, and may enrich his verse by flashes of their genius; so the natural orator may correct imperfect habits and gain better ones, by studying those who are held in es teem; while they who have no native powers, or in whom those powers are feeble, may increase and strengthen and ameliorate them to an inconceivable degree, by the allowable and laudable practice of sitting under them to learn: I perceive, Sir, that my remarks. have been written down with strange want of method; but my engagements are of that kind that Į either most send them to you as they are, or keep then in my desk. I hope the importance of the subject. will justify me in troubling you with them in their present form. Dublin, 12th January, 18172/2 SIR, is an article from Mr. Severn retative to Anti-baptists. I refer that gen tleman to “ The Life of a Dissenting.. Minister," printed by G. Jones, p. 155, on the Perpetuity of Baptism. If his conclusions are just, baptism was m tended to be confined to the apostolic age. For the convenience of your readers who have not the book at hand, let them compare Matt. xxviii. 19, 20, Mark xvi. 15-18, Luke xxiv. 47–49, and Acts i. 4-8. The signs that fol |