As in tears of sorrow and sin and shame,
You read a story of blight and blame,
Your heart goes further than hand can reach
And you feel a sermon you cannot preach."
Whoever would prove worthy of the platform must have a message and give to it the devotion of mind, heart and conscience, no matter whether his purpose is to convince by reasoning, convert by appeal, delight by rhetoric, or cure melancholy by humor. Each has its useful influence on the platform.
Some persons have an impression that the student deals in logic, while the orator simply starts his tongue to running, and goes off and leaves it to work automatically.
Bishop Robert McIntyre was one of the greatest pulpit orators of his age, yet I dare say this gifted man gave as much time and thought to his famous word painting of the Chicago fire, as Joseph Cook ever gave to mining any treasure of thought he laid upon the altar of education.
I know many teachers of oratory say: "Study your subject, analyze it well, and leave words to the inspiration of the occasion." But suppose when the occasion comes, instead of inspiration one has indigestion, then what?
While a speaker should not be so confined to composition that he cannot reach out after, and cage any passing bird of thought, yet as the leaf of the mulberry tree must go through the stomach of a silk-worm, before it can become silk, so climaxes should be warped and woofed into language before they can be forceful and beautiful.