Around the Tea-Table

by T. De Witt Talmage

I do not know which word is the worst. It is the national habit in literature and religion to call that sensationalism which we ourselves cannot do. If an author write a book that will not sell, he is apt to charge the books of the day which do succeed as being sensational. There are a great many men who, in the world and the Church, are dead failures, who spend their time in letting the public know that they are not sensationalists. The fact is that they never made any stir while living, nor will they in dying, save as they rob the undertaker of his fees, they not leaving enough to pay their dismission expenses.

I hate sensationalism in the pulpit so far as that word means the preaching of everything but the gospel, but the simple fact is that whenever and wherever faith and repentance and heaven and hell are proclaimed with emphasis there will be a sensation. The people in our great cities are hungry for the old gospel of Christ. If our young men in the ministry want large audiences, let them quit philosophizing, and hair-splitting, and botanizing, and without gloves take hold of men's sins and troubles, and there will be no lack of hearers. Stagnation is worse than sensationalism.

I have always noticed that just in proportion as a man cannot get along himself he is fearful of some one else making an excitement. Last week a mud-turtle down by the brook opened its shell and discoursed to a horse that was coming down to drink. The mud-turtle said to the horse: "Just as I get sound asleep you are sure to come past and wake me up. We always used to have a good quiet time down here in the swamp till you got in the habit of thumping along this way. I am conservative and like to keep in my shell. I have been pastor of thirteen other mud-turtles, and we always had peace until you came, and next week at our semi-annual meeting of mud-turtles we shall either have you voted a nuisance or will talk it over in private, eight, or ten of us, which will probably be the more prudent way." Then the mud-turtle's shell went shut with a snap, at which the horse kicked up his heels as he turned to go up to the barn to be harnessed to a load of corn that was ready for the market.

Let us all wake up and go to work. There are in the private membership of our churches and in the ministry a great many men who are dead, but have never had the common decency to get buried. With the harvest white and "lodging" for lack of a sickle, instead of lying under the trees criticising the sweating reapers who are at work, let us throw off our own coat and go out to see how good a swathe we can cut.

Myself.—You seem, Dominie Scattergood, though you have been preaching a great while, to be very healthy and to have a sound throat.

Scattergood.—Yes; I don't know any reason why ministers should not be as well as other persons. I have never had the ministers' sore throat, but have avoided it by the observance of two or three rules which I commend to you of less experience. The drug stores are full of troches, lozenges and compounds for speakers and singers. All these medicines have an important mission, but how much better would it be to avoid the ills than to spend one's time in trying to cure them!

1. Speak naturally. Let not incompetent elocutionists or the barbarisms of custom give you tones or enunciations at war with those that God implanted. Study the vocal instrument and then play the best tune on it possible, but do not try to make a flute sound like a trumpet, or a bagpipe do the work of a violin.

2. Remember that the throat and lungs were no more intended to speak with than the whole body. If the vocal organs get red hot during a religious service, while the rest of the body does not sympathize with them, there will be inflammation, irritation and decay. But if the man shall, by appreciation of some great theme of time and eternity, go into it with all his body and soul, there will be an equalization of the whole physical organism, and bronchitis will not know whether to attack the speaker in his throat, right knee or left ankle, and while it is deciding at what point to make assault the speaker will go scot-free. The man who besieges an audience only with his throat attempts to take a castle with one gun, but he who comes at them with head, eyes, hand, heart, feet, unlimbers against it a whole park of artillery. Then Sebastopol is sure to be taken.

Myself.—I notice, Dominie, that your handwriting is not as good as your health. Your letter in reply to my invitation to be here was so indistinct that I could not tell whether it was an acceptance or a declinature.

Scattergood.—Well, I have not taken much care of my autograph. I know that the attempt has been made to reduce handwriting to a science. Many persons have been busy in gathering the signatures of celebrated men and women. A Scotchman, by the name of Watson, has paid seventy-five thousand dollars for rare autographs. Rev. Dr. Sprague, of Albany, has a collection marvelous for interest.