Of course, the nature of all the results obtained through our firmness will depend on the direction of our efforts. If personal ambition, or pecuniary profit be the object toward which we bend our energies, the grand and holy character of the Christian ministry will be lost sight of. But let our aim be unselfish, and our success will be pure and noble.
To him who has a mind to conceive, a body with strength to execute, language to coin the mass of thoughts into words, courage to bear the scrutiny of a thousand eyes, and firmness that will endure the toil of preparation—to him the upward pathway is clear. He may not win great fame, but he will be able to present the truth in its native beauty, and make his words fall with weight and power on the hearts of men.
CHAPTER III.
BASIS OF SPEECH—THOUGHT AND EMOTION—HEART CULTIVATION.
Thought and emotion are two prime elements in the manifestations of mind. All the products of mental action, unless it be the mysterious power of will, are divided between them, and by them, through various means of expression, we reach and influence the outward world.
Thought springs from the intellect, and acts upon the facts received from every source, retaining, arranging and modifying them at will. Feeling is the mind’s response to all these, and comprises fear, love, hope, faith, hatred and all the sentiments and emotions that are described under the general name of “the heart.” Speech is founded on these two elements, which meet and mingle in every human production, though seldom in the same proportion. The speaker who has greatest mastery of one, is often most deficient in the other. But if so, the whole range of eloquence is not open to him. He is only a half-developed orator, and his usefulness will be very much narrowed.
A man of deep thought but sluggish emotion, may enchain the attention of an assembly by the novel and far-reaching views he presents and the ability with which he unfolds them, but the whole discourse will be dull and lifeless. He will find it very difficult to move his hearers to action. They may assent to every word he utters, and yet continue in their own course. Every minister’s experience furnishes proof that it is not enough to convince, or it would be very easy to convert the world. At times it is right to use the sword of intellect alone. In controversy, for example, a solid basis of reasoning must be laid before anything else can be done. But it is not always enough. Men are led as often by their sentiments and intuitions as by their judgments, and we are allowed to use all lawful means to win them. Even the pure light of truth is not always to be discovered through the intellect alone. A mere feeling of what is right, or just, or true, often leads, in an instant, to a conviction that all subsequent reasoning can only strengthen. The ideal orator, therefore, is one who, even in argument, can show the truth, and then, by a flash of heavenly sympathy, change our cold assent into fervent conviction.
On the other hand, a man of predominant feeling may make us weep, but as we see no reason for it, we resist the emotion to the extent of our power. If we yield, a reaction follows, and we go away ashamed of what we cannot justify. Of this class were some of the early Methodist preachers—the weeping prophets, as they were termed. Their tears, and the feeling with which they spoke, were often irresistible, and by the mere force of sympathy, men who had very little intellectual power were able to sway the passions of an audience at will. But had it not been for some of their brethren, who were men of thought as well as emotion—men who had clear heads to organize and combine, as well as tears to shed, the effect of their labor would have been evanescent as the emotions they excited.
Continuity is a highly important quality of thought. All men think; they cannot help it, for the mind is ever active. But with most these thoughts are but random flashes—illuminated pictures—that arise for a moment, and then vanish to give place to others. Powerful thinking consists in holding these scattered images together in a chain, and making them run uninterruptedly from one point to another. There is no man who does not at times catch glimpses of far-reaching, profound thoughts; but before he can combine them into harmony and place them in their proper relation to other thoughts, they disappear, and he may search long before he will find them again. All persons see the beauties of natural scenery, but it is only the poet who can reproduce the scattered elements and combine them into a harmonious description. Only the true thinker can gather the fragments of thought that flash through the mind, and give them form and consistency. This power is indispensable to the speaker. He must give, not a mere gallery of pictures, however beautiful they may be, but a succession of thoughts, naturally connected, by which the mind advances step by step through the discourse, without jar or interruption. We will endeavor to give some directions for the acquisition of this power, as far as may be necessary in extempore speaking. The capability of thought must indeed be possessed or all cultivation will be vain; but if the mind have any native vigor, it can learn to think consecutively and methodically, even as the unskilled but perfectly organized hand may be taught to carve beautiful and complicated forms.
As a general rule, men can be more easily moved by appeals made to their feelings than to their reason, and find the most masterly dissertation cold and lifeless unless relieved by some touches of humanity and passion. A man who does not possess true feeling cannot so counterfeit it as to reach the hearts of others, but he may, in a great measure, transform his own nature and acquire it. The most essential qualification for a religious teacher is a deep personal religious experience. One who has never passed through the mystic, mingled sorrow and joy of penitence and the agony of remorse—has never watched with straining eyes for the dawning light of salvation, and at last been enabled to say, “Abba, Father!” such a one cannot preach the gospel with power and success. His speech may glitter with all the flowers of rhetoric and the form of words be complete, but the vast power of the earnest soul sympathizing with all the lips utter, will be absent. Without genuine experience, our preaching will be apt to fall into that loose generalization which can do no good. For it is only when we plant our feet on living realities—those we have tested and know to be sure, and deal in particular, specified facts, that we are able to pierce through all the folds of ignorance and self-love, and awaken an echo of the conscience within.
As a mere form of knowledge, the experience of God’s dealings with the awakened soul is more valuable than any other lore. But its great advantage to the preacher is not the increase of knowledge. It produces a tide of emotion that can never sleep until the judgment day. It connects the Cross and the divine Sufferer with cords of living sympathy that always thrill to the very centre of our being. Conversion invariably deepens and intensifies the emotions of our nature; and if the speaker has passed through a strongly marked change he will have the power of imparting his impressions to others, and of giving to his descriptions the inimitable charm of reality. If his religious experience accords with the Bible, he can speak from his own heart with almost irresistible force. This was the secret of the power wielded by Luther, Wesley, Whitefield and others who have shaken the world. Thus prepared, John Bunyan wrote the most wonderful book of any age—recorded the world’s experience in religion, and made the cold, dead realms of allegory flash with life. He laid the spell of his genius on all alike, and the child prattles of the burdened pilgrim with the giants in his way, while the old man is cheered by the light that streams down from the high hill on which the city is built. The reason of his power is simply that he wrote his own spiritual experience in the language of truth. He had stood at the bar of Vanity Fair, had fought with the fiends, and groped his way through the Valley of the Shadow of Death. From the depths of his own heart, torn by internal conflict, or healed and made happy by a heavenly anointing, he drew the images that glow with all the color of life in his marvelous book.