ever, that this should go on forever. Not to improve in public address is to deteriorate, for the reason that such preaching is exercising our defects and confirming them. Hence many cannot preach as well at fifty as they did at thirty. This is one reason why some intellectual men have been forced to retire from the pulpit long before their natural force had abated. Life-long pulpit labor in violation of nature's laws is destructive of the power of agreeable utterance.

This brief analysis of the trouble reveals the remedy. Under the laws by which a voice has been spoiled it may be restored and perfected. Let a course of vocal exercises be chosen that will call into action, normally, in due succession, every part of the entire vocal machine. Let these exercises be used daily from thirty minutes to an hour. This will call more blood, and hence more nutrition, to every fiber, and so impart increased strength. In due time the equalized circulation will equalize power. There will be no more dominant parts to tyrannize in speech and control in expression. Each part will be ready to respond when needed, and as long as needed, and to retire when done with. Thus the physical side of the trouble is easily and naturally remedied. The result is inevitable. To one called to preach it is not at all a question of can or cannot, of talent or no talent, of good or bad voice, but merely of a docile following of the simple hints of nature. At the same time, under the same treatment, the psychological difficulty is insensibly passing away, as do the snows of winter under vernal sunbeams. During the hours of drill, while the mind is at liberty, it attends to the labor of using first one part of the vocal ligaments and then another, until the old chains of iron habit are broken. A new habit is formed, the habit of a skilled performer on a splendid instrument. The man who was a pauper in tone, color, and power has become a millionaire. Given right guidance in the application of these principles, and most earnest ministers would be able to secure gratifying results. The younger men would gain the chief prize, but even the older men would be profited. Want of space forbids any attempt to indicate the necessary exercises.

2. In what has gone before it has been assumed that the best voice cannot be secured independently of mental culture. By best voice we mean perfected vocal organs faultlessly used. As

we have seen, voice is physiological in its base, psychological in its use. It is organized matter used by trained mind, so that results depend both on the instrument and the user of the same. As an untrained performer cannot get faultless music even from the grandest organ, so an untrained mind cannot make perfect use of the finest vocal machinery. A student, through inattention, may get superior mental and aesthetic culture without corresponding improvement in the use of his voice. He may, in spite of refinement and elevation of character acquired later in life, permit the habits of his earlier and perhaps ruder life to rule his speech. The final touches of excellence cannot be imparted to the voice from the outside. In the last analysis the best voice is the automatic expression of the man at his best estate. A coarse man, for a temporary purpose, may assume a refined voice. But an assumed voice is not a good voice. It is perilous and needs constant watching. Any sudden gust of passion may blow the veil aside and reveal the actor. It is tiresome to exhaustion to be always vocally posing. It makes life a hollow sham, a pretentious unreality. No good man wants to spend time in putting on a vocal mask. The best voice is an honest voice. It is from within, not from without. It is solid gold, not plate nor gilt. Its refinement of tone is the measure of the speaker's refinement. Its grace, flexibility, variety, force, and sweetness are unstudied revelations of mental discipline, good taste, and sound judgment as to the due proportions and proper relations of thought and emotion. It needs no watching, but may be trusted everywhere, out of the pulpit as well as in it. It cannot be surprised into a false note. Many a man, while preaching, reveals his want of culture by his inflections, by the quality of his tones, or by his use of the degrees of force. He is, perhaps, a strong man, but evidently a diamond in the rough. His brusqueness speaks out, his unfinished quality is manifested. To take a few lessons in elocution will not much help his case, and may make it worse if the attempt at improvement end there. Without the broader, deeper culture of body and mind of which we have spoken, no study of rules, no skill in mimicry, will give the preacher that vocal power without which he must return to God with fewer sheaves than he might have taken.

3. The third essential prerequisite to the best voice is a good

heart. It may be stated as a law that whatever affects the man materially will modify his voice. Changes wrought in the condition of the body by fright, sickness, or overwork iminediately appear in the speech. If those changes are transient, the vocal signs of them soon pass away; if permanent, the effects on the voice become fixed. The same law holds good as to moral and spiritual characteristics. How inevitably changes in the disposition assert their power to affect the quality of the voice! The fretful, pouting child is not acting when he speaks in a whining tone; he is but obeying laws whose action is imperative. The angry man, dominated by rage, uses without design the tone-color which is nature's sign of anger. Persons who hear his voice, but not the words he speaks, will know that his wrath is kindled. When pleasure rules the hour, and all the nature revels in delight, it is perfectly natural to speak in tones that are at once recognized as evidences of the fact. Everyone responds thus to the changes passing over him, unless we except, here and there, a very solemn preacher, and even he does so unless when in the pulpit. When, during a conversation, a man's heart is suddenly hardened toward his interlocutor the acute ear may detect an instantaneous modification of the voice. But it is not the transient moods alone that affect the action of the vocal organs. Still more powerfully the prevailing condition of the heart does so. This constitutes the dispoThe kindly, cheerful, sunny-hearted man is revealed by the tones and inflection used in his most casual speech. Even the least experienced may detect the surly soul by the surly voice. The cynic can scarcely lay aside his freezing tones for an hour of social intercourse with chosen friends. has not felt the fascination of a low, sweet, persuasive voice, every note of which was lute-like, and the effect of which was refreshing and restful? A presiding elder, fearing that a certain young minister would be spoiled by his early popularity, said to him: “You have nothing of which to be vain; you do not preach great sermons; but you have a very pleasant voice, and the people like to hear you for that reason." Could he have paid the young man a finer compliment? But he did not know what he said. The voice charmed the people because it told of the gentle, winsome spirit that ruled the preacher's entire life. One of England's greatest prime ministers said that he

sition.

Who

never dared speak before Parliament when he had a state secret in keeping, because at such times all that was in him was sure to come out. His words are of broader application than he intended. "Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh," and that by its tones as well as by its words. The dominant traits, whatever they may be, that color the inner life will also color the media of expression.

Oratory is not a knack; eloquence of spoken utterance is not a trick. Grandest effects can be produced only by grand men. It is an imperative law that those who wish to be of large proportions in the pulpit must be colossal when out of it. No pangs of special preparation, no fervor of ambitious effort in the hour of delivery, can make a giant of the pigmy. True, sometimes the Spirit of God seems to temporarily transform a man in the pulpit and to enable him greatly to surpass himself. It is doubtful, however, if those who persistently neglect the ordinary means of culture are often thus honored. Those who constantly seek the presence of the Holy Spirit to mellow, refine, and ennoble the nature are far more likely frequently to enjoy such extraordinary uplifts, while their ordinary efforts will grow increasingly effective. The noble, magnanimous, consecrated soul, educating every fiber of the body, training every attribute of the mind, will speak the word of the Lord most powerfully and win most trophies for the world's Redeemer.

Geo.K. Morris.

ART. VII. HISTORICAL PREPARATION FOR CHRIS

TIANITY.

HISTORY, in one sense of the word, may be defined as the science of man's progress and development in associated life. In another sense it is the methodical record of the facts and the principles involved in the progress of the society, the nation, or the race, as the case may be. It differs from biography in taking account of the community of men rather than of the individual. Again, history is neither the chronicle of events nor the annals of nations. It is much more than either. The chronicle of events is but the skeleton; history must present facts in the relations of life-must itself be animated with vitality. It must trace out the lines of cause and effect in human progress. It must discover the points at which societies touch each other, and show their mutual action and reaction. It should also mark the proper limits of the society or the nation, and assign it its appropriate place in the scale of influence or civilization. Moreover, history must discover the principles of progress, the conditions of social and national welfare, the circumstances which have contributed to the amelioration of man's lot, and the institutions which either simply indicate the steps in the movements of past ages or remain as the embodiment of present attainments. Then, again, it should point out the errors and their causes which have appeared, neither hiding the true face of the past nor extenuating its crimes. By thus presenting an inductive view of facts and events, in relation to man and to each other, under the various forms and conditions of associated life, history furnishes the basis and lays the foundation for political and social science.

In a higher view it must frame a philosophy of its own discoveries and give at least an approximate explanation of that course of events the record of which it presents. This the Christian historian aims to do. He looks forward as well as backward. He sees the hand of divine Providence in the course of human events and offers that as the true philosophy of history; and he hopes, as the influence of the Gospel leavens society, for the final triumph of Christian civilization.

It may be questioned whether there is any sure ground for