dead things, how much more should that audience be electrified when the chords are living and the man is alive, and he knows how to touch them with divine inspiration!

I advocate, therefore, in its full extent, and for every reason of humanity, of patriotism, and of religion, a more thorough culture of oratory.

First, in the orator, is the man. Let no man who is a sneak try to be an orator. A man who is to be an orator must have something to say. He must have something that in his very soul he feels to be worth saying. He must have in his nature that kindly sympathy which connects him with his fellow men, and which so makes him a part of the audience which he moves that his smile is their smile, that his tear is their tear, and that the throb of his heart becomes the throb of the hearts of the whole assembly. A man that is humane, a lover of his kind, full of all earnest and sweet sympathy for their welfare, has in him the original element, the substance, of oratory, which is truth; but in this world. truth needs nursing and helping; it needs every advantage; for the underflow of life is animal, and the channels of human society have been taken possession of by lower influences beforehand. The devil squatted on human territory before the angel came to dispossess him. Pride and intolerance, arrogance and its cruelty, selfishness and its greed, all the lower appetites and passions, swarm, and hold in thrall the under-man that each one of us yet carries-the man of flesh, on which the spirit-man seeks to ride and by which too often he is thrown and trampled under foot. The truth, in its attempt to wean the better from the worse, needs every auxiliary and every adjuvant.

The first work, therefore, is to teach a man's body to serve his soul; and in this work, the education of the bod

ily presence is the very first step. What power there is in posture and in gesture! By it, how many discriminations are made; how many smooth things are rolled off; how many complex things men are made to comprehend!

Among other things, the voice-perhaps the most important of all, and the least cultured-should not be forgotten. The human voice is like an orchestra. It ranges high up, and can shriek betimes like the scream of an eagle or it is low as a lion's tone; and at every intermediate point is some peculiar quality. It has in it the mother's whisper and the father's command. It has in it warning and alarm. It has in it sweetness. It is full of mirth and full of gaiety. It glitters, tho it is not seen with all its sparkling fancies. It ranges high, intermediate, or low, in obedience to the will, unconsciously to him who uses it; and men listen. through the long hour, wondering that it is so short, and quite unaware that they have been bewitched out of their weariness by the charm of a voice, not artificial, not prearranged in the man's thought, but by assiduous training made to be his highest nature. Such a voice answers to the soul, and is its beating.

"But," it is said, "does not the voice come by nature?" Yes; but is there anything that comes by nature which stays as it comes, if it is worthily handled? We receive one talent that we may make it five; and we receive five talents that we make them ten. There is no one thing in man that he has in perfection till he has it by culture. We know that in respect to everything but the voice. Is not the ear trained to acute hearing? Is not the eye trained in science? Do men not school the eye, and make it quick-seeing by patient use? Is a man, because he has learned a trade, and was not born to it, thought to be less a man? Because we

have made discoveries of science, and adapted them to manufacture; because we have developed knowledge by training, are we thought to be unmanly? Shall we, because we have unfolded our powers by the use of ourselves for that noblest of purposes, the inspiration and elevation of mankind, be less esteemed? Is the school of human training to be disdained, when by it we are rendered more useful to our fellow men?

If you go from our land to other lands; if you go to the land which has been irradiated by parliamentary eloquence; if you go to the people of Great Britain; if you go to the great men in ancient times who lived in the intellect; if you go to the illustrious names that every one recalls-Demosthenes and Cicero-they represent a life

of work.

Not until Michael Angelo had been the servant and the slave of matter, did he learn to control matter; and not until he had drilled and drilled and drilled himself were his touches free and easy as the breath of summer, and full of color as the summer itself. Not until Raphael had subdued himself by color, was he the crowning artist of beauty. You shall not find one great sculptor, nor one great architect, nor one great painter, nor one eminent man in any department of art, nor one great scholar, nor one great statesman, nor one divine of universal gifts, whose greatness, if you inquire, you will not find to be the fruit of study, and of the evolution that comes from study.

Great is the advance of civilization; mighty are the engines of force, but man is greater than that which he produces. Vast is that machine which stands in the dark, unconsciously lifting, lifting-the only humane slave-the iron slave-the Corliss engine; but he that made the engine

The

is greater than the engine itself. Wonderful is the skill by which that most exquisite mechanism of modern life, the watch, is constructed; but greater is the man that made the watch than the watch that is made. Great is the Press, great are the hundred instrumentalities and institutions and customs of society; but above them all is man. living force is greater than any of its creations-greater than society, greater than the laws. "The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath," saith the Lord. Man is greater than his own institutions. And this living force is worthy of all culture-of all culture in the power of beauty; of all culture in the direction of persuasion; of all culture in the art of reasoning.

To make men patriots, to make men Christians, to make men the sons of God, let all the doors of heaven be opened, and let God drop down charmed gifts-winged imagination, all-perceiving reason, and all-judging reason. Whatever

there is that can make men wiser and better-let it descend upon the head of him who has consecrated himself to the work of mankind, and who has made himself an orator for man's sake and for God's sake.

ON THE AMERICAN WAR

BY LORD CHATHAM

I cannot, my lords, I will not, join in congratulation on misfortune and disgrace. This, my lords, is a perilous and tremendous moment. It is not a time for adulation; the smoothness of flattery cannot save us in this rugged and awful crisis. It is now necessary to instruct the throne in the language of truth. We must, if possible, dispel the

delusion and darkness which envelop it; and display, in its full danger and genuine colors, the ruin which is brought to our doors. Can ministers still presume to expect support in their infatuation? Can parliament be so dead to its dignity and duty, as to give its support to measures thus obtruded and forced upon it. Measures, my lords, which have reduced this late flourishing empire to scorn and contempt! "But yesterday, and Britain might have stood against the world: now, none so poor as to do her reverence!" The people, whom we at first despised as rebels, but whom we now acknowledge as enemies, are abetted against us, supplied with every military store, have their interests consulted, and their ambassadors entertained, by our inveterate enemy; and ministers do not-and dare not-interpose with dignity or effect. The desperate state of our army abroad is in part known. No man more highly esteems and honors the British troops than I do; I know their virtues and their valor; I know they can achieve anything but impossibilities; and I know that the conquest of British America is an impossibility. You cannot, my lords, you cannot conquer America. What is your present situation there? We do not know the worst; but we do know that, in three campaigns, we have done nothing, and suffered much. You may swell every expense, accumulate every assistance, and extend your traffic to the shambles of every German despot; your attempts will be forever vain and impotent-doubly so, indeed, from this mercenary aid on which you rely; for it irritates, to an incurable resentment, the minds of your adversaries, to overrun them with the mercenary sons of rapine and plunder, devoting them and their possessions to the rapacity of hireling cruelty. If I were an American, as I am an Englishman, while a