The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1879-12-06 00:00:00

CUTTINGS FROM AMERICAN PAPERS

A newspaper reporter who died recently left a large
tom of money behind him. In fact be left all the money
there was in the world.

A Kentucky man has named his sixteenth child,
recently born to him, Omega, hoping the Fates will let it be
the last. ,

"Is that the second b. 11?" inquired a gentleman of
a coloured porter. "No, Bah,' answered the porter, " dat
am de second ringin' ov de fust ball. We hab but one bell
in die establishmum."

A. little beggar-girl in New York ha l got hold of
the wrong paper, which certifies that "the bearer is a
widow with five children, in destitute circumstances."

A Schenectady editor, describing the effects of a
squall upon a canal boat, says :—" When the gale was at Its
highest, the unfortunate cratt heeled to larboard, and the
captain aid another cask of whiskey rolled overboard."

-
A ahort time ago a Danbury man had forty dollars
stolen from him. The thief was subsequently struck with
remorse, and sent back twenty dollars with a note to the
effect that as soon as he received more remorse be would
send back the rest.

A new reflector has recently been presented to the
Second Congregational Church of Rockville, Conn., and the
tint evening after its arrival the choir unwittli gly started
off with the anthem "Arise and shine, thy light has come."
"Why do guns burst ? " asks a contemporary, and
then devotes nearly a column to answering the question.
Guns burst because powder is put into them. You might
use a gun seven hundred years and it wouldn't burst if you
kept powder out of it.
An American traveller, describing a tropical shower,
wrote to a friend In the following words :—" The rain-drops
were extremely large, varying in size from a shilling to
eighteenpence.'
Pestered with "contributions in verse" from a per.
slstent rhymester till his patience gave out, an American
editor wrote to his correspondent thus :—" It you don't stop
sending me your sloppy poetry, I'll print a piece of it some
day, with your name appended in full, and send a copy to
your sweetheart's father." That poetical fountain was spon-
taneously dried up.

A LAYMAN'S VIEW OF READING AND
PREACHING.
At the monthly meeting of the Church Homiletical
Society held at the Chapter-house, St. Paul's-churchyard,
London, on Tuesday, Mr. Cecil Ratites, M P., presiding, a
lecture was delivered on "Reading and Preaching from a
Layman's Point of View." by Mr. Walter, M.P. After the
usual devotional exercises, the Chairman introduced the
business of the meeting, remarking that the object of that
society was to improve the preaching in the Church of Eag-
land. It was sometimes alleged, but he hoped they did not
admit, that the preaching in that Church was bad. The
position taken by that society was that the preaching in the
Church was so good that it was worth improving, and their
efforts were therefore directed towards that end. Sermons were
addressed to the moat critical audience in the world, the best
educated of the laity. They were also addressed to an
audience which was not able to limit their duration, nor to
reply to the propositions advanced in them. All that tended
to make sermons the butt of much criticism and often of
much unjust and ungenerous criticism. There was no doubt
that the preaching at the Church of England, untrained as
it was for the most part, had yet contrived to keep a great
hold on the nation since the time of the Reformation. The
most illustrious orator of our day had lately been deliver-
ing a series of almost matchless orations to masses of the
population, and he had shown how for a week an immense
number of people might be enchained by the spell of such
brilliant eloquence. But no one contended that if those
addresses were delivered for 300, or even for 10 years,
audiences would be got to listen to or to benefit by them.
The Church of England occupied a position of great autho-
rity, which she had used exceedingly well both in regard
to the force and the moderation of her preaching; but she
had not, perhaps, the same special training for preachers as
other religious bodies possessed. lhe Nonconformist deno-
minations had as a rule for their ministers men who sought
their profession from the consciousness that they had et
peculiar gift for preaching, and consequently for their au-
dience their preaching was effective and powerful. With
the Church of England men were impelled to eater her
service by various causes, all tending to promote her success,
but not necessarily involving that great gift or an acquaint-
ance with those principles on which good preaching de.
pended. All honour, then, to that society for offering to aid
the younger men in fitting themselves for that important
part of their work, so that the clergy might shine in the
pulpit as it was universally acknowledged they shone in all
the other functions of their sacred office. He was sure they
would all be glad to hear Mr. Walter's views on that in-
teresting subject.
Mr. Walt, r then proceeded with his lecture, from which
we give t' following extracts (from The Times of Wed-
nesday):—
When we milder how much the comfort of our daily life
depends up3n the voice and manner of speech of those
around us, it is not unreasonable to suppose that the
spiritual benefits which we are intended to derive from the
ordinances of reading and preaching God's Word may he
greatly promoted or imp sired by the manner in which those
services are performed by the ministers of the
, Church. The subject, therefore, would seem to be one of
considerable interest both to laity and clergy; though,
from a layman's point of view, I should say it hardly
occupies the place it deserves in a clergyman's education.
The faculty of reading, like that of writing, is too apt to
be taken for granted; little or no attention is paid to it at
school; the very mode of construing and repeating lessons,
as visually practised, is calculated rather to injure than im-
prove it; while the annual eceool speeches, which hand down
the tradition of special culture in this branch of education,
too often afford painful evidence how little either masters or
boys are sensible of its importance. Unless, therefore, a boy
has had the advantage of being taught to read well at home,
or is endowed with those gifts which sometimes make up for
the want of it—the gift of natural intelligence, combined
with a good ear and a good voice—he has little chance of
improving his reading from the time he first leaves home till
he is called upon to read the lessons in church, when he
becomes conscious for the first time that he is really playing
upon an instrument of which he knows neither the compass
nor the power. In Evelyn's Diary, August 16, 1691, I find
this entry :
" A sermon by the curate—an honest discourse, but read
without any spirit or seeming concern; a great fault in the
education of young preachers."
"I will venture to say that there is not one of those
whom I have the honour of addressing who has not made or
listened te a similar remark, and that among a large pro-
portion of the younger clergy the art of reading, as distin-
guished from the mere rendition of words, is unknown.
Besides the want of early and systematic training, there
are other causes, both moral and physical, which militate
against good reading, and which cannot always be reme-
died.

1. The voice itself is an instrument which its owner can
be taught to masage within its proper compass, but of
which be cannot materially alter the quality or range.
Hence, if its pitch he either too high or too low, especially
the former, it is difficult for him to adapt it to the require-
ments of Scripture reading, which prefer the tenor and
baritone to the alto or bass.
2. There may be defects in the organs of sight, hearing,
and speech which art may palliate, but can never wholly
overcome, and which are fatal to good reading.
3. In spite of the narrow limits of our isle and its boasted
civilization, there is no standard of pronunciation univer-
sally recognized, even in the class of society from which the
majority of the clergy come. We cannot go far afield
without having our ears offended by provincialisms, which
never sound more uncouth than when uttered from the
lectern or pulpit, and which are too apt to divert our
thoughts from the message to the reader or preacher who
delivers it. We often wonder how it is that in this vast
exchange of human ideas and language the letter 'h' has
never yet found its proper value: but the difficulty which
seems to be experienced in solving this apparently easy
problem may serve to illustrate the tenacity with which pro-
vincialisms cling to their respective localities and defy all
attempts to establish a uniform pronunciation of the mother
tongue.
4. Another cause—of a moral rather than physical character
—which impedes good reading is nervousness—a feeling
which sometimes proceeds from mere shyness or mauvaise
horite, sometimes from a vainful sense of one's own de-
ficienciee, and which, in either case, it often requires years
to get over. It is not every young curate who can saf-ly
apply to himself St. Paul's saying to Timothy, "Let no man
despise thy yorth," and it may well happen that many years
and much searching of heart are necessary to enable him to
give due utterance to the warnings and foreshadowings of
the Old Testament and the ineffable mercies of the New.
5. Again, a very serious impediment to good reading is
Ignorance of the subject one is reading about. To read
Snakespeare or any of our great poets and novelists well
one must have thoroughly mastered not only their language
and style, but also their moral purpose and the relationships
of the characters they bring on the stage in the poem or
drama before us. We must realize, for instance, if we have
not experienced, the foolish fondness of Lear; the heartless.
neas of his elder daughters: the unshaken affection of the
younger, whose "voice was ever soft, gentle, and low " ; the
brutal selfishness of Edmund; the avenging loyalty of Edgar
—we must have imbibed almost the very genius of the
author befoie we can throw his spirit into our reading and
adopt his language as our own. And if this be the case with
profane literature, much more does it apply to Holy Scripture,
in which every chord of human sympathy is touched by a
Divine hand, every character of life painted with an un-
erring pencil, every disease of the soul detected and mists-
tered to by an All-wise Pr:lslam in old times the
reaoing ot Scripture vas recognised as part of the office of
preaching, and is now, as the very term "Scripture r-ader "
implies, held to be a subordinate branch of that ffice. A
well-read lesson is, indeed, a sermon in itself, and "Scripture
itself," says Hooker, "Is not so hard but that the only
reading thereof may give life unto willing hearers."
But perhaps the simplest explanation of the pheno-
menon that good reading is so rare an accomplishment
even among the clergy is to be found in the fact that it
is not considered worth their while te aim at it. The art
of oratory is far less cultivated now than in the palmy
days of Greece and Rome, when public speaking monopo-
lized that control of public opinion which it now
shares with the Press, and when literature, in the modern
sense of the word, was wholly unknown. The benefits
which we derive irons the inventions and appliances of
modern civilization are not an unmixed gain. The use of
note paper and the steel pen—the tools of the penny post—
has tended to cramp and spoil our handwriting, and I have
no doubt that the invention of printing, while it has dif-
fused and equalized the means of knowledge, has weakened
the orator's power and diminished the necessity for his ex-
istence. lam inclined to believe that the art of reading,
which is a branch of oratory, has suffered from the same
cause. In olden times, before the schoolmaster was abroad,
when the mass of the people were unable to read at all, and
the Church B:ble was chained to the desk, it was a matter
of vital importance that the Scriptures should be read to the
people in an earnest and impressive manner. It was
their only chance of becoming acquainted with their
contents and of having them impressed on their
memory. In these days, however, when it is considered the
duty of all not only to hear the Scriptures, but to read,
mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, it may possibly be
thought superfluous to take much trouble about reading to
the people what they can very well read for themselves :
and thus the proverb that what is everybody's business is
nobody's may receive an unexpected fulfilment even at the
lectern. I will conclude this part of the subject by pointing
out some of the means by which I think our public reading
might be improved. First, and foremost, the an of reading
should be taught and cultivated at home while the voice is
flexible, while a child can be more easily taught to recite
from memory than to read from print, and before he has con-
tracted the habits of gabbling in ordinary talk and sing-
song in reading, which he is pretty sure to acquire at
school and of which it is so diffLult to cure him. In former
times those who had to gain their living by the use of their
voice took no small pains to cultivate it. . . . In the
next place I would recommend the study of good
models, yet with the proviso that they be studied not for
the purpose of catching their tone end manner, but for
the purpose of learning the difference between good reading
and bad. In my Oxford days men used to attend
service at St. Mary's, in order to hear the Lessons
read by John Henry Newman, and a treat it cer-
tainly was. With a voice neither rich nor power-
ful, but penetratirg and plaintive, and modulated with
the skill of a consummate musician, he brought out the
tones of Scripture with an unerring flow of rhythm
which almost rose to melody, and which filled the soul of
the hearer with deeper sympathy with the pious resigna-
tion of Job, and with loftier aspirations in unison with the
sublime utterances of Isaiah. Such, at least, was the im-
pression which Mr. Newman left on my mind of his power
as a reader; but, like other great masters, he had his
school of imitators, who, in trying to copy him, acquired
only the mannerism without the genius, and were only
laughed at for their pains. A man's style of reading, there-
fore, should be the result of his natural powers, duly culti-
vated, but not formed upon an ideal model, or it will lack the
quality of truth and simplicle y which alone can give it due
effect. Whether the practice of intoning, now so much in
vogue, is conducive to good reading, is a point which otig,..t
to he well considered by young clergymen before they
adopt a fashion which they may find themselves unable to
throw off an easily as they can put it on. A man nosy intend
only to intone the prayers; but by degrees the habit
masters him, end his congregation discovers, if he does not,
that he is intonli g the Lessons, which is intolerable. I will
only t dd that good reading, like every other good gift, con-
fers a don' be blessing, on the giver as well as on the re-
ceiver. Tatra is no surer way cf impressing the truths of
Scripture on one's own mind than by reading them aloud
to others. In the very act of doing so, passages often strike
us with a force which we have never 1,11 before; and thus,
while striving to edify othsrs, we gain fresh spiritual
strength or comfort for ourselvere So much on the subject
of reading. With regard to preaching, a layman in
venturing to give his advice must bear in mind that,
though he may soesk with the truthfulness and
simplicity of a Gil Bias, he may have among his hearers
an Archbishop of Granada, and must be prepared
for a moral, if not a physical ejection from the room.
"Judge not the preacher, for bets thy judge," is one of
those counsels ef perfection which few, it is to be feared,
attain to, and ills only with the view of making it more
attainable by ordinary people that I would dare to make avy
remarks upon preacniug which might appear to savour of
criticism. Daan Swift, in his letter to a young clergyman,
acvlsed him to get "some intimate and judicious friend to
be his constant hearer, and allow him vi,h the utmost free-
dom to give him notice of whatever he finds amiss either in
his voice or gesture;" butet observe that the Dean does not
extend this freedom of criticism to the matter as well as to
the delivery of the sermon, and I there fore conc:ude that
he knew that this would be an ordeal too severe for
human nature to bear. I cannot help thinking, however,
that the want of some such purifying process in the educa-
tion of a young preacher is a serious loss to him. Consider
the circumstances of his position. From the time he takes
Holy Orders, at the age of twenty-four or twenty-five, till
the time he takes his seat as a Bishop in the House of Lordr,
he is never under the fire of contraciction, except at a
Church Congress, or a Diocesan Conference. or possibly at
home. He may say what he pleases in the pulpit without
fear of cue Juntering that hostile criticism which awaits
every other public speaker, whether in Parliament or at the
Bar. Hence he is sometimes tempted, like other privilegal
persons, to express opinions which his more experienced
hearers know to be wrong, but which they are not at liberty
to challenge. He may palpably misinterpret or misapply
texts of Scripture—as probably most of us could testify—or
he may introduce political or scientific topics in terms which
at once plunge his hearers into the ceuldron of the Eastern
Qaestion or the mazes of the Darwinian theory. In the
meantime, the members of his congregation whom he has
thus unwittingly offended have nothing to do but either
nurse their wrath for an explosion as soon as they get out ot
church, or, what is batter, endeavour to learn that lesson of
patience which George Herbert prescribes as a sovereign
remedy for sermons without sense. But Lithe clergy, from
this point of view, may be considered the vont children of

the learned professions, it must be confessed, on the other
hand, that they rarely abuse their privilege, and that they
are more liable to err from excessive reticence than
from the opposite failing to which I have referred.
At the same time it might do harm if the Bishops
sometimes reminded the younger clergy in their
Charges that they are a privileged class; that their exemp-
tion from criticism in respect of their pulpit oratory is a
source of temptation against which it behoves them to
watch, and that it is in the highest degree indecorous in a
layman to indulge In that habit of thinking aloud by which
congregations are sometimes scandalized, so it is their duty
not to give occasion te such a scandal by using language in
the pulpit calculated to provoke it. It may savour of pre-
sumption for one who has had no experience in the compo-
sition of sermons to lecture an assembly of preachers on
such a subject; and, indeed, there is probably nothing new
to be said about it.

Mr. Walter then proceeded to state some of the chief
points which appeared to him to deserve the consideration
of young preachers. The limits of our case compel us to
slightly abridge this portion of his lecture :
(1..) The object of a preacher should be to rivet the atten-
tion of his hearers, to prevent them from going to sleep or
thiLking of other matters and to impress come moral of
doctrinal truth on their minds. To effect this, his manner
must be impressive, serious, and earnest; must carry with
it the evidence of his own sincerity, and must proceed out of
the fulness of his heart. Toe secret of good preaching must
be learat, if I am not mistaken, on the kuee,. It is only
when a man has probed the wounds of his own moral nature
and found the remedy for them by meditation and prayer
that he will be able to minister to the spiritual diseases of
others : to "read to them their thoughts," as has been said
by a great master of the art, "aid comfort them by the
very reading; to tell them what they know about themselves
and what they do not know; and to make them feel that
there is a higher life than this daily one, and a brighter
world than that they see."

(2) In preacblogt a mixed congregation a clergyman
should use homely language, and not attempt a style above
the capacity of his hearers. In the worth of a great master
of English, "a divine has nothing to say to the wisest con-
gregation of any parish in this kingdom which he may not
expreis in a manner to be understood by the meanest among
them.".

(3.) The parochial clergy may be described as the "general
practitioners" of their order. Ttey bear the same relation
and about the same proportion to the clerical profession
that the country doctors do to the pure surgeons and the
physicians in the sister art of medicine. It follows that
though there may be a large amount of general
ability among them, yet few may possess the pecu-
liar qualities which can enable them to excel as
preachers. The weekly sermcn Is an operation re-
quiring considerable skill and experience; and, with the
care and worry of a large parleh, few men can find time
for sufficient study and meditation to keep them up to
the mark in that special branch of their calling. A
preacher, says Bishop Bull, "mat have knowledge not only
to spend, but to keep; not like those that live from hand to
mouth, or whose stock of knowledge is quickly spent in a
few sermons, but he must have something still reserved and
laid up in store." A man must either keep sinking his well
deeper, or pouring into it fresh streams of knowledge, or he
will soon find himself pumped dry, as a young clergyman
not long ago told me was the case with himself while he
recounted the hindrances to study which had beset him
while a curate.

4. I would strongly recommend young clergymen to keep
as closely as possible to the subject of their text, and de-
velope its meaning, and endeavour to throw light upon it.
A layman is apt to go away disappointed if he tinds that the
text was only selected as a peg whereon to hang a discourse
upon something quite different from the doctrine or practice
it was intended to enforce. . . •

I would also warn them against the too common mistake
of perpetually harpiwg upon some favourite doctrine and
importing it needlessly into almost every sermon. The con-
stant attempt to enforce particular doctrines, especially of
a speculative or controversial character, is apt to set the
mind working in the opposite direction, and sometimes pro-
ducea the contrary effect to that contemplated by the
preacher. A remartable instance of this is mentioned by
Robert Hall. "An excellent man," he says, "was so im-
pressed with the doctrine of the Divinity of Christ that he
made it the constant topic of his ministry. Every sermon
be preached was crowded with proofs or answers to objec-
tions relating to this important topic, and the result was
that most of his hearers became Arians and Socinians."
(I) And lastly, I would recommend all clergymen to
cultivate the habit of speaking instead of reading their
sermons. I am not advocating what is called extem-
pore preaching, because I cannot believe that any sermon
can require less preparation than an after-dinner
speech; and that, as some of us know by experience, re-
quires enough to spoil a good dinner. But a preacher
cannot keep his eyes constantly fixed upon his book, or only
raised from it at intervals, without losing that hold on his
audience which is only secured when eye, tongue, hand alike
appeal to our hopes and fears and "enforce attention like
sweet harmony." One has only to imagine how an advocate
would fare with a jury it he were to read a written defence
on behalf of his client, however cleverly prepared, in the
presence of a rival who used all the arts of a speaker to
engage their sympathy, in order to appreciatelhe difference
between the two styles of address
I fear, however, that our pulpits themselves have some-
thing to answer for In this matter, and that no great fm•
provement in pulpit oratory is likely to occur till they are
altered. I will not go so far as to say what I once heard
an American preacher say, that" pulpits were the invention
of the devil; but the fact thus roughly expressed is that
to be cabin'd, cribb'd, contln'd in a wooden or stone box
a few feet above the ground, with a brass bookstand
In front. And a pair of candlesticks on each side, is not the
most favourable position for giving that full expression to
the impulses of the soul which the attitude of a preacher
towards his hearers requires. For delivering a set of lec-
tures on some theological dogma or even for a bare ex-
position of Scripture' a pulpit, or even a chair, may suffice;
but when speaking to the souls of men it seems to me
that the whole person of the preacher should be visible
to his congregation, or the effect mutt be that of a bust
speaking rather than a full-length figure. A clergyman told
me the other day that the pulpit in his church being under
repair, they rigged up a platform on the top of the pews,
and that he blind it a far more or mfortable position for
preaching. Bull have trespassed upon your attention too
lone, though tire subject is one which is worthy of far
ampler treatment. I can only plead, with the Roman
orator, "Ilaco edict!, non ut volui, sed at potui, et ut me
temporis angustire coegerunt." (Applause.)
On the motion of the Rev. Dr. Nolan, a vote of thanks
was unanimously accorded to Hr. Walter for his admirable
lecture.