Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1882-08-03
Pulpit Mannerism.

of mistaken conception as to how
pulpit work should be done, the sec
ond is the spontaneous product of the
man. The first is almost always re-
pugnant, the second is an element OF
strength. Woe to the man who falls
into pulpit mannerism and woe, also,
to the man who is so utterly common
place, so little removed in style from
every other man, that there is no indi-
viduality of style about him. We
may enjoy an eccentricity while we
arc annoyed By a mannerism. Preach
ers need to distinguish between the
two and not make the fatal mistake of
charging up their disagreeable and
positively offensive pulpit habits to
the account of legitimate tokens of in
dividuality. 1t wont do. The people
are blessed with keen instincts and en-
dowed with delicate intentions and
while by means of those they will
allow no man to suffer because of his
individuality they will be unable to
avert disaster from the head Of that
man who has allowed himself to drop
into variety of pulpit mannerisms.
God never intended direct state
ment to be uttered in minor intervals,
That man violates Gods law who
utters a declarative sentence in the
cadences which are fit only to voice an
appeal of pathos, I have often lis
tened to preachers with the ear of a
musician and have been astounded at
the utter violation Of all of Gods ar
rangements. Listen to the child as he
pleads or entreats and you get the
cadences of the diatonic or of the
minor scale. Listen to him as be
narrates and you get the flowing nu-
sic Of the major scale. Listen to him
as he commands and you get the full
stop of the voice and the positive
downward infection. Now listen to
the preacher who, because of mistaken
notions of the preachers work, allowed
himself in his early experience very
likely, to adopt what he thought was
the clerical way of uttering his
thought. Where there ought to be
the majesty and force and the sweep
ing cadence of the major scale there
is the contemplate whine and drawl
Of the minor scale. Narration, declar-
alton, entreaty, appeal, denunciation-
all given in the same stupid, dreary,
melancholy way. 1t matters not how
able the man may be intellectually +;
how logical and powerful the subject
matter of his sermon may be, it is
nearly ali lost because the people are
all naturally repealed. They say our
minister is thoroughly educated man
a good thinker, his sermons are excel
lent and all that, but somehow I can't
get interested in his preaching. They
say this sadly, and do not understand
the reason. The preacher also says
he works faithfully and hard in the
preparation of his sermons but some
how they fail to accomplish what he
hoped and he is also ignorant Of the
cause Of his failure, The trouble is
he is violating Gods law. The law of
the proper use of the voice is as much
Gods lay as that given on the mount,
and the violation of one will almost as
certainly result in failure as the viola
ton of the other. [ ana convinced
that scores Of otherwise good preach
ers in the northwest are failing to-day
because of the mannegisms into which
they have fallen in the use of their
voices. The instincts of the people
are spontaneously obedient to law and
they are instinctively repealed by the
faults referred to, and it is folly to
rebuke them because they are so re-
PEELED.