The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1900-06-17

Method Made Popular by DIR. Storrs
Not Now Liked.
New York Letter in Phlladelphia Press.

New York Letter in Philadelphia Press.
About twenty years ago, the lawyers of
the New YORK bar, ana We are told some
OIL the greater lawyers of the bar OF other
cities, were persuaded to discard the ro-
tund, classic, formal and heavily digni-
ned form or address and to adopt another
which seemed 10 be unconventional, to be
conversational, but which IL il Were
really that became tame, undressing
and unworthy great intellect. Joseph
III. Choate, with whose distinguished reia-
i've DIR. Storrs began the study of law,
Was perhaps the first of our lawyers to
ADOPT the apparently unconventional or.
mlsnamed, conversational style.
With Choate ii has been an art dill
gently studied, as carefully exploited,
as eXperimentally tested as is the art
perfection at first, but those who have
iistend from time TO time TO his ora
lions and addresses in court perceived
gradually a change until he had at last
attained that perfection which at first
both shocked and yet delighted the SUI
preme Court of the United States and Is
both the despair and the envy of many
of his initiating brethren at the bar.
There has come TO New York recently
a clergyman of whom first of all clergy
men talked much and whose repuie
seems TO be extending to the community
so that lawyers and laymen who have
passion for the higher art of oratory
are thronging his church that they may
be fascinated and at the same time that
they may study his methods. He is the
Rev. DIR. Babcock, who is the successor
of the literary clergyman, DR.. Van Dyke,
who resigned the Brick Church pulpit
that he might accept the professorship OF
literature at Princeton.
Van Dykes sermons always charmed
just as the exquisite cadences and al
most Italian softness and smoothness Of
his chosen words did the congregation
which long listened to the sermons of the
Rev. DR.. Coe who is a son-in-law of DIR.
Storrs. And yet, after hearing Van Dyke
or Coe, there was always the suggestion
OF patient labor, Of utmost polish, of the
careful sculpturing of the form and the
expression so that there was a sense not
only of the art but of the workman
ship which had made the art possible.
With DR.. Babcocks preaching no one
ever thinks Of his workmanship any more
than the entranced listeners to a flute-like
voice of Wendell Phillips ever realized that
any labor lay behind the uttcrance they
were hearing. Our clergymen are still so
greatly perplexed by DR.. Babcock's meth
cd that they do not agree when the ques-
ton is asked us that art or is it nature:
Is 1t consciously unconsciously done?'
DR.. Babcock seems to carry the coloquial
style almost to the limit. He is utterly
unconventional to all appearances. His
diction sometimes almost conveys a sense
of pain. 1t is sometimes jagged, sharp,
direct, and If there be any merit in the
of that kind belongs to him, and yet there
seems to be no straining for effect
There is a perception that the right word
Is used to convey the thought just as Wag-
ner sometimes rioted in discords that he
might produce the exact effect he sought.
Then, too, there is the feeling while the
preaching is in progress that DIR. Babcock
has you individually and no other by the
arm and is talking TO you earnestly, quiet
ly, impressively, as he would talk If he
were walking the streets with you and
were occupied with some important mat
ter that was of mutual interest.
Yet one OF the most influential Of our
city clergymen said that he had tried with
all of his resources to produce that effect
and found 1T to be impossible, although
he was satisfied that to a natural gift for
such Interpretation DR.. Babcock had added
the aid that comes from long discipline and
experiment.
a higher ideal of pulpit oratory than that
which DR.. Storrs so long represented or
not Is perhaps to be more accurately de-
but it makes impossible the sway to-day
of anyone who adopts the methods that
were characteristic of DR.. Storrs's pulpit
oratory.
Conspicuous as DR.. Storrs has been for
| fifty years, influential as he was both in
church and in state, yet it must be said
| of him that intellectually he left no abid-
| ing impress upon his time or for future
generations. His greatest merit, his SUI
preme influence was not after all in his
quality a pulpit orator, but was in his
| character. 1t is as man of character OF
the highest and finest type, rather than
as a preacher a teacher of theology that
| DR.. Storrs will be longest remembered.