The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1903-03-29

PROBABLY IN the history of all pulpit Ell
forts in Wilmington, there has been no
sermons fairly comparable in intensity,
in imaginative power in overwhelming
descriptive effort. They were marvels
to hear. He was an orator. and spoke
spontaneously without the hedgings of
notes or the crutches of manuscripts.
Occasion often brings out the high and
unexpected endowments of some great
speakers. The gifts are latent until the
hour and the man meet. The surround
ings the opportunity, the appealing in
spiration, the extraordinary excitement
all unite to stir and evoke the highest
powers of men, to stimulate and arouse
their faculties to degree never before
felt, and cause them to rise to the full
measure of the occasion which was but
the instrument and to make impressions
never anticipated and not known in all
their experience. The native, original,
Unborn endowments grandly asserted
themselves, and thrilled hearts and i'm
pressively commanded the thoughts and
feelings of audiences. The records of
British Parliamentary eloquence are full
of examples. A reading of eighteenth
and nineteenth centuries eIoduence
furnish many great examples: Chatham.
Sheridan, Pitt, Brougham, John Bright.
Daniel O'Connell. Gladstone, Cockburn
and one or two others. The Northern
writer already cited admirably says:
And it will be true under all circum-
stances that the orator is largely de-
pendent upon time and place for the
proper display Of his genius, because the
highest kind of oratory needs excitation
from without before it can be fully
brought home to the consciousness of its
possesSor. 1t cannot be realized in
merely pyrotechic displays, and it
reaches it finest expression when in reli-
gion or politics or in the great social
movements of humanity great principles
are at stake and mems souls are pro-
foundry moved to defend them
Oratory is not extinct, I rejoice to
know. 1t is doubtful if there are any
speakers now before the country-at the
bar or in public life, or in the pulpit.
who in real oratory equal the greatest
of those who have gone before. The
breed of fine speakers with entertaining
powers is not dead yet. The men of
very superior gifts are yet to be seen
in many parts of our land. Oratory is
said to be rather in decline in Europe
at least in France and Great Britain.
There are more men of talents now than
ever before, who can talk well, who eX-
press their thoughts in good English,
with clearness, directness, and with 900
and responsiveness, but the greatest
speakers are perhaps not found, or but
very seldom. They are not in the Con-
hou Of no
not be so much in the pulpit, as form
erly.
Who are the great orators in the South
today? l do not mean scholarly men,
fluent speakers, graceful imaginative
men. There are great many facile
earnest, pleasant, engaging, rhetorical
copious speakers. There are some SUI
perior speakers in the North-men like
Ambassador Choate. Bourke Cochrane,
w. j. Bryan, Dopew and others. The
South can point to some able men who
speak with force and interest-men like
Vest, Morgan, Clarke, of Missouri;
Bailey, of Texas, and others. But who
are the great commanding orators? The
standard in the two sections may differ
not only now, but have possibly always
differed. They call Webster and Everett
and others great orators in the North
The New York Sun not so long ago said
that Wendell Phillips, Charles Sumner,
Edward Everett and Daniel Webster
were superior to all men living, placing
Webster first, away and beyond any
American dead or living This, of course
was absurd, not worthy of a provincial
little sheet in the backwoods. Edward
IT,. 7 ard
ster was indeed a very great man, a
builder of superb orations, a master of a
grand, imposing diction and rolling, SON
orous sentences. In 1875, In long con-
versation with the late General Thomas
L. Cllngman, who served In both houses
OF Congress, with ability, and whose
published octave volume containing his
| addresses, lectures. etc, is monument
| to his gifts and intellectual force, he said
| that Webster grew greater with him as
he receded more and more from the time
when he heard him in the Senate-that
he lowered up before him above all 9TH
| ers He then told me of q speech he
heard from him in the Senate. The news
came to the House that Webster was up
in the Senate addressing that then very
able body, He hurried over and stood
| leaning against pillar A vigorous
Western member of the House stood next
to him, who became afterwards a Sena-
| tor of much repute. l forget his name.
Webster was speaking in a most delib-
crate, solemn, yet unexcited tone. Sud
denly the Westerner slapped Clingman
on the shoulder, much to his annoyance,
he said, and in undertone spoke; What
| is the matter with Webster, is he fud~
dled?" He replied with emphasis
"No!" When Webster closed, the West
ern Representative said; And that Is
the great Webster. II he were TO speak
to an audience in my section, IN that cold
style, I'm id If he would not empty the
| hall in short order" Clingman added:
And that was the most animated speech
| / ever heard from Webster" / have had
occasion more than once to write in other
| papers of Edward EveFett's once cele-
brated washington Grafton" delivered
| at Raleigh, in the Hall of the Heuse or
| Representatives in 1853. 1t was splen-
didiy rhetorical but he was without per-
sonal magnetism, and his delivery was
artificial, studied and disappointing.
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