Finally he was presented with an obscure country living, and after some delay went to it. It was a desolate place, far away from all the centers of intellectual life, and previous incumbents had resided away from it for more than a century. He says, “When I began to thump the cushion of my pulpit, on first coming to Foston, as is my wont when I preach, the accumulated dust of one hundred and fifty years, made such a cloud that for some minutes I lost sight of my congregation.”
He soon made a change for the better in all the affairs of the parish; built an ugly but comfortable parsonage, and won the devoted affection of his people. He passed much of his time in literary avocations, and after fourteen years, received preferment to more desirable churches. During the remainder of his life he used his pen so as to greatly increase his already wide reputation, and became still more noted as a preacher. He was very witty, and cared little for the common rules of sermonizing, but had a power and earnestness that compensated for every defect. The following extract will indicate his method of preparation:
“Pulpit discourses have insensibly dwindled from speaking to reading; a practice which of itself is sufficient to stifle every germ of eloquence. It is only by the fresh feelings of the heart that mankind can be very powerfully affected. What can be more ludicrous than an orator delivering stale indignation and fervor a week old; turning over whole pages of violent passions, written out in goodly text;readingthe tropes and apostrophes into which he is hurried by the ardorof his mind; and so affected at a preconcerted line and page that he is unable to proceed any further!”
No minister of the present generation has lived a purer life, or left the stamp of his thought more deeply on the public mind than the young incumbent of Trinity Chapel in Brighton. His sermons, not published until after his death, are meeting with an unparalleled sale, and every scrap of his sermon preparation, no matter how fragmentary, is seized for the press with the greatest avidity. He now addresses a far larger and more important audience than ever during his life time.
F. W. Robertson was born in 1816 and died in 1853—only thirty-seven years of age. He received the traditional English education at Oxford, and had a strong inclination for the military profession. This he was induced to renounce by the expressed judgment of his father—himself a military officer—that Frederick was better fitted for the Church. After he had received ordination, he acted as curate for twelve months at Winchester. His health being by this time broken, he took a trip to the continent under the advice of a physician. He was gone a year, and during this time entered into marriage. When he returned he served for four years in the parish of Cheltenham. Here the field for the exercise of his talents was comparatively narrow; but many persons were led to a higher life by his ministry—many more than he, with his habitual self-depreciation, was willing to believe until years had passed. After this he spent two months at St. Ebbs, in Oxford, receiving a miserably small salary. During this short time his talents became known, and he was offered the rich, aristocratic, and intellectual church at Brighton. The offer was refused at first, and was only accepted at last through the urgent solicitation of the Bishop, who felt that this was his proper field. Here his popularity became unbounded. The working people, whohad almost deserted the Establishment, flocked to hear his bold, true words. His biographer says:
“His eloquence and originality could not fail to be marked. And if the congregation was intellectual he was pre-eminently so. The chapel became crowded. Sittings were scarcely ever to be had. For six years the enthusiasm never slackened: it grew and spread silently and steadily, and when he died broke out in a burst of universal sorrow.... But he put no faith in mere excitement, the eager upturned face, the still hush of attention. ‘What is ministerial success?’ he asks. ‘Crowded churches—full aisles—attentive congregation—the approval of the religious world—much impression produced? Elijah thought so; and when he found out his mistake, and discovered that the applause of Carmel subsided into hideous stillness, his heart well nigh broke with disappointment. Ministerial success lies in altered lives, and obedient humble hearts; unseen work recognized in the judgment day.’”
That success was his. James Anderson says:
“I cannot count up conquests in any place or by any man so numerous and so vast—conquests achieved in so short a period, and in many instances over the hearts and consciences of those whom, from their age or pursuits, it is always most difficult to reach—as were the conquests of that devoted soldier of the cross of Christ.”
But his labors were too great for his strength. For at least two years before his death he preached in continual pain, and yet there was no abatement in his power. Many of the sermons by which he is best known were then produced. We can scarcely realize as we read his calm sentences, radiant with beauty, and full of profound thought, that they were spoken during the ravages of a cerebral disease, that was soon to still his eloquent voice forever. When he died, having preached almost to the last, the city (containing sixty thousand inhabitants) was draped in gloom, and mourning was universal. A monument was erected, to which the working-men contributed a touching memorial.
The manner in which so many of Robertson’s sermons were preserved, is, when we consider his manner of preaching,very remarkable. He spoke extempore, and never wrote out a sermon before delivery. His leading thoughts were indicated by short notes, and the whole subject was carefully arranged in his own mind. But his words and his most powerful illustrations sprang from the inspiration of the moment. Usually he took a small piece of paper containing the headings of his thoughts with him into the pulpit, but never referred to it after the first few moments had passed. His sympathizing biographer thus describes him:
“So entirely was his heart in his work, that in public speaking especially, he lost sight of everything but his subject. His self-consciousness vanished. He did not choose his words or think about his thoughts. He not only possessed, but was possessed by his idea; and when all was over and the reaction came, he had forgotten like a dream, words, illustrations, almost everything.... After some of his most earnest and passionate utterances, he has said to a friend: ‘Have I made a fool of myself?’
“If the most conquering eloquence for the English people be that of the man who is all but mastered by his excitement, but who, at the very point of being mastered, masters himself—apparently cool, while he is at white heat—so as to make the audience glow with fire, and at the same time respect the self-possessed power of the orator—the man being always felt as greater than the man’s feelings—if that be the eloquence that most tells upon the English nation, he had that eloquence. He spoke under tremendous excitement, but it was excitement reined in by will. He held in his hand a small piece of paper with a few notes on it when he began. He referred to it now and then; but before ten minutes had gone by it was crushed to uselessness in his grasp; for he knit his fingers together over it, as he knit his words over thought. His gesture was subdued; sometimes a slow motion of his hand upward; sometimes bending forward, his hand drooping over the pulpit; sometimes erecting himself to his full height with a sudden motion, as if upraised by the power of the thought he spoke. His voice—a musical, low, penetrative voice—seldom rose; and when it did it was in a deep volume of sound which was not loud, but toned like a great bell. It thrilled also, but that was not so much from feeling as from the repression of feeling. Toward the close of his ministry he was wont to stand almost motionlesslyerect in the pulpit, with his hands loosely lying by his side, or grasping his gown. His pale, thin face and tall, emaciated form, seeming, as he spoke, to be glowing as alabaster glows when lit up by an inward fire. And, indeed, brain and heart were on fire. He was being self-consumed. Every sermon in those latter days burned up a portion of his vital power.”
But though thus surrounded by an admiring congregation, and weekly giving out thoughts that were worthy of still wider notice, when some of his people, who realized that his words were too precious to die, raised a subscription to employ a short-hand reporter, with a view to the publication of his sermons, he refused to sanction the scheme, and wrote the parties a characteristic letter, telling them that he had no time to correct, and, without it, the discourses were not fit to be given to the public. Yet a number were preserved in this way, and though not published until after his death, they are almost faultless in form and expression. Other sermons were written out briefly by himself, after being preached, for the use of some private friends. It was thus that those almost incomparable discourses were preserved, which are without doubt the most valuable contribution that has been made to their department of literature during the present century.
We will give two extracts showing the power that may be wielded over language without the use of the pen. The first is from a speech made to a workingman’s institute opposing the introduction of infidel works into their library. He is speaking of the compassion that should be shown to the honest doubter:
“I do think that the way we treat that state is unpardonably cruel. It is an awful moment when the soul begins to find that the props on which it has blindly rested so long are many of them rotten, and begins to suspect them all; when it begins to feel the nothingness of many of the traditionary opinions which have been received with implicit confidence, and in that horrible insecurity begins also to doubt whether there be anything to believe at all. It is an awful hour—let him who has passed through it say how awful—whenthis life has lost its meaning, and seems shriveled into a span; when the grave appears to be the end of all, human goodness nothing but a name, and the sky above this universe a dead expanse, black with the void from which God Himself has disappeared. . . . I appeal (for the truth of the picture drawn) to the recollection of any man who has passed through that hour of agony, and stood upon the rock at last, the surges stilled below him, and the last cloud drifted from the sky above, with a faith, and hope, and trust, no longer traditional, but of his own, a trust which neither earth nor hell shall shake thenceforth for ever.”
The second passage we will quote is an illustration from a sermon on the doubt of Thomas, showing how weak are all arguments for immortality, except those that are exclusively Christian. He speaks of many things that are valuable as suggestions, but worthless as proofs, and next shows how the same suggestions may point the other way:
“Six thousand years of human existence have passed away. Countless armies of the dead have set sail from the shores of time. No traveler has returned from the still land beyond. More than one hundred and fifty generations have done their work and sunk into the dust again, and still there is not a voice, there is not a whisper from the grave to tell us whether, indeed, those myriads are in existence still. Besides, why should they be? Talk as you will of the grandeur of man; why should it not be honor enough for him—more than enough to satisfy a thing so mean—to have had his twenty or seventy years life-rent of God’s universe? Why must such a thing, apart from proof, rise up and claim to himself an exclusive immortality? . . . Why may he not sink, after he has played his appointed part, into nothingness again? You see the leaves sinking one by one in autumn, till the heaps below are rich with the spoils of a whole year’s vegetation. They were bright and perfect while they lasted, each leaf a miracle of beauty and contrivance. There is no resurrection for the leaves—why should there be one for man? Go and stand, some summer evening, by the river side; you will see the May-fly sporting out its little hour in the dense masses of insect life, darkening the air a few feet above the gentle swell of the water. The heat of that very afternoon brought them into existence. Every gauze wing is traversed by ten thousand fibres, whichdefy the microscope to find a flaw in their perfection. The omniscience and the care bestowed upon that exquisite anatomy, one would think cannot be destined to be wasted in a moment. Yet so it is. When the sun has sunk below the trees its little life is done. Yesterday it was not; tomorrow it will not be. God has bidden it be happy for one evening. It has no right or claim to a second; and in the universe that marvelous life has appeared once and will appear no more. May not the race of man sink like the generations of the May-fly? Why cannot the Creator, so lavish in His resources, afford to annihilate souls as He annihilates insects? Would it not almost enhance His glory to believe it?”
Such language Robertson was able to employ without the use of the pen. But the art was not attained without long and laborious toil. He committed much—memorizing the whole Testament, both in English and Greek, and storing his mind with innumerable gems from the poets. He also studied the modern languages, particularly German, and delighted to translate their treasure into his own tongue. He read much, but not rapidly, dwelling upon a book until he could arrange the whole of its contents with precision in his mind. Thus he attained an almost unequalled mastery of both thought and language. If he had been required to write every sermon, he could never have pursued such a thorough and long continued course of cultivation, besides mastering such a vast amount of knowledge.
We have dwelt less upon the general character of his preaching, with its strong originality, than upon the beauty, force, and accuracy of his language, because these are the qualities usually believed to be unattainable without written composition. But it is safe to say, that in these respects he has not been surpassed by any preacher ancient or modern.
We will take Henry Clay as an example of the American political eloquence of the last generation. He was one of a bright constellation of great men—most of them, like himself, extemporaneous speakers. In some respects he was, perhaps,superior to them all. His hold upon the public mind was great, and even yet he is regarded with love and reverence all over the Union. This, however, is not the result of his genius alone. In some points his great rivals were more unfortunate than himself. Calhoun’s influence was immense; but the effect of his teaching has been so deadly that it is not to be wondered at if his fame is of an equivocal kind. The badness of Webster’s private life, and his unfortunate course on some great questions, caused his reputation to decline, and his really great abilities to be undervalued. But the genial, large-hearted orator of the West is still a favorite with the people.
Clay was a Virginian by birth. His father was a Baptist preacher, very poor, who died when Henry was quite young, leaving a large family of children. Henry obtained all his schooling, which was meager enough, in a log school-house. The young boy was employed first as a clerk in a store, and afterward as an assistant in a lawyer’s office. Next he became an amanuensis to Chancellor Wythe, who treated him kindly and gave him an opportunity to study law. Finally, he was admitted to the bar, and removed to Kentucky. He immediately acquired practice, and met with a hearty welcome from the rough backwoodsmen of that section. He tells us how he acquired the ability to speak with fluency and power:
“I owe my success in life to one simple fact, namely, that at an early age I commenced and continued for some years the practice of daily reading and speaking the contents of some historical or scientific book. These off-hand efforts were sometimes made in a corn-field; at others in the forest; and not unfrequently in some barn, with the horse and ox for my only auditors. It is to this early practice of the art of all arts that I am indebted for the primary and leading impulses that stimulated my progress and have shaped and molded my destiny.”
An amusing instance is given of Clay’s first attempt at debate. He was so much embarrassed that he forgot where he was, and called the chairman “Gentlemen of the Jury.”Yet when this difficulty had been overcome, he soon made a powerful impression. In fact it was spoken of by some as not inferior to any of the addresses in which he achieved a national fame. The policy of emancipation was then under debate in Kentucky, and young Clay gave it his full support. But although he had almost unbounded influence on any other subject, the people of his State loved slavery better than any man, and the measure was defeated.
The vast power of Clay as an orator was early displayed. When only twenty-two years of age he, with another very able speaker, addressed a popular meeting. While the other spoke there was great applause and deafening acclamations, but Clay’s address was so much more thrilling and effective, that the popular feeling became too deep for utterance, and he closed amid unbroken silence. It was some moments before the crowd recovered sufficiently to give vent, in thundering cheers, to the emotion that he had kindled.
It is hardly necessary to follow the career of Clay through all the years that were devoted to the public service, for the country is still familiar with it. Many of the measures with which he was connected may not meet our approval, but no one will question the honesty of his motives, or the ability with which they were advocated. In Congress he had scarcely a rival. Calhoun was equally active, and more logical, but had not the magic of voice and eye, the nameless graces of delivery that distinguished the Kentucky orator. Webster spoke more like a giant, but was hard to call out in his full force, and on ordinary occasions did not speak nearly as well as Clay. The voice of the latter was an instrument of great power, and he well knew how to use it. “Nature,” he said on one occasion, referring to an effort made years before, “had singularly favored me by giving me a voice peculiarly adapted to produce the effects I wished in public speaking. Now,” he added, “its melody is changed, its sweetness gone.” These words were pronounced as if in mockery, in tones of exquisite sweetness. One who had heard him often, says:
“Mr. Clay’s voice has prodigious power, compass, and richness; all its variations are captivating, but some of its base tones thrill through one’s whole fame. To those who have never heard the living melody, no verbal description can convey an adequate idea of the diversified effects of those intonations which, in one strain of sentiment, fall in whispering gentleness like the first words of love upon a maiden’s lips, and anon in sterner utterances ring with the maddening music of the main.”
A gentleman who witnessed an oratorical encounter between Clay and Webster describes it as inconceivably grand:
“The eloquence of Mr. Webster was the majestic roar of a strong and steady blast pealing through the forest; but that of Mr. Clay was the tone of a god-like instrument, sometimes visited by an angel touch, and swept anon by all the fury of the raging elements.”
Clay, Webster and Calhoun were all extempore speakers. Webster sometimes prepared very elaborately, but never confined himself to his preparation. And some of his very best efforts were made on the spur of the moment when circumstances conspired to arouse his vast but somewhat sluggish genius. Both the others prepared their discourses in thought alone, and those who were obliged to rely on their manuscripts or their memories stood no chance at all with them in the fiery debates through which they passed.
It may be doubted whether the late Bishop Bascom is properly classed among extempore preachers. His mode of preparation certainly bordered on the memoriter plan. But he did not write. He would first construct a skeleton, usually very simple, and then throw each point into words mentally. His memory was very great, and the fine expressions he coined, as he rode through the forest or meditated in his study, were impressed on his mind so strongly as to be recalled afterward. It was a common practice with him to repeat his sermons over and over again to himself, till every line of thought and every strong expression became perfectlyfamiliar. Bascom once stopped at a backwoodsman’s house, and left it to take a short walk. Soon a neighbor came rushing in, declaring that he had seen a crazy man walking back and forth on the edge of the woods, swinging his arms wildly, and muttering to himself in a strange manner. The neighbor was told not to be alarmed, but to come to church the next day and he would see the crazy man again. He did so, and listened to strains of eloquence as admirable as ever charmed his ear.
The sermons which were thus prepared, were preached a great number of times, and each time reviewed and improved. Bascom traveled a vast extent of country, and the sermons which thus combined all the strength of his really powerful mind, for years together, soon became famous. Probably no preacher ever did so much with so few discourses.
His delivery was wonderful. Henry Clay, who was well qualified to judge, pronounced him the finest natural orator he had ever heard. His form was almost perfect, his carriage noble and graceful, every movement light and springy, so that, as some of his hearers have declared, “he scarcely seemed to touch the ground.” He dressed with great taste, and on this account was often objected to by the early Methodists, and came very nearly being refused admission into his Conference. But he soon became a general favorite with the people, who would throng to hear him from the whole country for miles around. When he entered the pulpit he seemed nearly borne down by the weight of his accumulations, and it was only after he had begun to make headway that he became easy and self-possessed. Then he poured forth torrent after torrent of highly wrought eloquence, until the hearers were lost in admiration of the vast powers he displayed.
A very partial biographer considers it as very strange that he took but little part in any Conference discussions, or debates on general topics. The truth is, that with his mode of preparation, carried as far as he carried it, he could not. There was no time to forecast his sentences, andslowly build up a gorgeous fabric, and he therefore remained silent.
He had a mighty imagination, and could so represent any object he undertook so describe, that it would live before the eyes of his hearers. But he cared so much for beauty that he wandered too far from his way to seek it, and the consequence was that the object of his discourse
——“Passed in music out of sight,”
——“Passed in music out of sight,”
——“Passed in music out of sight,”
——“Passed in music out of sight,”
and his hearers after recovering from their rapture and astonishment remained as they were before. He drew vast audiences together, wrought effectually for the building up of some colleges, collected much money for various agencies, was made a Bishop of the M. E. Church, South, in compliment to his eloquence, but in real work was far inferior to many a Methodist minister whose name is unknown to fame.
The eloquence of the good and noble, but early fallen Summerfield was in sharp contrast with that of Bascom. A lady who had heard them both, gave the preference, in some neat verses, to the latter, on the ground that he was more grand, awe-inspiring, and tempest-like. The melody and pathos of Summerfield she compared to the mild zephyr, and thought this was necessarily inferior to the earth-shaking storm. But the world has not agreed with her. Bascom held assembled thousands for hours beneath the charm of his voice, weeping, smiling, or shouting, at his will. Yet when all had passed, and the spell had been dissolved, the only impression that remained was one of simple wonder. The man and his own eloquence had risen so far above the subject he was to enunciate that the latter faded from the mind. More earnestness for truth and sympathy with it, would have enhanced his real power a hundredfold.
But it was very different with Summerfield. His soul was full of earnestness, and he moved in an atmosphere of tenderness and pathos. The eloquence of the great Whitefieldmight be compared to the whirlwind, prostrating everything in its path; that of Bascom to an iceberg glowing in the rays of the morning sun, displaying a thousand colors, but cold and impassive; and that of Summerfield to the light of the sun, calm and genial, shining on fields of green, filling the air with life and light. His speech was simple, easy, and unadorned, flowing right out of his own heart, and awakening an answering echo in the hearts of all who heard. The sermons which he has left are mere fragments—sketches such as he employed in his preparation, and of course give no idea of the real power he wielded.
Stevens thus describes his method of preparation:
“Though in the delivery of his sermons there was this facility—felicity we might call it—in their preparation he was a laborious student. He was a hearty advocate of extempore preaching, and would have been deprived of most of his popular power in the pulpit by being confined to a manuscript; yet he knew the importance of study, and particularly of the habitual use of the pen in order to success in extemporaneous speaking. His own rule was to prepare a skeleton of his sermon, and after preaching it, write it out in fuller detail, filling up the original sketch with the principal thoughts which had occurred to him in the process of the discourse. The first outline was, however, in accordance with the rule we have elsewhere given for extempore speaking, viz., that the perspective of the entire discourse—the leading ideas, from the exordium to the peroration—should be noted on the manuscript, so that the speaker shall have the assurance that he is supplied with a consecutive series of good ideas, good enough to command the respect of his audience, though he should fail of any very important impromptu thoughts. This rule we deem the most essential condition of success in extemporaneous preaching. It is the best guarantee of that confidence and self-possession upon which depends the command of both thought and language. Summerfield followed it even in his platform speeches. Montgomery notices the minuteness of his preparations in nearly two hundred manuscript sketches.”
This great man died at the very early age of twenty-seven, having preached seven years. But from the very first he produced a profound impression. Dr. Bethune thus describesone of his earliest efforts in this country. He was then scarcely known. It was at an anniversary of the Bible Society, and an able man had just spoken with great acceptance:
“The chair announced the Rev. Mr. Summerfield, from England. ‘What presumption!’ said my clerical neighbor; ‘a boy like that to be set up after a giant!’ But the stripling came in the name of the God of Israel, armed with ‘a few smooth stones from the brook’ that flows ‘hard by the oracles of God.’ His motion was one of thanks to the officers of the society for their labors during the year; and of course he had to allude to the president, then reposing in another part of the house; and thus he did it: ‘When I saw that venerable man, too aged to warrant the hope of being with you at another anniversary,he reminded me of Jacob leaning upon the top of his staff, blessing his children before he departed.’ He then passed on to encourage the society by the example of the British institution. ‘When we first launched our untried vessel upon the deep, the storms of opposition roared, and the waves dashed angrily around us, and we had hard work to keep her head to the wind. We were faint with rowing, and our strength would soon have been gone, but we cried, ‘Lord, save us, or we perish!’Then a light shone upon the waters, and we saw a form walking upon the troubled sea, like unto that of the Son of God, and he drew near the ship, and we knew that it was Jesus; and he stepped upon the deck, and laid his hand upon the helm, and he said unto the winds and waves, Peace, be still, and there was a great calm.Let not the friends of the Bible fear; God is in the midst of us. God shall help us, and that right early.’ In such a strain he went on to the close. ‘Wonderful! wonderful!’ said my neighbor the critic; ‘he talks like an angel from heaven.’”
No minister now living has been heard by so many people in the same number of years, or has been the subject of so much controversy as Spurgeon. The great populace of London has been moved to its depths by his preaching, and he has met with the same enthusiastic reception wherever he has preached. He is yet very young—only thirty-four yearsof age—and had become celebrated before he was twenty-one. Such speedy recognition is certainly a proof of great merit, and his example is well worth our attention.
Spurgeon’s parents were poor but respectable—his father and grandfather being Independent ministers. He early felt it his duty to preach, and even when a child was accustomed to preach to his playmates. His father wished him to go to college to qualify himself for the work in regular form, but after giving the matter careful consideration he declined. Even when he became usher at Cambridge, and began to preach occasionally, he refused the tempting offer of a college course, and gave it as his opinion that he was called to go to the work at once, and not to waste years in preparation. We can hardly tell what effect a long course of training, that would have allowed time for his fervid zeal to cool, would have had upon his after life. About the same time he left the church of his fathers and united with the Baptists, believing that immersion was the proper baptism. His occasional ministrations were marked by modesty and good sense, as well as loving earnestness.
He was soon called to take charge of an old, but decayed church in London. Its forlorn condition did not dismay him, and under his vigorous care and mighty preaching the congregation became overflowing. The building was enlarged, but the congregation grew still larger. Immense public halls were taken, and these too were soon overflowed. His congregation built a new church of extraordinary size, which has been packed full on each preaching occasion ever since. Several volumes of his sermons have been published, and have met with a ready sale. He preaches nearly a sermon a day, corresponds with a newspaper, writes books, superintends a ministerial school, speaks for and aids a number of charitable institutions—altogether performing more labor than perhaps any other preacher of our day. Yet these multiform labors are performed with such ease and certainty that he hardly ever appears tired, and gives no indication of breaking down.
What is the secret of the power by which this man has reached the hearts of the poor more fully than any other man for many years? It is admitted on all hands that he is not a man of profound intellect. There is no trace of unusual powers of thought either in his published or spoken sermons. But there is a more than ordinary force of arrangement, illustration and expression. He may not be in the first class of great men, but he is surely foremost in the second class. He also possesses wonderful enthusiasm. His faith is too clear for a doubt, and he is never troubled with any misgivings regarding his own power of presenting the truth. Confidence is a part of his nature, and enables him to bear unmoved any amount of opposition, and, while preaching, to follow out any suggestions of his genius. His power of language is very great. From beginning to end of his discourse he never falters, nor uses the wrong word. His voice is strong, clear, and melodious, making the tritest thought interesting. But above all, he is a good man, and works solely for the good of his hearers. This is the reason why he is not intoxicated by his great success. He feels that the Holy Spirit labors with him, and that the blessing of God rests upon him.
Spurgeon is an extempore preacher in the best sense of the word. He studies and meditates as fully as his time will permit, and at any period is ready to give what he thus masters to the public. “I can’t make out,” said a minister to him, “when you study, Brother Spurgeon. Whendoyou make your sermons?” “Oh!” he replied, “I am always studying—I am sucking in something from everything. If you were to ask me home to dine with you, I should suck a sermon out of you.” One who had known him, thus writes:
“With respect to his habits of composition, he assured us that not one word of his sermons is written before delivery, and that the only use he makes of his pen upon them is to correct the errors of the stenographer. His happy faculty of mere mental composition, and of remembering what he thus composes, saves him much time and drudgery. He canexercise it anywhere; but probably with more success in the pulpit, while he is giving utterance to what he has prearranged in his mind. Learning not to read manuscript out of the pulpit is the best preparation for not reading it in the pulpit, and he who in his study can think well, independently of it, will, in the pulpit, think better without it; for the excitement occasioned by speaking what he has premeditated—if that excitement does not produce too deep feeling—will summon new thoughts to fill up the old ranks, and lead whole divisions of fresh recruits into the field.”
The almost irresistible attraction of Spurgeon’s ministrations may be inferred from the following facts:
“It was no unusual sight on a Sunday evening to see placards put up outside of the building (Exeter Hall) announcing that it was full, and that no more could be admitted. In his own church it has been found necessary for the police to be present at every service, and the pew-holders are admitted by ticket through a side door. This accomplished, at ten minutes prior to the commencement of the service, the doors are opened and a rush commences; but it is speedily over, for the chapel is full—not only the seats but every inch of standing-room being occupied, and the gates have to be closed, with an immense crowd of disappointed expectant hearers outside. The church has, indeed, reason to be deeply grateful that amid the vice and immorality of London, a voice so clear and loud has been lifted up for the cause of the Redeemer.”
Perhaps no American minister has ever become so well known to the whole body of the people as Henry Ward Beecher. He has been bitterly criticised and opposed even by members of his own denomination, but has triumphed over every attack, and won a proud place among preachers. He has even become a power in the political world, and his devotion to the cause of liberty has endeared him to thousands who might otherwise have never heard his name.
This great orator was born in 1813 in the State of Connecticut. His father, Lyman Beecher, was a clergyman of great force and celebrity. Young Beecher graduated at Amherst College at twenty-one, and studied theology with his fatherat Lane Seminary, Cincinnati. When this was concluded, he was first settled over a small Presbyterian church at Lawrenceburg, Ind., where he remained two years, and then removed to Indianapolis, and preached eight years with great acceptance. His first sermon was so earnest and powerful that it led to the conversion of twelve persons. A course of lectures, which he gave during this period to young men, attracted great attention, and he was soon after called to take charge of Plymouth Church in Brooklyn. It was then a feeble organization; but under his care has increased to vast proportions. It has now a membership of 1,700, and the largest regular congregation by far of any church in the land. The income of the church from the rent of pews is nearly $41,000!
As a lecturer, Beecher stands among the very first. He speaks every year, in nearly every prominent city of the Union, and thus contributes powerfully to the success of the various reforms he advocates. He early gave the anti-slavery movement the support of his powerful eloquence, and preached and lectured against the great evil so effectually that no man was more denounced and hated at the South than he.
In the heat of our civil contest he passed some months in England, and there spoke for the cause of liberty and Union. He met with the most embittered opposition; the rabble, who had been incited by handbills to come out and put him down, often roaring until his voice could no longer be heard. He would calmly watch them until the noise for a moment subsided, and then speak again with such effect that the victory was soon declared in his favor. No man contributed more powerfully to allay the prejudice of England against our nation during her sore contest.
We do not wonder at the great popularity of Beecher. He possesses much greater intellectual acuteness than Spurgeon, and is inferior in this particular to no one of the orators of the present day. The variety of topics he discusses is immense, and he brings such good sense and sound logic to bear on them, that the people feel him to be a teacher indeed.They go to hear him, expecting that he will apply high spiritual truth to every day life, and are not disappointed.
Beecher is a giant in reasoning power, and gives no light, superficial views of anything. His feelings are very acute, and by the mere force of sympathy he has the smiles and tears of his audience at command. His power of illustration is wonderful; the most abstruse subject grows plain under the light of his luminous comparisons. While his command of language is very great, and he never hesitates for a word, his taste is so pure that he never uses an unnecessary or objectionable term. In fact, he speaks for the press as much as for the congregation before him. For years his sermons have been taken down by short-hand writers, and read all over the world. Sometimes they do not even receive a final correction from him. This is a convincing evidence of his marvelous popularity. His sermons are first preached to a vast assembly, and then spread before hundreds of thousands of readers. Not only newspapers of his own denomination, but of others, count it a great attraction to be able to announce a weekly or semi-monthly sermon from this gifted man.
On several occasions we were privileged to hear him, and will give some account of the first time we listened to his eloquence. A large number of people gathered long before the hour for service, and waited impatiently for the opening of the door. Ten minutes before the hour the crowd was admitted, and every vacant pew almost instantly filled. Then seats were folded out from the ends of the pews into the aisles, and these filled until the whole vast space was one dense mass of living humanity; on the ground floor or in the second or third galleries there was no unoccupied space. Many even then were forced to turn away from the door. The preaching was plain, logical, deep, and clear rather than brilliant. There was no florid imagery, but the light of imagination gleamed through the whole discourse. The subject was naturally analyzed, every part powerfully illustrated, and the application pungent enough to reach every heart not entirelyimpervious. Several times a smile rippled over the faces of the congregation, but lasted only for a moment, and was generally the prelude for some deep and solemn impression.
Beecher prepares his discourses with care, but neither memorizes nor reads them. On one occasion we noticed him lay his manuscript on the desk before him and begin to read. The description was beautiful, but the congregation seemed indifferent, and gave no evidence of close attention. Soon he pushed the paper away. Then every eye was bent upon him with intensest interest.
Beecher’s ordinary lectures give but little indication of his real power. They are written and read in the same form to numerous audiences. But his genius finds free play only when the manuscript is abandoned. Then, when he speaks for a cause in which his heart is enlisted, we have an example of what mortal eloquence can be. We once heard him at a large meeting which he had visited as a listener. A long and rather dull speech had been made by the orator of the evening. But Beecher was seen, recognized, and called out. Every murmur was stilled. Laughter and tears succeeded each other with marvelous rapidity; but he closed by a daring apostrophe, spoken in a low tone, that thrilled to every heart, and held all spell-hound for some moments after he had ceased to speak! It seemed the full realization of every dream of the might and power of eloquence.
This lady was born in 1842, and while quite young became celebrated as a public speaker. She has not won her present position by a single brilliant effort, but by long continued exertions and the display of solid talent. She is a member of the Society of Friends, and early imbibed the hatred of oppression and slavery for which that denomination is distinguished. Her principal public speeches have been given in the service of freedom, and to secure a higher position anda wider range of employments for women. Her own example, as well as her teachings, has been one of great value to her sex.
When Miss Dickinson began to speak she had no powerful friends to aid, and for a time her audiences were quite small. But she was too firm and devoted to the cause she advocated to grow discouraged. And there was something so attractive in her manner, that opposition was soon overcome, and her audiences grew continually. She was so truthful, earnest, elegant, and strong, that before she was twenty-one years of age she was recognized as a power in the political world, and few voices more eloquent than hers were lifted up on behalf of liberty and justice during our civil war. She has also taken part in political canvassing with great success. Her reputation as a lyceum lecturer is fully established. In all the cities of the United States where she has spoken large and enthusiastic audiences have greeted her.
In speaking, she is modest, graceful, and unconstrained, with an air and manner of perfect naturalness. There is no elaborate ornament in her words, but they are always well chosen, and flow with the utmost ease. Her discourses are logical, and usually bear upon a single point with overwhelming force. Without the slightest attempt at stage effect, she frequently displays deep emotion, and becomes totally absorbed in her subject. Her voice is full, clear, melodious, and perfectly distinct; it is persuasive, well modulated, and equally capable of expressing pathos, and scorn, and command.
With such abilities she cannot fail to be popular, and her influence, which is always for good, is steadily widening. Yet in order to display her full power, she requires a subject that enlists her sympathies, and in a mere literary lecture, although always instructive, she does not produce the same vivid impression as when roused by some injustice, or pleading the cause of the oppressed and feeble.
The manner of preparation by which this lady, who takes rank with the best of American orators, has acquired suchpower over words and hearts, merits attention; in response to our inquiry, she says:
“For the first three years of my public life, speaking, with me, was absolutely extempore; that is, I gave a general look over the field before I rose to my feet, then talked. Since then, I consider my subject—let it lie in my mind, and gather fresh thoughts—statistics—what not—almost unconsciously—as a stone gathers moss.
“When I wish to make the speech, I arrange this mass in order and form—make a skeleton of it on paper, and leave the filling in till I reach the platform—then some things I have thought of are omitted, and others thought of at the time, are substituted. The speech changes here and there for some time, and then gradually crystalizes—that is all. I mean, of course, what is called a regular lyceum speech. The political speeches are made very much on my old plan.”
We selected one American political orator of the generation that has just gone by as a specimen of the capabilities of extempore speech, and will now give an instance of the present. The speaker we have chosen is widely known. Many have listened to his eloquent words, and in the stormy events of the last few years, his name has become a household word. We make this choice the more readily because the character of eloquence for which Bingham is noted, is that which many persons suppose to be most incompatible with a spontaneous selection of words—beauteous, elegant, melodious, and highly adorned.
Bingham graduated, was admitted to the bar, and speedily became a successful lawyer. He also turned his attention to political affairs, and became known as a most efficient public canvasser for the doctrines of the party with which he acted. This is one of the best schools in the world for ready and vigorous speech, but has a tendency to produce carelessness of expression, and to substitute smartness for logic and principle. This tendency he successfully resisted, and became distinguished for the deep moral tone, as well as for the beauty of the language of his addresses. He was elected toCongress from an Ohio district, and become known as one of the most eloquent members of that body. He took a prominent part in the opposition to the Kansas and Nebraska bill, and met the entire approval of the people. When the Southern States commenced to secede in the winter of 1860–61 he brought forward a force bill to compel them to submit to national authority. This was defeated by those who thought that other means would avail. Time proved the wisdom of his views.
All through the contest that followed, his voice was heard on the side of liberty and Union. He soon became known as one of the leaders of the Republican party, and has nobly held that position to the date of writing.
Mr. Bingham, in speaking, is calm, clear and pointed. His manner indicates confidence, and his words flow freely. Imagination is allowed full play, and the spirit of poetry breathes everywhere. He abounds in lofty and beautiful imagery, that places the truth in the clearest light. While the subject is never lost sight of, a thousand graces and beauties cluster around it from every hand. From the elevation and certainty of his language, many casual hearers have been led to imagine that his speeches were written and committed. But the reverse is the case. Some of his highest efforts have been made with no time even for the prearrangement of thought. This is one secret of his great success as a debater. He is always ready, with or without warning, to speak the thoughts that are in his mind. But he prefers, of course, to have time to arrange his matter in advance.
The following passage will illustrate the force of Mr. Bingham’s thought and expression. It is from a speech in reply to Wadsworth, and was entirely unstudied:
“As the gentleman then and now has chosen to assail me for this, I may be pardoned for calling his attention to the inquiry, what further did I say in that connection, on that day, and in the hearing of the gentleman? I said that every loyal citizen in this land held his life, his property, his home, and the children of his house, a sacred trust for the common defence. Did that remark excite any horror in the gentleman’smind. Not at all I undertook, in my humble way, to demonstrate that, by the very letter and spirit of the Constitution, you had a right to lay the lives and the property and the homes, the very hearth-stones of the honest and the just and the good, under contribution by law, that the Republic might live. Did that remark excite any abhorrence in the gentleman, or any threat that fifteen slave States would be combined against us? Not at all. I stated in my place just as plainly, that by your law you might for the common defence not only take the father of the house, but the eldest born of his house, to the tented field by force of your conscription, if need be, and subject him to the necessary despotism of military rule, to the pestilence of the camp, and the destruction of the battle-field. And yet the gentleman was not startled with the horrid vision of a violated Constitution, and there burst from his indignant lips no threat that if we did this there would be a union of fifteen slave States against the Federal despotism. I asserted in my place, further, that after you had taken the father and his eldest born away, and given them both to death a sacrifice for their country, you could, by the very terms of the Constitution, take away the shelter of the roof-tree which his own hands had reared for the protection of the wife and the children that were left behind, and quarter your soldiers beneath it, that the Republic might live. And yet the gentleman saw no infraction of the Constitution, and made no threat of becoming the armed ally of the rebellion. But the moment that I declared my conviction that the public exigencies and the public necessities required, that the Constitution and the oaths of the people’s Representatives required, that by your law—the imperial mandate of the people—the proclamation of liberty should go forth over all that rebel region, declaring that every slave in the service of these infernal conspirators against your children and mine, against your homes and mine, against your Constitution and mine, against the sacred graves of your kindred and mine, shall be free, the gentleman rises startled with the horrid vision of broken fetters and liberated bondmen, treason overthrown, and a country redeemed, regenerated, and forever reunited, and cries, No; this shall not be; fifteen States will combine against you. Slavery is the civilizer; you shall neither denounce it as an ‘infernal atrocity,’ nor overthrow it to save the Union. I repeat the word which so moved the gentleman from his propriety, that chattel slavery is an ‘infernal atrocity.’ I thank God that I learned to lisp it at my mother’s knee. It is a logical sequence,sir, disguise it as you may, from that golden rule which was among the first utterances of all of us, ‘whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye so even unto them.’”
The second instance is taken from a speech on the proposal to furnish relief to the Southerners who were in a destitute and starving condition after the close of the war.
“No war rocks the continent, no armed rebellion threatens with overthrow the institutions of the country. The pillars of the holy temple of our liberties do not tremble in the storm of battle; the whole heavens are no longer covered with blackness, and the habitations of the people are no longer filled with lamentation and sorrow for their beautiful slain upon the high places of the land! Thanks be to God! the harvest of death is ended and the sickle has dropped from the hands of the ‘pale reapers’ on the field of mortal combat.
“Sir, you may apply in the day of war the iron rule of war, and say that the innocent and unoffending in the beleagured city shall perish with the guilty; but when war’s dread alarm has ended, as happily it has with us, when the broken battalions of rebellion have surrendered to the victorious legions of the Republic, let no man stand within the forum of the people and utter the horrid blasphemy that you shall not have regard for the famishing poor, that you shall not give a cup of water to him that is ready to perish in the name of our Master, that you shall not even relieve the wants of those who have never offended against the laws. The unoffending little children are not enemies of your country or of mine; the crime of treason is not upon their souls. Surely, surely they are not to be denied your care. The great French patriot, banished from the empire for his love of liberty, gathered little children around him in his exile at Guernsey, and fed them from his own table, uttering the judgment of our common humanity in its best estate; ‘Little children at least are innocent, for God wills it so.’”
This great statesman and orator is an extempore speaker, and one of the best in the world. He has not, perhaps, the fiery force of John Bright, who, like himself, speaks without previous preparation of words, but far surpasses him in varietyand elegance. His speech, like a prism, reflects a thousand shades of color, and the dullest subject under his treatment blooms into life and light. His style is more like that of Cicero than of Demosthenes, being diffuse, sparkling, graceful—flowing like a river, that is always full to the brim. He is prepared at any hour of day or night to take part in any discussion of interest to him. Even when he is explaining details of finance, usually the driest of subjects, he is listened to with delighted interest. By the mere force of his talents he has raised himself to a commanding position in England, and as a writer has also attracted much attention.
Gladstone is of a light and nervous build, has a very sweet and attractive countenance, and a rich and fascinating voice. As a debater he is almost faultless, unless his want of harshness and maliciousness be called a fault. Sometimes, too, he shows a disposition to yield rather than contend, but never when principle is at stake. To him, perhaps more than any other, belongs the credit of the great reform bill which has almost changed the government of Great Britain.
The following extract from a communication on the subject of extempore speaking will be read with deep interest: