Chapter III

CHAPTER III.

FUNDAMENTAL PROPERTIES OF STYLE.

The fundamental properties of good discourse are as distinct, and distinguishable, as those of matter. Many secondary qualities enter into it, but its primary and indispensable characteristics are reducible to three: viz., plainness, fo?'ce, and beauty. We propose, in this chapter, to defkie and illustrate these essential properties of style; and while the analysis will be founded in the general principles of rhetoric and oratory, it will also have a special reference to sacred eloquence, and the wants of the pulpit.

1. It is agreed among all writers upon rhetoric, that the first property in style is that by virtue of which it is intelligible. The understanding is the avenue to the man. No one is affected by truth who does not apprehend it. Discourse must, therefore, first of all be plain. This property was termed pcrspicuitas, by the Latin rhetoricians. It is transparency in discourse, as the etymology denotes. The word erapyaa, which the Greek rhetoricians employed to mark this same characteristic, signifies distinctness of outline. The adjective evapyfe is applied by Homer to the gods, when actually appearing to human vision in their own bright forms; when, like Apollo, they broke through the dim ether that ordinarily veiled them from mortal eyes, and stood out on the edge of the horizon distinctly defined, radiant, and splendid.¹ Vividness seems to have been the ruling conception for the Greek, in this property of style, and transparency for the Latin. The English and French rhetoricians have transferred the Latin perspicuitas, to designate this quality of intelligibility in discourse. The Germans have not transferred the Latin word, because the remarkable flexibility of their language relieves them from the necessity of transferring words from other languages, but they have coined one (Durchsichtigkeit) in their own mint, which agrees in signification precisely with the Latin perspicuitas. These facts evince that the Modern mind is inclined, with the Latin, to compare the property of intelligibility in style to a clear pellucid medium; to crystal, or glass, that permits the rays of light to go through, and thus permits the human eye to see through.

While, however, the attention is fixed upon this conception of transparency, and the property

¹ 'A<« yap rti ndpof yt Scot tyaivavrat evapyeif
aK^ELra^ £Ka~6[i@ac.

Odys. vii. 201, 202.

under consideration is denominated perspicuity, in the rhetorical nomenclature, it is important not to lose sight of that other conception of distinctness, or vividness, which was the leading one for the Greek mind. Style is not only a medium; it is also a form. It is not only translucent and transparent, like the undefined and all-pervading atmosphere; it also has definite outlines, like a single object. Style is not only clear like the light; it is rotund like the sun. While, therefore, the conception of perspicuity of medium is retained, there should also foe combined with it the conception of fulness of outline, and vividness of impression, so as to secure a comprehensive, and all-including idea of that first fundamental property of style which renders it intelligible.

Inasmuch as modern writers upon rhetoric have generally followed the Latin rhetoricians, and have discussed the subject almost exclusively under the conception of transparency, and the title of perspicuity, there is special reason for solicitude, lest the Greek conception of fulness of form and definiteness of outline be lost out of sight. Moreover, close reflection upon the nature of the case will show, that the Greek mind in this, as in most other instances, was more philosophical than the Latin. It seized upon a very profound and essential characteristic. It is not enough that thoughts be seen through a clear medium; they must be seen in a distinct shape. It is not enough that truth be visible in a clear pure air; it must also stand out in that air, a single, well-defined ol>ject. The atmosphere must not only be crystalline and sparkling, but the things in it must be bounded and defined by sharply-cut lines. There may be perspi cuity without distinctness; especially, without that vivid distinctness which is implied in the Greek grapyeta. A style may be as transparent as water, and yet the thoughts be destitute of boldness and individuality. Such a style cannot be charged with obscurity, and yet it does not set truth before the mind of the reader or hearer, in a striking and impressive manner. Mere isolated perspicuity is a negative quality; it furnishes a good medium of vision, but it does not present any distinct object of vision. Distinctness of outline, on the other hand, is a positive quality. It implies a vigorous action of the mind upon the truth, whereby it is moulded and shaped; whereby it is cut and chiseled like a statue; whereby it is made to assume a substantial and well.defined form which smites upon the eye, and which the eye can take in.

Without discussing these two conceptions further,—a discussion which, we would remark in passing, is most interesting, leading as it does to a consideration of the differences between the mental constitution of different nations, as displayed in their languages,—we proceed to a more particular examination of that fundamental property in style which renders it intelligible. We

denominate it plainness. A thing is plain
when it is laid out open and smooth, upon a level
surface. An object is in plain sight, when the
form and shape of it are distinctly visible. Chau-
cer, in his Canterbury Tales, makes the franklin,'
the English freeholder of his day, to say, when
called upon for his story,

"I lerned never rhetorike certain.
Thing that I speke, it mote be bare and plain."

This quotation shows that in Chaucer's time rhetoric was the opposite of a lucid and distinct presentation of truth. In his age, it had become excessively artificial in its principles, and altogether mechanical in its applications. Hence the plain, clear-headed Englishman, whose story turns out, to be told with a simplicity, and perspicuity, and raciness, that renders it truly eloquent, supposed that it must necessarily be faulty in style; because his own good sense, and keen eye, made it impossible for him to discourse in the affected and false rhetoric of the schools of that day. For this plainness of style is the product of sagacity, and keenness. A sagacious understanding always speaks in plain terms. A keen vision describes . like an eye-witness.

There is no characteristic more important to the preacher than this, and none which ought to be more earnestly coveted by him. Sermons should be plain. The thoughts which the religious teacher presents to the common mind should go straight to the understanding. Every thing that covers up and envelopes the truth should be stripped off from it, so that the bare reality may be seen. There is prodigious power in this plainness of presentation. It is the power of actual contact. A plain writer, or speaker, makes the truth and the mind impinge upon each other:" When the style is plain, the mind of the hearer experiences the sensation of being touched; and this sensation is always impressive, for a man starts when he is touched.

Fine examples of this property are found in the style of John Locke, and Thomas Hobbs. "We mention these writers, because plainness is their dominant characteristic. They were both of them philosophers of the senses, rather than of the reason and the spirit. Hence their excellencies, and hence their defects. They are not to be especially recommended for those other properties of style which spring out of a more profound, and spiritual way of thinking, — such as living energy, and ingrained beauty, — but for pure perspicuous address to the understanding, they have never been excelled. Trying to find every thing in the senses, to convert all the mental processes ultimately into sensation, it is not surprising that whatever is exhibited by them stands out palpable, and tangible. Thought seems to have become material, and to strike upon the understanding like matter itself. "You Scotchmen," said Edwai d Irving to Chalmers, "would handle an idea as a butcher handles an ox."¹ Whether this is {rue of the Scotch mind we will not affirm, but it is certainly true of writers like Locke and Hobbs. Their thoughts can be seen, handled, and felt.

The writings of archdeacon Paley, also, furnish fine examples of the property we are considering. His was one of the most sagacious minds in English literary history; eminently characterized by what Locke denominates "large round-about sense." There was no mysticism in his intellectual character. Indeed, his affinities for the spiritual, in either philosophy or religion, were not so strong as they ought to have been. The defects in his ethical and theological systems are traceable to this. Still, upon subjects that did not call for a highly profound and spiritual mode of contemplation, upou subjects that fall properly within the range of the senses and the understanding, he was perfectly at home, and always discourses with a significant plainness that renders him a model for the preacher, so far as this characteristic is concerned.

Consider the following paragraph from his Natural Theology, in which he disposes of the theory of creation by development, as a specimen of pure plainness in presenting thoughts. "Another system which has lately been brought forward,

and with much ingenuity, is that of appetencies. The principle, and the short account, of the theory, is ttiis. Pieces of soft, ductile matter, being endued with propensities or appetencies for particular actions, would, by continual endeavors carried on through a long series of generations, work themselves gradually into suitable forms; and at length acquire, though perhaps by obscure and almost imperceptible improvements, an organization fitted to the action which their respective propensities led them to exert. A piece of animated matter, for example, that was endued with a propensity to fly, though ever so shapeless, though no other we will suppose than a round ball to begin with, would, in a course of ages, if not in a million of years perhaps in a hundred million of years (for our theorists, having eternity to dispose of, are never sparing in time), acquire wings. The same tendency to locomotion, in an aquatic animal, or rather in an animated lump which might happen to be surrounded by water, would end in the production of fins; in a living substance confined to the solid earth, would put out legs and feet• or, if it took a different turn, would break the body into ringlets, and conclude by crawling upon the ground."¹, What plainness and pertinency in style and phraseology are here. How easy of comprehension are the thoughts, and yet with what directness and

¹ Palet: Natural Theology, Ch. xxiii.

effect do they strike the understanding. The truth

comes into actual contact with the mind. The

statement of the false theory is so thorough, and

.so plain because it is thorough, that it becomes the

refutation. The mind that reads, or hears, such

discourse is affected with the sensation of weight,

density, and solidity; as we»have said before, it is

impinged upon,

The preacher shcnild toil after this property of style, as he would toil after virtue itself. He should constantly strive, first of all, tp exhibit his thoughts plainly. Whether he shall add force to plainness, and beauty to force, are matters to be considered afterwards. Let him in the first place "begin at the beginning, and do the. first thing. Endeavors after force, elegance, and beauty, will be likely to succeed, provided this first fundamental _ in discourse is attained, and they will be sure to fail if it is not.

The preacher, at the present time, is liable to temptation in respect to the property of style under consideration, because it is not a showy property. The public is too eager after striking externals, for its own good. It demands brilliancy before plainness, without sufficient regard for that basis ©f strong sense which must ever support this quality, in order that it may have true value. The preacher is, consequently, tempted to yield to this false taste of the ill-educated, and to become like the public. The form soon outruns the substance. He pays more and more attention to the expression, and less and less to the thought, and degenerates into a pretentious and glittering declaimer.

Now, there is nothing that will prevent a, preacher from falling into this false manner, but a determination to be plain; a determination, whether he does any thing else or not, to bring the truth into contact with the human understanding. In the midst of all this clamor for fine writing and florid style, the preacher should be a resolute man, and dare to he a plain writer. It is the doctrine of one of the best theorizexs upon rhetoric, that eloquence is a virtue.¹ The theory is corroborated by the subject under discussion; for it is easy to see that in respect to that fundamental property of style which renders it intelligible, a very strong will, a very high character, is needed in the pulpit orator, in order to practise this self-denial, and also to bring the popular mind up to it.

Again, the preacher must make this property of style a matter of theory, and a matter of conscience. He must distinctly perceive and acknowledge to his own mind, that plainness is the foundation of style; that the true theory of eloquence imposes this property upon the orator, as the very first one to be acquired. He must feel that he cannot conscientiously pass by, or neglect, this characteristic; that the interests of truth, and of the human soul, imperatively require of him that he be plain-spoken, even if he is nothing more. Under the pressure of these two,—a correct theory of eloquence and a sober conscience,—the preacher will be likely to determine to be plain. This determination will affect his whole sermonizing. It will appear in the structure of the plan, casting out of it every thing that does not belong to a clear and clean method. It will appear in the composition and manner, in a stripping, flaying hatred of circumlocutions, and of all unnecessary ornament. The preacher whose head is right, and whose conscience is right, will soon come to possess a love for this plainness. He will not be able to read authors who do not understand themselves. He will be impatient with a public speaker who does not distinctly know what he is saying. He will be interested in any book, and in any discourse, which sets forth plain truth. Still another means of acquiring this property of style is found in the cultivation of what is termed, in common parlance, common sense. Common sense is that innate sagacity of the understanding which detects truth by a sort of instinct, and which, for this very reason, is dissatisfied with any thing short of the truth. An instinct of any kind cannot be deceived, and it cannot be put off with appearances and pretences. It is discontented and restless, until it meets its correlative object, The young swan is uneasy, until it finds the element it has never yet 'seen; then

¹ Theremin: Eloquence a Virtue.

"with arched neck,

Between her white wings mantling proudly, rows
Her state with oary feet."

Through all nature, and all mind, the existence of an instinctive intelligence presupposes a corresponding object, in respect to which the instinct cannot be deceived, and without which it is unsatisfied.

Now this common sense of mankind is an instinctive appetency for truth, and it cannot be met with any thing short of the pure reality. Even a sophisticated mind is caught by plain utterances. The man who has spoiled his tastes and sympathies, by an artificial and showy cultivation, is nevertheless struck by the vigor and raciness of plain sense. In the phrase of Horace, though he has driven nature out of his understanding with a fork, she yet returns when truth appears. And this is the hold which a plain speaker has upon an audience of false tastes, and false refinement. There is an instinctive sagacity in man which needs this plainness of presentation, and which craves it, and is satisfied with it. It is by the cultivation of this common sense, this native sagaciousness of the human understanding, that the preacher is to acquire the property in style that corresponds to it. Let him always seek, first of all, an open and transparent view of a subject. Let him pass by all superficial qualities, and aim at the substance. Let him gratify and cultivate his common sense, by a knowledge that is thorough as far as it goes. . Let him content himself with no dim and obscure apprehensions.

A fourth aid, in the acquisition of a plain style of discourse, is subtlety of mind. It is important to distinguish subtlety, from mere acuteness. A subtle mind perceives the interior connection or contradiction, while a merely acute mind perceives the exterior only. Hence, acuteness by itself leads to hairsplitting; than which nothing is more abhorrent to the common sense of mankind. Subtlety is a profound talent which takes its distinctions in the very heart of a subject, and sees into its inner structure and fibre. Subtlety, therefore, is an ally to sagacity, and contributes greatly to that distinctness and plainness in thought, which results in plainness and vividness in language. This talent aids in separating the non-essentials from the essentials of truth, so that only the leading and impressive characteristics of a subject may be exhibited to the common mind.

In instancing Locke, Hobbs, and Paley, as examples of plainness in style, we directed attention to the philosophic ground of the property. We found it in the disposition to found all knowledge upon sensation, in distinction from conception. A mind which strongly desires to know every thing by the mode of sensation, is one whose statements are always perspicuous. A writer or speaker, therefore, who incessantly strives to impart a conscious knowledge to his hearers or readers, must, of necessity, be lucid, because consciousness is internal sensation. And the property thus originating will contain both of the characteristics, to which we alluded in the opening of this chapter. It will combine the Latin per#picuitas, with the Greek svdpysia. It will not only be transparent, but vivid. i

This quality in style, we have remarked, requires force of character in the orator. He must be determined to be so intelligible, that the mind of the hearer cannot fail to understand him. He must compel the hearer to understand. He must force his way into consciousness, by the most significant, the most direct, the very plainest address to his cognitive powers. The title of one of the philosophical tracts of Fichte reads thus: "An account clear as the sun, of the real nature of my philosophy; or, an attempt to compel the reader to understand."¹ The title corresponds to the contents; for the tract is one of the plainest productions, of one of the clearest heads that ever lived. This is the temper for the orator, as well as for the philosopher. Let the preacher, whether he is master of any other properties of style, and before troubling himself about them, be clear as the sun in his presentation of truth, and then he will compel men to understand.

¹ " Sonnenklarer Bericht an *^n Philosophic, cin Vcrsncl), die das groszere Publiknm fiber ser zuin Verstchen zn zwin

das eijjeutlicho Wesen der neues- gen."

2. The second property of style which should receive attention is force. This characteristic in discourse renders it penetrative. Plainness is more external in its relations to the mind; force is more internal. The former is of the nature of' an exhibition; the latter is of the nature of an inspiration, and a permeation. While, however, this is the general distinction between the two. it would not be proper to call plainness a superficial property, and neither should we confine force to the depths. No man is plain unless he sees the truth, and no man sees the truth who does not look beyond its exterior; neither is any man forcible whose contemplation never conies up to the surface, but who contents himself with a mystical intuition. Force, is power manifested; power streaming out in all directions, and from every pore of the mind.

And this brings us to the first source, and essential characteristic, of true force in style. It originates in truth itself, and partakes of its nature; it does not spring ultimately from the energy of the human mind, but from the power of ideas and principles. We shall consider this fact, first in its more general aspects as pertaining to philosophy, and then in reference to the rhetorical topics under consideration.

Speaking generally, then, power in the finite mind is derived, not from the mind itself, but from the objective world of truths and facts to which it is correlated. For the finite mind is a created thing, and all created things are dependent. It is the prerogative of the Infinite alone, to derive its energy from the depths of its own being. God has power, as he has life, in himself, and therefore he does not sustain the relation of a dependent individual to an objective universe. He is selfsufficient, and independent of all objects. Man's power, on the contrary, is conditioned upon the relation which he sustains to that which is other than himself, greater than himself, and higher than himself. He cannot draw upon his own isolated being, as the ultimate source of power, because his own being is not self-sufficient. His power lies, therefore, in that objective world of truth and of being, over against which he stands as a finite and dependent subject. In simple and common phraseology, which so often, however, contains the highest philosophic truth, man's strength is iu God, and the mind's strength is in truth.

The fact here stated, and the principle upon which it is based, are of general application, and the worst errors in theory and practice have resulted from its being denied or forgotten. The efficient power of the human intellect results not from spinning out its own notions and figments, but from contemplating those objective and eternal ideas, to which it is pre-conformed by its rational structure. If the human mind, by a hard, convul sive effort analogous to the dead lift in mechanics, attempts to create thought and feeling, without any contemplation; if it attempts to think and to feel, without beholding the proper objects of thought and feeling; it fails of necessity. The mind cannot think successfully, without an object of thought, and the heart cannot feel strongly and truly, without an object of feeling. There can be no manifestation of power therefore, and no force in the finite raind, except as it has been nourished, stimulated and strengthened by an object other than itself.

The history of philosophical speculation teaches no truth more plain or important than this, namely, that insulation, isolation, and subjective processes generally, are destructive of all energy and vitality in the created mind, while communion with real and solid verities promotes both. Take, for example, the systems of idealism in philosophy. These proceed upon the hypothesis that the truth lies ultimately in the subject, and not in the object; that, in reality, there is no object except what the mind makes for itself; that we reach truth by isolating the intellect from all external realities, and simply creating from within. The mental processes, upon this theory, become speculative instead of contemplative. The mental products, upon this theory, are pure figments, the manufactures of the human mind, and have no more absolute reality than a brain-image. All such thinking is destitute of true force and vitality, because it is exercised by the mind in insulation, and isolation, from the world of outward truth, and being There is mental action enough, but no intuition. The mind sees nothing, but images every thing. The intellect spins with great intensity upon its own axis, but it makes no other movement. There is incessant motion, but no progress.

This abstract discussion might be prolonged, but sufficient has been said to justify, and show the grounds of the position with which we started, namely, that the power of the human mind issues ultimately from the truth and reality which it contemplates, and that no finite mind can be energetic in its manifestations, that does not first behold objective truth. All attempts to be forceful by mere speculation, by an intellectual activity that falls short of a direct intuition of an objective reality, must fail. And this, because the human mind is rather a capacity than a self-sufficient fulness. It was made to receive truth into itself, and not to originate it out of itself. The human mind is recipient in its nature, and not creative; it beholds truth, but it does not make it.

What, now, is the application of these principles to sacred eloquence? What connection has this philosophic theory with the matter of style in the preacher? We shall be able to answer this question, by considering the fact that the written revelation stands in the same relation to the sacred orator, that the world of nature does to the philosopher. The Bible is something objective to the human mind, and not a mass of subjective thinking which human reason has originated. Revelation is not a particular phase or development of the finite intellect, like the origination of a new form of government, or a new school of philosophy. It is not one fold of the varied unfolding of the human mind, and of the same piece with it. On the contrary, it is divine wisdom given to man, out and out, to be received by him, and taken up into his mental structure, for purposes of religious renovation and growth. Human reason, therefore, is the subject, or the knowing agent, and the Scriptures are the object, or the thing to be known.

All true power, consequently, in the sacred orator, springs from this body of objective verity. It is not by a speculative, but by a Biblical process, that he is to make a powerful impression upon the popular mind. The neglect of revelation, and an endeavor to spin out matter from his own brain, by processes of ratiocination, must result in feeble discourse. The oratorical power of the preacher depends upon his recipiency; upon his contemplation of those ideas and doctrines which the Supreme Mind has communicated to the created and dependent spirit; upon his clearly beholding them, and receiving through this intuition a fund of knowledge, and of force, of which he is naturally destitute.

Hence, the preacher's first duty, in respect to the property of style under consideration, is to render himself a Biblical student. The term is not employed here in its narrower signification, to denote one who is learned in the literary externals of the Bible, and nothing more. A genuine Biblical student is both an exegete, and a dogmatic theologian. He is one whose mind is continually receiving the whole body > of Holy Writ into itself in a living and genial way, and who, for this reason, is becoming more and more energetic in his methods of contemplation, and more and more forcible in his modes of presentation. A truly mighty sacred orator is "mighty in the Scriptures." By this, it is not meant that a preacher whose memory is tenacious, and holds a great number of texts which he can repeat readily, is necessarily a powerful orator. Excessive quotation of Scripture is as injurious to true living force in a sermon, as pertinent and choice quotation is conducive to it. Scripture should not lie in the preacher's mind in the form of congregated atoms, but of living, salient energies. True Biblical knowledge is dynamic, and not atomic. There is no better word to denote its nature, than the word imbue. The mind, by long-continued contemplation of revelation, is steeped in Divine wisdom, and saturated with it.

Now, such a knowledge of the Scriptures as this imparts power to the sacred orator, which manifests itself in force of style, for the following reasons. In the first place, revealed truth is not speculative, but intuitional and contemplative. There is not a single abstraction in the Scriptures. The Bible is a revelation of actual facts, and practical doctrines. When, consequently, the action of the preacher's mind is that of simply beholding facts, and simply contemplating doctrines, it strengthens instead of exhausting itself. If the sermonizing process were purely speculative; if the preacher were called upon, as he is on the rationalistic theory, to make a revelation instead of proclaiming one; the inherent insufficiency of the finite intellect would soon appear, nationalism, therefore,—the theory that all revelation must be subjective, the production of the human reason,—is the worst of .all theories for the sacred orator. It forces him to seek his materials where they cannot be found. More tyrannical than the Egyptian taskmaster, it compels him to make bricks, not only without straw, but without clay. The command of God is otherwise. "Preach the preaching that I bid thee; behold these facts and these truths, which have an exjstence and reality independent of the individual mind; look at them, steadily and long, until their meaning is seen and their power felt; and then simply proclaim them, simply preach them." The preacher is a herald, and his function is proclamation. In this way, the ideas which he presents to his fellow.men augment, instead ^ of diminishing his strength. He gives no faster than he receives. He simply suffers divine truth, which is never feeb'le and never fails, to pass through his mind, as a medium of communication, to the minds of his fellow-men.

In the second place, this knowledge and reception of the Bible as an objective revelation imparts power to the preacher's mind, and force to his style, because Biblical truth is more living and energetic than any other species. A full discussion of this position would carry us over an immense expanse. The field, moreover, has been of late so much ploughed and worked, that its fertility is somewhat impaired. During the last ten years, the ministry itself has been too much occupied with eulogizing the Scriptures. All mere panegyrics, as Swift has said, contain an infusion of poppy. It would be better, for a while at least, to cease these attempts to render the sun luminous. It would be better, if the ministry would so imbue themselves with the Bible itself, and would so reproduce it in their preaching, that the endeavor to prove it to be a powerful book would be a palpable and tedious superfluity.

While, however, there is little need of the preacher's proving to the popular mind, that revealed truth is highly energizing in its nature and influence, there is perhaps all the more need that he prove it to his own mind. Even while he is formally establishing this position to his audience, he may be the greatest unbeliever of them all. Indeed, that preacher is most liable to degenerate into a mere eulogist of the Bible, who finds little interest for his mind, and his heart, in its distinguishing doctrines. The man whose whole soul is intensely Biblical, the man into whose intellectual and moral texture the substance of revelation has been woven, the man in •whom the written Word has become incarnate,—this man is not the one to hyperbolize and elocutionize about the Scriptures. It is the preacher who harps most upon this string, who most needs to understand the note he is sounding. ,,

While, therefore, he says little about it, the sacred orator should really know and feel, that revealed truth is the most profoundly energizing influence which his mind can come under. He should find the hiding-place of power, in the revealed ideas of God's personality and mercy, and man's responsibility and guilt. In proportion as his mind becomes Biblical in its conceptions upon these two subjects, will he be an intense preacher, and a living preacher, and a powerful preacher. But if, instead of contemplating the view presented in the written Word, of the character of God and man, he attempts to reach the truth upon these themes by a merely speculative process, he will fall either into pantheism or deism. And neither of these schemes is compatible with any vital, and powerful, address to men upon religious subjects. Saying nothing of the influence of pantheistic and rationalizing methods upon moral and religious character, it is indisputable that they are the death of eloquence. Neither naturalism nor rationalism has ever thrilled the common mind, from the rostrum. There cannot be, and as matter of fact there never has been, any vivid and electrical discourse in the Christian pulpit, when the preacher has denied, or doubted, the truth of the revealed representations of God's nature and man's character. On the contrary, all the high and commanding eloquence of the Christian Church has sprung out of an intuition like that of Paul and Luther,—a mode of conceiving and speaking of God, and man, and their mutual relations, that resulted entirely from the study of the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures.

Having directed attention to that theory of realism in philosophy which leads to the contemplation of an actual object, and is opposed to all merely speculative and idealizing methods, and after showing that, in the instance of the sacred orator, all his power and eloquence must take its origin in an objective revelation, and not in the operations of the unassisted and isolated human intellect, it will be appropriate to consider, very briefly, some characteristics of that property of style which we are discussing. At the same time, however, it should be observed, that in pointing out where power lies, and what is the true method of coming into possession of it, we have to some extent exhibited its essential nature. Force, generally, cannot be disconnected from its sources, and cannot easily be described. The orator can be directed to that sort of self-discipline, and that method of thinking, and those objects of thought, from which power springs of itself, but the living energy itself cannot be so pictured out to him that he will be al»le to attain it from the mere description. No drawing has yet been made of the force of gravitation. The best and only true definition of life is to show signs of life; and the best and only definition of power is a manifestation of it.

The principal quality in a forcible style, and that which first strikes our attention, is penetration. While listening to a speaker of whom this property is a characteristic, our minds seem to be pricked as with needles, and pierced as with javelins. His thoughts cut through the more dull and apathetic parts, into the quick, and produce a keen sensation. Force is electrical; it permeates and thrills. A speaker destitute of energy never produces such a peculiar sensation as this. He may please by the even flow of his descriptions and narrations, and by the elegance of his general method and style, but our feeling is merely that of complacency. We are conscious of a quiet satisfaction as we listen, and of a soft and tranquil mental pleasure as he closes, but of nothing more. He has not cut sharply into the heart of his subject, and consequently he has not cut sharply into the heart of his hearer.

The principal, perhaps the sole cause, of the success of the radical orator of the present day with his audience, is his force. He is a man of one lone idea, and if this happens to be a great and fundamental one, as it sometimes does, it is apprehended upon one of its sides only. As a consequence, he is an intense man, a forcible man. His utterances penetrate. It is true that there are among this clasa some of less earnest spirit, and less energetic temper, amateur reformers, who wish to make an impression upon the public mind from motives of mere vanity. Such men are exceedingly feeble, and soon desist from their undertaking. For while the common mind is ever ready, too ready, to listen to a really earnest and forcible man, even though his force proceeds from a wrong source, and sets in an altogether wrong direction, it yet loathes a lukewarm earnestness, a counterfeited enthusiasm. One of the most telling characters, in one of the most brilliant English comedies, is Forcible Feeble. Take away from the man who goes now by the name of reformer,—the half-educated man who sees the truth but not the whole truth,—-take away from him his force, and you take away his muscular system. He instanta neously collapses into a flabby pulp.

It is this penetrating quality, then, which renders discourse effective. And the preacher is the man, above all men, who should be characterized by it, if the theory which we have laid down respecting the origin of power is the true one. The preacher who studies and ponders the Bible as a whole, will not be a half-educated man. He will not see great ideas on one side, but on all sides, because they are so exhibited in the Scriptures. Whatever power he derives from the contemplation of inspired truth will be legitimate, and it will be regulated. Hia force will not be lawless and without an aim, like that of the man whose thoughts are mere speculations. His power will be like power in material nature. The forces of nature are denominated, indif ferently, forces or laws; and the power of the Bibli cal inind is one with eternal law and eternal truth. A striking writer of the present age furnishes an example which, in the way of contrast, throws light upon the particular aspect of the subject we are considering. We allude to Thomas Carlyle. Force, intense penetration, and incisive keenness, is the secret of his influence over the younger class of educated men. Take these away from his thoughts, and there is not enough of depth, comprehensiveness and originality in them, to account for the impression which he has made, as an author, upon his generation. But this force in Carlyle is, after all, wholly subjective, and therefore spasmodic. It does not originate from a living reception into his mind, of the great body of objective and revealed truth. Suppose that that intellect were truly contemplative; suppose that it had brooded over those two single ideas of the Divine personality and human apostasy, with their immense implication; what a difference there would be in the quantity and the quality of its force. How much broader and deeper would be its intuition; how much more practical and influential would be its projects for ameliorating the condition of man; and how much more permanent would be its influence in literary history.

For the energy in this instance is convulsive, and of the nature of a spasm. It is the force of a fury, and not of an angel. The muscle is bravely kept tight-drawn by an intense volition, and for a while there is the appearance of self-sufficient power. But the creature is finite, and a slight tremor becomes visible, and the cord finally slackens. The human mind needs to repose upon something greater, deeper, grander than itself; and when, either from a false theory, or from human pride, or from both, there is not this recumbency upon objective and eternal truth, its inherent finiteness and feebleness sooner or later appear. The created mind may endeavor to make up for this want of inward power, by a stormy and passionate energy; but time is long, and truth is infinite, and sooner or later the overtasked, because unassisted, intellect gives out, and its possessor, weary and broken by its struggles and convulsions, rushes to the other extreme of tired and hopeless scepticism, and cries with Macbeth:

"Life's but a walking shadow; a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told hy an idiot, full of sound and fury
Signifying nothing."¹

¹ The defect in this unnatural do not here allude to the Ger

force displays itself in the rhetoric, man English phraseology, which

as well as the philosophy, of the seems now to have become a

writer in question. His style second nature with Carlyle. Thin

corresponds to his thought. We characteristic is unduly magnified by critics, and is by no means the forcible, without calm inward

The Christian mind is preserved from this fault of unnatural and feelble forcefulness, because it has received into itself a complete system of truth and doctrine. Any mind that is Biblical, is comprehensive and all-surveying. Its power originates from a' full view. Its intensity springs from an intuition that is both central and peripheral. And the times demand this quality in the pulpit orator. Rapidity is the characteristic of the mental processes of this generation. An age that is itself full of energy, craves an eloquence that is powerful. And this power must be pure and sustained. The energy must display itself through every fibre, and the whole fabric. The sermon should throb with a robust life. But it will not, until the preacher has inhaled, into his own intellect, the energy and intensity of revealed ideas, and then has dared to strip away from the matter in which this force is embodied, every thing that impedes its working. Powerful writers are plain. The fundamental properties of style are interlinked; and he who has secured plainness will secure force, while a failure to attain

principal fault in his manner. It power. It is the effort to cut

c.in be endured in him, though and penetrate to the core, with

nnendurable in his imitators, out really doing so. His style

We allude rather to tho exaggera- wears the appearance of a desire

tiou, and spasmodic contortion, to be tremendously strong. The

which appear in his style, espo- aspiration is infinite, but the per.

aally in his later productions, fonnanco is infinitesimal. It ii the tug and strain to be

the former carries with it the failure to attain the latter.

3. The third fundamental property of style is beauty. The Lest definition that has been given of beauty is that of the Roman school of painting, namely, il piu, nell' uno, multitude in unity. The essential principle of beauty is that, by which all the manifoldness and variety in an object is moulded into unity and simplicity. Take a painting, for example. In this object, there are a great many particular elements. There is color of many varieties, and many shades of the same variety. There is the blending and contrast of these colors, so as to produce the varieties of light and shade. There is a genera] harmony of tints, and a pleasing texture in the objects exhibited in the picture. Again, there are, in this painting, a great many lines as well as colors, curved lines and right lines, indeed all the geometrical elements, intermingled and in every variety of relation to each other. Again, in this painting a great many different properties of matter are represeated. Some of the objects in it are compressed and solid, others are diffuse and airy; some are colossal and firm, others are slender and slight; some are rigid and immovable, others are mobile and pliant. Agaiu, there are, in thia painting, a variety of more distinctively intellectual elements, such as proportion, symmetry, exactness, •neatness, elegance, grace, dignity, sublimity.

Here, then, if we have regard to number alone is a great sum of separate items or elements, in this painting. Each one is distinct from all the rest. But more than this, these items are also diverse from each other. The sensuous elements of color are different from the geometrical elements of lines; and the more distinctively intellectual elements, such as proportion, exactness, and elegance, are different from both. In short, the more closely we analyze this painting, the more clearly shall we see that it is composed of a great amount and variety of particulars. If we look at its items and elements, we shall perceive that as an object it is manifold. It is a " multitude" of items and elements.

And yet, if it is a beautiful picture, it is a "unity " also. As we stand before a great painting like the Last Supper of Da Vinci, for example, we are conscious of receiving but one general impression. We do not receive a distinct, and separate impression, from each one of these items and elements that constitute its manifoldness, but a general and total impression. We do not experience a hundred thousand impressions, from an hundred thousand parti culars. We see, and we feel, that the work is a unity It breathes one spirit, and is pervaded by one tone It is, according to the definition with which we began_, "multitude in unity," and hence it is beautiful.

For it is to be observed, that while, and so long as, we are busy with the particulars alone, we perceive no beauty. That analytic process, while it ia going on, prevents any aesthetic perception and pleasure. So long as we are counting up the items of this multitude, and before we have come to the intuition of the unity of the whole work, we are unconscious of its beauty. It is not until the analysis stops, and the synthesis begins; it is not until we are aware that all this multitude of particulars has been moulded, by the one idea of the artist's imagination, into a single breathing unity, that we feel the beauty that is in the painting. If the mind of the beholder could never get beyond this analysis of particulars, and could never do any thing more than enumerate these items, it could never experience the feeling of beauty. If the eye of the beholder were merely a brute's eye, merely receiving the impressions made by the items and elements of the vision, it could never perceive the beautiful. The brute's eye is impressed by the manifoldness of the object, or the scene, but never by the unity. As it roves over the landscape spread out before it, the organ of the animal is undoubtedly subject to the same sensuous and particular impressions, as those of a Raphael; and, perhaps, if the brute were capable of analyzing and enumerating, it might detect the greater portion of those elements that make up the manifoldness of the picture. But the modifying power is wanting. That unifying principle which can mould these elements into a unity, and bring simplicity into this diffusion and separation of particulars, has not been given to the brute.

We have thus briefly examined this definition of beauty, not merely because it is the most philosophical of any that has been given, but because it is the most useful and safest definition for the purposes of the orator, and particularly of the sacred orator. It is too much the habit to regard beauty, as mere ornamentation • as something that is added to other properties, instead of growing out of them. Hence, it is too much the habit to cultivate the beautiful in isolation; to set it up before the mind, as an independent quality, and to make every other quality subservient to it. In no department is thia more pernicious, and fatal to true success, than in rhetoric.

This habit is founded, partly at least, upon a wrong conception of beauty. It is not defined in accordance with its essential principle, but rather in accordance with its more superficial characteristics. Beauty, with too many, is that which ornaments, which decks out and sets off, plainness and force, or whatever the other properties may be, with which it happens to be juxta-posed. But if the definition that has been given be the true one, beauty is rather an inevitable accompaniment, than a labored decoration. It has a spontaneous origin. It springs into existence, whenever the mind has succeeded in imparting the properties of unity and simplicity to a multitude of particulars which, taken by themselves, are destitute of these properties. But unity and simplicity are substantial properties; they have an intrinsic worth. True beauty, therefore, springs into existence at the very time that the mind is seeking to impart to the object of its attention its most sterling and necessary characteristics. It does not arise when the mind is neglecting essential and necessary characteristics, and is aiming at au isolated, and an independent decoration.

Take the case of the sacred orator, and see how true this position is. Suppose that the preacher, in the composition of a sermon, altogether or in part neglects the necessary property of unity, and endeavors to superinduce upon a heterogeneous mass of materials, which he has gathered together, the element and property of beauty. By the supposition, he has not moulded these materials in the least. There they lie, a great "multitude" of items and particulars, but the mind of the preacher has pervaded them with no unifying, and no simplifying principle. There is multitude, mauifoldness, variety, but there is no unity. Now it is not possible, for him to compose a beautiful oration in this manner. He may decorate as much as he pleases; he may cull words, and invent metaphors, and wiredraw metaphors into similes; he may toil over his i work until he is gray; but he cannot, upon this method, compose a truly beautiful work. So long as this sermon is destitute of a moulding and unifying principle which assimilates, and combines, this multitude of particulars into a whole, into a simple and pure unit, it cannot be made beautiful. So long as this sermon is destitute of unity, it must be destitute of beauty.

The course which the sermonizer should take in this case is plain. He should cease this effort to ornament this aggregate of separate items and particulars, and begin to reduce them into unity and simplicity of form. This is no time for him to be thinking about the beauty of his sermon. If he will cease altogether to think about it, and will aim at those necessary and essential properties which his sermon as yet lacks, he will find in the end that a real and true beauty has spontaneously sprung into existence. He who finds beauty shall lose it, but he who loses beauty shall find it. He who is prematurely anxious to secure beauty will fail; but he whose anxiety has respect first to the necessary properties of style, will find beauty following in their train, as the shadow follows the substance.

For it is plain, that just in proportion as the sermon rounds into unity, does it swell into beauty. It pleases the taste and the sense for the beautiful, just in proportion as the unifying and simplifying process goes on. The eye, at first, sees no form or comeliness in the multitude of materials, because they are a mere multitude; because they are arranged upon no method, and moulded by no principle of unity. But, gradually, the logic of the preacher's mind penetrates, and pervades, the mass of particulars; the homogeneous elements are assimilated, and the heterogeneous are sloughed off; the vital currents of a system, and a method, "begin 'to play through the parts, and the work now takes on a rounded unity, and a chaste simplicity. And now, for the first time, beauty begins to appear. The sermon is seen to be a beautiful product because it is one, and simple, in its structure and impression.

Thus it appears, that true beauty is not an ornament washed on from without, but an efflux from within. The effort to be methodical results in beauty. The endeavor after unity results in beauty The effort to be simple results in beauty. But method, unity, and simplicity, are essential properties. True beauty in rhetoric, therefore, is the natural and necessary accompaniment of solid and substantial characteristics, both in the matter and in the form. It is found in every composition that is characterized by "unity in multitude," and by simplicity in complexity.

Having thus stated and explained this defini tion, we proceed to notice some of its excellences and advantages. And, first, it is a safe definition for the orator. There is no property in style so liable to be injured and spoiled by excess, as beauty. The orator cannot be too plain, or too forcible, but he may be too beautiful. The aesthetic nature, unlike the rational, or the moral, may be too much developed. The development of the taste and imagination must be a symmetrical one, in order to be a just and true one. If the aesthetic processes should exceed their true proportion, and absorb into themselves all the rational and moral processes of the human soul, so that it should become wholly imaginative, and merely aesthetic, this would be an illegitimate and false development. The true proportion, in this instance, is a subordination of the imagination, and the taste, to the purposes and aims of the rational and moral faculties. • If, now, it be said in reply to this, that proportion is equally required in the rational and moral processes of the soul; that the reason ought not to absorb the imagination, any more than the imagination the reason ; we answer, that this cannot happen. For in the true and pure development of the rational and moral powers, a proper and subordinate development of the imaginative and aesthetic is necessitated. A true and pure unfolding of the rational and moral nature of man would inevitably be a proportionate, and hence a beautiful one. Reason and right are the absolute, and in developing them, all things that rest upon them are developed also. The time and the good are necessarily beautiful.

But although such is the fact, the human mind is too unwilling to trust to the simple, and chaste beauty of truth and reason. It lusts after a divorced, and an independent beauty. It tends to an excessive, disproportioned, unsubordinated development of the aesthetic sense. The influence of such a tendency, upon eloquence and oratory, is pernicious in the highest degree, and one great

aim of a true and high theory of eloquence is to counteract it. And, certainly, that definition of beauty which makes it to be more than mere decoration,—which regards it as the result of a unifying principle, moulding into one a great multitude of particulars,—is a safe one for the preacher, in the respects of which we are speaking. There is no danger of an excess of unity and method in the sermon. The closer and more compact the materials, the simpler and more symmetrical the plan, the better the sermon. These characteristics never can become exorbitant, and hence that beauty which springs out of them can never become an extravagant and false ornamentation. The same is true of simplicity. This shows itself more in the style and diction of a sermon, than in the plan and its parts. But can there ever be too much of chaste and pure simplicity, in the language and style? The more there is of this property, the nearer does the work approach to that most purely beautiful of all the productions of Grecian art, the Ionic column. Compare the Ionic with the Corinthian column, and the difference between pure and excessive beauty is apparent. In the Ionic column, the unity completely pervades and masters the manifoldness. The eye is not distracted by complexity of parts, or a multitude of particulars, but rests with a tranquil complacency upon the simple oneness, the chaste pure beauty of the column. In the Corinthian column, there is not

this entire pervasion, and perfect domination, of the manifold by the unity. The variety of parts and particulars somewhat overflows the unity of .the whole. There is too much decoration, the aesthetic sense is a little satiated, the appetite is a little palled, and the eye does not experience that entire satisfaction in taking in the column as a whole, which it feels on beholding the less decorated Ionic. As a work of ait, it is not so clean, so nice, so elegant, so purely and simply beautiful.

The definition which we are considering, then, is a safe one in its influence, because it insists upon the presence and the presidency of the idea of unity. This idea logically precludes over-ornament. It forbids an excess of materials,—too much variety, too much manifoldness, in the parts and particulars. And, supposing there is no excess in the amount of materials, supposing the manifold elements are in just proportion, then this idea and principle of unity precludes the isolation, the disconnection, the independence of any of them. There can be no excess, according to this definition. The beauty that results is a pure and a safe embellishment.

In the second place, the definition under consideration is a useful one for the sacred orator. It is practically available for the purposes of preaching. For it teaches, not only that unity and simplicity are essential to the existence of beauty, but that the effort to obtain them is really an effort to obtain beauty. Tlie definition implies, that success in respect to unity,—to unity that is thorough, and perfusive, and moulds the multitudes of materials,— is success in respect to beauty.

The sacred orator, consequently, knows exactly what he needs to do, in order to secure that property of style which we are considering. And this is of more importance than it might at first seem. For it is more difficult to proceed intelligentl}'., in respect to the precept, "Be beautiful," tharf in respect to the precept, "Be plain," or, "Be forcible." Indeed, if that definition of beauty which we are recommending be rejected, it seems to us that the mind of the orator must be perplexed, when he is desirous of imparting this property to his work. How shall he begin to render his oration beautiful? and when shall he end the effort? are questions that are answered, not only the most safely, but the most intelligently, by bidding him to impart the greatest possible unity to it. Certainly, there is no other property or characteristic in beauty, so prominent as this of unity, and there is no one that is so distinct and easily apprehensible.

Let the preacher, then, adopt this definition, because it is a working definition. Let him see and believe, that all true beauty springs naturally . from unity and simplicity, and then let him act accordingly. Let him, first of all, strive to make his sermon a unit and a whole, so far as its method

is concerned. Just in proportion as he succeeds in so doing, will he construct a beautiful plan,—• a plan that will satisfy the aesthetic sense, at the very time that it satisfies the logical understanding. Let him seek to render this property of unity pervading and perfusive, so far as style and diction are concerned, and his style and diction will be beautiful. For, this unifying principle, working thoroughly and clear to the edge, like the principle of life in nature, will display itself in simplicity of style, and chastity, and purity of diction. And is not such a style and diction beautiful? If style and diction are not essentially simple, and pure, and chaste, can any possible amount of ornamentation ever make them beautiful? Is not unity pervading the manifoldness, in this instance as well as in that of the plan, the essence and basis of beauty? In the third place, this definition recommends itself to the sacre'd orator, because it is comprehensive. We have seen in the first part of this chapter, that more comprehensive terms are desirable, than "perspicuity" and "energy," and hence we have chosen the terms . "plainness" and "force," to denote those properties of style which address the powers of cognition and feeling. A wider and more comprehensive term than "elegance,"—the term that is usually associated with " perspicuity" and "energy,"—is also needed, to denote that property of style which addresses the imagination and aesthetic nature, and hence we have selected the term "beauty." This term is sufficiently comprehensive to include a number of particulars, each of which is pleasing, to the taste.

First in order among these, is neatness. This property in style renders it clean and pure; as the Latin verb niteo, nitcsco, from which it comes, denotes. This purity and niceness, as some of the meanings of these Latin verbs indicate, may become a very bright and splendid quality. The sculptor may cut the statue so very cleanly, and impart such a high neatness to it, that it shall actually shine and gleam like silver. This seems to be the explanation of the uses of the Latin root, and shows how a primarily plain property may be heightened into ornament and splendor. The passage from neatness to elegance is very easy and imperceptible, and, like elegance itself, neatness is a property that is aesthetic, and pleases the taste.

And this conducts to the second particular, under the head of beauty: viz., elegance. The etymology of this word shows its meaning to be kindred to that of neatness. Elegant is from e and lego. Elegance is a nice choice. The elegant is the elect. The elegant is the select. Out of a multitude of particulars, the most fitting is chosen. Under the influence of that principle and idea of unity, of which we have spoken, the orator selects the most appropriate word, the word which promotes the simplicity of the statement, and thus his diction is elegant. Or, under the influence of this same idea of unity, he culls the most suitable metaphor oat of a multitude, and thus his illustration is elegant.

The third particular under the head of beauty is grace. This has been defined to be beauty in motion. When we have a still picture, a tranquil repose of beauty, there is no grace. But start this property into motion, and it takes on this aspect. "We speak of a beautiful landscape, and a graceful figure; of a beautiful color, and a graceful curve. The color is still; the curve is a line, and the line is a point in motion, according to the old geometry and its curved motion is graceful.

Lastly, there is what we must denominate, for ;vant of a better term, beauty proper, or specific Beauty. We cannot here give a full definition of ,hif element in the general conception of the beaudfuL We mean by it more than neatness, and _;aore than elegance. Perhaps that which goes inder the name of ornament and embellishment, in tyle, is nearest to it. It is that flush of color, and hat splendor of light, which are poured over the liscourse of a highly imaginative mind,—like that of Jeremy Taylor, for example. Placing neatness as the lowest degree in the scale of general beauty, then specific beauty would be the last and highest degree,—elegance and grace being intermediate. In this way, the term beauty becomes comprehensive, and sufficient for all the purposes of rhetoric. For, every orator should exhibit something of thia fundamental property of style. Even the least imaginative preacher should discourse in a manner that possesses some of these elements of beauty; that not only does not offend a cultivated taste, but satisfies and pleases it. No writer or speaker should be debarred from, the beautiful. It is a legitimate property in style, and should appear in some of its qualities, and degrees, in every man's discourse.

This brings us to the practical application of this discussion of the nature, and extent, of the beautiful; and what we have to say will be contained in several rules or maxims. First, the preacher should always make beauty of style subservient to plainness and force. This third fundamental property should not overflow, and submerge, the first two. In all its degrees, from neatness up to beauty in the stricter specific sense, it should contribute to render discoupse clear to the understanding, and influential upon the feelings. The moment that this property, in any of its forms, oversteps this limit of subordination and subservience, .it becomes a positive fault in style. Excessive beauty is as much a defect as positive deformity. Showy, gaudy overornament is as much a fault, as downright ugliness. But, in following the definition that has been given, beauty will inevitably be subordinated to plainness and force of style. For, no more of neatness, of , elegance, of grace, and of embellishment, will be admitted or employed, than the principles of unity and simplicity .noil permit. The endeavor to impart oneness to the sermon throughout and in every particular, the effort to secure unity in logic, style, and diction, will keep out all extravagant ornamentation. The striving of the preacher after harmony and simplicity, which according to the definition are the inmost essence of beauty, will allow no decoration to characterize his sermon but that which ia harmonious and simple. And such embellishment as this, is subservient to plainness and force.

Secondly, the degree and amount of beauty in style should accord with the characteristics of the individual. The style of some preachers contains more of the beautiful than that of others, and ought to. For there are differences in the mental structure. Some minds are more imaginative and poetic than others. Yet every mind possesses more or less of imagination. "Even the dullest wight," says Coleridge, "is a Shakspeare in his dreams." Hence, while the property of beauty, as we have already remarked, belongs to style generally, and should be seen in every man's manner of discourse, it is yet a thing of degree and amount. This degree and amount must be determined, by the amount of imagination that has been bestowed upon the individual. Some men are so constituted, that neatness is the utmost that is proper in them. If they attempt more than this lowest grade of the beautiful, they injure their style, and render it • positively offensive to taste. Stopping with neatness, they

secure "beauty. Others may be elegant, >thera graceful, others, and these are the few, may be beautiful with the embellishment and ornament of , I Jeremy Taylor. In each and every instance, the grade of beauty should accord with the individuality. If it does not, it is, in reference to the individual, excessive and isolated beauty, which is offensive to the taste, and therefore really of the nature of the deformed and the ugly. A property overwrought, and carried to excess, turns into its own contrary; just as frost, raised to its utmost intensity, produces the same sensation as fire.

But in what other way, can this adjustment of the amount of beauty hi style to the individuality of the preacher be secured, than by proceeding from the ideas of unity and simplicity; than by adopting, and working upon, that definition which makes these the essentials and basis of the beautiful? If the preacher sets up mere decoration as his aim, he will inevitably outrun his capacities. He will attempt to embellish his sermon, more than his mental peculiarities will warrant. There will not be a true harmony and accord, between the amount of imagination in his soul, and the amount of ornament in his sermon. On the other hand, the endeavor to infuse unity, symmetry, and simplicity, through the whole sermon, through the matter and the form, will secure a just proportion between the product of the preacher's mind, and the characteristics of the preacher's mind. The orator will then exhibit his own grade of beauty, in his style,—no more, and no less, than his mental qualities justify. And this grade is the truly and the highly Beautiful, for Mm, and in him.