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 ENGLISH STYLE 
 
 PUBLIC DISCOTJESE 
 
 WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO 
 
 THE USAGES OF THE PULPIT 
 
 BY 
 
 AUSTIN PHELPS, D.D. 
 
 liATE BABTLET PROFESSOR OF SACRED RHETORIC IN ANDOVEB 
 THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 
 
 NEAV YORK 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 
 1883
 
 COPTBIGHT, 1883, BY 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS. 
 
 JranMin ^rtss: 
 
 BAND, AVERT, AND COMPANT, 
 BOSTON.
 
 T/^ LreRARY 
 
 /// r) ^ UNIVERSIT \ OF ( " T TrORMA 
 
 SAATa ij.u... 
 
 PEEFAOE. 
 
 The author of a treatise on the Latin language, published 
 in the fifteenth centuiy, commenced his work with this an- 
 nouncement : " This volume contains nothing which has ever 
 been said by any one else." His production ought to have 
 been a revelation from heaven. A treatise on a language 
 a thousand years old can not be valuable, and yet strictly 
 original. Very similar must be the criticism of a treatise 
 on English style. It must be indebted to much which has 
 preceded it in literary research. That which "has ever 
 been said " must determine largely what remains to be said ; 
 and that which remains to be said must consist largely of 
 variations upon that which has been said. 
 
 In the present volume I have not scrupled to use any mate- 
 rial which has seemed to me adapted to my purpose. I have 
 appropriated principles of which no one knows the origin ; 
 I have employed illustrations, some of which belong to the 
 common stock of rhetorical discussion ; I have expressed 
 opinions of books and authors, some of which I owe to 
 experts whom the literary world honors as authorities. In 
 exercising this liberty, I have availed myself of all the stand- 
 ard treatises on grammar, on the English language, on 
 English literature, and on other national literatures, which 
 have been within my reach. To name them even would be
 
 iv PREFACE. 
 
 in part oommonplacc, and in part pedantic. The most com- 
 mon, as well as the most rare resources of knowledge must 
 Ih! employed to construct a treatise on the subject here dis- 
 cussed, which shall he of any considerable use to the class 
 of minds which I have addressed. 
 
 The fact should specially be borne in mind, that these 
 Lectures do not profess to be an exhaustive discussion of 
 English style as it exists historically in English literature. 
 They have been delivered in a professional seminary, chiefly 
 with professional aims. The clergy have been my auditors. 
 Clerical necessities and clerical usages have suggested my 
 plan and its details. I have endeavored to meet what I 
 Lave found to be the actual state of culture, on the subject 
 of my instructions, among theological students the large 
 majority of whom have been graduates of American colleges. 
 The chief features of that culture have been a limited knowl- 
 edge of English literature, a more limited acquaintance 
 with the philosophy of language, a still more partial famil- 
 iarity with the English pulpit, and rather crude opinions, 
 with some degree of indifference, on the whole subject of the 
 style of the pulpit. I have spoken to educated men, but to 
 men whose minds, on the subject in hand, have been drift- 
 ing without knowing whither or why. 
 
 Discussions adjusted to the purest science of language, or 
 to the highest range of literary culture, would have been just 
 those which would not have benefited my hearers. Those 
 who know the curriculum common to American colleges, in 
 respect to English grammar, the English language, and the 
 English literature, will understand the necessity of a great 
 deal of elementary instruction in Lectures on English Style, 
 addressed to students who have but recently finished their
 
 PREFACE. V 
 
 collegiate studies. If the contents of this volume meet in 
 any considerable degree the wants of this class of minds, 
 in anticipation of the work of the pulpit, and sei-ve to expe- 
 dite their English culture, and diminish the inevitable waste 
 of their early years of professional service by helping them 
 to begin it with a scholarly ideal, my chief object will be 
 gained. 
 
 Yet it is impossible to speak to such hearers on such 
 themes without saying much which is equally pertinent to 
 other minds possessed of scholarly tastes, and engaged in 
 intellectual occupations. All the liberal professions are a 
 kindred group. Literary avocations inevitably lap over and 
 interpenetrate each other. It will be found, therefore, that 
 this volume contains material of interest to other than the 
 professional hearers to whom it has been addressed. As 
 clergymen find their culture expanded and enriched by the 
 study of law, and by intercourse with men of the legal pro- 
 fession, so lawyers and journalists, and other literary men, 
 may find a similar improvement of their resources from a 
 study of the literatm-e of the pulpit, and from works de- 
 signed for the professional training of preachers. 
 
 But works of this class often suffer from a superficial criti- 
 cism. Of what use, it is often asked, can it be to attempt 
 to systematize the theory of a practical business like that of 
 public discourse ? Who cares for such a system in the con- 
 struction of a discourse ? Who can think of it in the act of 
 discoursing ? A man can not walk on eggs without breaking 
 them. So a man can not write or speak on a business of 
 practical life, surrounded and hedged in by the niceties of 
 rhetorical criticism, without thrusting them out of his way 
 in the impatient freedom of speaking his mind. To this
 
 Vi rUEFACE. 
 
 style of objection it must be conceckd, in reply, that, beyond 
 all (juestion, that criticism which is really valuable to young 
 writers or speakers is a miscellaneous matter. It must con- 
 sist of a vast amount of miscellaneous suggestion, touching 
 here and prol>ing there the actual faults in composition, of 
 those to whom it is addressed. It is the proper work of tlie 
 lecture-room and of colloquial intercourse. In its best estate 
 it is suggested by a discourse in hand, prepared for the pur- 
 pose by a pupil. Yet this volume of unwritten criticism 
 does constitute a system. The teaching of an art creates a 
 corresponding science. This is susceptible of systematic 
 treatment. To avoid such treatment, in deference to the 
 objection in question, would reduce it to a hodge-podge of 
 literary remark, without beginning or end or middle. Some- 
 thing is needed to give to the work order and coherence. 
 In the present volume I have sought that something in an 
 analysis of the fundamental qualities of style. Under each 
 of these are arranged the practical suggestions relevant to 
 it, and valuable to the literary or professional reader. Such 
 an attempt at systematic order is practically pertinent, even 
 if it is no more than the string to a row of beads. 
 
 In this, as in former volumes, I have retained the style 
 and forms of the lecture-room. In doing so, I have in- 
 dulged the liberty of the lecture-room in pursuing discussion 
 beyond the strict limits of the topic in hand, into related 
 topics, by means of excursus. These, though not numerous, 
 have led me, as I am well aware, into trains of thought 
 which seem but remotely connected with the main subject ; 
 yet not so, as the su!)jeet, with its professional bearings, lay 
 in the minds of my hearers.
 
 TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 LECTURE I. 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 Introduction. — Style defined; its Nomenclature ; Classification of 
 Qualities. — Purity of Style; its Definition; its Standards. — 
 Restrictions upon Usage. — National Authority. — Present 
 Authority. — Reputable Authority 1 
 
 LECTURE n. 
 
 Purity of Style, continued; its Violations, by the Use of the Obso- 
 lete.— When do "Words become obsolete? — Obsolescent "Words. 
 
 — The Obsolete in Poetry, in Prayer, in Homiletic Appeals. — 
 Novelties in Style. — Excursus on English Dictionaries. — New 
 "Words coined facetiously. — Compound "Words. —New Coin- 
 age in the Pulpit 19 
 
 LECTURE III. 
 
 Purity of Style, continued. — New Coinage a Necessity. — Princi- 
 ples which should regulate it. — Importations from Foreign 
 Languages; often caused by Pedantry, by Undue Regard for 
 Etymology. — The Composite Structure of the English Tongue. 
 
 — Provincialisms; when Good English. — Technical and Clan- 
 nish "Words; the Style of the Pulpit iofected by them. — The 
 Puritan Dialect. — The Necessity of some Technicalities. — 
 "Vulgarisms 34 
 
 LECTURE IV. 
 
 Purity of Style, continued; Reasons for its Cultivation. — Testi- 
 mony of Literary Authority. — Tributary to Perspicuity; to 
 Force. — Superiority of Pure English for Religious Discourse. 
 
 — Excursus on the Destiny of the English Language . . .50 
 
 LECTURE V. 
 
 Purity of Style, concluded; Reasons for cultivating it, continued. 
 
 — Danger that the English Language will be corrupted in this 
 Country, by Republican Influence, by Extent of Territory, by
 
 Viii CONTENTS. 
 
 FAOE. 
 
 the Multif udc of Emigrant Nationalities. — The Clergy a Stand- 
 ard to tho rc()i)l(\ — ATaste for Turity of Stylo fundamental 
 to tliorough Scholarship. — Means of acquiring Purity of Style. 
 — Classic Conversation. — Classic Authorship. —Use of Trea- 
 tises on Language. —Ilabita of Composiag 64 
 
 LECTURE VI. 
 
 Precision of Style; its Definition. — Its Violations by the Improper 
 Use or Omission of Single Words; by a Confused Use of Literal 
 and Figurative Words; by confounding Synonyms; by Defect 
 in the Number of Words. — Excess of Conciseness. — Redun- 
 dant Style. — Looseness in Construction 79 
 
 LECTURE Vn. 
 
 Causes of the Formation of a Loose Style.— Indiscriminate Think- 
 ing.— Chaotic Discussion. — Excessive Care for Expression. — 
 Favoritism in Taste. — EKcnrsus on the Want of Command of 
 Language. — What is involved in Command of Language? — 
 How can it be acquired? — Uncritical Admiration of Loose 
 Writers. — Indiscriminate Dependence on Dictionaries. —Dis- 
 proportion in Extemporaneous Speaking 93 
 
 LECTURE Vm. 
 
 The Inducements to the Cultivation of Precision of Style by Pub- 
 lic Speakers. — It is not Pedantic nor Unpractical. — Its Trib- 
 ute to other Qualities, to Clearness, to Force, to Elegance, to 
 Ingenuousness. — Its Indepen<lent Virtue. — The Popular Taste 
 for it. — Figurative Forms of it. — the Special Need of it in 
 Religious Discourse. — Excitrsus, the Decline of Positive Dialect 
 in tho Expression of Nominal Christianity Ill 
 
 LECTURE IX. 
 
 Perspicuity of Style; its Foundation in Clearness of Thought. — 
 Obscurity from Absence of Thought; from Vagueness of 
 Thought; from the Affectation of Profound Thought; from 
 Real Profoundness of Thought; from Familiarity with Thought; 
 from Rajiidity in the Succession of Thought .... 126 
 
 LECTURE X. 
 
 Perspicuity of Style as related to the Use of Imagery. — Incongru- 
 ous Imagery. — Mixed Imagery. — Learned Imagery. — Excess 
 of Imagery.— Absence of Imagery. — Perspicuity as related to 
 the Words of a Discourse.- Words technical to Religious Usage.
 
 CONTENTS. IX 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 — Excess of "Words not Saxon. — Ambiguous "Words. — General 
 and Abstract "Words. — Excess in Number of "Words. — Defi- 
 ciency in Number of "Words 140 
 
 LECTURE XI. 
 
 Perspicuity of Construction. — The Arrangement of Pronouns and 
 their Antecedents; of Adjectives and Adverbs; of Qualifying 
 Clauses; of Emphatic Clauses ; of Ellipsis; of Parenthesis; of 
 the Anacoluthon ; of the Combination of Irrelevant Materials . 159 
 
 LECTURE Xn. 
 
 Excursus, the Intellectuality of the Pulpit. — The Principles which 
 should regulate it. — Its Relation to the Scriptures; to the Intel- 
 lectual Cravings of a Christianized People; to Emotional Ex- 
 citements ; to the Popular Desire for a System of Faith ; to the 
 Peculiar Awakening of the Age; to the Strength of Infidelity; 
 to External Protective Authority; to the Intellectual Dignity 
 of the "Work of the Holy Ghost. — Corollaries .... 175 
 
 LECTURE Xin. 
 
 Energy of Style; its Definition; its Foundation in Thought, in 
 Enthusiasm of Composition, in Composing with an Object in 
 view. — Directness of Discourse. — Excursus, "What is the 
 Philosophy of the Success of Direct Preaching? — Individu- 
 ality of Moral Influence. — Reputation with the Public vs. 
 Power with Individuals 201 
 
 LECTURE XIV. 
 
 Energy of Style founded in Self-possession. — Intemperate Strength 
 illustrated. — Excursus on the Preaching of Eternal Retribution. 
 
 — The Early English Pulpit on Retribution. — The Still Power 
 in preaching Retribution. — Elocution in preaching Retribu- 
 tion. — The Comminatory Preaching of Christ. — Second Excur- 
 sus on the Use of the Biblical Emblems of Retribution. — No 
 Others true to the Facts. — The Need of them by Modem Mind. 
 
 — Not originated for Transient Use 217 
 
 LECTURE XV. 
 
 Third Excursus. — Preaching the Doctrine of Sin. — The Theory of 
 Depravity. — Organized Forms of Sin. — Description of Indi- 
 vidual Guilt. — Reproofs of Christian Inconsistencies. — Ascetic 
 Physiognomy. — Confessions of Sin. — Theatrical Taste vs. 
 Christian Experience. — Energy promoted by Literal and
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 rAOE. 
 
 Figurative Lanpnape. — A Saxon Vocabulary. — Specific Words. 
 
 — Sliort Words. — OrK)uiatoi)oetic Worda. — Conciseness. — 
 Tautology. — Verbosencss 233 
 
 LECTURE XVI. 
 
 Energy as promoted by Literal and Figurative Speech, continued. 
 
 — Coniisouess not always Forcible. — Energy of Construction. 
 
 — Emphatic AVords in Emphatic Places. — The Conjunctive 
 Beginning. — The Periodic Structure. — Energy as promoted by 
 Ilhetorical Figure. — Climax. — Antithesis. — Interrogation. — 
 Colloquy. — Hyperbole. — Irony. — Exclamation. — Vision. — 
 Apostrophe. — Soliloquy 252 
 
 LECTURE XVIL 
 
 Elegance of Stj-le dependent on Delicacy of Thought. — Feminine 
 Qualities of Truth. — Prejudices against Them. — Relation 
 of Elegance to Ornament. — Offenses against Delicacy of 
 Thought. — The Chief Means of cultivating Elegance. — De- 
 pendent on Delicacy of Expression. — Offenses; in Vocabulary, 
 in Constructions, in Imagery. — Influence of a Study of the 
 Scriptures. — Luxnriousness of Taste. — Decline of National 
 Literatures 274 
 
 LECTURE XYIII. 
 
 Elegance of Style dependent on Vividness, Distinctness of 
 Thought, Sensitiveness of Feeling, Originality of Thought, 
 Simplicity of Language. — Excursus, the Style of Addison, 
 and his Place in English Literature. — Elegance dependent on 
 Variety. — Versatility of Thought. — Variety of the Scriptures. 
 
 — Variety of Construction. — Variety of Illustration . . . 298 
 
 LECTURE XIX. 
 
 Variety of Style, continued. — Variety of Delivery. — Elegance as 
 dependent on Harmony. — Truthfulness of Discourse. — Unity 
 of Discourse. — Fitness of Discourse to Time, Place, Circum- 
 stance, and Character. — Propriety in Appeals. — Euphony of 
 lianguage; what constitutes it; ho wean it be acquired? . . 315 
 
 LECTURE XX. 
 
 Naturalness of Style; Definition; how manifested to the Cogni- 
 zance of Good Taste. — Fitness of Style to Subject. — Fitness 
 of Stylo to the Relations of Hearers.— Fitness of Style to the 
 Relations of the Speaker. — Fitness to Oral Discourse. — Means
 
 CONTENTS. XI 
 
 PAGB. 
 
 of acquiring a Natural Style. — Mastery of Subjects. — Self- 
 forgetfulness in Composing. — Confidence in Truth. — Practice 
 in Composing 331 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 A Catalogue of "Words and Phrases . . . • ... 353
 
 ENGLISH STYLE. 
 
 LECTURE L 
 
 ESTTRODUCTION. — PURITY OF STYLE DEFINED; ITS 
 STANDARDS. 
 
 What is style ? One critic answers, " Style relates 
 to the words and sentences of composition." True : 
 but so does grammar ; so does syntax ; so does lan- 
 guage. Are these the synonyms of style? Another 
 declares, "Style is that part of rhetoric which treats 
 of the expression of thought by language." But argu- 
 ment does the same ; grammar also does the same. 
 Are these synonymous with style? A third defines, 
 " Style is the body of thought ; " or, as Wordsworth 
 puts it, "Style is the incarnation of thought." But 
 this is description, not definition. A fourth says, after 
 Dean Swift, " Style is proper words in proper places." 
 But any good composition is that: "Paradise Lost" is 
 that. Have we no conception of style, abstract from 
 its illustrations ? A fifth responds, " Style is charac- 
 ter." Buffon has it, "Style is the man himself." But 
 body and soul are that : are they style ? This, again, 
 is descriptive, not definitive. Sometimes it is not true. 
 The chief thing which does not appear in some speci- 
 mens of style is the person of the writer- Anonymous
 
 2 ENGLISH STYLE. [lect. i. 
 
 authors! lip might be well-nigh impossible if style always 
 disclosed the writer's individuality. Of acknowledged 
 authorship, are we not often obliged to confess, in read- 
 ing a l)0()k, that we can not become acquainted with the 
 man who wrote it? He remains at the end as much a 
 strancrer to the reader as the reader is to him. 
 
 The chief difficulty in framing a definition of style 
 is to distinguish it from the term "language." Let the 
 following be tested as an experiment : " Style is the 
 general term by which we designate the qualities of 
 thought as expressed in language." The pith of this 
 formula is, that it builds style upon thought, not upon 
 expression alone ; yet not upon thought alone, but 
 upon expression as well. This is probably all that De 
 Quincey means when he calls style "the organ of think- 
 ing." He speaks more exactly when he says that style 
 may be viewed as an organic thing and as a mechanic 
 thing, — "organic, in so far as language is modified by 
 thought; mechanic, in so far as words modify each 
 other." Yet this distinction, in practical criticism dis- 
 appears. The mechanism of style is nothing, except 
 as it expresses the underlying organism. We simplify 
 our conception of it, therefore, if we throw back the 
 whole idea of it, where, in the last analysis, it belongs, 
 — to thought as the substance of which expression is 
 the subordinate and ductile form. 
 
 Two popular conceptions of style demand notice, 
 however, between which it vibrates. One is that of 
 sophistry, expression used to mislead : the other is that 
 of ornament, expression used for display. Both of 
 these assume that style is all outside. It is cunning in 
 the use of words. It is the dress, the shell, the husk. 
 A thought is a thought, "for a' that." So the good 
 sense of men will reason on any such theory as this.
 
 tECT. I.] STYLE DEFINED. 3 
 
 One writer expresses with amusing artlessness this de- 
 grading conception by soberly defining style to be 
 " the art of arrangement applied to words." Observe, 
 it is an art, it is an art of arrangement only, it is an 
 art applied from without, it is concerned with words 
 only. Not a glimpse is visible here of thought, of 
 organic growth, of words created and swayed by things. 
 A comic song is a more respectable product than such 
 a specimen of style. A "negro melody," in which 
 rhythm supplants thought, would fill such a formula. 
 A Cherokee war-song is vastly more worthy of scholarly 
 study. If style be such, the study of it is contemptible. 
 Test the correctness of the principle here advanced by 
 a criticism of a few specimens of striking composition. 
 What can you conceive the style to be, as distinct from 
 the thought, in the first stanza of Wordsworth's " Ode 
 on Immortality ? " 
 
 " Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting : 
 The soul that riseth with us, our life's star, 
 Hath had elsewhere its setting, 
 
 And Cometh from afar. 
 Not in entire forgetfulness. 
 And not in utter nakedness. 
 But trailing clouds of glory, do we come, 
 From God who is our home." 
 
 This we call an imaginative, a figurative, a poetic style. 
 True : but divest it of its imaginative forms, and yet 
 express all the weight it carries, if you can. It is 
 impossible. The very measure is an element in the 
 expression of the ideas. The thought is shorn of some- 
 what if you change the measure. The style grows to 
 the thought, as the seashell to its occupant. Poetic 
 rhythm often is to thought what the down is on the 
 cheek of a peach: without it the peach is something
 
 4 ENGLISH STYLE. [lect. i. 
 
 less. But admit that you can transform poetry to prose, 
 then what is the thought as distinct from the prose 
 style ? Change the language ; say something else than 
 " trailing clouds of glory ; " divest the style of figure, 
 — and have you not clipped the thought ? The figure 
 is the thought, in part : every curve, every indentation 
 of it, every vibration of its winged utterance, is neces- 
 sary to the full and rounded expression of the idea. 
 
 Take an example, almost at random, from De Quin- 
 cey. Speaking of the state of English hymnology at 
 a certain period, he calls it " the howling wilderness of 
 Psalmody." — " Ah ! " says a pedestrian critic, " that is 
 rhetoric." Very well: strip it of its "rhetoric," and 
 yet express the same idea in its plenitude, if you can. 
 It is impossible. You can not drop that figure, and yet 
 express the same kind and the same volume of thought. 
 If any oue thinks he can, we are very safe in respond- 
 ing, " Try it." A piece of Russian iron is not the same 
 thing when melted and compacted and molded into 
 a slug. 
 
 Analyze a fragment from Ruskin, whose style is often 
 thought personified. He wishes to express vividly the 
 idea that feebleness in art is untruthfulness in effect. 
 He writes, therefore, of the " struggling caricature of 
 the meaner mind, which heaps its foreground with col- 
 lossal columns, and heaves impossible mountains into 
 the encumbered sky." Ruskin here unconsciousl}' imi- 
 tates his thought by his vocabulary and syntax. Strip 
 it of that imitation of sense by sound and structure, 
 and what have you left? Say something else than 
 " heaves impossible mountains into the encumbered 
 sky." Say this, at a venture, " A poor artist paints 
 mountains which could never have existed, in a sky 
 which can not conveniently hold them." Have you
 
 MiCT. I.] STYI^E IS THOUGHT. 5 
 
 parted with no thought in losing the imitative adroit- 
 ness of Ruskin's style ? In such examples thought so 
 masters expression, and yokes it to use, that style itself 
 becomes thought. You can not separate them by the 
 change of so much as a syllable without loss. 
 
 The Lord's Prayer is, perhaps, the simplest form of 
 speech in any language. We teach it to children. We 
 use it in the precative mood, which, of all moods, is the 
 least friendly to artifice. Here, then, if anywhere, mere 
 forms of speech might be supposed to be interchangeable, 
 and therefore the choice of forms of no moment. But 
 change the style of the Lord's Prayer, and yet express 
 all the thought, with all its suggested and related ideas, 
 if you can. You can not do it. Even translation does 
 affect this most perfect original of the precative style. 
 It is not equal to itself in all languages. 
 
 The principle, then, holds good everywhere ; and, the 
 more perfect the style, the more absolute is the princi- 
 ple. Style is thought. Qualities of style are qualities 
 of thought. Forms of style are thought in form. In 
 every specimen of perfect style this principle tolerates 
 no question of its authority. Not only is thought pri- 
 mary, and expression secondary : thought is absolute, 
 it is imperial. Expression as an independent entit}^ is 
 words without sense. This principle is the corner-stone 
 of all manly criticism in literature. Every possible ex- 
 cellence in style grows out of it : every possible defect 
 grows out of the neglect or denial of it. A writer of 
 superior mental force, starting with this principle alone, 
 might, in time, work his way, by the sheer force of origi- 
 nal thinking, to supreme perfection in literary expres- 
 sion. Yet, starting without it, a lifetime of criticism 
 and experiment could not create a stjde of tolerable 
 quality.
 
 6 ENGLISH STYLE. [lect. i. 
 
 Another preliminary to our discussion is the nomen- 
 clature used in the criticism of style. This should be 
 noticed for the sake of three things. One is the fact, 
 that some of the terms used in criticism are ambiguous, 
 and should, if possible, be avoided ; thus, a " plain " 
 style. What is it ? It may be an unadorned style : 
 it may also be a perspicuous style. Another fact is, 
 that some of the terms used are substantial synonyms. 
 "Energy," "strength," "force," "vigor," are all used 
 to express one quality. A third fact is, that, of the 
 multitude of terms employed, but few express funda- 
 mental qualities. We speak, for example, of " concise- 
 ness " of style. Dr. Whately very properly considers 
 this not a fundamental quality, but a tributary to 
 energy. 
 
 An important preliminary, therefore, is the classifica- 
 tion of the fundamental qualities of style. Four dis- 
 tinct things lie at the basis of these qualities. These 
 are thought, language, the speaker, and the hearer. Out 
 of the relations of these four things the fundamental 
 qualities of a good style grow. 
 
 Out of the relations of thought to language grow 
 Purity and Precision. Purity comprises all those quali- 
 ties which grow out of the laws of grammar. A good 
 style is conformed to certain laws of language which 
 are expressed in grammar. Precision includes all that 
 is essential to the expression of no more, no less, and 
 no other, than the meaning which the writer purposes 
 to express. 
 
 One quality fundamental to a good style grows out 
 of the relation of thought and language to the writer 
 or speaker. We term it Individuality. It is that qual- 
 ity by which the speaker diffuses himself through liis 
 style ; not merely that by which he impresses himself
 
 LECT. I.] STYLE ANALYZED. 7 
 
 upon his style, but that by which he lives and breathes 
 within and throughout its every variation and sinuosity 
 of expression. It is that which Buffon had in mind 
 when he said, "Style is the man himself," and which 
 others have meant by saying that " style is character." 
 
 Out of the relations of thought and language, and the 
 speaker to the hearer, grow three qualities of a good 
 style. They are perspicuity, energy, and elegance. 
 Perspicuity expresses the clearness of the thought to 
 the perceptions of the hearer. Energy expresses the 
 force of the thought to the sensibilities of the hearer. 
 Elegance expresses the beauty of the thought to the 
 taste of the hearer. All these are relative to the cul- 
 ture of the hearer. 
 
 One quality remains. It results from a fit selection 
 and a due proportioning of the qualities already named. 
 It is Naturalness of style. It is that quality by which 
 thought, as expressed in language, appeals to the sense 
 of fitness in the hearer. 
 
 These seven qualities, and only these, I find to be 
 fundamental in the criticism of style. ' All other quali- 
 ties naturally fall into the rank of tributaries to these. 
 These will therefore constitute the themes in the ensuing 
 Lectures, but with one exception; viz., that of Individu- 
 ality of style. 
 
 At the first view it may seem unreasonable to make 
 this omission ; but I make it deliberately, after vain at- 
 tempts to discuss this quality in a manner fitted to the 
 practical uses of a public speaker. As a subject of 
 theoretic criticism only, it can be discussed, of course, 
 ad libitum ; but, as a subject of practical use, I am con- 
 fident that prolonged study will convince any discern- 
 ing critic that it is not a proper theme of critical 
 research. The more sedulously a speaker studies and
 
 8 ENGLISH STYLE. [lect. i. 
 
 strives to gain it, the less will he have of it. He must 
 be a man of rare genius if he does not fall into servi- 
 tude to some counterfeit of it. 
 
 When a man sits for his portrait, the surest way of 
 securing upon the canvas another man, not him, is that 
 he should set himself to work profoundly thinking of 
 himself, — how he looks: are his eyes upon the right 
 point of the compass? is his mouth closed with the 
 proper degree of compression? are wrinkles visible in 
 his forehead ? is the head poised at the right angle ? do 
 the arms hang limp, or stiff? and so on. The more he 
 thinks thus of himself, the less will he he himself on 
 the canvas. He can defeat the genius of a prince of 
 artists, solely by the conscious intentness of his own 
 mind upon his body. Many of the most perfect like- 
 nesses are taken without the knowledge of the subjects 
 of them. Portraits of artists painted by themselves are 
 never their best work. The gallery of such portraits 
 in Florence is justly criticised by Hawthorne as abound- 
 ing with autobiographic peculiarities which in perfect 
 likenesses would be invisible. To be himself in any 
 thing, a man must not think of being it. An English 
 officer said of the Duke of Wellington, that he did not 
 write as well after the battle of Waterloo as before ; 
 because he knew that whatever he wrote would be 
 printed, and he wrote thinking how it would look in 
 print. 
 
 The principle illustrated in these examples governs 
 the art of acquiring individuality of style. A speaker 
 can not impress his own individuality upon his dis- 
 course consciously. He can not, therefore, study this 
 quality successfully for any practical uses. As a theme 
 of rhetorical science, with frequent incursions into ps}-- 
 chological science, it can be studied ; but, as a theme
 
 LECT. I.] PURITY OF ENGLISH STYLE. 9 
 
 of practical criticism for uses in public speech, the less 
 a man knows of it the better. It is a qualit}^ which 
 must come unbidden, as happiness does to the uncon- 
 scious recipient: it can not be produced by force of 
 will, nor acquired by studious discipline. It does not 
 fall, therefore, within the scope of these Lectures any 
 further than to be recognized in the critical analysis 
 of style. 
 
 PURITY OF ENGLISH STYLE. 
 
 Of those fundamental qualities of style which admit 
 of critical study for the practical uses of the pulpit, the 
 first in order is that of Pueity. 
 
 I. This may be more specifically defined by several 
 memoranda, of which the first is, that it relates to 
 three things ; viz., the form of words, the construction 
 of words in continuous discourse, and the meaning of 
 words and phrases. The second, therefore, is, that it 
 requires three things ; viz., that the words used should 
 belong to the English language, that the construction 
 be accordant with English idiom, and that words and 
 phrases be employed in the senses recognized by good 
 English authority. The third is, that therefore the vio- 
 lations of English purity are offenses against the three 
 departments of scientific grammar. In the form of a 
 word, a violation of purity is an offense against the 
 laws of English etymology and their modifications by 
 usage. In the construction of sentences, a violation of 
 purity is an offense against English syntax. In the 
 meaning of words or phrases, a violation of purity is an 
 offense against the authority of lexicography. The 
 fourth is, that the names given to the chief violations 
 of purity are three. In the forms of words, a violation 
 of purity is a barbarism : in the constructions, a vio-
 
 10 ENOIiTRH STYLE. [lect. i. 
 
 lation of purity is a solecism ; in the meanings of 
 words and phrases, a violation of purity is an impro- 
 priety. 
 
 II. A further topic fundamental to the subject is the 
 inquiry, What is the standard of English purity of 
 style? The history of this question in the rhetorical 
 literature of the language discloses but two opinions 
 which deserve debate. You will readily recall them from 
 your collegiate text-books. They may be represented 
 by the formula, " Usage versus Laws of Language." 
 One opinion gives the ascendency to usage, the other 
 to the laws of the language, as the ultimate authority. 
 One class of writers adopt an extreme utilitarianism, 
 saying, " If a man makes himself understood by those 
 who use the language, why should he care for a pure 
 style beyond that? " This is the one extreme. At the 
 opposite extreme are the " Purists." They hold in 
 theory, that, be the usage of a people what it may, the 
 laws of a language must be authoritative to scholars. 
 Purists in the use of language have existed in every 
 country which has had a literature. In the first half of 
 the sixteenth century, Italian scholars would employ 
 none but the purest Augustan Latin. Erasmus con- 
 tended, that the true rule for a scholarly author was to 
 write as Cicero would have written if he had lived 
 to modern times. He rejected as unscholarlj^ all the 
 languages of modern Europe. It was one of his chief 
 objections to the Reformation, that it employed the 
 language of the German people. The principles of 
 Luther he approved, but he could not admit that Chris- 
 tianity could ever outgrow the Latin tongue. His life 
 was a sacrifice of the Christian religion to the conserva- 
 tism of literature. All the modern languages of Europe 
 had a similar conflict with the ancient classic Latin.
 
 LECT. I.] STANDARDS OF ENGLISH PTJEITY. 11 
 
 The action was, "The Aristocracy of Learning versus 
 the Democracy of Usage." Usage triumphed, and forced 
 new languages into being. The conclusion was fore- 
 gone from the beginning. 
 
 The history of this conflict of opinion seems to indi- 
 cate the true theory on the subject in two principles, 
 which practically qualify and limit each other. One is, 
 that the laws of a language are the proximate standard 
 of purity. A language is the production of the national 
 mind. In it the national mind has expressed its uncon- 
 scious will. Like every other national growth, it is a 
 thing of law. If exposed to the inroad of alien or 
 mongrel words, or barbarous idioms, the interests of 
 culture require, that, if possible, it should be protected 
 by appeal to its inherent laws. A violation of those 
 laws is to scholarly taste an evil. It is an excrescence 
 on the national tongue, to be excluded if possible ; to 
 be checked in its growth if it can not be excluded ; 
 to be often only tolerated if it can not be checked, — 
 till the national usage shall possibly right itself, and go 
 back to the purer forms of speech. 
 
 But another principle qualifies and controls this : it 
 is, that usage must be the ultimate standard of purity. 
 Recognizing the conservative authority of scholarly 
 taste as expressed in the laws of the language, we must 
 submit to usage if that insists on change. This princi- 
 ple rests on several reasons. One is that of simple 
 necessity. A language is a nation's property. The 
 many make it, not the few. If the many choose to 
 change it, enlarge it, bring importations into it, even 
 load it with absolutely new creations, how shall the few 
 who object on grounds of scholarly taste help them- 
 selves ? The nation retains the most absolute of all 
 rights, — the right of creatorship. It is sufficient to say,
 
 12 ENGLISH STYLE. [lect. i. 
 
 that scholarly taste must yield because it must. Usage 
 may be tyrannical. It may create words by sheer whim. 
 It may indulge a taste for vulgarisms. This makes no 
 difference. If scholarly authority can not make itself 
 felt as a conservative influence, it has no power to act 
 as a conservative force. 
 
 An amateur in philological studies once found, as he 
 believed, a Norman origin for the word " quiz." But 
 Smart, the author of an English dictionary, gives to 
 the word a more simple and probable origin. He says, 
 that the manager of a theater in Dublin once passed 
 an evening with certain amateurs in literature ; and he 
 staked a sum of money on the proposal that he would 
 create a word which should belong to no language on 
 the globe, and should be absolutely void of sense, yet 
 it should become the subject of the common talk of 
 the town in twenty-four hours. The wager was ac- 
 cepted. He then sent his servants through the most 
 densely peopled streets of the city, with directions to 
 chalk in large capitals the letters QUIZ on each 
 alternate door and shop-window. The next day was 
 Sunday. Stores were closed, and the throng in the 
 streets had leisure to read the enigmatical letters. 
 Every one who saw it repeated it to his neighbor ; and 
 his neighbor responded, " What does ' quiz ' mean ? " It 
 had no meaning. No language owned it. Scholarly taste 
 scouted it. Yet everybody laughed at it, and that gave 
 it a meaning. From that day to this, scholarship has 
 been compelled to recognize the word, and to use it as 
 good sound English. In such a case usage declares its 
 will, and says to scholarship, " What will you do about 
 it?" 
 
 Further : the principle before us rests on its useful- 
 ness. Languages need improvement. The most finished
 
 tECT. I.] GROWTH OF LANGUAGES. 13 
 
 languages admit of improvement. The Greek, the most 
 perfect medium of human speech the world has known, 
 never saw the time when it could not have been im- 
 proved. Sixty years ago the Prussian Government 
 published a dictionary, to be used in the public service, 
 restricted to words of strictly national origin and then 
 in use. It was an attempt, by authority of law, to 
 prevent the introduction of new and foreign words. It 
 was, by the nature of the case, doomed to failure. A 
 national mind grows ; it accumulates a history ; new 
 ideas are born; new institutions are created; new wants 
 arise. Language, therefore, must grow, to express these 
 novel facts. We must have new words, new idioms, 
 new constructions, new combinations, and new senses 
 of old words. 
 
 Specially is this true of every new epoch in a na- 
 tion's history. Such events as the rise of Greek art, 
 the growth of the Roman Empire, the irruption of the 
 northern tribes into Italy, the rise of the Papacy, the 
 Reformation, the French Revolution, the downfall of 
 American slavery, either create, or are created by, 
 new ideas, which exceed the capacities of language as 
 before organized and fixed. Moreover, one national 
 mind originates ideas not original to another. One 
 language also gives birth to words more felicitously 
 expressive than their synonyms in another of ideas 
 common to both. One, therefore, must borrow from 
 another : there is no shame in that. Our English word 
 " humbug," for instance, is an English original. I find 
 it stated on good authority, that it can not be reproduced 
 in one word in any other living tongue. Yet it is too 
 valuable a word to be excluded from any language. 
 
 In the French language a dictionary is extant con- 
 taining only the words born into the language since
 
 14 ENGLISH STYLE. [i.kct. i. 
 
 tlie Ilcvolution of 1789. Among the old books in the 
 British Museum is found a dictionary, of which this is 
 tlie title, " A Dictionary of all words born since 1G40, 
 in speeches, prayers, and sermons: as well those that 
 signify something as nothing." These dictionaries were 
 pul^lished after periods of popular ferment. The pas- 
 sions of nations had been raging. They had forced 
 national growth, and therefore the expansion of lan- 
 guages. Such epochs are sure to create words which 
 " signify something." 
 
 It would be more than a work of literary curiosity 
 to collate the new words to which the rise and fall of 
 American slavery have given birth. Even so unex- 
 ceptional an event as the election of an American 
 President may create a word which shall live a thou- 
 sand years. The hybrid word " bulldoze " may prove 
 to be an example. Who knows its origin? Who can 
 define it etymologically ? Yet the American bar, and 
 the Supreme Court, and the Congress of the United 
 States, have been using it for years in grave discussions 
 involving the purity of the ballot and the existence of 
 the Republic. It is doubtless a word of vulgar origin, 
 supported by not a shadow of scholarly authority. Yet 
 the critical facts of our recent national history enter 
 into its structure. We may hunt the world over, and 
 not find its synonym. Yet it may become a necessity 
 to national thought, and may live when a thousand 
 importations from the classic languages have passed 
 away. It would not be unlike the philological history 
 of some other words if lexicographers, a century hence, 
 should trace back the history of that word to some 
 learned and complicated involution with an Anglo- 
 Saxon or Arabic root. 
 
 The usefulness of a language, then, necessitates a
 
 LECT. I.] EESTEICTIONS UPON USAGE. 15 
 
 scholarly obedience to usage as the authority of last 
 resort. We not only must obey because we must, we 
 must obey in order that our language may conform to 
 the national wants, and be an honest expression of the 
 national mind. 
 
 III. The foregoing views suggest the inquiry. To 
 what restrictions is usage practically subjected by the 
 conservative influence of the laws of a lanfjuacje ? 
 Scholarly taste has recognized the following principles. 
 I review them rapidly, because the standard rhetorical 
 works have made them familiar. 
 
 In the first place, that which we recognize as our ulti- 
 mate standard of purity should be the present usage ; 
 not the usage of a past age, not the possible usage of a 
 future age. The laws of a language protect it, not as 
 it was, not as it may or will or ought to be, but as it 
 is. Conservative presumption always favors the thing 
 that is. The great majority of things in human life 
 prove their right to be by being. 
 
 Again : that which we accept as authority should be 
 the national usage. The laAVs of a language protect 
 it from the errors of foreign usage ; that is, the usage 
 of those to whom it is not vernacular. M. Guizot, 
 for instance, wrote and spoke the English language 
 with almost the accuracy of an English scholar ; but 
 he was not an authority on a question of English 
 purity. The authoritative use is the vernacular use. 
 The laws of a language also prescribe the national 
 usage as distinct from any sectional use. The English- 
 speaking world abounds with provincialisms. Scotti- 
 cisms, Americanisms, Irish idioms, Australian ^jatois^ 
 the Chinook dialect of Oregon, are no part of the Eng- 
 lish language, because they have not the stamp of uni- 
 versal use. The laws of a language further support the
 
 16 ENGLISH STYLE. [lkct. i. 
 
 national usage as distinct from clannish use. Why is 
 not the lingo of the forecastle pure English? Why not 
 the jargon of the thieves of London? Why not the 
 cant of religious enthusiasts? Why not the slang of 
 American colleges? Because these are clannish. No 
 national authority supports them. 
 
 The third restriction which the laws of a language 
 lay upon the usage to which we appeal for our au- 
 thority is, that it shall be reputable usage. This prin- 
 ciple grows out of the obvious and necessary diiference 
 between the colloquial use of the language by all class- 
 es, and the use of it in continuous discourse by public 
 speakers and writers. Every man who uses the lan- 
 guage much in both these modes adopts inevitably 
 different styles. Words and constructions which con- 
 versation tolerates, perhaps requires, are often unfit for 
 discourse, either written or oral. Not only the book, 
 but the speech, demands elements of diction for which 
 conversation provides no range. 
 
 A critic in "Blackwood's Marazine" savs, that "at 
 the present day, in the English portions of the world, — 
 European, Asiatic, Australian, African, and American, 
 — all educated people use three different kinds of Eng- 
 lish: old Saxon English when they go to church, or 
 read good poetry ; vernacular or colloquial English, 
 not altogether free from slang and vulgarit}-, when they 
 talk to one another in the ordinary intercourse of life ; 
 and literary English when they make speeches or ser- 
 mons, and write or read articles in reviews or books. 
 This threefold division of the language has always 
 existed; though the great bulk of the people, up to 
 recent times, may have only been familiar with the 
 first, with its limited range of nouns, verbs, and adjec- 
 tives." A scholar of thoroughly good taste must
 
 LECT. I.] BEPUTABLE USAGE. 17 
 
 demur to this analysis of existing usage in some re- 
 spects; yet a foundation for some similar distinction 
 exists in the necessities of the case. It is obvious, that 
 one who writes or speaks much in public must have a 
 standard of pure English other than the usage of 
 numerical majorities. JNIajorities use the language only 
 colloquially. We are driven to look above them for a 
 standard of classic purity. We find it in the usage 
 of reputable authors. 
 
 What do we mean by reputable authors ? We mean 
 those authors, who, by the common consent, have been 
 successful in their use of their language. Reputation 
 proves success ; not notoriety, but good repute. Lit- 
 erary fame entitles an author to rank as a standard in 
 literary style, on the same principle on which fame at 
 the bar and on the bench renders a lawyer an authority 
 to his profession. Pope, Dryden, Macaulay, Everett, 
 Irving, are standards of pure English, as Blackstone, 
 Brougham, Marshall, Story, are standards in jurispru- 
 dence. By unwritten common law, such names have 
 the voice of the nations behind them, and speaking in 
 them. Scholarly taste obliges writers and public speak- 
 ers to acknowledge this standard. It is unscholarly 
 not to do so. Even the common, uneducated mind has 
 a dim sense of this claim of pure English on an edu- 
 cated speaker. The common people like to be ad- 
 dressed in sound old English which has the centuries 
 behind it. They desire it to be plain, direct, strong, 
 racy ; but they never as a body desire it to be low. 
 Marines do not like to be preached to in the dialect 
 of the forecastle. When one preacher of distinction 
 in our metropolis endeavored to preach thus on a man- 
 of-war in Boston harbor, his hearers said, when his 
 back was turned, that " there were two things which
 
 18 ENGLISH STYLE. [lect. i. 
 
 he did not understand, — religion and navigation." A 
 rabble in the street will often hoot if they are addressed 
 in bad grammar. 
 
 Patrick Henry thought to win the favor of the back- 
 woodsmen of Virginia by imitating their colloquial 
 dialect, of which his biographer gives the following 
 specimen from one of his speeches : " All the larnin 
 upon the yairth are not to be compared with naiteral 
 pairts." But his hearers, backwoodsmen though they 
 were, knew better than that ; and they knew that a 
 statesman of the Old Dominion ought to speak good 
 English. They were his severest critics. The common 
 people know good English when they hear it; they 
 understand it : men crave it who never use it. In their 
 unconscious criticism of a speaker, his riglit to their 
 hearing depends on his ability to say something Avorth 
 their hearing ; and one of the first evidences they look 
 for of that ability is that he speaks better English than 
 they do.
 
 LECTURE II. 
 
 PUEITY OF STYLE CONTINUED; ITS VIOLATIONS. 
 
 The consideration of the standards of English purity 
 in the last Lecture leads us to observe, as the fourth 
 general topic of discussion, the most important viola- 
 tions of a pure style. What are they? We have ob- 
 served their well-known names in defining this quality; 
 viz., the barbarism, the solecism, and tlie impropriety. 
 
 1. We note them now more specifically by observing 
 that purity is violated by the use of the obsolete in lan- 
 guage ; that is, by obsolete words, or constructions, or 
 significations. Present usage being the standard, it is 
 not sufficient, to authorize the use of a word, a construc- 
 tion, or a signification, that it has once been pure 
 English. Old words are often like old plows. They 
 must give way if the national civilization has outlived 
 them. Why may we not now employ the words " per- 
 adventure," " forsooth," " yclept," " whilom " ? In Lati- 
 mer's day it was no violation of good taste to use the 
 word " alonely." These words are all barbarisms now, 
 because they are obsolete. Dr. Barrow says, "It is 
 our duty to testify an affectionate resentment to God.' 
 " Resentment " once signified the act of acknowledging 
 a favor. Jeremy Taylor says, " Humility is a duty in 
 great ones no less than in idiots.''^ " Idiot," in his day, 
 meant a private man only, retaining the etymological 
 sense of the original Greek. A writer of the same 
 
 19
 
 20 ENGLISH STYLE. [lkct. n. 
 
 period speaks of Lord Bacon as a man of "very wise 
 prejudices.'''' " Prejudice " then meant only a prejudg- 
 ment. " Humility " and " pusillanimity " were once 
 synonyms. The history of these words illustrates the 
 conflict of Christianity with Paganism to make the 
 lowly virtues respectable. The word " painful " has a 
 similar history. It once signified, not " producing pain," 
 but "taking pains." Richard Baxter was called by his 
 contemporaries " a most painful preacher." Wren, once 
 Bishop of Ely, was charged by the Puritans with "hav- 
 ing banished fifty godly, learned, and painful preachers " 
 from the kingdom. 
 
 A singular instance occurs, in King James's transla- 
 tion of the Scriptures, of an idiomatic phrase which was 
 once good English, but which now needs the commen- 
 tator's paraphrase. St. Paul says, " I know nothing by 
 myself; yet am I not hereby justified." The first of 
 these clauses was once a good English idiom for the ex- 
 pression, " I am not conscious of any fault." To-day I do 
 not know that it exists even as a provincialism. Some 
 of the most vital words in theological science have 
 undergone changes of meaning. The interpretation of 
 ancient creeds often hinges on questions of literary 
 purity. The most conclusive of historic arguments 
 against the recognition of seven sacraments is found in 
 the history of the word " sacrament." It is impossible, 
 in the nature of the case, to construct a creed for all 
 time. Language is a fluid, not a solid, in its significa- 
 tion. Five hundred years are long enough to petrify 
 any creed into a mere historic monument. The Theo- 
 logical Seminary at Andover is yet by a score of years 
 within its first century, but already its elaborate creed 
 needs a glossary. 
 
 Several inquiries deserve ansAver respecting the ob-
 
 LECT. II.] OBSOLESCENT "WOKDS. 21 
 
 solete in style. When does a word become obsolete ? 
 " Whereof the memor}^ of man runneth not to the con- 
 trary " is the hint given by Dr. Campbell and others ; 
 that is, if a word has not been in current use within 
 the memory of any man living, it must be considered as 
 lost to the living tongue. This appears reasonable : 
 scholarly taste has suggested no better principle. 
 
 Should obsolescent words be retained ? Critics agree, 
 as a general thing, in the negative. Words usually die, 
 as men do, because of some infirmity. They are ill 
 formed, or difficult of enunciation, or redundant, or 
 inferior to their synonyms ; or that which called them 
 into being has ceased to be. For one reason, or more, 
 the words are not needed ; and the national mind parts 
 with them unconsciously. None but a decadent people 
 will commonly permit a valuable word to die. 
 
 But exceptions to the general rule exist, in which 
 scholarly effort is needed to keep a good word alive. 
 When the loss of a word would cause an obvious dete- 
 rioration of a language, then culture should exert its 
 influence to conserve the word. Professor Lowell says, 
 that " an archaism is permissible when a word has been 
 supplanted by one less apt, and yet has not become un- 
 intelligible." An obsolescent word may be necessary 
 to the precision of a language. The word " concept " 
 is an old English word, signifying, not the act of con- 
 ceiving, but the idea conceived. It passed out of use 
 for a time ; and " conception " took its place, and is now 
 used to signify both the act and the thing. But Sir 
 William Hamilton has revived the more ancient word, 
 because it adds to the philosophical precision of the 
 language to have two words to express the two ideas. 
 
 The obsolescence of a word may indicate a moral 
 decay in the language, and may for that reason be wisely
 
 22 ENGLISH STYLE. [lect. n. 
 
 arrested. The Italians have permitted the word virtio- 
 080 to lose its old element of moral virtue, and to de- 
 cline to the expression of a " connoisseur of art." The 
 French have suffered the word honnetete to lose its 
 original sense of " honesty," and to descend to the idea 
 of " civilit3\" In both these cases the languages would 
 have been the richer if the old significations had been 
 retained. Milton saved some words to our language, 
 which in his day were obsolescent, but which he thought 
 ought not to die. Missionaries in heathen lands are 
 sometimes able to secure a new medium of appeal to 
 the heathen mind by resuscitating obsolescent words 
 which tlie nations are losing through the decay of their 
 moral sensibilities, and therefore of moral ideas. 
 
 What principle should govern the use of obsolete 
 words in poetr}^ ? The general taste of scholars makes 
 an exception to the rule in behalf of obsolete words in 
 poetic style. The necessities of rh3^thm often require 
 this. A reason for it exists also in the nature of poetry. 
 The distance of an object quickens the play of the ima- 
 gination towards it. An obsolete phraseology, there- 
 fore, is in keeping with the design of poetic expression. 
 The style of Spenser in " The Faerie Queene " is design- 
 edly archaic. He multiplied obsolete and obsolescent 
 words purposely, in order to throw back the style into 
 a bygone age. Guizot thinks that Shakspeare, in " King 
 Lear," intentionally violated grammatical construction 
 in order to locate the drama in a period in which the 
 language was in its infancy. Dramatic congruity ad- 
 mits of this license. 
 
 What principle should guide us in the use of obsolete 
 words in prayer ? Prayer in this resj)ect partakes of 
 the nature of poetry. German critics have suggested, 
 that, rhetorically considered, prayer is poetry. A rev-
 
 LECT. II.] THE PURITAN DIALECT. 23 
 
 erent diction like the poetic invites a certain infusion 
 of the antique element. Therefore we retain the ob- 
 solete termination of verbs in "th." We say "maketh," 
 " believeth," " saith." This is not pure English in ora- 
 torical style, but it is such in the precative style. 
 
 What principle should regulate the use of the obsolete 
 forms " thou " and " thou art " in homiletic appeals to 
 an audience? A preacher sometimes has occasion to 
 appeal to an audience circuitously, not by direct horta- 
 tion to the individual. It may be a wise expedient to 
 give to the appeal a form which shall affect the imagi- 
 nation by addressing it to humanity in the abstract. 
 You say, therefore, " Who art thou, O man, that repli- 
 est against God ? " Professor Tholuck closes one of his 
 sermons with a prolonged exhortation, which, translated 
 into English, has this form. The more direct form of 
 "you" is avoided. This is obsolete English; but as an 
 exception to the general rule, and as one variety of in- 
 direct appeal, it is permissible. 
 
 It is worthy of notice, that familiarity with our Eng- 
 lish version of the Scriptures exposes us to the peculiar 
 peril of using certain forms of obsolete dialect. Although 
 no other volume of equal antiquity is equally pure with 
 the English Bible, yet some words, and forms of words, 
 which are found in it, have become obsolete since King 
 James's day. Preachers may insensibly fall into an ob- 
 solete dialect in the use of them. The termination of 
 verbs in " eth " is the most notable example. The Puri- 
 tans yielded so far to this tyranny of biblical use over 
 their homiletic style, that they have left us an inherit- 
 ance, in that respect, which has done much to alienate 
 men of culture from their opinions. Not merely by 
 the retention of obsolete phraseology, but by a singular 
 attempt at imitation of the Scriptures in the construe-
 
 24 ENGLISH STYLE. [lect. ii. 
 
 tion of oral address, they created a hybrid dialect, which 
 had not the merit of biblical quotation. Macaulay satir- 
 izes this feature in the speeches of the Earl of Crawford, 
 contemporary with the Puritans, as unnatural, pedantic, 
 and often ludicrous. We do not find extreme examples 
 of this in our own pulpits ; but relics of it remain, of 
 sufficient note to put us on our guard. Just so far as 
 we lodge our thoughts in an obsolete diction, we remove 
 them to a refrigerant distance from the sympathies of 
 modern mind. The men of to-day must be addressed 
 in the speech of to-day. In giving force to language, 
 sj^mpathy is of more value tlian reverence. 
 
 Kindred to the error just noticed is one not peculiar 
 to preachers. It is that in which a writer seeks for an 
 obsolete style for effect. Even when this is prompted 
 by a struggle to clothe a thought with power, it is ob- 
 jectionable. More power is lost than gained by the 
 expedient. Hearers feel it to be an expedient, and 
 the effect is to attract attention to the style by distract- 
 ing attention from the thought. One often feels this 
 defect in reading certain productions of De Quincey. 
 It is true that force is sometimes gained by it, but it is 
 an artificial force. Good taste approves only the force 
 gained by the purest and simplest English. We need 
 no other. Ours is an affluent language. Its vocabu- 
 lary and constructions now in good use are the most 
 abundant and vigorous in the world for the popular ex- 
 pression of the thought with which the Christian pulpit 
 has to do. 
 
 2. Passing, now, from the consideration of an obsolete 
 style, we observe another class of violations of purity, 
 in the coining of novelties. Present usage being our 
 standard, novel words, novel constructions, novel sig- 
 nifications, do not belong to the language. The objec-
 
 LECT. II.] NEW COINAGE IN STYLE. 25 
 
 tion is as valid against a possibly future use as against 
 one which time has ejected. A scholarly regard for Eng 
 lish purity will act conservatively against new coinage. 
 
 Professor Park of Andover has observed that barbar 
 isms from new coinage occur chiefly in three ways, — by 
 the creation of new words, by the enlargement or con- 
 traction of old words, and by the compounding of old 
 words. In an early edition of one of our two standard 
 dictionaries the following words are found : " unwap- 
 pered," " intersomnious," "circumbendibus," "jiggum- 
 bob," " solumnigate," " grammatication," " somniative," 
 "scrimption," " solivagous," "slubberdegullion," "trans- 
 mogrification." These are absolute creations by some- 
 body. They are not English: they never have been. 
 By what authority do they find a place in a dictionary 
 of a civilized tongue ? Their only becoming place is 
 in that ancient lexicon in the British Museum to which 
 I have alluded, as compiled, in part, of " words which 
 signify nothing." 
 
 Contractions of old words appear chiefly in the form 
 of vulgarisms. Contraction in speech is a most singu- 
 lar development of the natural inertia of the human 
 mind. Even the tongue, the most nimble of human 
 organs, will utter only that which it must utter. A syl- 
 lable, a letter, an accent, which it can slur, it will slur. 
 The contraction " ain't " for " isn't " is a vulgarism 
 which ought not to need criticism. Yet " 'tain't so " 
 said an educated preacher once in my hearing. The 
 safe rule respecting contractions is never to use them 
 in public speech. This is the instinct of a perfect taste. 
 It is said that Edward Everett never employed them, 
 even in epistolary style. Some critics do not consider 
 it fastidious to avoid them in colloquial usage. 
 
 Expansions of old words are more frequent in the
 
 26 ENGLISH STYLE. [lect. ii. 
 
 pulpit tlian contractions. "Preventative" and "inten- 
 sitive " are examples : the pure forms are " preventive " 
 and "intensive." Unauthorized prefixes and sufBxes 
 create a multitude of barbarisms. In a standard diction- 
 ary I find the following : " untriumph " " untrussed," 
 "unuplifted," "unwormwooded," "unruinable," "unvul- 
 garized," " unquarrelable," " unquaker," " unrenaviga- 
 ble," all coined, chiefly, by the unauthorized prefix "un" 
 to words, which, either in part or in whole, are in good 
 use. I find, also, " cockneyfy," " clandyize," " dandy- 
 ling," "incoherentific," "imperiwigged," " fiddlefaddler," 
 " sapientize," "wegotisra," "weism," "perfectionation," 
 "maximize," "pish-pash," "fiddle-de-dee," most of which 
 are coined by unwarrantable additions to the end of 
 good words. Such dictionaries are emphatically " dic- 
 tionaries unabridged." 
 
 EXCURSUS. 
 
 At this point, a brief excursus deserves attention, on 
 the inquiry. What is the best English dictionary for 
 the use of an American author and public speaker ? In 
 answer, I remark first, that, in respect to purity of 
 language, no dictionary now extant can be accepted as 
 good authority. Both our standard lexicons, Webster's 
 and Worcester's, are helps ; but neither is a conclusive 
 authority. Both have, in their later editions, been con- 
 structed on principles other than those which govern a 
 scholar's vocabulary. They are both committed to the 
 search for the largest number of words in use ; not, by 
 any means, all of them in good use. Neither the schol- 
 arly editors, nor the enterprising publishers, would 
 venture to commend all the words in either as pure 
 English ; and the distinctions they make between words 
 obsolete, and words vulgar, and words rare, can not
 
 LECT. n.] ENGLISH DICTIONARIES. 27 
 
 always be depended on. A scholarly writer is not safe 
 in using every Avord which these dictionaries do not 
 condemn, or question in point of purity. We greatly 
 need a dictionary the equal of these in other respects, 
 and at the same time a perfect standard of pure Eng- 
 lish. 
 
 Again : such are the excellences of the two rival 
 dictionaries in question, that, if possible, an American 
 scholar should own and consult both. They are invalu- 
 able monuments of scholarly work. We often need to 
 compare them. When they differ, it is for a reason. 
 The introductions and appendices of both volumes 
 contain an immense fund of philological and historic 
 literature found nowhere else in a form so compact. 
 No other dictionary of the language equals either of 
 them. 
 
 Further: if we must confine our studies chiefly to one 
 dictionary, my judgment gives the preference to Web- 
 ster's. We must be liberal enough to ignore the rival- 
 ship of Yale and Harvard Colleges in the matter. As 
 a defining dictionary Webster's is certainly the superior. 
 And this defining quality, it should be remembered, is 
 the chief one for which we need a dictionar3^ Webster 
 as the definer is undoubtedly the original. He had a 
 marvelous power of exactness and brevity in analysis. 
 Compare the earlier with the later editions of the two 
 dictionaries, and you will see that Worcester is the 
 larger debtor of the two. He and his editors have 
 improved his work by accepting definitions which were 
 original with Webster. Webster's editors have, to some 
 extent, used Worcester's work in the same way, but not 
 so largely. 
 
 The notes on synonyms, also, in Webster's work, are 
 superior to those of Worcester. They form, in the
 
 28 ENGLISH STYLE. [lect. ii. 
 
 aggregate, the most exact dictionary of synonyms in 
 the language. Further : Webster's later editors have, 
 in the main, relieved his work from the innovations in 
 orthography and etymology with which the first edition 
 was encumbered. Whatever may be our personal pref- 
 erences, there can be no question, in my judgment, that 
 the present Websterian orthography is to be the stand- 
 ard of the future in our literature. An eminent pub- 
 lisher in New York has informed me that five-sixths of 
 all the books published in this country conform now to 
 Webster's orthography. The exceptions are confined 
 chiefly to Boston and its suburbs. Webster's is the 
 cosmopolitan dictionary. It is assuming that rank in 
 England. Although, in one respect, I personally prefer 
 Worcester, yet, acting on the principles I have advanced, 
 of obedience to usage, I can no longer give to Worcester 
 the supremacy. 
 
 The only point in which, in my view, Worcester is 
 the superior, is that of pronunciation. Time, and succes- 
 sive editions of the two works, have jostled them into 
 very near accordance with each other; so that they do 
 not often differ. The pronunciation which one makes 
 primary, the other often makes secondary, but allows 
 its authority. In a multitude of cases, each thus sa- 
 lutes the scholarl}^ authority of the other. But, when 
 they flatly differ, Worcester commonly appears to me the 
 more correct, because more exactly conforming to the 
 philosophy and the history of the language. Worcester 
 was at first the conservator ; Webster, the reformer. 
 The reformer often succeeds when the conservator is 
 right. In philology the presumption is always on the 
 side of the historic. If the novelty is the superior, that 
 is to be proved. Genuine scholarship never vaults 
 into change for the sake of change. It loves the old :
 
 LECT. II.] WORDS COINED FACETIOUSLY. 29 
 
 it clings to the long-tried. Yet often usage compels a 
 change ; and, when this is true, the change commonly 
 favors the Websterian principles. 
 
 One of the most scholarly helps to a control of our 
 mother-toncriie is the habit of consulting Richardson's 
 Dictionary. It is an expensive quarto, in two volumes, 
 but a most valuable addition to a private library ; not 
 chiefly as an authority for English purity, but for the 
 researches it contains in the history of words. Its illus- 
 trations of words by examples from extant English 
 literature are innumerable, and are so arranged as to 
 enable one to see the force of a word in its history from 
 the earliest time to the present. I have never marveled 
 at certain excellences in the style of the Rev. Professor 
 Shedd, since I learned the fact of his early habit of 
 reading by the hour Richardson's Dictionary. The 
 expense of the work places it beyond the reach of 
 many. I can only say to every author and public 
 speaker, " Own it if you can." 
 
 Returning from this excursus upon dictionaries, I re- 
 mark, that new words are sometimes created facetiously, 
 and yet they find a lodgment in the language. De 
 Quincey speaks of Suetonius, the story-teller of anti- 
 quity, as a " curious collector of anecdotage." Words 
 originating in a facetious mood of authorship or oratory 
 sometimes have a vitality to which no real worth in 
 them should seem to entitle them. It is one of the 
 collateral evidences that man was made to be happy, 
 that the risible faculty has so much power as it has in 
 public speech. Very little is required to make an audi- 
 ence laugh. The same principle it is, probably, which 
 gives ready rootage to words which are coined by the 
 risible emotions. A multitude of such words die ; but,
 
 30 ENGLISH STYLE. [lect. n. 
 
 if they express any genuine humor, they have peculiar 
 chances of life. 
 
 It deserves remark, that writers coin many words, in 
 the haste of composition, by adding the Greek termina- 
 tion " ize " to substantives. A new verb is thus created, 
 which in not one case in a hundred becomes permanent 
 in the language. "Jeopardize," "municipalize," "chart- 
 ize," " deputize," I find almost at random in one vol- 
 ume. Scarcely ever do I receive a manuscript sermon 
 in which I do not find one or more of these mongrels 
 with the Greek tail. In one sermon I find eleven, not 
 one of good authority. 
 
 Good words compounded by means of a hyphen are 
 another form of barbarisms from new coinage. The 
 pulpit, from time immemorial, has been in tliis respect, 
 if not a "den of thieves," a nest of counterfeiters. 
 " Heaven-descended," " soul-destroying," " God-forget- 
 ting," "God-defying" — but I should publish a "dic- 
 tionary unabridged," if I should name all the counterfeit 
 words of this construction for which the pulpit is re- 
 sponsible. Ver}^ few of these long-winded, long-waisted, 
 long-tongued, long-tailed, and long-eared compounds, are 
 authorized English. Yet it is difficult to decide at a 
 glance whether they are such or not. Every one of the 
 similar compounds which I have just employed to car- 
 icature them is found in use by the first class of English 
 authors, though they are not all found in standard dic- 
 tionaries. Why these, and not others, are good English, 
 it is impossible to say, except that such is the omnipotent 
 decree of usage. 
 
 A young writer has no protection against the barbar- 
 isms of this class, unless he finds it in his scholarly 
 tastes and his scholarly reading. When once fixed in 
 a writer's stvle, they form one of the most debilitating
 
 LECT. 11.] EXCUESTJS. 31 
 
 features, especially in the style of a public speaker. 
 The taste for them destroys the taste for monosyllabic 
 words, on which the force of a spoken style so greatly 
 depends. A subtle sympathy exists between these com- 
 pounds and long, involuted sentences. Be not deceived, 
 if occasionally they appear to strengthen style. In the 
 general effect they dilute and flatten it. They invite 
 a drawl in delivery. They are a drawl in expression. 
 Few forms of mannerism run to such extremes as this, 
 when once the scruples of good taste are broken doAvn. 
 Mrs. Henry Wood, in " Roland Yorke," speaks of the 
 " not-attempted-to-be-concealed care." Another female 
 author remarks upon "the-sudden-at-the-moment-though- 
 from-lingering-illness-often-previously-expected death " 
 of one of her heroines. It does not require scholarly 
 erudition to decide that such a tape-worm as this has 
 no proper place above ground. The taste which could 
 tolerate it is hopeless barbarism. The next phase of 
 such culture is cannibalism. 
 
 EXCURSUS. 
 
 A brief excursus deserves attention here upon cer- 
 tain improprieties, from new coinage, which have become 
 famous in the history of theology and of philosophy, 
 and which therefore may find their way into the dialect 
 of the pulpit. Controversy has created them in both 
 departments. The controversial fever often burns out 
 of a man's style a healthy taste. Witness President 
 Edwards's definition of " necessity." The " Essay on 
 the Will " hinges on a pure invention in the meaning 
 attached to that word. Edwards's idea of necessity,- as 
 he defines it, is not the English idea, is not the popular 
 idea : it never was. It was not his own idea outside of 
 the " Essay on the Will." In his sermons he falls back,
 
 32 ENGLISH STYLE. [lkct. n. 
 
 as other men of sense do, upon the popular idea. Even 
 in the " Essay on the Will " he forgets his definition, and 
 in some sections speaks of " necessity " and " freedom " 
 as the common sense of men understands them. No 
 preacher can accept Edwards's definition of " neces- 
 sity," and preach it as the philosophical basis of his the- 
 ology, without lapsing into fatalism. But no preacher 
 can preach "necessity," as Edwards himself preaches 
 it in his sermons, without preaching the freedom of the 
 human will to the full dictates of human consciousness. 
 The most conclusive answer to the weak point in Ed- 
 Avards's essay is the strong point in Edwards's sermons. 
 
 Another instance of impropriety from new coinage is 
 found in Dr. Thomas Brown's definition of " cause " and 
 " power." These are, perhaps, the most remarkable ex- 
 amples of deceptive definition to be found in the history 
 of philosophy. The common mind has never, for a day, 
 in any language, sanctioned Dr. Brown's idea of the 
 meaning of these words. If we have not an intuition 
 of something more than he understands by " power " and 
 " cause," it can not be proved that we have any intui- 
 tions capable of expression in human language. The 
 whole system of Dr. Brown's philosophy proceeds upon 
 a philosophical invention of a new and unauthorized use 
 of language. 
 
 Still another example of impropriety from new coin- 
 age is the theological use, by many of the schoolmen, 
 of the words " guilt " and " punishment." It can not 
 be proved (at least, it never has been proved) that the 
 popular use of any language to which the Christian 
 theology is known has ever sanctioned the theological 
 use of these terms, as signifying only the " liability to 
 suffering," and the " endurance of suffering," as a conse- 
 quence of sin. The popular mind has always attached
 
 LECT. II.] SCHOLASTIC THEOLOGY. 33 
 
 to these words a moral idea. Guilt involves personal 
 desert of suffering : punishment involves the penal 
 infliction of suffering uj)on ill desert. Liability to suf- 
 fering for the sin of another is not guilt : endurance of 
 suffering for another's sin is not punishment. To say 
 that Christ was punished for the sins of men is to say 
 that he deserved to suffer for those sins. To say that 
 men are guilty of Adam's sin is to say that they com- 
 mitted that sin. The Turretinian doctrine of the per- 
 sonal existence of the race in Adam, below the depths 
 of individual consciousness, and back of the inventory 
 of human memory, is the only theory of original sin 
 which justifies such a use of language. But the human 
 consciousness gives no such testimony, and therefore 
 popular usage supports no such use of words. Be it 
 one thing or another to scholastic theology, it is of no 
 use to the pulpit ; because it conveys no sense to the 
 popular mind, to which conscience can respond. 
 
 That is one of the forms of historic theology, vener- 
 able as a fossil, which can not be preached. It never 
 has been preached intelligibly, and with popular assent, 
 to the common mind. The very dialect which expresses 
 it is as pure an invention as that of alchemy or magic. 
 The license which some writers take in coining new 
 words, and giving new significations to words, reminds 
 one of the cant of thieves, and clans of beggars, in Lon- 
 don, who have coined de novo a dialect of their own, 
 chiefly for the sake of being able to communicate with 
 each other without detection by the police. Unlicensed 
 coining should be left to such hands. It is no part of a 
 scholar's work.
 
 LECTURE III. 
 
 VIOLATIONS OF PURITY OF STYLE, CONTINUED. 
 
 Resuming the discussion of the new coinage of words, 
 we must observe a qualification of the principles already- 
 advanced, in the fact that the coinage of new elements 
 of language is sometimes a necessity. We have observed, 
 that the growth of a national civilization necessitates 
 tlie growth of its language. No other one thing ex- 
 presses a nation's mind so exactly as its language does. 
 The growth of the laiiguage must be, in part, by new 
 coinage. How, then, shall we judge wheii to reject, and 
 when to employ, new words? By the common consent 
 of scliolars the following principles are recognized. 
 
 One is, that an acknowledged master of a science or 
 of literary acquisitions may coin such new words as, in 
 his judgment, the necessities of the language require. 
 ISIodern physical science has received immense expan- 
 sion. Its nomenclature is almost wholly new, created 
 by experts in the sciences. Even mental science claims 
 this prerogative. Coleridge claimed the right, as an ex- 
 pert in psychology, to introduce into our language the 
 German distinction between the understanding and the 
 reason. That use of these words is thus far technical 
 to the science which has created it. If philosophers 
 generally accept it, by the laws of good taste it becomes 
 authoritative in our dictionaries. Criticism must not 
 condemn it as a novelty or an importation. Mr. Grote, 
 
 34
 
 LECT. m.] AUTHORITY FOR NEW WORDS. 3o 
 
 in liis " History of Greece," coins the word " dicast." 
 It means nearly, yet not exactly, the same as our word 
 "juryman." Mr. Grote therefore exercises his literary 
 right as an historian to import the word from the Greek, 
 which is its original. He can not otherwise express the 
 idea without a cumbrous circumlocution. 
 
 Another principle which criticism admits is, that an 
 acknowledged master of the English tongue may coin 
 such words as, in his judgment, it requires for its pre- 
 cision or its affluence of expression. Scholarly taste 
 allows this as one of the prerogatives of scholarlj^ author- 
 ship. The prerogative is unquestioned in proportion 
 to the critical care of the author who claims it. A new 
 word used by Addison, Swift, Macaulay, Irving, Everett, 
 would have a claim to recognition which a word coined 
 by Carlyle would not have. The writers first named 
 are known to have been scrupulous in their use of good 
 English, and no other. Carlyle is notorious for his reck- 
 lessness of scholarly taste, neither cherishing it himself, 
 nor respecting it in others. De Quincey advances, as 
 one test of an author's sway over the national mind, 
 how many original words, phrases, idioms, significations, 
 does he succeed in ingrafting upon the national tongue ? 
 
 Another principle which critics admit with restric- 
 tions is, that some novelties in language may be created 
 by authors of only provincial or local fame. " With 
 restrictions," I say : criticism here only conforms to 
 facts. The number of words thus originated is incal- 
 culable : the number that live is ver}^ small. It is the 
 authors of inferior power and repute who are most free 
 in such coinage : their authority is in inverse propor- 
 tion to their presumption. Yet a small fraction of the 
 language owes its origin to them. Robert Southey coined 
 the word " deicide." He gave three reasons for it ; that
 
 36 ENGLISH STYLE. [lect. hi. 
 
 it is in strict analogy with other words in good use, — 
 "suicide," "fratricide," " parricide," " regicide ; " that its 
 meaning is obvious ; and that no other word in the lan- 
 guage expresses the same idea. Very good reasons these : 
 it would be hard to answer them. Yet I do not know 
 that the word has yet found its way into the usage of 
 the first class of authors. 
 
 A fourth principle is, that it is a doubtful experiment 
 with any man to add a word to his native tongue. The 
 creation of a word is a great assumption over human 
 thought. It is a challenge to a nation's mind. It may 
 be an assault on a nation's prejudices. It may be re- 
 sisted by the whole momentum of a nation's history. 
 It may be ejected by the force of a nation's whims. 
 The chances are as a thousand to one against its suc- 
 cess. Such a word may have every scholarly quality 
 in its favor, and yet it may die of sheer neglect. It 
 dies without so much as a burial. The nation often 
 does not resist it, does not argue about it, but simply 
 says, " We do not want it." Cicero had no superior as 
 an authority in Roman literature, yet he failed more 
 frequently than he succeeded in his attempts to im- 
 prove the vernacular of liis countrymen. The same is 
 true of Milton and of Coleridge, both of whom were 
 students of the forces of language, masters of racy Eng- 
 lish, and experimenters in the creation of novel words. 
 
 A fifth principle bearing upon the subject grows out 
 of a peculiarity of modern literature : it is, that new 
 coinage by journalists should be accepted with great 
 caution. Journalists are a class of writers of recent 
 origin. They include in their guild very many rudely 
 educated men. They write much in haste ; they write 
 by shorthand ; they write often in a somnolent state, in 
 the small hours of the morning. The consequence is,
 
 JLECT. HI.] AUTHORITY FOR NEW WORDS. 37 
 
 that they coin words recklessly. Theirs is not often 
 leisurely and scholarly authorship. Very few of them 
 attain to the first rank in literature. Where can be 
 found among them the peer of Br^^ant? Their sugges- 
 tions of new words are often crude. One of them, for 
 example, proposes the word " thalagram," to express a 
 message through the Atlantic cable. He coins it from 
 Greek originals. But, so far as I know, no second writer 
 has approved it, and for the very good reason, that 
 nobody needs it. Why do we need any other than the 
 word " telegram " ? We say, " A telegram from Chica- 
 go," as we say, " A telegram from London." Why do 
 we need a word to remind us that the one came from 
 under the sea, more than a word to remind us that the 
 other came through a line of cedar posts and insulated 
 wires? Good taste forbids overloading the language 
 with rubbish. A language should be like a library, well 
 selected, not conglomerated. This new coin, " thala- 
 gram," has fallen flat on the national taste, as it is to 
 be hoped will be the fate of the still more wretched 
 medley, " cablegram." Two languages are searched for 
 the rubbish which is patched to make this barbarism. 
 The decisive test of new coinage in a language is the 
 question of necessity. Does the language need it ? If 
 not, no other reason for it can commend it to good 
 taste. 
 
 A sixth principle which I find that the usage of good 
 writers practically applies to the subject is, that authors 
 of the first class, acknowledged by all others as literary 
 authorities, may occasionally coin a word which they 
 would not recommend as good English, and would not 
 introduce into a standard dictionary if they could. 
 They may do it as an exception to their general rule. 
 Thus Coleridge writes : " If the reader will pardon an
 
 38 ENGLISH STYLE. [lect. hi. 
 
 uncouth and new-coined word, there is, I should say, not 
 seldom, a matter-of-fact-ness in certain poems." Cole- 
 ridge here coins a word, which, though he was very 
 unequal in his choice of English, he evidently would 
 not recommend. He apologizes for it. He employs it 
 exceptionally. The liberty to do this is a perilous one : 
 a young writer may more wisely refrain from assum- 
 ing it. The tendency to corruption is so strong, that 
 while one's style is in the process of formation, as it is 
 in the early years of one's practice, the safe course is, 
 not to use any word which writers of the first order 
 would not recommend, as well as indulge exception- 
 ally. Yet the indulgence iu question must be named 
 because it exists, and it is sometimes indulged by the 
 best writers. We can not hope to enforce a style which 
 is better than the best. 
 
 Professor James Russell Lowell, for example, is one of 
 the most scholarly critics and authors in our language. 
 A word coined by him with expressed approval would 
 carry all the authority which any one man's name can 
 give to a word. But when he coins, as he does, such 
 words as " cloudbergs " and " otherworldliness " and 
 " Dr. Wattsiness," he descends from style to slang. He 
 coins them as an exceptional and rare indulgence. He 
 does not expect to see them in the next edition of 
 Worcester's Dictionary. He would be ashamed to see 
 them there with his name as their authority. He would 
 be the last man to authorize such words by scholarly 
 criticism. If an orthodox minister should coin them, 
 the author of the " Biglow Papers " would be the first 
 to satirize them as tokens of the barbarism of the pul- 
 pit. He knows, and the world of scholars knows, that 
 his own scholarly reputation will bear such occasional 
 departures from good English, somewhat as a very
 
 LECT. m.] IMPORTATION OF FOREIGN WORDS. 39 
 
 saintly man can bear to be seen carrying a flask of 
 brandy in the street. That which is a literary peccadillo 
 from Professor Lowell's pen may be unscholarly sloven- 
 liness from the pen of one unknown to fame. It is due 
 to fact, I repeat, to recognize this exceptional license in 
 authors of good repute, because it is a fact ; yet we do 
 not thereby commend it as a rule, nor even as an ex- 
 ception. It exists : that is all that we can say of it. 
 
 3. Similar to the effect of unnecessary novelties upon 
 a pure style is that of needless importation of foreign 
 contributions to the language. The vernacular tongue 
 is the tongue of a man who means to be understood. 
 We commit a barbarism if we import a foreign word 
 when an English word will express our thought as well. 
 
 It deserves mention, first, that this error is often 
 caused by a pedantic attachment to foreign languages. 
 Professors of the Greek language often think in Greek. 
 They use a Greek word, therefore, when no poverty of 
 the English tongue creates the nejcessity. In the seven- 
 teenth century the taste of English scholars was infected 
 with a morbid preference for the Latin language to their 
 own. This led to the introduction of extremely ungainly 
 words, which good use has never adopted. Milton's style 
 is defaced by such words as " ludibundness," " subsam- 
 mation," " septemfluous." Even Milton's authority has 
 not forced these words into the language : the national 
 good sense has been too strong for that. Dr. Samuel 
 Johnson's Latinized style is one of the fruits of a similar 
 freak in the taste of a later age. In him it. manifested 
 itself, not only in the use of words not English, but in 
 distorting the proportion of words of Latin to those of 
 Saxon derivation, and in an imitation of Latin construc- 
 tion also, which renders his style one of the most foreign 
 to the genius of our language to be found in our litera-
 
 40 ENGLISH STYLE. [lect. in. 
 
 ture. Yet his was a mind compact with sturdy and 
 solid English elements, which gave to his literary opin- 
 ions, as Carlyle says, " a gigantic calmness." They made 
 his conversation the antipodes of his written style. In 
 conversation he was racy, laconic, fleet : in writing he 
 was ponderous, lumbering, logy. In conversation he was 
 an antelope : in his books he was a whale. 
 
 Again : an undue regard for the etymology of words 
 often leads to improprieties from foreign importation. 
 A word often has in its Greek or Latin root a meaning 
 which its English form has entirely lost. You find a 
 familiar illustration of this in the word "prevent," 
 which King James's translators of the Bible, following 
 the usage of their age, have retained in its etymological 
 meaning, — a meaning which later usage has abandoned. 
 Many contested passages in Shakspeare depend on the 
 question, whether he adopted the pure English, or the 
 etymological English, of his times. Meaningless words 
 become rich in sense, and obscure words become clear 
 often, in his plays, by reading them, not as modern 
 English, but with their etymology in mind. An affec- 
 tation of etymological science is apt to infect the style 
 of a writer who reads more in foreign languages than 
 in his own. De Qaincey is often guilty of this. It is 
 the more inexcusable defect in a modern author ; because 
 he has what Shakspeare and Milton had not, — a ma- 
 tured language at his command. 
 
 Further : the composite character of our English 
 tongue has a twofold bearing upon the question of ad- 
 mitting importations. Our language is largely made up 
 of accretions from abroad. It is, in this respect, very 
 unlike the ancient Greek and Latin languages and the 
 modern German. Those were, to a great extent, evolved 
 from internal resources. Our own language grows very
 
 LECT. in.] STRUCTUEE OF THE ENGLISH TONGUE. 41 
 
 slowly by such evolution. Its history is a history of 
 innovations. As our national stock is a composite one, 
 made up from many tributary migrations, so our lan- 
 guage is a composite product, made up from almost all 
 the civilized languages on the globe. If we want a new 
 word, we instinctively go for it to some foreign source. 
 Thus the English nomenclature of the natural sciences 
 is almost wholly Greek and Latin. One critic contends 
 that ours is a decadent tongue, because it shows so little 
 power of growth from within. This composite charac- 
 ter of our language, I repeat, has a twofold bearing on 
 the question of foreign imports. 
 
 It should render our taste tolerant of such imports, 
 when they are necessary to the affluence of the language. 
 This being the composite structure of it, an importation 
 from abroad is a less evil than it was to the Greek lan- 
 guage of the Augustan age. It does less violence to 
 the genius of the English than it did to that of the 
 Augustan Greek. Some importations every language 
 must have. Every finished language has words for 
 ideas which no other language expresses as well. We 
 are already borrowing some philosophical words from 
 Germany. We are obliged to do so, because we borrow 
 the ideas there. Some French words express ideas which 
 no corresponding English terms express as well. De 
 Quincey asks. How can the idea of a " post-office " be ex- 
 pressed in Greek? or that of a " coquette," in Hebrew? 
 If a language needs the foreign word to give utterance 
 to the foreign thought, it must import the foreign word. 
 Words are made for thought, not thought for words. 
 
 But, on the other hand, the composite structure of 
 our language should make us intolerant of importations 
 when they are needless. This dependence on foreign 
 sources for linguistic growth is an evil. Any language
 
 42 ENGLISH STYLE. [lkct. in, 
 
 will be the more symmetrical, and free from anomalies, 
 if developed from its native stock. A graft makes a 
 gnarl in a tree : so does an importation make a protu- 
 berance in a language. Let the natural resources, 
 therefore, be developed if they can be : let us take the 
 alien tribute, only when we must. There was great 
 significance in Cassar's rule of composition : " Always 
 shun, if possible, the insolens verhumy 
 
 4. Purity of style is further impaired by the needless 
 use of provincialisms. National usage being our stand- 
 ard, that is not pure English which has only sectional 
 authority, unless sectional necessities compel its use. 
 
 It should be remarked, however, that words of j^ro- 
 vincial origin often become good English. Such words 
 may force their way into universal use. All words begin 
 to be somewhere. They ma}' have at first a small con- 
 stituency. Many of the most impressive words in the 
 language had a provincial origin. The word " caucus " 
 is of American birth : it was first used by old Samuel 
 Adams. Now no English dictionary would be complete 
 without it. 
 
 Further: words remaining provincial may be good 
 English. They may be necessitated by provincial pecu- 
 liarities, — peculiarities of climate, of soil, of productions, 
 of institutions, of history. Americanisms, especially, are 
 very numerous, which must still be accepted on the score 
 of provincial necessity. " Senatorial," " gubernatorial," 
 "mileage," "prairie," "backwoods," "clearings," "pine- 
 barrens," "savannas," "federalist," "nullifiers," "anti- 
 renters," " freesoilers," " proslavery," and many others, 
 have been created by peculiarities in our provincial soil, 
 or climate, or institutions, or history. The late civil war 
 has created words which are on probation. It remains 
 to be seen whether the national mind will accept that
 
 LECT, m.] TECHNICAL AND CLANNISH WORDS. 43 
 
 event as important enough to force into the language 
 new creations. 
 
 A remarkable instance of provincial phraseology in 
 Great Britain, which has no lodgment in this country, 
 is the phrase " Hear ! hear ! " which in the House of 
 Commons, and, so far as I know, nowhere else, has four 
 different meanings, depending on the tones on which the 
 phrase is uttered. A member of Parliament expresses 
 by it assent, or admiration, or indignation, or derision. 
 The tones expressive of these varieties of emotion are 
 well-defined and understood in parliamentary usage. 
 Americans do not understand them. Yet such pro- 
 vincialisms, remaining such, are good English, because 
 necessary to the ideas they carry. Again, the word is 
 for the thought, not the thought for the word. We can 
 not afford to lose a thought through antipathy to the 
 form of its utterance. 
 
 5. Provincialisms are scarcely more destructive to 
 purity of style than the needless use of technical and 
 clannish phraseology. National usage again being the 
 scholarly standard, words peculiar to class, or science, 
 or the professions, are not good English till necessity 
 has given them the right to be. 
 
 Religious writings are specially exposed to this class 
 of errors. The intensity of religious thinking and feel- 
 ing aggravates the peril. Peculiarities of sect are prone 
 to express themselves in bad English. Would any thing 
 but a mania of conscience ever have led a respectable 
 religious sect to thrust into modern use the obsolete 
 forms "thou " and " thee," and specially the monstrous 
 anomaly found among educated persons in Philadelphia, 
 — " Thee is " ? This is parallel to the solecism of the 
 negro dialect, — "you am." Would anj- thing but the 
 Puritan type of religious fervor ever have created such
 
 44 ENGLISH STYLE. [lect. in. 
 
 long-tailed abominations as " worldly-mind-edness " and 
 " spiritually-mind-edness " ? 
 
 The fact deserves a moment's notice, that the style of 
 the modern American pulpit has been infected by its 
 inheritance of a Puritan vocabulary. Not all is true of 
 the Puritans in this respect which literary criticism 
 often charges upon them. The cant of the Puritans 
 and the cant of literature may be fairly made to offset 
 each other. The Puritans were not, as a class, unschol- 
 arly men. They had their full proportion of learned 
 authors and scholarly preachers. At the outset of the 
 Puritan movement in the Church of England, there was 
 no perceptible peculiarity in the Puritan dialect. The 
 difference is very striking between the earlier and the 
 later Puritans. Style degenerated as controversy be- 
 came heated. Their ideas were novel. They were rep- 
 resentatives of a religious revolution. Their faith was 
 scouted, and their persons insulted. In response, they 
 preached their convictions intemperately. Their reli- 
 gious experience took on forms antipathetic to the cul- 
 tured irreligion of their times. Hence swarmed the 
 multitude of their clannish phrases. It is not strange 
 that men who thought, as they did, in revolutionary 
 heat, and felt, as they did, a new baptism, as of fire, 
 should have had the sense of literary propriety burned 
 out of them. Still, our inheritance of their dialect is 
 not a desirable one. Errors which were pardonable in 
 them are not so in us who live in a calmer age. 
 
 Furthermore : some of the technical phrases of the- 
 ology which we owe to this ancestral source are not 
 the most truthful forms of the ideas they express. The 
 phrase " original sin," for example, is one of the most un- 
 fortunate products of sin in this world. The popular 
 mind has never originated it, so far as I know, in any
 
 LECT. in.] LIVING ENGLISH. 45 
 
 language, nor has it ever originated any thing exactly 
 corresponding to it. The phrase always needs clerical 
 explanation, before people get from it an intelligible 
 idea. The common conscience, if unsophisticated, never 
 uses it in expressing the consciousness of sin. But one 
 man of all the human race ever did so. He was a 
 native of New Jersey. In a celebrated case of ecclesi- 
 astical dispute, he was called into court as a witness. 
 In response to the question of one of the counsel, he 
 testified that he felt himself guilty of Adam's sin ; and, 
 when asked what was the evidence of it, he declared 
 solemnly that he " thought he remembered it." Men 
 of less venerable memory, if you can make them under- 
 stand the phrase " original sin," will resent the charge 
 of guilt on account of it as an indignity to their con- 
 science and an insult to their common sense. Such a 
 phrase is not a desirable one in which to teach a vital 
 doctrine of our faith. Such technicalities of theology 
 are better out of the language than in it. Store them 
 in the history of theology if you will, as phrases by 
 which somebody once meant something ; but the modern 
 pulpit, which has to deal with living men and women, 
 is needlessly encumbered by them. The pulpit should 
 specially apply to them the next remark, to which we 
 return from this digression. 
 
 When pure living English will express a thought at 
 all, it will do so better than any hybrid religious dialect 
 can do it — more clearly, more exactly, more forcibly. 
 Dr. Chalmers makes the following entry in his diary : 
 " I feel that I do not come close enough to the heart 
 and the experience of my people. I begin to think that 
 the phraseology of the old writers must be given up 
 for one more accommodated to the present age." Dr. 
 Thomas Arnold, in the preface to a volume of his ser-
 
 46 ENGLISH STYLE. [lect. in. 
 
 mons, expresses a similar view : " I have tried to write 
 in such a style as might be used in real life, in serious 
 conversation with our friends." This is an admirable 
 hint to a preacher. We do not talk to our friends in 
 real life in a style made up of technicalities and cant 
 phrases. Why should we preach in such a style ? Every 
 young preacher should read John Foster's " Essay on 
 the Causes of the Aversion of Men of Taste to Evan- 
 gelical Religion." 
 
 The principle before us, however, admits the use of 
 religious technicalities when they are necessary. Some 
 of them are necessary. As natural science needs its 
 nomenclature, which is never heard from the lips of the 
 national majority, so theological science must have cer- 
 tain words without which some of its ideas can not be 
 well expressed. Again, the word for the thought, not 
 the thought for the word. " Regeneration," " conver- 
 sion," "faith," "justification," "atonement," — these 
 words in religious usage have significations peculiar to 
 that usage, and necessary to its freedom and precision. 
 
 We have a striking illustration of the necessary use 
 of technicalities in the style of the New Testament. 
 The Christian apostles had to express Christian ideas 
 in heathen dialects. They could not do it in a classic 
 style. The Greek, the purest and most finished of all 
 living languages, had been molded to fit heathen thought, 
 and that only. Its literature was a heathen literature. 
 Its vocabulary was expanded only to cover the wants 
 of a heathen civilization. What could the pioneer apos- 
 tles of a new religion do with it? They employed old 
 words in new senses. They created new words. By 
 technical adroitness they forced into the old vocabulary 
 new ideas. A weight and a wealth of meaning were 
 crowded into the vocabulary of Plato, of which Plato
 
 LECT. III.] VULGARISMS. 47 
 
 had no conception. Such words as " humility," " peni- 
 tence," "angel," "martyr," "apostle," "paradise," "re- 
 generation," all owe their present significance to the 
 apostolic license in originating new meanings for them. 
 Was it pure Greek ? No. Was it, therefore, barbarous 
 Greek ? No. Necessity demanded the innovation, and 
 necessity is supreme. 
 
 A similar phenomenon occurred centuries later, when 
 Christian preachers first preached Christianity in the 
 Teutonic languages. They could not do it in the pure 
 tongues of the North, any more than the apostles had 
 done it in the pure tongues of the South. The Scandi- 
 navian dialects could not express that which had been 
 too lofty and too spiritual for the Greek of Thucydides. 
 Like sensible men, the preachers of the new faith did 
 the only thing they could do. They used old words 
 and new with new senses, — for the time, technical 
 senses, — but which at length lifted the languages to 
 their own level, and sent them upon a new career of 
 development and enrichment. 
 
 6. The most unscholarly violations of purity consist 
 of vulgarisms. Reputable usage being our standard, 
 only that is pure style which has the authority of au- 
 thors and speakers of national fame. Several things 
 here deserve attention. One is, that the adoption in 
 dignified writings of the usage of the illiterate is the 
 chief source of corruption to any language. The Ian- 
 guage of common life is full of slang : notliing controls 
 it but the taste of scholars. It is intelligible, often for- 
 cible : its very vulgarity gives it a rude strength. A 
 large class of middlemen between the scholars and the 
 vulgar do not know enough, or do not care enough, 
 about the principles of taste, to refrain from slang in 
 their own practice. Newspapers constantly seek iioto-
 
 48 ENGLISH STYLE. [lect. in. 
 
 riety by the use of it. A vast amount of the facetious- 
 ness of journalists is made up of it. It is, therefore, an 
 ever open doorway for the inroad of corrupt taste into 
 scholarly usage. 
 
 The class of dignified productions most seriously im- 
 periled by temptation to the use of vulgarisms is that 
 of oral addresses. The pen is a scholar's instrument, 
 and often a scholar'* protection from literary degener- 
 acy. Political speeches, sermons, addresses on festal 
 occasions, are addressed chiefly to the illiterate. Edu- 
 cated mind thus seeks intercourse with ignorant mind. 
 Oral address is also employed often, to amuse, to please, 
 to influence, on its own level, the uneducated mind. 
 The temptation, therefore, often overpowers scholarly 
 taste, to use the dialect of the masses ; not only its 
 pure Saxon elements, than which the language contains 
 nothing better, but its short-lived and low-lived vulgari- 
 ties as well. 
 
 Sir Walter Scott says, that, early in life, he was dis- 
 gusted with evangelical religion by the vulgarisms of 
 certain Methodist preachers, who gave him all the con- 
 ceptions he had at that time of the evangelical faith. 
 Who shall say how much of the subsequent irreligion 
 of Scott's life, his intense worldliness, his profaneness, 
 his misrepresentations of Puritan character, may have 
 been traceable to that lurch of liis mind in the wrong 
 direction produced by the violence done to his schol- 
 arly tastes by the Methodist pulpit ? Many converts 
 under that Methodist preaching might not compensate 
 the cause of Christ for the loss of one such as Walter 
 Scott. Imagine that, b}^ means of a scholarly pulpit, 
 he had in his youth become, as it is to be hoped he did 
 become on his death-bed, a spiritual Cliristian. What 
 a channel might have been opened for the flow of a
 
 LECT. m.] SIR WALTER SCOTT. 49 
 
 stream of Christian literature during tlie now more 
 than sixty years in which Scott has been a power in the 
 literature of the English tongue ! He created in our 
 language the department of historic fiction. The scenes 
 and scenery and characters he painted were identified 
 with the most thrilling events in the Christian history 
 of Europe. Conceive that his life's work had been 
 thoroughly Christianized in its spirit, that liis opinions 
 had been fair to the Puritan period in English history, 
 that his heroes and heroines had been representatives 
 of the Christian type of character, that the moral pur- 
 pose of his productions had been tributary to Christian 
 ideas, that he had been to English fiction what Milton 
 was to English poetry: who can measure the revolu- 
 tion he might have wrought in the interest of spiritual 
 Christianity? Those Methodist preachers may not 
 have achieved so much by their whole ministry as they 
 might have done by the conversion of that one man.
 
 LECTURE IV. 
 
 PUKITY OF STYLE, CONTINUED; REASONS FOR ITS CUL- 
 TIVATION. 
 
 The question is not an unnatur alone, — probably 
 every public speaker asks it when his attention is first 
 called to the subject, — Is the use of scholarly English 
 of sufficient practical value to repay one for the time and 
 labor it will cost to acquire it and to make it habitual? 
 If I make m^^self understood as a public speaker, do I 
 not accomplish the great object of speaking ? Is not a 
 scrupulous regard for a scholarly selection of words the 
 fruit of a squeamish taste ? At the most, is it not an 
 accomplishment of literary leisure rather than a neces- 
 sity to literary labor ? Specially, is it not burdensome 
 to the business of a practical profession ? A pastor may, 
 more plausibly than other men, say, " To me, public 
 speaking is a business : I perform it in pursuit of great 
 necessities. I am over-worked by the labors incident to 
 it. I have neither taste nor time to cultivate the nice- 
 ties of scholastic diction. If I can say what I find it 
 in me to say, in language which plain men understand, 
 and to which they will give a hearing, my ambition does 
 not rise higher than that." This plea of professional 
 necessity in practice prevents ver}' many pastors from 
 exercising the prerogative of educated men as conser- 
 vators of pure English. 
 
 1. Let it be observed, then, that literary authority is 
 
 60
 
 LECT. IV.] PTJBITY TRIBUTARY TO CLEARN-ESS. 51 
 
 uniform in support of purity as the foundation of the 
 most effective style. Cicero declares this in unqualified 
 terms ; and in so doing he speaks the judgment of the 
 ablest authors, speakers, critics, of all time. No writer 
 of distinction depreciates it theoretically. Carlyle rep- 
 resents a class of authors who ignore it practically, but 
 I do not know that he has ever written a line decrying 
 it in theory. Literary opinion claims for it the rank of 
 a practical necessity. It is not primarily an accomplish- 
 ment, but a power. Speakers should cultivate it, be- 
 cause they need it. It is the most direct and effective 
 instrument for their purpose. The best style for all the 
 ends of public discourse is a pure style. This is the 
 ground taken by literary opinion on the subject. It 
 ought to be authoritative to any public speaker of suffi- 
 cient education to enable him to understand the argu- 
 ment. The scholarly judgment of the world would not 
 be thus uniform if it were not true. 
 
 2. But, more specifically, a pure style is tributary to 
 the most perfect perspicuity of expression. When an 
 objector says, " If I make myself understood, let that 
 suffice," he begs the question. The surest way to be 
 understood is to speak your pure mother-tongue. Per- 
 spicuity is relative to the intelligence of hearers, but 
 pure English all hearers understand. The provincial 
 dialects of Great Britain are such, that the people of 
 different shires can with difficulty understand each 
 other ; but pure English they all understand. A speaker 
 who employs classic English can go from one end of the 
 kingdom to the other, and be perfectly understood by 
 people who can scarcely make themselves intelligible to 
 one another. Yet an eminent English critic, speaking 
 of the English peasantry, says that " a rustic's language, 
 purified from all provincialism and grossness, and so far
 
 52 ENGLISH STYLE. [lkct. iv. 
 
 reconstructed as to be consistent with the rules of gram- 
 mar, will not differ from the language of any other man 
 of common sense." That is to say, the popular dialects 
 of Great Britain comprise, for their staple in colloquial 
 use, good English. It requires but a sprinkling of pro- 
 vincial words to make a patois. Pure English in place 
 of these makes a perfect instrument of popular speech. 
 The chief reason why the English Bible is so clear, 
 except where the argument is abstruse, is, that its vocab- 
 ulary is such pure and simple English. It is this which 
 gives to the English Scriptures their clearness, pro- 
 longed to successive generations. They were published 
 in the same age with Spenser's " Faerie Queene." Now 
 the " Faerie Queene " needs a glossary, while the Bible 
 is as intelligible as ever. Two hundred and fifty years 
 is a long while for the lifetime of a book. No book can 
 live so long which is not written in the purest vernacu- 
 lar of the people. One of the reasons of the sway of 
 the Bible over the other literature of the English tongue 
 is that its style is so pure. An accomplished expert in 
 English literature says that " our poetry could not have 
 been, as it is, the noblest body of poetry in the world, 
 if the divines and scholars of King James's era had 
 taken it upon themselves to translate the Bible into the 
 polite language of the court, or into any other than that 
 used by the common people." The secret of the sway 
 of the Scriptures over English literature is, that, by 
 using in a scholarly way the language of the people, our 
 translators fell back upon the purest vocabulary of their 
 times ; and that vocabulary continues to be perspicuous 
 to all classes of mind to this day. The purest style is 
 not only the most perspicuous for the time being, but it 
 has the longest heritage of perspicuity to subsequent 
 generations. The purest style has the longest life.
 
 LECT. IV.] PUEITY TRIBUTARY TO FORCE. 53 
 
 3. Purity is tributary, also, to the most forcible style. 
 A vernacular tongue carries weight because it is ver- 
 nacular. Indefinable magnetic threads connect the pure 
 vernacular with the sensibilities of the people who use 
 it. Love of language is more potent than love of coun- 
 try. The native country, men call the father-land : the 
 native language, they call the mother-tongue. The bal- 
 lads of a nation which move its sensibilities most pro- 
 foundly are written in the purest dialect. That which 
 Milton said of books is more profoundly true of a great 
 nation's language in its untainted purity : " Books are 
 not' dead things, but they do carry a potency of life in 
 them." So that style in the pulpit which " carries a 
 potency of life " in it to the hearts of hearers is the style 
 in which they recognize their purest vernacular vocabu- 
 lary. They feel it as their own. It has roots running 
 under their whole intellectual life, and going back to 
 their infancy. Swiss soldiers in the Austrian service 
 used to be forbidden to sing their country's songs in 
 their native tongue because it tempted so many to de- 
 sertion. 
 
 This force of a vernacular style is the more powerful 
 in the English language because of the intrinsic vigor 
 of its chief fundamental element, the Saxon. " Saxon " 
 has become a synonym of " strong." This is the ele- 
 ment most active in the vitality of the English Bible, 
 to which I have referred. How long could the Lord's 
 Prayer in English form live if it had been translated 
 into Latinized English like that of Sir Thomas Browne ? 
 I will not do violence to our associations with it by 
 subjecting it to caricature ; but suppose the style of it 
 to have been as technical to religious thought as the 
 following is to the science of medicine. A ladj^ has 
 died suddenlv, and the reporter thus describes the
 
 54 ENGLISH STYLE. [leot. rv. 
 
 event : " An autopsy was held, which revealed exten- 
 sive cardiac disease, consisting of hypertrophy, with 
 aneurism of the aorta just below its bifurcation, the 
 rupture of which was the proximate cause of dissolu- 
 tion/' It requires a classical scholar to understand 
 from this that the person died of heart-disease. How 
 long would the readers of that rural newspaper con- 
 tinue their use of the Lord's Prayer if it had been 
 taught to them by our translators in such a style as 
 this ? 
 
 4. One reason for cultivating a pure English style 
 should have special weight with preachers. It is the 
 intrinsic superiority of pure English for the purposes 
 of religious discourse. 
 
 Languages are valuable chiefly, for the uses which 
 have created their history. Christian preachers find a 
 well-nigh insuperable difficulty in preaching the gospel 
 in some heathen tongues, because those tongues have 
 never been used to express Christian ideas or the off- 
 shoots of those ideas. They have been framed upon 
 and around heathen thought. They have crystallized 
 around a heathen literature. Heathen institutions have 
 made them what they are. The gospel could never 
 have been preached in the language of Homer. The 
 vocabulary of Livy and Tacitus could never have con- 
 tained the doctrine of justification by faith. The Eng- 
 lish language, on the contrary, is the reverse of the 
 ancient classic languages in respect to the point here 
 indicated. It has been created under Christian insti- 
 tutions. Its most vital period of growth has been 
 synchronous with the most vital growth of Christianity. 
 The literature of the language is substantially a Chris- 
 tian literature. The vocabulary has been used in the 
 direct and exact expression of Christian ideas, to an
 
 LECT. IV.] THE GENIUS OF THE ENGLISH MIND. 55 
 
 extent not equaled in the history of any other lan- 
 guage, dead or living. Not a Christian thought exists 
 which must go outside of the English tongue for a 
 clear, precise, forcible utterance. As a consequence, 
 no other language is so well fitted as this for the pur- 
 pose of Christian discourse; and the fitness is just in 
 proportion to the degree to which the language is used 
 in its purity. 
 
 Moreover, the genius of the English mind has given 
 to the language the resources which specially adapt it 
 to the work of a preacher, as distinct from that of scho- 
 lastic research. The English mind is pre-eminently the 
 practical mind of modern times. As the German is the 
 philosophic, and the French the scientific, so the Eng- 
 lish is the national mind most heartily given to the 
 practical civilization of the age. The English are also 
 a nation of public speakers. The same is true of the 
 American people. In no other countries in the world 
 is language so much used in public oral discourse as in 
 these. In the eloquence of the pulpit, of the bar, of 
 the senate, of the platform, our language is the best 
 fitted for use, in part because it is most abundantly 
 used in all these varieties of public speech. Such a 
 language as this, with such a history behind it, and the 
 forces of such a history in its structure, deserves to be 
 employed with scholarly care. An indirect method of 
 preaching the gospel is to conserve this pre-eminentl}^ 
 Christian tongue from degeneracy. This should be the 
 work of all Christian scholars. 
 
 Lest the estimate here given of the intrinsic value of 
 our language should seem extravagant, let me give the 
 testimony of European scholars. The first is that of 
 Jacob Grimm, the German lexicographer. From the 
 midst of the most learned etymological studies of the
 
 56 ENGLISH STYLE. [leci. iv. 
 
 age he once sent forth this tribute to a language not 
 his own. " The English language," he wrote, " has a 
 veritable power of expression such as, perhaps, never 
 stood at the command of any other language of men. 
 Its spiritual genius, its wonderfully happy development, 
 have been the result of a surprisingly intimate union 
 of the two noblest languages of modern Europe, — the 
 Teutonic and the Romanza. In truth, the English 
 tongue, which by no mere accident has produced and 
 upborne the greatest poet of modern times, may with 
 all right be called a world-language. Like the Eng- 
 lish people, it appears destined to prevail, with a sway 
 more extensive even than its present, over all portions 
 of the globe. For in wealth, good sense, and closeness 
 of structure, no other languages at this day spoken, 
 not even our German, deserve to be compared to it." 
 This is the judgment of a German, who would not 
 needlessly exalt a foreign tongue at the expense of his 
 own. It is the judgment of a philologist, who would 
 not indulge in declamation on such a theme. It is the 
 judgment of one of the most learned men of the age, 
 who knew whereof he affirmed. 
 
 The late Baron Humboldt expressed, not long before 
 his decease, substantially the same opinion of the capa- 
 cities of the English as compared with the classic lan- 
 guages of antiquity. The Academy of Berlin once gave 
 a prize for the best essay on a comparison of fourteen 
 of the ancient and modern tongues. The prize was 
 awarded to Jenisch, and the essay assigned the palm 
 of excellence over all the rest to the English. Guizot 
 claims the superiority, in some respects, for the French 
 tongue ; yet he concedes the pre-eminence of Shakspeare 
 over all other modern poets, and affirms that Shak- 
 speare could not have written his uuequaled dramas in
 
 LECT. IV.] DESTINY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 57 
 
 any other than the English language. No English, no 
 Shakspeare, is the gist of his criticism. I record these 
 testimonies as authorities which deserve respect. I do 
 not profess to speak ex cathedra on the subject. The 
 point to which I would bend such testimony is this, 
 that such a language deserves protection from deca- 
 dence and corruption. Its purity is its glory. Schol- 
 arly taste ought to stand sentinel over such a national 
 treasure in the persons of the authors and public speak- 
 ers who use the language in dignified discourse. 
 
 6. Another reason for the scholarly conservation of 
 our language in its purity is the fact that the knowl- 
 edge and the use of it are rapidly extending over the 
 nations of the world. It is now the mother-tongue of 
 the masters of one-fourth of the civilized globe. De 
 Quincey expresses the opinion that the English and 
 the Spanish are destined to contest the control of the 
 civilization of the future. Why the Spanish should be 
 thought able to engage in such a competition I do not 
 know, unless it be that Spain has been what England 
 is, — the great colonizing power of the globe. Its lan- 
 guage, therefore, has a lodgment at many commanding 
 points on both continents. A short time ago seven- 
 teen different governments corresponded with the de- 
 partment of state at Washington in Spanish, — a larger 
 number, probably, than that of correspondents in any 
 other tongue. Alison the historian gives it as the 
 result of his studies of the institutions of Europe, that 
 the language of half the world, for ages, will be our 
 own. Other ethnologists and philologians express the 
 same or a similar opinion. 
 
 Such anticipations, I am aware, appear visionary at 
 the first view. I remember when, many years ago, I 
 expressed, much more dubiously than 1 should now do
 
 68 ENGLISH STYLE. [lect. iv. 
 
 it, the belief that the destiny of our language is to 
 surpass that of any other living tongue, as well as the 
 history of the ancient classic tongues, a ripple of in- 
 credulity went over my audience visibly and audibly. 
 The criticism was set down, I doubt not, as the dream 
 of an enthusiast. But since that time, as this class of 
 studies has commanded more attention, our language 
 and literature have come to command more respect. 
 The opinion in question has forced itself upon states- 
 men and travelers, as well as upon experts in linguistic 
 researches. Several facts deserve record, which sup- 
 port it beyond reasonable question, and which bring it 
 within range of the judgment of any educated man. 
 
 EXCURSUS. 
 
 The facts here alluded to are of sufficient importance 
 in their bearing on the main subject to justif}' a digres- 
 sion upon the destiny of the English language. 
 
 One is the fact, that our language has possession of 
 the northern half of the American continent. Look- 
 ing at the question in geographical relations, this fact 
 is much to the purpose. We need not indulge in any 
 visionary conjectures of the future population of this 
 country, dreaming, as many do, of hundreds of millions 
 crowding this portion of the continent. We do not 
 know what latent causes may affect the laws of popula- 
 tion here. The distant future is problematical always 
 in the growth of great nations. Occult powers often 
 defeat those which seem to foretell a splendid destiny. 
 This continent has been all but depopulated once, and 
 it may be so again if national character demands that 
 in the economj^ of the divine plans. Great and sudden 
 cataclysms, sweeping nations off the globe, are among 
 the mysterious instruments of the world's progress.
 
 LECT. IV.] SOUTH AMERICAN DIALECTS. 69 
 
 Wiser men than we must they be who shall safely say 
 that these can not occur in the future, as they have 
 occurred in the past. But it is philosophical to accept 
 present causes as tending to certain results which can 
 safely be pronounced probable. For the present purpose, 
 it is sufficient to say, that, whatever North America is 
 to be in the brotherhood of nations, that the English 
 language is to be among the national tongues, and the 
 English literature among the literatures of the world. 
 English words, English idioms, English constructions, 
 are to express the national mind here existing and to 
 be. 
 
 In the second place, it is not as certain, but it seems 
 reasonably probable, that the southern half of this con- 
 tinent is to come under the same English dominion. 
 De Quincey's prognostications in behalf of the Spanish 
 tongue may have been foiuided on its establishment in 
 Central and South America, among the now ruling races 
 there. But how long, without a new infusion of life 
 to arrest the decadence of every thing Spanish, can that 
 language stand the pressure of the English thought and 
 speech which are crowding southward ? To human 
 wisdom the ill-timed experiment of Maximilian was the 
 expiring effort of the Latin stock to perpetuate itself 
 in great empires there. The Spanish language, with its 
 South American dialects, is not extending its sway. It 
 is not ripening. No new literature of any force is grow- 
 ing up in it. The races which speak it are develoj)ing 
 no new life from within. The most vitalizing forces 
 they are receiving are from without the Spanish range of 
 ideas. They are from races which speak English, from 
 institutions which are built on English thought, from lit- 
 erature which is written in the English tongue, from a 
 commerce which is mainly supported by English capital,
 
 60 ENGLISH STYLE. [lect. iv. 
 
 and rilled by English brains. Political questions are 
 insignificant in comparison with the prospective ascen- 
 dency there of the English language and the literature 
 which it embodies. 
 
 Further: our language has a lodgment in Australia, 
 in Africa, and in India, where, beyond all question,, 
 large and wealthy and powerful nations are to exist, 
 speaking English as the dialect of all that is noblest in 
 their civilization. Even in India, English is perceptibly 
 gaining ground upon the native dialects as the lan- 
 guage of culture. Some sanguine scholars in Calcutta 
 anticipate the time wlicn it will supplant those dialects. 
 East-Indian degradations, in some respects the most 
 degraded the human mind has ever known, tend to drag 
 down into oblivion, and thrust out of human memory, 
 the very languages which contain them, and have be- 
 come saturated with them. Why not? What more 
 effective way can the Nemesis of corrupt nations devise 
 for ridding them and the world of such enormities? If 
 such a language as the Latin could die, why not other 
 tongues, which have not in them a tithe of the treasure 
 which the Latin had, which the world would " not will- 
 ingly let die." 
 
 In the fourth place, the English bids fair to be the 
 laufTuajre of the Pacific islands. It is not learningf and 
 culture chiefly, which extend the sway of a national 
 tongue : it is commerce. Through English and Ameri- 
 can commerce, our language is forestalling all other 
 powerful tongues which can compete with it in the 
 groups of Pacific islands. This may give to it a grander 
 sway than at the first appears. In all histor}', insular 
 power has been great and long-lived. It may be so in 
 the future. At all events, whatever the Pacific islands 
 arc to be, and whatever part they are to act in the
 
 LECT. IV.] ENGLISH COLONIES AND COMMERCE. 61 
 
 world's future, that the English language is to be, and 
 that, English thought, in English idioms of speech, is to 
 do. 
 
 The fact also deserves more particular notice, that 
 English is the language of colonization and of commerce 
 the world over. Those agencies which are most effec- 
 tive in extending commerce, and colonizing new lands, 
 are rooted in the nations to which English speech is 
 vernacular. In these lines of expansion, the French, 
 the Spanish, and the German — the only tongues which 
 in other respects can compete with ours — have no future 
 comparable with that of ours. The absorption of them, 
 wherever they come into rivalship with English on a 
 large scale and on a new soil, is only a question of time. 
 If new and uninhabited lands are to be discovered on 
 the globe, the chances are, that the first foot planted on 
 their soil will be that of an Englishman or an American, 
 and that the first word of human speech heard there 
 will be from our mother-tongue. Even in Central Eu- 
 rope, English is gaining ground as the language of cul- 
 ture. The ability to speak it is recognized both as an 
 accomplishment of culture and a necessity of commerce. 
 The old idea of making Latin the dialect of learning 
 is now shut up to the universities. The later fashion, 
 of making French the dialect of courts, is also yielding 
 ground. In many German cities English is spoken in 
 every other store one enters. Ask for a hat in broken 
 German, and the chance is, that you will be asked in 
 return, in a dialect as pure as yours, " Can you speak 
 English ? " 
 
 Commerce and colonization have effected such an ex- 
 tension of the use of this language, that an English trav- 
 eler, not long ago, starting from Liverpool, and following 
 the sun, traveled on a belt around tlie globe, and never
 
 G2 ENGLISH STYLE. [lect. rv. 
 
 was for twenty-four hours on land out of hearing of his 
 native tongue, spoken by natives of the countries he 
 visited. Dilke's " Greater Britain " is well worth read- 
 ing for the conception it gives one of the steadiness and 
 the grandeur with which English speech is marching 
 over the habitable world. It is more sublime than the 
 tramp of an army. Mr. Webster gave expression to a 
 profound fact, prophetic of this world's destiny, when 
 he represented the globe as surrounded with one " con- 
 tinuous and unbroken strain of the martial airs of Eng- 
 land." 
 
 Once more : English is the language pre-eminently of 
 Christian missions. Not only is the Christian religion 
 now going to the nations from English sources chiefly, 
 and supported chiefly by auxiliary institutions of Eng- 
 lish origin, but it is more and more largely going in 
 English forms of speech. The nations which speak 
 English are the great missionary nations, as they are 
 the colonizing nations. In their missions, as in their 
 colonies, they carry their national tongue with them. 
 The question is already discussed among our American 
 missionaries, whether an error in missionary policy has 
 not been committed in some localities by trying to work 
 Christianity into effete and expiring dialects, instead of 
 laying the foundations of a Christian education in an 
 English culture. Many parts of the ruder Pagan world 
 are already dotted over with Christian schools in which 
 onl}- English text-books are emploj'ed. It is a fair ques- 
 tion, and, so far as I know, yet an open one, whether it 
 pays for its cost in time and money and missionar}* life, 
 to build up Christian institutions in savage dialects 
 whose limited and often degraded vocabulary renders 
 it difiicult to put into them even the elementary ideas 
 of our religion.
 
 LECT. IV.] ENGLISH AND PAGAN TONGUES. 63 
 
 A recent American traveler, sympathizing, as Sir 
 Charles Dilke does not, with the work of missions, 
 after making the circuit of the globe, visiting mission- 
 ary stations all the way, does not hesitate to take the 
 negative of this question, so far as the purely savage 
 tongues are concerned. He writes : " Let those who 
 conduct the missionary operations of the day study 
 this question of language. Instead of wasting time 
 and strength, and monej" and lives, in making written 
 languages out of the dialects of savages, begin at once 
 with the English. A half-century of effort well di- 
 rected will sweep from the earth hundreds of dialects, 
 specially in Africa and the islands of the Pacific." I 
 understand his idea to be, that we should depend on 
 oral teaching till a foothold is gained, but put all 
 Christian books into English forms, and build at length 
 a Christian education upon those, leaving the savage 
 dialects to die out gradually, as they will when brought 
 into competition with a tongue like our own. For the 
 Christianizing of barbarous tribes, this policy may be 
 the true one. The fruit of it may be, that at no very 
 distant day English will supplant many such tribal dia- 
 lects. Some of our missionary books now extant in 
 those dialects may become an antiquarian curiosity, like 
 Eliot's Indian Bible, which now only one living man, 
 if one, can read. Surely, if possible, it seems desirable 
 that such melancholy monuments of toil and zeal, and, 
 it may be, the fidelity of invalids to a life's work, all so 
 soon to pass into oblivion, should not be multiplied.
 
 LECTURE V. 
 
 PURITY OF STYLE; REASONS FOR ITS CULTIVATION, 
 CONCLUDED. — MEANS OF ITS ACQUISITION. 
 
 What is the drift of the reflections presented in the 
 last Lecture upon the probable destiny of the English 
 language, as it regards the main subject before us ? It 
 may be condensed into a few emphatic particulars. 
 
 One is, that this is clearly destined to be a living lan- 
 guage for an incalculable period of time. A human 
 speech possessed of such intense vitality, and freighted 
 with such materials of knowledge as those of the Chris- 
 tian religion and the civilization which it nurtures, may 
 never die. Another fact is, that this is such a language 
 as Christianity always uses for its own advancement. 
 The Christian religion has always disclosed an affinity 
 for the youth and the manhood of languages rather than 
 for their periods of decadence. It abandons the dying 
 for the nascent literatures. More than once it has 
 passed out from aged to youthful nations, from decaying 
 to germinant races, and, therefore, from effete into living 
 dialects. By all the teachings of its historj^ it should 
 seem to be established that the English tongue is to be the 
 great instrument of its future and of its final triumph. 
 
 This view is confirmed by another fact, — that it is 
 the way of Divine Providence to ordain elect languages 
 to great services in the work of this world's redemption. 
 As there are elect nations, races, families, individuals, 
 
 G4
 
 LECT. v.] LANGUAGE A DIVINE TRUST. 65 
 
 and types of civilization, so thei'e are elect languages. 
 Selection and decree of choice things to great ends run 
 through Providence as through Nature. Thus choice 
 languages are appointed to execute divine purposes of 
 exceptional magnitude. The call of Abraham was not 
 more potently the voice of God than was the creation 
 of the Greek tongue. The election of the Hebrews to 
 be conservators of revealed truth was not more obvious 
 than the decree now is which ordained the Latin tongue 
 to a work of its own in the early stages of Christianity. 
 Our English tongue is one of these elect languages, and 
 the latest in the line, as it appears, of Christian civiliza- 
 tion. The Greek language in the golden age of Athens 
 did not compass so grand a destiny. 
 
 From this view, then, it follows that our language 
 ought to be guarded from degeneracy. As scholars and 
 as public teachers, the ministers of religion should han- 
 dle it as a sacred trust. Dante says that the first duty 
 of a poet is to guard the purity of his native tongue with 
 jealous care; If this be true of the Italian tongue, how 
 much more significantly true of the English ! And, if 
 true of a poet's duty, how much more sacredly true of 
 that of a Christian preacher ! We should revere our 
 language as a trust direct from the hands of God. It 
 is worse than boorish to abuse the laws, and distort the 
 structure, of such a language in public speech. To a 
 refined and scholarly conscience it is a moral wrong 
 thus to misuse an instrument which God so manifestly 
 ordains to great uses. We speak of " sacred languages." 
 We revere the very words in which inspired thought 
 has been revealed. But why should one of the chosen 
 dialects of revelation be more revered than a chosen 
 dialect of Christian civilization and redemption ? It is 
 precisely in accord with our work as Christian preachers
 
 66 ENGLISH STYLE. [lect. v. 
 
 -to act as conservators of the graces and the forces of 
 such a tongue. To do this we must possess and must 
 keep in constant use a respect for its purity among 
 the cultivated classes of those who use it. Of these no 
 other is equal in literary influence to the public speak- 
 ers of a republic. 
 
 G. A sixth reason for cultivating the use of pure 
 English by American speakers and writers is, that the 
 language is in special danger of corruption in this 
 country. The danger arises from several causes, which 
 can be but briefly noticed here. 
 
 One is, that republican institutions favor the influ- 
 ence of the illiterate upon the language. Our people 
 are intelligent, yet in the main illiterate. Republican- 
 ism creates a multitude of illiterate speakers. It tends, 
 also, to promote the use of the language in address to 
 the illiterate. As a nation we have no such knowledge 
 as that which extensive reading gives, and no such 
 delicacy of ear for the sounds of the language as the 
 people of Athens had in their better days. Popular in- 
 fluence on the use of the language, therefore, is power- 
 ful, and at the same time not subject to good taste. 
 Public speakers of all classes are tempted to speak for 
 sensational effect. Members of the American Senate 
 illustrate the force of this temptation in the prejudice 
 which some of them have expressed, in words quite 
 equal to the dignity of the sentiment, against " literary 
 fellers" among their associates. The late Hon. Stephen 
 A. Douglas once declared it to be a disqualification for 
 the duties of senator, that a man had a classical educa- 
 tion. 
 
 The power of this prejudice is seen in the very struc- 
 ture of our standard English lexicons. Their scholarly 
 editors dare not shut out wholly from them words which
 
 LECT. v.] PROVINCIAL DIALECTS. 67 
 
 have no possible use or authority but those of low life. 
 The lexicons are swollen to such size, that one needs a 
 porter to carry them ; and yet each new edition adds 
 thousands of words, many of which are useless, and 
 words of which the less the people know, the better. 
 It would be a service to the national civilization if they 
 could not be found in any dictionary. Yet publishers, 
 in the competition of trade, dare not exclude them. It 
 will never do that one book should contain five thou- 
 sand words more than its rival. That they are branded 
 with scholarly objections, such as "rare," "not used," 
 "low," "obsolete," etc., amounts to little. The corrup- 
 tions are there. The people see them in the standards 
 of the language, and seeing is believing. The record 
 itself is a triumph of barbarism over learning and taste. 
 
 Again : the extent of our territory favors the forma- 
 tion of provincial dialects. I have spoken of the dia- 
 lects in the different shires of England. In France 
 the same thing abounds. The peasantry of different 
 departments find it difficult to understand each other. 
 Yet France has a territory not so large as Texas, of not 
 much more than one-half the size of Nebraska. He- 
 rodotus tells us, that the dialects of ancient Greece 
 often could not be intelligibly interchanged by those 
 who used them. Yet Greece comprised a landed area 
 less than that of one-half of the State of Pennsylvania. 
 What shall prevent the growth of provincial tongues 
 in a territory measured by thousands of miles from sea 
 to sea, divided by such lines of demarkation as the 
 Rocky Mountains, and embracing every variety of cli- 
 mate and production within the temperate zone ? 
 
 To illustrate what is actually going on on the Pacific 
 coast, let me instance that which is called the " Chi- 
 nook dialect " in Oregon. A few years ago that dia-
 
 08 ENGLISH STYLE. [lect. v. 
 
 lect was in full play as an infant language by itself. It 
 was originally compounded by members and employees 
 of the Hudson's Bay Company to facilitate trade with 
 the Indians. A dictionary of it has been printed, con- 
 taining about twelve hundred words made up of Eng- 
 lish, French, and German, with a sprinkling of Indian 
 words. Of forty tribes of Indians, no two use the same 
 language; but they all understand "Chinook." 
 
 Further : the multitude of nations represented in the 
 emigration to this country also fosters the growth of 
 dialects. The Dutch settlers in Eastern New York 
 were from the first hemmed in by strong English popu- 
 lations ; yet they have left an impression on the collo- 
 quial language of that region which lives to this day, 
 and this after the lapse of two hundred years. In some 
 inland villages not far from the Hudson the mixture of 
 Dutch and English words is obvious. It is not long 
 since persons were found there who spoke Dutch alone, 
 yet were natives of the Empire State. In Oneida 
 County, a few years ago, you might have traveled for 
 miles, and heard only the Welsh language. 
 
 If a few Dutch and Welsh immigrants could give to 
 their languages such vitality in the midst of a thickly 
 settled English State, what must be the effect produced 
 by the thousands of Germans, Swedes, Norwegians, in 
 the north-western States ? These have newspapers in 
 their native tongues, and schools in which those tongues 
 are used. Sometimes even the laws of the State have 
 to be printed in a foreign language. In the cit}^ of 
 Chicago the gospel is preached in eight different dia- 
 lects to-day. 
 
 The intermixture of races in this country is beyond 
 all precedent in the history of mankind. A correspond- 
 ent in a Californian periodical says that marriages occur
 
 LECT. v.] AMERICAN DIALECTS. 69 
 
 there " between Yankees and Digger Indians, Irish and 
 Chinese, Mexican and Malay, Portuguese and Sandwich- 
 Islanders, Canadian and negro, French and Apache, to 
 say nothing of the more common intermarriages to be 
 seen in all parts of America." He adds, " The way the 
 English language must suffer in the mouths of the de- 
 scendants of these oddly-coupled people will be without 
 parallel. Even now the more familiar Spanish terras 
 have become ingrafted on our English, so that they never 
 can be detached again. Words from every language on 
 the earth are working in, from Chinese to Kanaka." A 
 shoemaker in San Francisco was asked by a customer, 
 " Can you speak English ? " and he replied unhesitat- 
 ingly, " Si Signor, certainement ! you bet ! " There 
 were three languages in one sentence ; and the good 
 man straightened himself up with a look of proud sat- 
 isfaction at the thought that he could speak English 
 like a native. He was an Italian. 
 
 The effect of this condition of things must subject 
 our language to a very severe process of transition, in 
 which dialects will be almost inevitable. The danger 
 is, that the language will be seriously weakened for the 
 high purposes it has served hitherto, and which have 
 resulted in the noblest body of literature in the world. 
 
 Good taste, however, does not favor any quixotic en- 
 terprise. Changes can not be wholly prevented. It is 
 not desirable that they should be. But it is desirable 
 and practicable to guard the old English of scholars 
 and public speakers from reckless change, from igno- 
 rant change, from change fostered by the indolence of 
 authors and the coarseness of readers. Keep the old 
 English literature within the homely language of the 
 people, as it is now, by keeping the language substan- 
 tially what it is now. Do not allow such a magnificent
 
 70 ENGLISH STYLE. [lkct. v. 
 
 literature to become obsolete through the obsolescence 
 of the tongue in which it is now treasured. Think of 
 it! Shall an American a hundred years hence be un- 
 able to read " The Pilgrim's Progress " in the original f 
 Shall an American child then need a glossary to deci- 
 pher the present form of "The Lord's Prayer," as we do 
 to read the translation of it by Wickliffe ? It would 
 be a catastrophe to all high culture and to Christianity 
 itself. Yet any language will die out thus, if authors 
 and speakers leave it unguarded to drift with illiterate 
 and vulgar usage. They are its natural conservators. 
 
 7. One reason for cultivating a pure English style 
 remains to be considered briefly, which is of special 
 interest to clergymen. It is, that the clergy of a coun- 
 try have great influence over the tastes and usages of 
 the people. The pastor of a parish, if he is an educated 
 man, becomes often the standard of culture to his peo- 
 ple, unless he forfeits the prerogative by presenting an 
 unworthy standard in his own person. This is specially 
 true in rural parishes. One pastor I have known who 
 was for twenty years the standard of appeal in matters 
 of literary taste in the city of Boston. His use of the 
 English language was never questioned. Scholarly law- 
 yers, physicians, and men of leisure, deferred to him 
 as an oracle. Coleridge says, that, "if the history of 
 phrases in hourly currency among English peasants were 
 traced, a person not previously aware of the fact would 
 be surprised at finding so large a number which three 
 or four centuries ago were the exclusive propert}^ of the 
 schools, and at the commencement of the Reformation 
 had been transferred from the school to the pulpit, and 
 thus gradually passed into common life." 
 
 A clergyman should never forget this prerogative of 
 his position. An incidental duty of the clerical office
 
 LECT. v.] THE CLERICAL rEOPESSION. 71 
 
 is to elevate the people in their use of their mother- 
 tongue. Refine a people's daily speech, and you refine 
 their daily thoughts. Men of letters in other depart- 
 ments of life complain of our profession in this respect, 
 and with some reason. They say that we are tolerant 
 of cant, that we encourage the inroad of barbarisms, 
 that we coin poor English, that we use needless tech- 
 nicalities, that we import into sermons the slang of 
 newsboys. In all this we sacrifice athletic English to 
 a dialect as unbecoming to the pulpit as it is unneces- 
 sary to the expression of any thought which deserves 
 utterance in the pulpit. Those of the clergy are justly 
 condemned who do not in other respects show them- 
 selves the friends of education. Common schools, col- 
 leges, professional seminaries, look to our profession for 
 their most efficient founders and conductors. They have 
 a right to do so. Ministers of the Christian religion are, 
 ex officio^ auxiliaries of schools of learning. We teach a 
 religion of thought. Why have we not a corresponding 
 duty to the culture of the country, respecting that cause 
 and sign of high culture which consists in a pure use of 
 the English tongue ? A thoroughly faithful pastor will 
 not be negligent of such incidental duties and preroga- 
 tives of his calling. 
 
 I have said that we teach a religion of thought. A 
 very significant fact, looking in the same direction, is, 
 that we teach the religion of a Book^ and that that 
 Book in our English version is rhetorically one of the 
 purest in the language. It has done more than all the 
 rest of our literature combined to make the language 
 what it is, and to send a rich and strong and sweet 
 current of pure English through the dialect of all the 
 English-speaking nations. We can not be true to the 
 literary spirit of the Bible, nor congenial in the influ-
 
 72 ENGLISH STYLE. [i.ect. v. 
 
 ence of our ministrations with its literary influence on 
 the world, if we do not preach in the language of lofty 
 English scholarship. Dr. Henry More says, that "a 
 man of good parts, by constant reading of the Bible, 
 will naturally form a more winning and commanding 
 rhetoric than those that are learned ; the intermixture 
 of tongues and of artificial phrases debasing their style." 
 Fidelity to the Book, then, which has created the Chris- 
 tian pulpit, should render the style of the pulpit a model 
 of pure, national English. 
 
 8. The eighth and last reason to be observed for cul- 
 tivating a pure style is, that the taste for such a style 
 is indispensable to thorough and refined scholarship. 
 Observe critically the character of educated men, and 
 you will find that their genuine culture in other things 
 is proportioned to their taste for good English in their 
 public speech. The accuracy of a man's learning, the 
 soundness of his philosophy, the trustworthiness of his 
 literary judgments, the value of his opinions of books, 
 of educational enterprises and expedients, and the gen- 
 eral symmetry of his culture, may be graded by his taste 
 for pure English in his own use of language. The study 
 of this quality of speech lies deeper in the ground-work 
 of culture than at the first view it appears to do. Its 
 roots run into and under the foundation of scholarship. 
 This is the chief reason why so large a space is given 
 here to its discussion. It is not because purity of style 
 is immediately and intrinsically more important than 
 other qualities, but that it lies at the basis of them all. 
 
 VI. The only remaining topic in the discussion of the 
 theme before us is the inquiry. What are the most 
 effective means of acquiring a pure style ? These relate 
 to several things. 
 
 1. One of these is our habitual conversation. We
 
 LECT. v.] COLLOQUIAL STYLE. 73 
 
 should distinguish between colloquial usage and that of 
 continuous discourse. Conversation tolerates a freedom 
 which is not authorized in discourse, written or oral. 
 Colloquial usage admits provincialisms, contractions, 
 even imports from other tongues, more freely than the 
 usage of public speech or of authorship. For instance, 
 a scholarly spirit does not recoil at hearing, in the 
 freedom of conversation, such contractions as " don't," 
 " can't," " won't." But, when Daniel Webster used them 
 in the United-States Senate, he violated the canons of 
 cultivated taste. He did not do it in the earlier and 
 more vigorous years of his life. His style in this, and 
 in some other respects, deteriorated. We often say of 
 a man's written stjde, that it needs more of the collo- 
 quial elements. That criticism commonly refers, not 
 to vocabulary, but to construction, and specially to 
 the ease and flexibility of structure which conversation 
 creates more readily than written discourse. 
 
 But it is not fastidious criticism to subject even con- 
 versation to substantially the same rules respecting a 
 pure vocabulary by which we form the diction of dis- 
 course. Use pure English in common talk. This is not 
 " talking like a book." It is using in speech the best 
 elements of the language, — the best for clearness, for 
 force, for elegance. Observe for yourself the conversa- 
 tion of the best class of educated men: you will detect 
 an indefinable charm in it, which is due almost wholly 
 to its selection of pure words, the predominance of 
 Saxon words, the avoidance of slang, of contractions, 
 of vulgarisms, of pedantic importations. The colloquial 
 style of Edward Everett by the hour together might 
 have been transferred to print without an omission or a 
 correction. So might that of Washington Irving. One 
 reason why they wrote as they did, in pure classic Eng-
 
 74 ENGLISH STYLE. [lect. v. 
 
 lisli, was that they talked in pure cLassic English. The 
 habit of the tongue became the habit of the pen. 
 
 An educated man should never translate educated 
 speech into slang facetiously. A man's jests may be a 
 cause, as well as a sign, of literary decline. The major- 
 ity of men of culture would be surprised to discover 
 how much of such facetiousness exists among them, 
 and how insidious its influence is on refinement both of 
 thought and speech. Some conversationalists seem to 
 know no other way of giving mother-wit to their talk 
 than that of translating pure English into the dialect of 
 low life. The apology for it is, that it is so expressive. 
 But so is profaneness expressive. Vulgarity in all forms 
 is expressive. You can command entranced attention 
 in the pulpit by the utterance of an oath. But neither 
 is a necessity to the bold and manly purposes of conver- 
 sation. The princes in colloquial expression employ a 
 vocabulary of which the most fastidious scholar need 
 not be ashamed. The most forcible elements of common 
 talk are its purest elements. 
 
 The habit of ignoring those elements in favor of their 
 vulgar equivalents is degrading to a man's habits of 
 thinking. It fills his mind with coarse expressions of 
 energy ; and, in the haste of dignified speech, these will 
 crowd their way in, to the displacement of those refined 
 forms which a scholar's taste prefers, and the superiority 
 of which every man feels. Such forms of vulgar force, 
 once rooted in a speaker's vocabulary, may not die out 
 of it in a lifetime. De Quincey, for instance, must first 
 have allowed his colloquial dialect to be corrupted, be- 
 fore he could, with his princely command of language, 
 have indulged himself in writing, as he does, of Greece 
 as having been very proud of having "licked" her 
 enemy " into almighty smash ; " and again, of Apollo-
 
 LECT. v.] EEADING CLASSIC ENGLISH. 75 
 
 dorus as being " cock of the walk." An author's pen 
 does not commit such crimes against the mother-tongue 
 if his own tongue has not first been guilty of degrading 
 colloquial liberty into colloquial vulgarity. 
 
 2. A pure style may be fostered by the reading of 
 classic English authors. The most lasting influence 
 which forms a speaker's style is commonly that of the 
 authors of whom he is most fond. The influence is a 
 silent one, and its growth imperceptible ; but it is crea- 
 tive. That which an educated man reads with most 
 profound reverence and enjoyment he will most nearly 
 resemble in the end. Delight in pure English, and you 
 will compose in pure English. Let your tastes be 
 formed upon the models of Addison, Dugald Stewart, 
 David Hume, Wordsworth, Macaulay, Whately, Wash- 
 ington Irving, Edward Everett, Motley, and Prescott, 
 and you can scarcely fail to write and speak with a pure 
 vocabulary. 
 
 On the other hand, read with scholarly caution 
 authors who by reputation are indifferent to the purity 
 of their language. Do not accept as authorities Cole- 
 ridge, Carlyle, Emerson. Read with critical care against 
 abuses of language those authors whose culture has 
 been chiefly derived from German literature. I am 
 unable to assign a reason for it ; but it is a fact, that 
 German writers, when they become the favorites of an 
 American speaker, are more efficient in corrupting his 
 English style than those of any other foreign tongue. 
 This, probably, was the chief source of the degeneracy 
 of Carlyle's English. It is reported that when he began 
 his literary career, before German studies had become 
 ascendant in his reading, he wrote a diction not at all 
 noticeable for unscholarly features. The degradation 
 of his style to the most monstrous contortions that have
 
 76 ENGLISH STYLE. [lect. v. 
 
 defaced any modern literature of equal rank seems to 
 have been consciously and voluntarily invited on his 
 part, by the sacrifice of his English to his German mas- 
 ters. 
 
 3. Purity of style may be assisted in its growth by a 
 discreet use of dictionaries, grammars, and other trea- 
 tises upon language. As I have before remarked, an 
 educated man should, if possible, own both the un- 
 abridged English dictionaries which belong to Ameri- 
 can literature. Webster's Dictionary is a nearly perfect 
 authority for the signification of words. Some words 
 found there have attached to them a thesaurus of in- 
 formation about their varieties of meaning and the 
 idioms in which they occur. Examine, for example, the 
 word " get " in that dictionary. The study of such dic- 
 tionaries, even when one can not accept them as decisive 
 of the right of a word to he in the language, is still 
 valuable in forming one's taste, and assisting one's in- 
 dependent judgment. Robert Hall never wrote for the 
 press without keeping Johnson's Dictionary open before 
 him for reference. Yet he might have been pardoned, 
 if any man might, for writing recklessly ; for he prob- 
 ably never hatl a painless waking hour in his life after 
 reaching the age of manhood. He lived and died in 
 extreme neuralgic suffering. If Carlyle had been such 
 a sufferer as Hall was, one might pardon his style for 
 howling and growling in outlandish English. 
 
 Grammars, also, men of culture neglect too commonly. 
 De Quincey writes, " We blush to say, that, through a 
 circle of prodigious reading, we have never known 
 a writer who did not sometimes violate the accidence or 
 syntax of the English language." A professor in one 
 of our colleges once expressed the opinion, that not 
 one educated man in ten can invariably use correctly
 
 LECT. v.] HABITS OF COMPOSITION. 77 
 
 the English subjunctive mood. There is much ele- 
 mentary knowledge of language which even a collegiate 
 training by no means makes sure in a man's culture. 
 
 Of other treatises on language than dictionaries and 
 grammars, the following are among the most valuable: 
 Bartlett's "Dictionary of Americanisms," Trench's 
 treatise on " The Study of Words," Latham's " Treatise 
 on the English Language," Marsh's " Lectures on the 
 English Language," Grant White's "Words and their 
 Uses," Max Miiller's work on " The Comparative Phi- 
 lology of the Indo-European Languages," " Language, 
 and the Study of Language," by Professor Whitney, 
 and Whately's " Synonyms." A few such volumes, for 
 one who is engaged in an arduous profession, are better 
 than many. 
 
 4. Purity of style may obviously be cultivated by a 
 scholarly care in one's own habits of composing. Never 
 use a doubtful word without investigation. Generally 
 give the preference to Saxon words. A Saxon style is 
 almost certain to be a pure style. Criticise your own 
 composition after the excitement of the work is over. 
 By directing your own attention consciously to the 
 barbarisms already familiar to your pen, you most easily 
 expel them from your use. Write also with the assist- 
 ance of a manuscript catalogue of words which you 
 detect as impure or doubtful English in your reading. 
 For convenience' sake, such a list of words should 
 include also those which are violations of precision, to 
 avoid the necessity of constructing two. Words obso- 
 lete, words obsolescent, words doubtful, words whose 
 structure or sense should not invite their introduction 
 to the language, words not precise as commonly em- 
 ployed, unauthorized compounds, words improperly im- 
 ported, — these and similar violations of good style may
 
 78 ENGLISH STYLE. [lect. v. 
 
 be accumulated as a ready guide to one's own critical 
 taste. Knowing what to shun is the chief thing in 
 learning what to use. The very writing of such a 
 catalogue will of itself improve one's critical taste. It 
 is also the most effective method of keeping one's self 
 informed of the progress of the language.
 
 LECTURE VI. 
 
 PRECISION OF STYLE. — DEFINITION. — VIOLATIONS. 
 
 Peecision of style — what is its characteristic idea ? 
 This is figuratively suggested by its etymology, — ^;ra?- 
 cido. To eliminate redundancies, to supply deficiencies, 
 and to remove inaccuracies, is its aim. Precision, then, 
 is the synonym of exactness. More fally, it is that 
 quality by which a writer's style expresses no more, 
 no less, and no other, than the thought which he means 
 to express. 
 
 I. Precision needs to be distinguished from certain 
 other qualities which it resembles. It is distinct from 
 propriety of style. Propriety, as we have seen, relates 
 to the signification of language as fixed by usage : precis- 
 ion relates to the signification of language as demanded 
 by the thought to be expressed. Propriety is satisfied 
 if we write good English: precision demands such a 
 choice of good English as shall express our meaning. 
 
 Precision is distinct, also, from perspicuity of style. 
 Precision, as above remarked, is satisfied if we express 
 in good English our thought, no more, no less, no other. 
 Perspicuity requires such a selection of good English 
 as shall make our thought clear to the hearer. The 
 thought may be precisely expressed, yet not be under- 
 stood by the hearer. It may be clothed in unfamiliar 
 English, yet with no want of precision. You may so- 
 liloquize your thought exactly : you do not thereby 
 
 79
 
 80 ENGLISH STYLE. [lect. vi. 
 
 communicate it clearly. Perspicuity demands an ad- 
 justment of style to the capacity and culture of an 
 audience; precision, only an adjustment of it to the 
 thought of the speaker. Profound thinkers are not 
 necessarily expert communicators. Style, then, may be 
 precise, and not perspicuous : it may be perspicuous, and 
 not precise. Connection may neutralize the want of 
 precision. It may be clear that a speaker means what 
 he does not say. One may not always easily determine 
 at what point the want of precision passes over into a 
 want of perspicuity. That depends on the quality of 
 the hearing. 
 
 To recapitulate these distinctions : propriety requires 
 only good English ; precision requires such a choice of 
 good English as shall express the speaker's mind ; per- 
 spicuity requires such a choice of good English as shall 
 make the speaker's mind clear to the hearer. 
 
 II. As professional speakers, we need a discussion of 
 precision of style, chiefly for the sake of observing its 
 most important violations. What are they ? 
 
 1. One class of offenses against precision concerns 
 the use or omission of single words. The wrong use or 
 omission of a word sometimes affects grammatical con- 
 struction, to the injury of this quality. " Certainly I 
 nor any man has a right," etc. : thus writes De Quincey. 
 Ungrammatical structure here is occasioned by the omis- 
 sion of the word " neither." " No writer was ever guilty 
 of so much false and absurd criticism : " thus writes 
 Macaulay of Sir Horace Walpole. The omission of the 
 word " other " impairs precision. If no writer was ever 
 thus guilty, then Walpole was not guilty. But Macaulay 
 means to say the opposite. Scores of instances of this 
 offense against precision are found in Macaulay's writ- 
 ings. A model of precision as he is in other respects,
 
 LECT. VI.] PRECISION IK THE USE OF VERBS. 81 
 
 he seems never to have observed the nice requirement of 
 our syntax in this. 
 
 The word " it " is often so used or omitted as to in- 
 jure exactness of expression. William Cobbett says, 
 " Never put an ' it ' on paper without thinking what 
 you are about." Often the thing needs to be expressed 
 to which the impersonal pronoun refers. Sometimes 
 the demonstratives " this " or " that " need to be substi- 
 tuted for " it." Your reading, if your attention is di- 
 rected to the fact, will disclose to you the enormous 
 amount of material which this word is made to carry in 
 the usage of authors. The freedom of its use exposes 
 it to abuse. The possessive case of " it " is of recent 
 origin in the language. Our English translators of the 
 Bible did not recognize it. They employed " his " for 
 "its." The impersonal form of the possessive does not 
 occur except by interpolation. It was not common in 
 King James's day. 
 
 A wrong choice of single words leads often to the 
 loss of precision in the moods and tenses of verbs. " I 
 intended to go," " I had intended to go," " I intended 
 to have gone " — these forms express different shades of 
 thought ; yet some writers use them interchangeably. 
 De Quincey writes : " With the exception of Words- 
 worth, no celebrated writer of this day has written a 
 hundred pages consecutively without some flagrant 
 impropriety of grammar, such as the eternal confusion 
 of the preterite with the past participle, confusion of 
 verbs transitive with verbs intransitive, or some violation 
 more or less of the vernacular idiom." This is an extrava- 
 gant criticism, but it indicates the general impression 
 left by a voluminous range of reading upon one of the 
 keenest of modern critics. 
 
 One of the permanent questions of literary criticism
 
 82 ENGLISH STYLE. [lect. vi. 
 
 is when to use the subjunctive mood. A very difficult 
 question it is, except to a writer whose habit of critical 
 observation has been disciplined by extensive reading 
 of the best authors. Mr. Hallam says that the use of 
 misplaced inflections was one of the chief things in 
 which the decadence of both the Greek and the Latin 
 languages first showed itself. Teachers of the freedmen 
 of our own country find the similar defect one of the 
 most difficult thinijs to correct in the ncOTo dialect. In 
 that dialect it often extends to the connection of differ- 
 ent verbs utterly without sense, as in the phrase " done 
 gone." A singular power is observable, in such corrup- 
 tions, to migrate from one language to another, ajjpar- 
 ently through the national blood. Mr. Livingstone found, 
 in some of the African dialects, phrases corresponding 
 to this " done gone " in the patois of the Southern 
 plantation. 
 
 The instinct of literary taste is seldom, if ever, suf- 
 ficient to guide a writer in the use of the verbal moods 
 and tenses. We need elaborate study of them with 
 grammar in hand, and also a large range of good read- 
 ing behind to determine points which grammars do not 
 specifically treat. Think on these topics with the pen ; 
 write down errors and their corrections, and fix thus 
 in mind the underlying philosophy of grammar. I 
 know of no less elaborate method by which one can 
 become an accomplished scholar in English idioms. 
 The majority of the graduates of American colleges 
 understand the Latin and Greek languages more philo- 
 sophically than they do the English. The study of our 
 own tongue as the subject of philosophical analysis is 
 a modern addition to our collegiate curriculum. How 
 many professors of English literature without special 
 training are qualified thus to teach it ? One expedient
 
 LECT. VI.] THE USE OE CONNECTIVES. 83 
 
 which facilitates the study of it is to study the English 
 verb in comparison with the Greek verb. 
 
 This suggests, further, that the wrong use or omission 
 of connective words is often the occasion of looseness of 
 style. The superior precision of the Greek tongue is 
 said, by those who are experts in teaching it, to be in 
 part due to the abundance of connectives in its vocabu- 
 lary. For some of its connective particles our language 
 has no equivalents ; yet such as we have serve often to 
 knit one's style together in exact and forcible colloca- 
 tions. Coleridge says that a master of our language 
 may be known by his skillful use of connectives. This 
 is one secret of the vigor of Coleridge's own style. 
 His prolonged and involuted sentences derive from this 
 source often a wonderful continuity, without which his 
 profound conceptions could not find adequate expres- 
 sion. In order to represent some thoughts, style needs 
 a certain sweep of sustained expression, like the sailing 
 of an eagle on wings of scarcely visible vibration. 
 Such, often, is Coleridge's style ; and his command of it 
 is often due to his precise use of connective words. It 
 is still more abundantly and grandly illustrated in the 
 prose style of Milton. Hence arises the independence 
 of both of fragmentary expression such as the majority 
 of writers would think to be all that some thoughts 
 admit of in human speech. Hence their freedom from 
 that which Southey calls the " Anglo-Gallican style, 
 whose cementless periods are understood beforehand, 
 they are so free from all the conneetions of logic." 
 Dr. Arnold, speaking of this feature in the thinking of 
 Coleridge, says that he would have been more perfectly 
 understood if he had written in classic Greek. 
 
 This which I have termed the " involuted style " is 
 essential to the loftiest flights of eloquence in oral
 
 84 ENGLISH STYLE. [lect. vi. 
 
 address. No man can be supremely eloquent in lacon- 
 ics. You can not express the rising and the expanding 
 and the sweep, and the circling of eloquent thought 
 borne up on eloquent feeling, in a style resembling that 
 which seamen call "a chopping sea." For such think- 
 ing, you must have at command a style of which an 
 oceanic ground-swell, or the Gothic interweaving of 
 forcst-trecs, is the more becoming symbol. You must 
 have long sentences, involved sentences, magnificent 
 sentences, euphonious sentences, sentences which invite 
 a rotund and lofty delivery. This diction is often cen- 
 sured by critics as " hue writing." But j-ou must have 
 such a style for the most exact utterance of certain 
 elevated and impassioned thoughts. The pulpit can 
 not afford to ridicule or ignore it. Yet, in the con- 
 struction of such a style, you must use connective 
 words, — links elaborately forged, inserted in the right 
 joints of style, to make them flexible without loss of 
 compactness. One word of such exact connective force 
 in the right place, with the right surroundings before 
 and after, may make all the difference between a dis- 
 jointed and a linked style. 
 
 2. Another class of offenses against precision concerns 
 the literal and the figurative uses of the same words. 
 The style of oral address naturally multiplies the figura- 
 tive uses of words. There is something in the corre- 
 spondence of eyes between a speaker and his hearers,' 
 which prompts the use of pictorial language with a free- 
 dom not so natural to the style of books. The magnet- 
 ism of vision invites a speaker to paint his thought to 
 the waiting and eager eyes before him. Good hearers 
 are always good spectators. No man hears perfectly 
 with his eyes shut. 
 
 The connection, whether in oral or written addi-ess,
 
 LECT. VI.] EXCESSIVE FIGURE IN" STYLE. 85 
 
 does not always determine which of the two uses of a 
 word, the literal and the figurative, an author means. 
 What, for instance, does Aristotle mean when he speaks 
 of a "perfect thief"? — a sinless thief, on the principle 
 of Spartan ethics, which made the wrong of theft con- 
 sist in its detection ? or a thief perfectly trained in the 
 arts of his trade ? What does a celebrated English 
 physician mean, when he describes a "beautiful ulcer"? 
 
 Excessive figure in style obviously exposes it to a 
 loss of precision. The style of some writers is a winged 
 chariot : it bears up everj^ thing into the air, soaring 
 on a figurative vocabulary. A reader often doubts how 
 much is figurative, and how much literal. Something 
 must be literal in any sensible style. Good sense must 
 have literal expression : it must often be pedestrian. 
 What is the literal conception is often the vexed ques- 
 tion. The style of Ruskin abounds with illustrations of 
 this. I turn at random to one of his pages, and find 
 a description of the flowing of a brook in summer: 
 " Cressed brook, lifted, even in flood, scarcely over its 
 stepping-stones, but through all sweet summer keeping 
 tremulous music with harp-strings of dark water among 
 the silver fingering of the pebbles." A precise reader, 
 accustomed to look for exact ideas, will read this a 
 second time, and perhaps not even then discern its 
 meaning. 
 
 A notable example of a want of precision in theo- 
 logical style, occasioned by the confounding of literal 
 and figurative phraseology, is found in many discussions 
 of human ability and dependence. Theological science 
 respecting those two doctrines hinges primarily, not on a 
 theological, but on a rhetorical distinction. All evan- 
 gelical theologians believe both those doctrines. But 
 they do not stultify themselves b^' believing both in the
 
 86 ENGLISH STYLE. [lect. vi. 
 
 same senses of the words employed. The controversy 
 turns on the inquiry which of the two crucial terms is 
 figurative, and which is literal. The believer of one 
 school affirms that " ability " and its synonyms are the 
 literal Avords, and that " inability " and its equivalents 
 arc figurative words, meaning a disinclination which 
 insures wrong action and sinful character. The believer 
 of another school declares that " dependence " and its 
 equivalents are the literal terms, and that " ability " 
 and its synonyms are figurative terms, signifying only 
 the possession of certain constitutional faculties, which 
 are not powers, therefore not capable of use in right 
 action resulting in upright character. 
 
 Has not the fact arrested your attention, that these 
 two opposing classes of terms are often employed in 
 theological discussion with an unbounded license as it 
 respects their literal and their figurative senses ? They 
 are now literal, then figurative, and then literal again. 
 Some disputants agree as little with themselves as with 
 each other. Their own definitions do not bind them. 
 This is one cause of the dubiousness of many essays on 
 the will. 
 
 3. Another class of offenses against precision of 
 style consists of synonj^ms confounded. The compos- 
 ite structure of our language has multiplied synonyms 
 immensely. The two great branches of the language, 
 the Saxon and the Norman, have specially wrought this 
 result. To illustrate the extent to which these hetero- 
 geneous elements have accumulated synonyms, let a 
 single example be given, which I take, in part, from 
 Mr. Trench. We have the words " trick," " device," 
 "finesse," "artifice," "ruse," "stratagem," "maneuver," 
 "wile," "intrigue," "fraud," — at least ten words to 
 express a group of ideas all having a common center.
 
 LECT. VI.] CONFUSION OF SYNONYMS. 87 
 
 These words are contributions from five different stocks 
 of language. " Trick " and " wile " are Saxon ; " device " 
 and " intrigue " are Italian ; " finesse," " maneuver," 
 "ruse," and "intrigue " also, are French; "artifice" 
 and "fraud" are Latin; and "stratagem" is Greek. 
 We have more than thirty words to express different 
 varieties of the single passion of anger. It is obvious 
 at a glance, that, in this multitude of synonyms, our lan- 
 guage presents great facilities for looseness of diction. 
 
 Some writers are deceived by the similarity in the 
 orthography of certain words. Such words as " ingenu- 
 ous" and "ingenious," "guile" and "guilt," " ficti- 
 tious " and " factitious," " genius " and " genus," "hu- 
 man " and humane," " depreciate " and " deprecate," 
 " extenuate " and " attenuate," " subtle " and " sub- 
 tile," " imperative " and " imperious," " healthy " and 
 "healthful," "impassable" and "impassible," "con- 
 jure " and " cdnjure," are often confounded. A store- 
 keeper gives notice in his window, " Umbrellas re- 
 covered here." What does he mean? — "recovered" 
 or " re-covered " ? The two words " healthy " and 
 " healthful " are so frequently interchanged, that our 
 dictionaries define them, in part, as if they were exact 
 synonyms ; which they are not. The best usage of 
 authors expresses by one of them the state of health, 
 and by the other the act of producing health. 
 "Healthy" is "not diseased:" "healthful" is "tend- 
 ing to promote health." The physician implied precise 
 English, when, to the inquiry whether oysters were 
 "healthy" at certain seasons, he replied, "I have never 
 heard one complain of an ache or an ail." The distinc- 
 tion between these two words is parallel to that of a 
 large group of words in our vocabulary, by which we 
 distinguish between a condition, and a tendency to
 
 88 ENGLISH STYLE. [lect. vi. 
 
 prodiico it. A man advertises the patent for a proprie- 
 tary iiiudiciiie for sale, and. observes, " It can be made 
 very profitable to the undertaker.'' Here the confound- 
 iiif( of tlie general with the technical meanings of the 
 last word, through sameness of orthography, gives a 
 very dubious commendation to the drug. 
 
 The use and neglect of the etymology of words are 
 often the occasion of a loss of precision. " Sympathy " 
 and " pity " are confounded by neglect of etymology. 
 2ivi'-Tra9o^, the root of the word "sympathy," indicates 
 a much finer feeling than that of pity. On the other 
 hand, more often still, adherence to the etymological 
 sense of a word, when that sense has become obsolete, 
 impairs precision. 
 
 Command of the etymological senses of words is a 
 rare gift, often as valuable as it is rare. Sometimes the 
 etymological idea in a word is so remote from its real 
 meaning, that the use of it amounts to an original figure, 
 as when Mr. Choate, in speaking of a disappointed can- 
 didate for office, said, " The convention ejaculated him 
 out of the window." This latent force, which always 
 lies in the etymology of words, tempts writers of classic 
 training to resort to it, to the loss of precision. Thus 
 Bishop Lowth writes, " The Emperor Julian very judi- 
 ciously planned the overthrow of Christianity." Paley 
 speaks of the "judiciousness of God." Guizot writes 
 of the "duplicity" of certain of Shakspeare's plays, 
 meaning only their dual structure. Bancroft writes of 
 the " versatility " of the English Government, meaning 
 its fickleness. Alison writes of the cavalry on the 
 retreat from Moscow, as "leading their extenuated 
 horses by the bridle:" he means "attenuated." De 
 Quincey speaks of "chastity," meaning " chasteness," 
 "of taste." He speaks also of a "licentious" style, 
 when he means a style rhetorically loose.
 
 LECT. VI.] ETYMOLOGICAL MEANINGS. 89 
 
 In all these cases, even in Alison's use of the word 
 " extenuated," the obsolete etymological significations 
 are recalled, and allowed to displace the later usage. 
 If a writer so keen of eye as De Quincey can commit 
 this error, more feeble or less practiced writers must be 
 in constant peril of saying what they do not mean. No 
 other quality of a good style demands such incessant 
 care as this of precision. One's mind must be wide- 
 awake, and always awake, in its choice of vocabulary. 
 My reading leads me to distrust sweeping commenda- 
 tions of authors in this respect. I distrust the man who 
 claims absolute precision of style. No writer within my 
 range of reading can substantiate the claim. 
 
 4. Not single words only may impair precision, but it 
 is often sacrificed by defect respecting the number of 
 words employed. Two forms of error in this respect 
 lie opposite to each other. 
 
 One is the sacrifice of precision through excess of con- 
 ciseness. In the manufacture of bullets, one part of 
 the process is that of compressing the bulk of the metal 
 without lessening its weight. By this means is gained 
 increase of momentum in the discharge. This is a 
 pertinent emblem of genuine conciseness in style. Only 
 that is true conciseness which compacts thought without 
 loss to the exactness of its expression. Precision is 
 impaired if words are not numerous enough to express 
 the whole thought. 
 
 Writers who affect conciseness inevitably commit 
 this error. Ralph Waldo Emerson is often guilty of it, 
 through the affectation of laconic style. Dr. South is 
 not always free from it. The different degrees of com- 
 parison are often expressed with deficiency of words. 
 " As many and even more hearers were assembled than 
 before." What is the defect here ? The writer should
 
 90 ENGLISH STYLE. [lfxt. vi, 
 
 have said, by some reconstruction, "As many as, and 
 even more tlian," etc. The inflections of verbs, also, 
 are often put into excessively concise forms. "Men 
 always liave and always will reject tlie doctrine of fatal- 
 ism." What is tlie error? The form should have been, 
 " Men always have rejected, and always will reject," 
 etc. The late Rev. Dr. Sears, writing of a certain rule 
 in German grammar, says, " If this rule were established 
 in all languages, this subject would be attended with 
 fewer difficulties than it actually is." He should have 
 said, " than it actually is attended with." 
 
 Some errors of this class arise from hopeless blunder- 
 ing. Says an editor, who still survives the acliievement, 
 " Chaffee's majority was thirteen hundred and ninety- 
 two, — just one hundred less than Christopher Columbus 
 discovered America." A bridge in Denver, a few years 
 ago, contained this record of municipal law : " No vehi- 
 cle drawn by more than one horse is allowed to cross 
 this bridge in opposite directions at the same time." 
 The civil code of California once contained this statute : 
 "x\ll marriages of white persons and negroes and mulat- 
 toes are illegal and void." Who were, then, the legally 
 married people of California? None but the Indians and 
 Chinese. Such errors, or their equals in blundering 
 expression, will occur in every writer's first thoughts of 
 construction in composing, and will be paralleled in his 
 written style if he trusts implicitly to first thoughts. 
 They suggest a good general rule, that we should not 
 shrink from repetition of words if that is necessary to 
 precision. The elegance of a precise style is often dis- 
 closed where the precision is gained by repetition. Ma- 
 caulay's writings abound mth illustrations. 
 
 Precision may be sacrificed, not only by excessive 
 conciseness, but by its opposite, — a redundance in tlie
 
 LECT. VI.] EEDUNDANCE IN STYLE. 91 
 
 number of words. Writers — and, still more, speakers 
 — are exposed to this error, who have at command a 
 diffuse vocabulary. A voluminous vocabulary by no 
 means insures a full expression. One to whom thought 
 comes in a volume of words may express more, he may 
 express less, he may express other, than his real meaning. 
 He to whom words occur with difficulty is the more apt 
 to have a studied expression, and therefore an exact 
 expression. 
 
 Looseness from redundance is specially apt to occur 
 in speaking on difficult themes to the popular mind. 
 Under such conditions, one is apt to explain, to qualify, 
 to repeat, to speak in circumlocutory phrase, to experi- 
 ment with variations. These easily overwhelm the 
 thought with words. One then loses precision in the 
 effort to be perspicuous. Style moves aslant and askew 
 in the struggle to move at all. Sometimes the very 
 struggle to be precise — the mind, in the very act of 
 composing, being intent on precision — may defeat itself. 
 Here, again, thought is overborne by the machinery em- 
 ployed to give it utterance. Writers who pride them- 
 selves on philosophical accuracy are apt to multiply 
 qualifications, and circumstantial incidents, and second- 
 ary clauses, and parenthetical inclosures, so that no pos- 
 sible error shall be affirmed ; but that very strain after 
 accuracy defeats its aim through the mere expansion 
 of bulk and involution of connections. When a dozen 
 words might have been understood, a dozen dozen may 
 fall dead on the ear. 
 
 Edmund Burke sometimes illustrates this. In one of 
 his elaborated sentences you will sometimes find words 
 and clauses selected and multiplied and arranged aud 
 compacted and qualified and defined and repeated, for 
 the very purpose of extending and limiting the truth
 
 92 ENGLISH STYLE. [lf.ct. vi. 
 
 to its exact iiiid undoubted measure. He obviously 
 labors to say just what lie means, no more, no less, 
 no other. Still, on the whole, he fails, because he is 
 so elaborately precise in details. The thought is suf- 
 focated by the multitude of words employed to give 
 it life. It is buried alive. To change the figure, you 
 can divide and subdivide a field into so many, so 
 small, so regular, and so exact patches, that the chief 
 impression it shall leave on your eye is that of the 
 fences. Similar is the impression of an excessively 
 precise style. 
 
 Such a style is peculiarly inapt to oral delivery. 
 That which gives a dim idea to the reader may give 
 none to the hearer. A style which must be critically 
 analyzed to discover its contents has no chance in the 
 rapidity of oral speech. Beginning, it may be, with a 
 defect in precision, it ends with a defect in perspicuity. 
 
 5. Precision may be sacrificed further by looseness 
 of construction. This class of errors runs parallel to 
 a similar class, which we shall have occasion to consider 
 in the study of perspicuity of style. The difference 
 between the two is only a difference of degree. The 
 same peculiarity of construction which in one degree of 
 it is an example of looseness, in a greater degree 
 becomes an example of obscurity. To avoid repetition, 
 therefore, I defer illustrations of these offenses till we 
 are led to recall it in our discussion of the corresponding 
 class, on the subject of perspicuity.
 
 LECTURE VII. 
 
 THE CAUSES OF THE FORMATION" OF A LOOSE STYLE. 
 
 The violations of precision in style which we have 
 considered, we may assume to be of such significance as 
 to give importance to a third general inquiry, to which 
 we now proceed; viz., what are the chief causes of a 
 loose style ? 
 
 1. Of these, the first and chief is the habit of indis- 
 criminate thinking. Other causes will give way to time 
 if this one be entirely removed. Let a speaker habitu- 
 ally think with exactness, and a precise style will be 
 at last inevitable. The power will grow to meet the 
 demand of the thinking mind. Such is the subjective 
 relation of language to tliought, that the mental force 
 which originates exact thinking will at length command 
 exact expression. 
 
 This leads me to remark that some authors and 
 speakers are rather prolific than j)recise. IMental force 
 often expends itself in abundance rather than exactness 
 of production. The diction of such writers will proba- 
 bly be what their thinking is. Indeed, all active minds 
 are rather affluent than precise at a certain stage 
 of their culture. Luxuriance of production precedes 
 exact thinking in the order of time. Precision in either 
 thought or expression belongs to the manhood of culture, 
 not to its infancy. Furthermore : the want of precise 
 thinking may characterize any mind, at any stage of 
 
 93
 
 04 ENGLISH STYLE. [i.kct. vn. 
 
 culture, on some subjects. There is a growth of sub- 
 jects, as well as a growth of mind. We all have to go 
 through the chaotic stage of growth in our study of new 
 themes. We must make allowance for this, and not 
 look for precision of style till we have such mastery of 
 a subject as shall give us precision of thought. 
 
 It is worthy of note, also, that some men never ad- 
 vance habitually beyond the chaotic stage of culture in 
 their mastery of subjects. They are, therefore, never 
 precise writers. Never mastering any thing to the full, 
 they can never say any thing to the purpose, beyond 
 commonplaces. I have m mind a preacher of some 
 celebrity, who had great enthusiasm and some original- 
 ity ; but he never was an exact thinker, therefore never 
 a precise writer, on any thing. In controversy he was 
 always worsted, because he could never write in that 
 masterly style which is the token of masterly thinking. 
 He could not speak his mind precisely, because he had 
 no mind precisely. Ruskin contends for a similar prin- 
 ciple to the one before us, in the kindred art of painting. 
 He says, " Without absolute grasp of the whole sub- 
 ject, there is no good painting. Partial conception is 
 no conception." 
 
 Coleridge lets us into the secret of much which is 
 called study, and is not such, when, in a letter to Words- 
 worth, he complains that he loses so much of his time 
 in "leaning back in his chair, and looking up to the 
 ceiling, in the bodily act of contracting the muscles of 
 the brows and the forehead, and unconsciously attend- 
 ing to the sensation." If the secrets of ministerial 
 studies could be known, we should probably find a great 
 deal of such thinking, — the thinking of an idle mind. 
 The style of some jn-eachers gives token of it. It is a 
 magic mirror, in which is reflected the interior of their
 
 LECT. vn.] EXCESSIVE CXRE FOR STYLE. 95 
 
 libraries. We see the sluggish figure, the head thrown 
 back, the wrinkled eyebrows, the vacant stare, the 
 languid fingers when thej take the pen. 
 
 Be it remembered, then, that the foundation of pre- 
 cision, as of all other qualities of masterly discourse, lies 
 in one's habits of thinking ; not in one's thoughts on a 
 given subject alone, but in one's mental habits. Style, 
 like character, is the mirror of habits. The thing needed 
 is that, which, in painting, Ruskin calls the "power of 
 mental grasp." This, he says, "implies strange and 
 sublime qualities of mind." It is a power which must 
 be elaborately gained, — gained by thinking on difiScult 
 themes, by cultivating mastery of such themes, till they 
 become the easy and natural subjects of one's daily 
 meditations, and the joy of one's mental life. 
 
 2, A second cause of the formation of a loose style is 
 the indulgence of excessive care for expression as dis- 
 tinct from thought. A writer is often anxious, not so 
 much to say somewhat as to say it somehow. Most of 
 the faults of a juvenile style result from this cause. 
 Diifuseness, repetition, bombast, result inevitably from 
 the study of expression as distinct from thought. The 
 temptation is constant to abandon the precise word, 
 known to be the jDrecise word, felt to be the only precise 
 word, and to go roving for a substitute which may have 
 every quality but the necessary one of saying what is 
 meant. Watch the growth of an emphatic sentence in 
 your own mind. Do you never find your tentative 
 efforts to frame it following the lead of a favorite turn 
 of expression, which is not the lead of your thought ? 
 Have you never chosen a word which you were con- 
 scious did not, so well as another, express your meaning, 
 yet chosen it because it was a novel word, or an odd 
 word, or a strong word, or a euphonious word, or an
 
 gQ ENGLISH STYLE. [lect. vn. 
 
 arcliaic word ? Yet that is mannerism in style. It is 
 not honest ^V()rk. 
 
 Tlie most offensive variety of the error in question 
 arises from a morbid fancy for some one quality of style, 
 which leads a speaker to be constantly on the strain. 
 One affects the beautiful ; another, the forcible ; a third, 
 tlie pathetic; a fourth, the rhythmic. Each manufac- 
 tures his favorite diction, with little care for the demands 
 of sentiment. A critic is tempted to sum up his com- 
 ments on such a style in the old axiom of grammar, that 
 " words are the signs of ideas." Often this form of the 
 defect becomes a servile imitation. An illustrious au- 
 thor who has a marked individuality in his style is very 
 apt to have a crowd of imitators. That which is original 
 to him is copy to them. Their own individuality is 
 sacrificed to his. Imitation is less difficult than creation. 
 The extreme of the evil is, that the copyist not only 
 does not obey the bidding of his own thought, but he 
 obeys as little the thought of his model. He copies 
 tlie idiosyncrasy of the style of his model. The work 
 is all patchwork, put on from outside : it gives no 
 chance for the outgrowth of thought from within. It 
 is like a seashell inclosing the body of a bird. 
 
 In this way, at one period arose a " Chalmerian " 
 style, and again a " Johnsonian " style, and another, 
 which one critic has labeled as " Carlylese." The Scot- 
 tish pulpit for one entire generation, as I have elsewhere 
 remarked, suffered this tyranny of the style of Dr. 
 Chalmers. The despotism of Dr. Johnson's style in 
 literature, which probably he himself unconsciously 
 received from Sir Thomas Browne, was perhaps the 
 most powerful that English literature has known in its 
 whole history. A writer who falls into servitude to his 
 model lives a disguised life, till he outlives disguise, and
 
 LECT. vn.] SERVITTJDE TO MODELS. 97 
 
 is content to be himself, and not another. His style, 
 till then, is a manufacture of lies, yet of lies which are 
 sure to be detected. Concealment of the infirmity is 
 impossible. Long before he has found himself out, his 
 style blabs it to every discerning critic. 
 
 Even so manly a man as Robert Hall confesses to 
 having fallen in his early life into subjection to the 
 Johnsonian dialect. His criticism of himself illustrates 
 with what scorn a robust mind will fling off such a mask 
 as soon as it discovers that there is a mask. He says of 
 himself, " I aped Johnson, I preached Johnson. It was 
 a youthful foil}-, a very great folly. I might as well 
 have attempted to dance a hornpipe in the dress of Gog 
 and Magog. My puny thoughts could not sustain the 
 load of words in which I tried to clothe them." 
 
 The first lesson to be learned by a young writer, yet 
 often the last that is learned, is, that expression is to 
 thought what countenance is to character. The one 
 can not exist without the other. Thought is the fixture : 
 expression should be fluid in its capacity to adapt itself 
 to the configuration of the thought. Hugh Miller gives 
 a hint of the truth in his criticism of the poet Cowper. 
 He says, " Cowper possessed, above all other modern 
 poets, the power of bending the most stubborn and 
 intractable words in the language around his think- 
 ing, so as to fit its every indentation and irregularity 
 of outline, as a , ship-carpenter adjusts the planking, 
 grown flexible in his hand, to the exact mold of his 
 vessel." 
 
 3. Precision often suffers from another cause, which 
 is not peculiar to this quality, but affects others as well. 
 It is the want of a command of language. This may 
 result either from natural defect, or from the want of 
 studious practice in the use of the language. A speaker
 
 9S ENGLISH STYLE. [i.ect. vii. 
 
 ciiii not express his thought if he can not command the 
 requisite vocabulary. 
 
 EXCURSUS. 
 
 Let the inquiry be here considered as an excursus : 
 How can the want of a command of language be rem- 
 edied? The inquiry is pertinent to all the qualities of 
 a good style, though especially so to the one before 
 us. In the first place, be it observed with emphasis, 
 that command of language is not attainable by the mere 
 accumulation of words in a ready memory. Vocabu- 
 lary alone may stifle thought. A true command of lan- 
 guage consists in a command of the forces of expression 
 which the language carries. With emphasis, it is a 
 command of language. It consists in the power of selec- 
 tion and rejection, rather than in that of accumulation. 
 It is the power to use and to lay the spirits, as well as 
 to summon them. Command of words, and command 
 of the linguistic forces, are by no means one thing. 
 Words come in troops at the bidding of one man : they 
 fall into rank at the bidding of another. 
 
 These two varieties of power are illustrated in the 
 styles of Daniel Webster and Rufus Choate. Both 
 were powerful speakers ; but Webster was the superior, 
 because of his superior power of selection. Much as 
 one is dazzled by Choate's marvelous command of vo- 
 cabulary, still one can not avoid thinking of his style 
 in the reading. That always indicates a defect. An 
 absolutely perfect style attracts no attention to itself. 
 Criticism of it is an after-thought. ^Members of the 
 Boston bar all alike yielded to the spell of Choate's 
 rhetoric ; yet, in the very act of admmng, they found 
 leisui-e to note that he " drove the substantive and six," 
 alluding to the multitude of adjectives which he har-
 
 LECT. VII.] COZSnVIAND OF LANGUAGE. 99 
 
 nessed to a noun. ]Men with tears coursing down tlieir 
 cheeks, in listening to his sonorous periods in his eulogy 
 upon Webster yet slily made a memorandum that they 
 would count the words in some of those periods when 
 they should be printed, and afterwards remarked, that 
 one of them was the longest but one in the English 
 language. Who ever heard of any such arithmetical 
 criticism of Webster's replj^ to Gen. Hayne of South 
 Carolina ? When Choate spoke, men said, " What a 
 marvelous style ! How beautiful ! how grand ! how 
 immense liis vocabulary ! how intricate his combina- 
 tions ! how adroit his sway over the mother-tongue ! " 
 When Webster spoke, men said, " He will gain his 
 case." Webster's vocabulary was much more limited 
 than that of Choate, but he had a much sterner power 
 of selection and rejection. His command of language 
 was like Darwin's law of species in the struggle for 
 existence, — only that lived which deserved to live. 
 
 The most effective, indeed, the only effective means 
 of obtaining command of the forces of expression which 
 the language contains, is the persistent union of a criti- 
 cal study of the language with its critical use. Lan- 
 guage needs to be searched. Words need to be weighed. 
 Then use must make them familiar and ready to the 
 pen or tongue. In oral delivery, words vary in their 
 momentum. We need to graduate their movement by 
 unconscious thought which shall guide selection to the 
 purpose. A speaker makes a great acquisition when he 
 adds to his practicable vocabulary one new word of 
 which he has entire master}'. ^Mastery of a word means 
 more than is commonly uiiderstood by it : it includes 
 knowledge of all the shades of thought which good use 
 attaches to the definition of a word. Look at Noah 
 Webster's definitions of standard words. Are you never
 
 100 ENGLISH STYLE. [lect. vii. 
 
 surprised, as hy a discovery, at the secondary senses of 
 a word which you thought you knew by heart? Do we 
 not all know something of the experience of which Mr. 
 INIaurice speaks, when he says that " a light f3ashes out 
 of a word sometimes which frightens one. If it is a 
 common word . . . one wonders how one has dared to 
 use it so frequently and so carelessly, when there were 
 such meanings hidden in it." 
 
 Command of a word, implies also knowledge of its 
 synonyms. Words have a science corresponding to that 
 of comparative anatomy. No man knows a word all 
 around, till he knows in what and why it is superior, 
 or not so, to its synonyms. Such knowledge includes, 
 further, perception of the forces of a word in varieties 
 of connection. The life of a word, like that of a tree, 
 is seldom in one tap-root, so that it always signifies the 
 same thing, and carries the same weight, and gives to 
 thought the same momentum in oral speech. It com- 
 monly has fibers, by which connection modifies force. 
 Look at the idiomatic phrases in our language, of which 
 the word " come " is the center, — " come at," " come 
 to," " come short," " come off," " come by." See Web- 
 ster's Dictionary. 
 
 Mastery of a word involves, also, knowledge of its 
 possible figurative uses ; not onl}^ of those which dic- 
 tionaries define, but of other forces which a writer may 
 originate by a figurative combination. The heavy pre- 
 ponderance of the weights of language is in the scale of 
 its figurative senses. Analogies connect all words with 
 all words. By means of figurative speech, all depart- 
 ments of thought illumine each other. Originality in 
 style appears chiefly in the discovery of analogies, and 
 fitting them to use. Who but DeQuincey, for instance, 
 would ever have discovered the analogies of thought,
 
 LECT. VII.] STUDY OF WORDS. 101 
 
 •which enabled him to describe in a breath the style of 
 Dr. Johnson by calling it the " plethoric tympany of 
 style " ? Yet all language is veined by such analogies, 
 in which every writer may range at will. 
 
 Once more : mastery of language includes a retentive 
 control of a vocabulary and of varieties of English con- 
 struction, by which they shall always be at hand for 
 unconscious use. Do we not often fret for the right 
 word, which is just outside of the closed door of memo- 
 ry ? We know that there is such a word ; we know 
 that it is precisely the word we want ; no other can fill 
 its place ; we saw it mentally a short half-hour ago : but 
 we beat the air for it now. The power we crave is the 
 power to store words within reach, and hold them in 
 mental reserve till they are wanted, and then to sum- 
 mon them by the unconscious vibration of a thought. 
 Nothing can give it to us but study and use of the 
 language in long-continued and critical practice. It is 
 the slow fruitage of a growing mind. 
 
 Walter Scott, for instance, saunters through the streets 
 of Edinburgh, and overhears a word, which, in its collo- 
 quial connections, expresses a shade of thought which is 
 novel to him. He pauses, and makes a note of it, and 
 walks on, pondering it, till it has made a nest for itself 
 in his brain ; and at length that word re-appears in 
 one of the most graphic scenes in the "Fortunes of 
 Nigel." 
 
 Dr. Chalmers is summoned at midnight to minister to 
 a Highland woman on her death-bed. She has no prac- 
 tical notion of faith in Christ. He tries to explain it, 
 but she gets no idea of his meaning. He endeavors to 
 simplify it. He reverts to the Westminster Catechism, 
 which she knows by heart ; he falls back upon biblical 
 phrases : it is all in vain. Under the overshadowing
 
 102 ENGLISH STYLE. [lect. vn. 
 
 dread of death she finds nothing in her inlierited con- 
 ceptions of the way of salvation which gives her peace. 
 At length he remembers to have been himself impressed 
 by the force of a word in the provincial dialect of his 
 youth, and he resolves to try that with the despairing 
 woman. He says, " Just lippen to the Lord Jesus." 
 Now he has got hold of a thing she understands : she 
 grasps his thought in the twinkling of an eye. The 
 mystery of justification by faith, which her mind has 
 droned over in catechism and sermon for threescore 
 years, opens to her vision like the gates of heaven. 
 
 Washington Irving relates, that he was once riding 
 with Thomas Moore in Paris, when the hackney-coach 
 went suddenly into a rut, out of which it came with 
 such a jolt as to send their heads bumping against the 
 roof. " By Jove, I've got it I " cried Moore, clapping his 
 hands with great glee. "Got what?" said Irving. 
 " Why," said the poet, " that word which I've been 
 hunting for for six weeks to complete my last song. 
 That rascally driver has jolted it out of me." 
 
 The late Hon. Caleb Gushing of Massachusetts spent 
 the larger part of his mature life as a member of legis- 
 lative bodies. For years he was the Mentor of the 
 Massachusetts Legislature at a time when his politics 
 put him always in a minority on any political measure. 
 Yet he saved the State from much unconstitutional 
 legislation by his power of command over the English 
 language. It has been said that no suit at law is known 
 to have been brought into court by any lawyer, in which 
 the success of the suit depended on proving to be uncon- 
 stitutional or defective any statute of which Caleb Cush- 
 ing had the control in the committee which framed it. 
 He was able to say, and to assist legislators to say, so 
 exactly what was meant, that no clear-headed advocate
 
 LECT. VII.] SCHOLAELY READING. 103 
 
 could misunderstand the statute, or find a flaw in it by 
 which to sustain a lawsuit. The explanation of that 
 rare power of his, of precise utterance, as given by those 
 who knew him best, is, that he read and conversed in 
 half a dozen languages, and made language the study 
 of his life. In the convention for the settlement of the 
 " Alabama Claims " he was the only man who could 
 converse intelligibly with all the members of the con- 
 vention in their several vernaculars. 
 
 These examples from real life all point one way. 
 They illustrate the value of studies of language in any 
 department of public life. By such studies, when com- 
 bined with scholarly use of language in a laborious 
 profession, a man masters words singly, words in combi- 
 nation, words in varieties of sense, words in figurative 
 uses, and those forces of expression which always lie 
 latent in original uses of one's mother-tongue. No such, 
 command of a word is ever permanently lost. 
 
 Let it be further observed, though the fact be hack- 
 neyed, that such command of language as a public 
 speaker needs is assisted by a range of reading of stand- 
 ard literature which shall be as various as it can be, 
 and yet be the reading of a scholar. Illustrious authors 
 have always something original in their uses of language. 
 New words, new constructions, new significations, or 
 figurative uses of words, are found in their diction, by 
 which they have enriched the resources of public speech. 
 Standard literature is a treasury of linguistic varieties 
 from which orators may draw at will. Sometimes dis- 
 tinctions are brought to light which have been latent in 
 the language till a certain author has called attention 
 to them, like that which Wordsworth exhumed between 
 "fancy" and "imagination," or that which Coleridge 
 claimed between " retison " and " understanding." Al-
 
 104 ENGLISH STYLE. [licct. vii. 
 
 most every great mind adds, to the resources of the 
 language which it employs as its vehicle of thought, 
 something a knowledge of which will instruct and refine 
 an orator's taste. 
 
 Such writers as Edmund Burke, Coleridge, Isaac 
 Taylor, and, going farther back, Jeremy Taylor, Milton, 
 and Sir Thomas Browne, by simply compelling language 
 into the service of original and intense thinking, de- 
 velop new power in the language to express thought. 
 Passionate, imaginative thinking, like that of the old 
 poets, illuminates language by the very heat and glow 
 of the material it is made to carry. The literary work 
 of such minds is a work of pure invention. In the arts 
 it would be rewarded by a patent. As a thing of use 
 to a public speaker, the language is the more valuable 
 for having been thus used by his predecessors, if he 
 has a scholarly knowledge of their work. Reading, 
 therefore, which covers as broad a range of litera- 
 ture as critical reading can cover, is a necessary ad- 
 junct to a speaker's studies. Rufus Choate writes in 
 his diary, "I have long been in the habit of reading 
 daily some first-class English author, chiefly for the 
 copia verborum, to avoid sinking into cheap and bald 
 fluency, to give elevation, dignity, sonorousness, and 
 refinement to my vocabulary." This hint discloses to 
 us one of the sources of his magnificent and superabun- 
 dant diction. 
 
 Before closing this excursus on command of language, 
 let two facts be named for the encouragement of young 
 writers and speakers. One is, that a genuine command 
 of language is an acquisition, never a gift. There is a 
 certain leakage of words, which popular slang defines as 
 " the gift of the gab," which may be a gift, but is no 
 sign of control over one's mother-tongue, but the reverse
 
 LECT. VII.] ELOQUENCE NOT A GIFT. 105 
 
 rather. That control is an acquisition by the ablest as 
 by the most feeble writers. We read the writings of 
 De Quincey with a discouraging admiration of his mar- 
 velous uses of English. Whatever other excellence 
 he has not, he certainly has this, of the power to sum- 
 mon and put to use a large and forcible vocabulary. 
 The exuberance of his style is excessive. The growth 
 is rank. Yet he tells us that in early life he labored 
 under a " peculiar penury of words." He regarded the 
 infirmity of his mind in that respect as extreme. It 
 gave him, he says, "a distinguished talent for silence." 
 What young preacher does not know the experience of 
 that " distinguished talent for silence " ? De Quincey's 
 acquired power of utterance is finely illustrated in his 
 subsequent description of his early reticence. He says, 
 " I labored like a Sibyl instinct with prophetic woe, as 
 often as I found myself dealing with any topic in which 
 the imderstanding combined with deep feelings to sug- 
 gest mixed and tangled thoughts." He adds, that 
 Wordsworth also suffered in early manhood from the 
 same cause. In both cases, doubtless, the ultimate 
 affluence of style was an acquisition. It was a la- 
 borious acquisition. It grew hardily and thriftily, as 
 an oak does, out of the very toughness of the native 
 soil. 
 
 Such examples should assure us that language will 
 obey our bidding, to an extent sufficient for forceful 
 speech, if we command it by the authority of thoughts 
 which deserve expression, and a study of language which 
 shall discover the means of expression. We can say what 
 we mean if we have a meaning that is worth the saying. 
 We have only to put our whole souls into the saying. 
 Every man can grow to the extreme of his literary 
 aspirations.
 
 lOG ENGLISH STYLE. [lect. vii. 
 
 The other fact to be remembered for our encourago- 
 meiit is, that the vocabulary which is necessary to 
 effective speech is much less voluminous than is often 
 supposed. Our language, it is estimated, contains about 
 one hundred and twenty-five thousand words; yet, of 
 this immense number, it is surprising how few are in 
 common use. The majority even of educated men, it 
 is believed by careful critics, not only do not use more 
 than .one-tenth of them, but would not recognize more 
 than that as having been met with in their reading. 
 The obsolete and obsolescent words, the vulgarisms, 
 the provincialisms, the terms technical to the arts and 
 the professions, the imports from other languages, the 
 words of recent coinage which have not acquired natu- 
 ralization in the language, and the words which a 
 public speaker would not employ twice in a lifetime, 
 probably comprise by far the larger part of Webster's 
 Dictionary. 
 
 I have seen it stated on scholarly authority, that a 
 child docs not commonly use more than a hundred 
 words ; and, unless lie belongs to a cultivated family, 
 he will never habitually employ more than three or 
 four hundred. An eminent American scholar estimates 
 that few practiced writers or speakers use as many as 
 ten thousand words in threescore years of public life. 
 Speakers employ not so many, by a large count, as 
 writers employ. Max jNIiiller says, that "a well edu- 
 cated person who has been at a public school in Eng- 
 land and at an English university, who reads his Bible 
 and Shakspeare, and all the books in Mudie's Library, 
 that is, nineteen-twentieths of all the books publislied 
 in England, seldom uses more than three or four tliou- 
 sand words in actual conversation." Eloquent speak- 
 ers, he thinks, may rise to a command of ten thousand.
 
 LECT. VII.] EARLY CULTURE. 107 
 
 " Even Milton," writes another critic, — " Milton, whose 
 wealth of words seems amazing, and whom Dr. Johnson 
 charges with using a Babylonish dialect, uses only about 
 eight thousand ; and Shakspeare ' the myriad-minded,' 
 only fifteen thousand." The Old Testament contains 
 less by some hundreds than six thousand words. These 
 facts go to show that a scholarly mastery of an English 
 vocabulary, large and varied enough for forcible public 
 speech such as the themes of the pulpit require, ought 
 not to be looked upon with awe, as an impossible or 
 very difBcult achievement. 
 
 4. Returning, now, from the excursus upon the topic of 
 command of language, let us pass to consider a fourth 
 cause of the formation of a loose style ; which is an 
 uncritical admiration for loose writers. We err through 
 our involuntary tastes more seriously than through our 
 literary judgment. Every young man passes through a 
 period of his growtli in which his tastes predispose him 
 to yield homage to some writers, and not to others. He 
 feels unaccountable attractions, like that of the hazel-rod 
 for the subterranean spring. That secret affinity may 
 give an author, or a small group of authors kindred to 
 each other, a power of control over the early drift of his 
 culture. If such authors are loose in their use of the 
 language, he may receive influences unfriendly to his 
 style from which he may never recover. Coming upon 
 a fascinating volume by chance may give a turn to 
 his whole life. Dr. Franklin was controlled thus, as he 
 thought, by a single volume by De Foe, read when Frank- 
 lin was a young man. Sir Joshua Rej^nolds writes, that 
 his tastes were swayed in a similar manner by a treatise 
 of Richardson's. 
 
 Great importance is clearly to be attached to such
 
 108 ENGLISH STYLE. [lect. vii. 
 
 early favorites of a young man when his style is form- 
 ing. If he does not form a taste for scholarly precision 
 then, he is not likely ever to form it. A certain peculi- 
 arity of shadow, it is said by critics of art, is percepti- 
 ble in all the paintings of Rembrandt. Experts have 
 attributed it to the fact that his father's mill, in which 
 his early studies of his art were practiced, received its 
 light through an aperture in the roof. So it is in the 
 kindred art of literary composition. A very insignifi- 
 cant fascination by a very inferior author may give to a 
 yoimg man's style a monotone which shall last through 
 a lifetime. Precision especially is one of those products 
 of scholarly taste which is not apt to attract a man for 
 the first time in middle life or old age. Youth must 
 plant it, or it will not flourish in mature age. 
 
 5. A loose stj'le sometimes results from an indiscrimi- 
 nate dependence on dictionaries of the language. I 
 have before said, that our standard dictionaries are not, 
 and do not profess to be, absolute authorities respecting 
 purity of diction. Neither are they such respecting 
 precision. A public speaker needs a culture of taste 
 and a range of reading which shall enable him to sit in 
 judgment on the dictionaries, and, if need be, to dissent 
 from them with a reason. For example, one dictionary 
 gives a definition to a certain word for which the only 
 authority given is President Polk. In another appears 
 a signification attached to a word on the authority of 
 " Mr. Smith."' There is a dictionary in England com- 
 piled by that unfortunate man, but who knows him? 
 Who ever heard elsewhere of President Polk as a liter- 
 ary authority? He had scarcely the average culture of 
 a Tennessee planter. So long as dictionaries defer to 
 such authorities, they can not be trusted for a scholar's 
 use of the language, without supervision and censor-
 
 LECT. vn.] SPEAKING AND WRITING. 109 
 
 ship by that fine perception of the forces of words 
 which is the fruit of choice yet extensive reading. If 
 you write or speak with the license of using any word 
 in any sense which President Polk has coined, or which 
 " Mr. Smith " commends in any dictionary, your st3-le 
 must degenerate below the average intelligence of Amer- 
 ican assemblies. 
 
 6. One cause of the formation of a loose style remains 
 to be named with brief remark : it is a disproportioned 
 amount of extemporaneous speech as compared with the 
 products of the pen. Extemporizing promotes fluency 
 of speech: the pen promotes precision. For the most 
 perfect results in the character of a preacher's style, in 
 my judgment, these two methods of sermonizing should 
 be practiced with as near an approach as possible to 
 equality of amount. This medium is rarely gained. 
 Defects respecting both methods are usually the two 
 extremes. Preachers are prone either to extemporize 
 always, or to write always. 
 
 A high standard of extemporaneous preaching will 
 often drive a man to his pen for relief. This wg,s 
 illustrated in the experience of Dr. Chalmers. In his 
 early attempts to acquire extemporaneous fluency he 
 failed ; because his standard was, for him at that period, 
 impracticably high. He could not be content without 
 expressing in extemporaneous diction all that he could 
 express with the pen. When, in the excitement of 
 speaking, thought began to crowd his utterance, he 
 began to hesitate, merely because his thought so im- 
 mensely overflowed and swamped his utterance. He 
 compared his extemporaneous efforts to a bottle filled 
 with water, and suddenly turned upside down. The 
 contents, he said, were ejected " with jerks, and lai-ge 
 explosions, and sudden stops." The bottle was choked
 
 110 ENGLISH STYLE. [li:ct. vii. 
 
 by its own fullness. Such a delivery of his thought so 
 disgusted and disheartened him, that he thought it a 
 hojieless failure ; and, after repeated trials, he fell back 
 upon his pen as a relief. With pen in hand, he could 
 say what he meant : without it, he said any thing else 
 than what he meant. His mistake was that of crowding 
 his extemporaneous culture up to a perfect ideal at the 
 outset. He allowed it no time to grow by natural and 
 easy increments. 
 
 But a moderately high ideal of extemporaneous speech 
 is an admirable check on the extreme of extemporaneous 
 fluency. Our American ideal is not the highest. In 
 the pulpit, especially, we have but little of the elaborate, 
 the elevated, the senatorial style of extemporaneous 
 expression. The tendency of such as we have, if it is 
 not overruled by a due proportion of written sermoniz- 
 ing, is to the extreme of diffuseness ; and a diffuse style 
 is never a precise style. Did you ever see a rank and 
 top-heavy growth of clover just after a thunder-storm? 
 Such is apt to be the style of a preacher who alwaj^s 
 extemporizes. The gushing enthusiasm of extempora- 
 neous delivery is apt to cast the style in inextricable 
 confusion.
 
 LECTURE VIII. 
 
 THE INDUCEMENTS TO THE CULTIVATIOlSr OF PRECISION 
 OF STYLE BY A PUBLIC SPEAKER. 
 
 The only branch of the subject before us which 
 remains to be considered is the inquiry, Why should a 
 speaker to a promiscuous assembly be scrupulous to 
 cultivate a precise style ? Scarcely any other quality of 
 speech has been made the object of so much impatient 
 and sarcastic criticism as this of precision. Men asso- 
 ciate it with insipidity. 
 
 Quintilian said of a certain author, and it has been 
 repeated of scores of others, for it is the keenest remark 
 that Quintilian ever made, " that his greatest excellence 
 was, that he had no faults ; and his greatest fault, that 
 he had no excellences." This is often nearly the popu- 
 lar idea of a precise style. Preciseness in manners is 
 ranked as its twin-brother. Robust men are not charmed 
 with prigs in oral speech any more than in morals. It 
 is instructive to observe the complacency with which 
 some educated men will express contempt for the class 
 of studies which that of precision represents. I once 
 inquired of a celebrated preacher what principles he 
 followed in regulating his own style, and he answered, 
 "I have but two. One is, have something to say; and 
 the other, say it." A truth was contained in the apho- 
 rism, but by no means all the truth, or the best of it. 
 It would be as apt a reply if an architect, when asked 
 on what rules of architecture he constructed a cathedral, 
 
 111
 
 112 • ENGLISH STYLE. [lect. vni. 
 
 liad said, " I have had but two : one was to get the job ; 
 and tlie other, to execute it." 
 
 Robert Southey says, with scarcely more discernment 
 of the merits of the question, " I have but three rules of 
 composition, — to write as clearly as I can, to write as 
 concisely as I can, and to write as impressively as I 
 can." " As clearly as I can " — was the study of pre- 
 cision useless to that ? " As concisely as I can " — had 
 precision no concern with that ? " As impressively as I 
 can " — could precision give no aid to that ? Southey 's 
 neglect of critical study of language had its natural 
 effect on his own style. He is distinguished as a volu- 
 minous rather than a powerful author. He would have 
 doubled the duration of his influence on English litera- 
 ture if he had published less, and elaborated more. 
 Ralph Waldo Emerson dismisses his name with a sneer, 
 — "Who is Southey?" 
 
 1. In opposition to such unscholarly neglect of the 
 study of those elements in style which precision repre- 
 sents, let it be remarked, first, that this study does not 
 necessitate in the result the acquisition of any thing 
 pedantic or unpractical. You do not become a mere 
 word-hunter by hunting words. The fact remains un- 
 answered, that the most powerful masters of English 
 speech are those who have studied the resources of the 
 language most critically. The ablest thinkers are they 
 who can put thought into its most exact expression. 
 Those who are most successful in making style the 
 servitor of thought are they who have most thoroughly 
 weighed words. Such authors and speakers command 
 the words they need, and use no more and no other. 
 They are free from the entire class of literarj^ de- 
 fects which arise from the tyranny of expression over 
 thoucrht.
 
 LECT, vm.] VALUE OF PRECISION. 113 
 
 2. Precision and the study of it are essential to certain 
 other qualities of a good style ; for instance, they assist 
 clearness of style. A preacher, especially, who must 
 deal with difficult themes, and in oral address, and to 
 the popular mind, will often find, that if he would be 
 understood, if he would not be misunderstood, he must 
 say exactly what he means. He must put into lan- 
 guage intelligible to the common mind his ultimate 
 thoughts on the subject in hand. Not a word too many, 
 not a word too few, not an ill-chosen word, not a mis- 
 placed word, not a word untruthful in its connections, 
 not a figurative word which can be mistaken in a lit- 
 eral sense, not a word exaggerating the shade of his 
 thought — such must his style be if he would express 
 himself at all, on a certam theme, to a promiscuous au- 
 dience. It has been said of Adam Smith, that no man 
 needs to read a sentence of his a second time. Such 
 must the general style of the pulpit be if some of its 
 fundamental subjects are to be discussed at all before 
 some hearers. Yet those are the very subjects on which 
 the despotism of words over thought is most common, 
 and most difficult to avoid. 
 
 Precision and the study of it also promote energy of 
 style. The most mtense energy often depends on pre- 
 cision. There is an energy which is created by a volu- 
 minous vocabulary, but the supreme energy in speech 
 is from a well-chosen vocabulary. Force of style is 
 specially intensified by the compression which precision 
 tends to secure. Take an example, almost at random, 
 from John Foster : " The rude faculty which is not 
 expanded into intelligence may be sharpened into cun- 
 ning." How otherwise could so forcible an expression 
 be given to his thought in a literal form? He adds 
 a figurative form of the same idea : " The spirit which
 
 114 ENGLISH STYLE. [lkct. via. 
 
 can not grow into an eagle may take the form and 
 action of a snake." 
 
 Tliis last example illustrates, also, a fact often over- 
 looked in the criticism of the quality before us, — that 
 it is not at all restricted to literal speech. There is a 
 precision of figure which is the most intense type of 
 energy. It is a paradox to speak of figurative language 
 as precise. But it may be so through the intensity of 
 the impression it makes. The outline of a thing may be 
 most exact to the eye when it is on fire. So a thought 
 difficult of conception to the common mind may be 
 made clear by being made vivid; and that may re- 
 quire that it be intensified by a metaphor. Certain 
 theological truths are more exact to the popular mind 
 in the biblical figurative form of them than they can 
 be made by philosophic statement. All truths are so, 
 in the expression of which vividness is essential to 
 precision. 
 
 How could you define lightning to a man who never 
 saw it ? Witness the struggles of blind men to conceive 
 of colors. When one said, "The color of scarlet is like 
 the sound of a trumpet," he illustrated the struggle of 
 the mind to conceive and express an impossible thought 
 by the aid of a simile. Like that is the aid of figure 
 to the precision of all difficult thought. Hyperbole 
 may assist precision, even Avhen it falsifies fact. Said 
 John Randolph, when seeking to provoke a duel with 
 Henry Clay, "A hyperbole for meanness is an ellipsis 
 for Clay." Though false to fact, it was not so to the 
 real meaning of the speaker. He meant all that he said ; 
 and the reason for his unconscious choice of figurative 
 style was, that in no other way could he approximate 
 the whole of his meaning. We miss the breadth of 
 significance in the term "precision," when we restrict it
 
 LECT. vm.] VALUE OF PEECISION. 115 
 
 to the exactness of a philosophical definition and a 
 mathematical demonstration. 
 
 Again : precision promotes elegance of style. This it 
 does by promoting the fitness of style to sentiment. 
 Our sense of beauty depends largely on our sense of 
 fitness. This we feel, not in words only, but in con- 
 struction as well. What is the defect in the following 
 specimen ? A church which was burnt in Saco, Me., was 
 thus discoursed upon by a rural editor : " The church 
 was erected during the ministry of the Rev. Elihu 
 Whitcomb ; and the dedication sermon was preached 
 Feb. 12, 1806. It was ninety feet in length and fifty- 
 four in breadth." We detect in this no want of purity, 
 the words are good English ; no want of energy, the 
 style is as forcible as the thought is, and no style should 
 be more ; no want of perspicuity, for it is clear that the 
 writer meant wliat he did not say : no reader can mis- 
 take the sense. The defect is a want of precision of 
 construction. No writer would be guilty of it who was 
 accustomed to study precision as a tribute to elegance. 
 
 Further: precision is the most effective test of affected 
 style as distinct from genuine style. In affected style, 
 expression is estranged from thought. Apply the test 
 of precision, and the mask drops. In a certain treatise 
 on political economy may be found this declaration : 
 " As much food as a man can buy for as much wages as 
 a man can get for as much work as a man can do, ought 
 to satisfy every citizen of the state." A profound prin- 
 ciple of political science appears here to be expressed 
 in pithy, condensed, forcible diction. A world of axio- 
 matic wisdom seems to be packed into this monosyllabic 
 sentence. Probably the writer himself believed, cer- 
 tainly meant that his readers should believe, that this 
 was a marvel of laconic force.
 
 116 ENGLISH STYLE. [lect. vin. 
 
 Now analyze it by the inquiry, "What, exactly, does it 
 mean ? lleverse the order of the thoughts, for the sake 
 of clearing it of its deceptive axiomatic forms, and it 
 reads thus : " A good citizen will first do as much work 
 as he can do ; for his work he will ask as much wages as 
 he can get ; and then he will spend it all on food, and 
 be content." He may not possess a hat, or a shoe, or a 
 coat, or a book. Yet he has done his whole duty to the 
 state ; and the state, its duty to him. Even with largest 
 allowance for latent and understood ideas, it amounts 
 only to this: that a man should be content wdth the 
 best he can do and the best he can get. What concern 
 has this with the elements of political economy? It 
 reminds one of another notable example of economic 
 wisdom, in which the author advanced as an elementary 
 principle of population which Malthus had never dis- 
 covered, "that a large town densely peojiled must com- 
 monly support a greater number of inhabitants than 
 a small place sparsely settled, especially if it be in the 
 rural districts." Apply to any form of affectation in 
 style the query, "What precisely does the writer mean?" 
 and the glamour of affected excellence disappears. 
 
 3. Precision is not only auxiliary to other qualities 
 of a good style, but it has an independent virtue of its 
 own. This is not easily defined, yet we all feel it. We 
 respond approvingly to a precise style, not merely be- 
 cause it is a perspicuous style, not merely because it is 
 a vigorous style, not merely because it is a becoming 
 style. We approve it for its own sake. That is a keen 
 mind which can say what it means, and all that it 
 means ; and we respect a keen mind. That is an hon- 
 est mind which does say all that it means ; and we trust 
 an honest mind. That is often a bold mind which does 
 not/<?ar to say all that it means ; and men are attracted
 
 LECT. vm.] POPTJLAE TASTES. 117 
 
 always by the bold virtues. " He says what he means " 
 is often the highest encomium which the popular verdict 
 gives to a public speaker. 
 
 We often think of precision as one of the peculiarly 
 scholarly virtues. It is that ; but the popular mind is 
 passionately fond of it as well. A common audience 
 often makes a blunt demand for it in an extreme. 
 They silently crowd upon a speaker the mandate : " Say 
 what you think ; out with it ! " Nothing wearies them 
 more quickly than a style which beats about the bush. 
 They never read diplomatic papers. One reason for 
 the popular simile, " as dull as a sermon," is, that ser- 
 mons are so often written in a style indicative of self- 
 restraint, — a style which a certain critic has described 
 as one in which "words spend their time in dodging 
 things." 
 
 This popular craving for a blunt precision is often 
 illustrated in the epithets by which the popular taste ex- 
 presses its notion of illustrious men. Royal characters 
 have sometimes passed into history labeled with one 
 word, which portrays the exact popular conception of 
 them. I say " portrays," because the word is commonly 
 one which makes appeal to the eye ; and it lives long 
 after the labored analysis of the historian is forgotten. 
 Thus we read of " Charles the Bald," and of " Louis the 
 Fat," and of " Charles the Simple," and of " Pepin the 
 Short," and of " Louis the Pious," and of " Charles 
 the Stammerer." In these single and often insipid 
 titles the individuality of these men has been more 
 exactly indicated than by the historians of courts. 
 Adulatory description and magniloquent phrase have 
 been brushed aside by the popular verdict. The popu- 
 lar voice has said what it meant, and has meant what 
 was true. It is as if the subjects of the kingdoms had
 
 118 ENGLISH STYLE. [lect. vrn. 
 
 said to tlic historian, " Away with make-beliefs I Put 
 down just tliis of these men, — it is what we know of 
 them, and all that we know, — 'He was bald,' 'he was 
 fat,' ' he was simple,' ' he stammered,' ' he was short : ' 
 so let it stand ! " And so it is that these men have 
 come down to posterity. 
 
 I have said that the popular craving for exact utter- 
 ance of truth is often excessive. Men crave a coarse 
 precision, a savage form of truth. Yet it is the truth, 
 after all. The common mind will not long retain a label 
 of a distinguished contemporary if it is not true. Popu- 
 lar slang, in such cases, though etymologically loose, is 
 commonly definite to the popular ear, and substantially 
 exact. No language is more so. Thus, when a prince 
 has proved himself bold, quick, decisive, ponderous in 
 character, the popular voice has summed up its verdict 
 in one figurative but exact title, " Charles the Ham- 
 mer." When a military chief has proved himself san- 
 guinary, cruel, ferocious, relentless, the people have told 
 the whole story of his life in the single phrase, " Alva 
 the Butcher." 
 
 The watchwords of political parties again illustrate 
 the same thing. These are often intensely figurative ; 
 yet, if they have great force with the people, they are 
 as intensely true. No style can express the truth with 
 more of that vividness which is often necessary to pre- 
 cise ideas in the popular mind. Gen. Harrison owed 
 his elevation to the presidency of our republic, in large 
 measure, to his supposed sympathy with the simple and 
 rude usages of backwoodsmen ; and this was expressed 
 in the old war-cry of the Whigs of 1840 : " Log Cabin 
 and Hard Cider." Gen. Taylor owed his election to 
 the same office largely to the sobriquet which his sol- 
 diers gave him in the Mexican war, " Old Rough and
 
 LECT. vin.] PRECISION IX CONTROVEESY. 119 
 
 Ready." Gen. Scott was believed to have lost his elec- 
 tion because of the nickname by which his enemies 
 ridiculed his well-known fondness for military etiquette, 
 " Old Fuss and Feathers." Thousands of voters who 
 cared nothing, and knew nothing, about the policies of 
 the contending parties, knew as definitely as you do 
 what those watchwords meant ; and they voted for and 
 against the things which those words painted to their 
 mental vision. A style in which men said what they 
 meant, and meant what the}' believed, carried the day, 
 although it was made up of popular slang. 
 
 4. It should be further remarked, that precision of 
 language is specially needed in many varieties of reli- 
 gious discourse. No other department of thought has 
 suffered so much from indefinite language as that of 
 religious controversy. We have before observed cer- 
 tain single words which in theological discussion have 
 been the victims of loose usage. Let us observe now 
 one or two examples of theological definition in which 
 the same defect appears. One would suppose, that, in 
 the very act of defining a thing, definite and self-con- 
 sistent diction would be employed. If a writer can not 
 express his meaning in exact definition, it is fair to 
 presume that he can never be depended on for exact 
 discussion. 
 
 Yet a writer in the " Princeton Repertory " advances 
 the following definition of the character of an act : 
 " The character of an act consists in the disposition 
 and the purpose and the motives with which it is per- 
 formed." On any theory of the nature of virtue, what 
 has the word " motives " to do with the definitiim of 
 character? What is a motive? Surely it is either 
 something within, or something without, the man him- 
 self. If something within, it is synonymous with cither
 
 120 ENGLISH STYLE. [lkct. viii. 
 
 disposition, or purpose, or both, and it confuses a defini- 
 tion to add it to either. If something without, it is no 
 part of his character in tlie act. Is the purse of gold 
 a part of the character of the thief who steals it? 
 Another critic, in the "Biblical Repository," writes 
 thus, in the attempt to define inability : " Natural inabil- 
 ity is that which an agent, though ever so willing, can 
 not do from lack of capacity." Inability, then, is not 
 an attribute of the man : it is the thing which he can 
 not do. This is nonsense. 
 
 A certain theological author starts with a proof-text, 
 and builds upon it a theory of depravity. " There is 
 no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus." 
 On this text he lays down the following theses : (1) If 
 there is no condemnation to them, they are not guilty, 
 that is, not exposed to the divine wrath ; (2) If they 
 are not guilty, then they are innocent ; (3) If they are 
 innocent, then they are holy; (4) If they are holy, 
 then they are perfect ; that is, perfect not in nature, but 
 in their persons. " I can not see," he modestly adds, 
 " how it can be otherwise." 
 
 Surely enough : it is a hopeless case. Who can see 
 it to be otherwise, or anywise, with such a piece of pure 
 mechanism as this, of words void of thought? First, 
 the word "guilty," used in the old scholastic sense of 
 " ex2)osed to divine wrath," which was never the com- 
 mon sense, starts the logic on a false track. Secondly, 
 the confounding of " innocence " with " holiness " pro- 
 longs the absurdity. The two words are not synonyms : 
 one is negative, the other positive virtue. Gabriel is 
 hoi}' : an oriole is innocent. Thirdly, what unheard-of 
 fiction of theological fancy can he be dreaming of, when 
 he separates "person" from "nature," pronouncing one 
 perfect, and the other not? When the princely bishop
 
 LECT. vm.] DECLINE OF POPULAR FAITH. 121 
 
 swore at his butler, what became of the bishop when 
 Satan got the prince ? Some men have owed their 
 partial loss of reputation for orthodoxy to an inability 
 to use a few theological terms with precision. Home 
 Tooke, when on trial for high treason, said that he 
 "was the miserable victim of two prepositions and a 
 conjunction." Similar are the triangular tormentors 
 which have vexed the souls of some theologians. 
 
 Is there any thing within the range of human charac- 
 ter which Shakspeare did not illustrate, either in ear- 
 nest or in caricature ? He has the forerunner of such 
 theologians as these in the person of Bardolph, expound- 
 ing the word "accommodated." "Accommodation — 
 that is — when a man is — as they say — accommodated : 
 or when a man is — being — whereby — he may be 
 thought to be — accommodated — which is an excellent 
 thing." 
 
 EXCURSUS. 
 
 In closing this discussion of precision of style, let us 
 observe, by excursus from the main topic, a certain ten- 
 dency to decline in the popular dialect in the expres- 
 sion of religious ideas. The tendency is always present, 
 in the popular thinking, to confound those ideas. The 
 gravitation is downward, from the more to the less ex- 
 act. The unity of God once established, as it must have 
 been in the infancy of nations, could never have been 
 lost from the popular faith but for this intellectual de- 
 generacy. The modern pulpit has the same drift to 
 contend with, though in other forms. Terms once un- 
 derstood do not live, unless the pulpit constantly puts 
 life into them by being itself alive with them. First a 
 careless use, then a confused use, then contradictory 
 uses, and finally false use of language, mark the process,
 
 122 ENGLISH STYLE. [lkct. viii. 
 
 often, from popular faith to popular disbelief. In rude 
 ages this was a descent from monotheism to idolatry. 
 
 Have you not observed this tendency to confusion, in 
 its middle stage, in the dialect which laymen often em- 
 ploy to express religious experience? The indetermi- 
 nateness of their dialect is significant of moral decline. 
 By instinct they shun a positive utterance. The pecu- 
 liarities of Christian experience, as distinct from natural 
 religiosity, are dropped from their speech. They talk 
 of goodness, not of piety ; of virtue, not of holiness ; of 
 belief, not of faith ; of improvement, not of conversion ; 
 of weakness, not of guilt ; of faults, errors, irregularities, 
 not of sin, crime, vice. They trust in heaven, not in 
 God ; or in Divine mercy, not in the blood of Christ. 
 They hope for the immortality of the soul, not for union 
 of the soul with Christ. The good man^ not the re- 
 deemed and believing sinner^ is a symbol in their thought 
 of an upright character here on earth ; and the hope of 
 immortality is the utmost stretch of their aspiration for 
 eternity. One can not find evidence in their religious 
 dialect, that they have ever heard of the New Testa- 
 ment. 
 
 The dying words of statesmen and literary men often 
 betray this loss of every thing that is peculiar to Chris- 
 tianity as distinct from the Socratic philosophy. If 
 thc}^ allude to Christianity in their dying testimony to 
 their faith, they often seem, by their language, to mean 
 by it a power of civilization, not a plan of individual 
 redemption and salvation. Look for examples to the 
 dying declarations of Daniel Webster and Henry Clay. 
 From the death-scene of one of our American senators 
 one can not infer that he knew even of the being of a 
 God. 
 
 This degeneracy of religious dialect is very apt to
 
 LECT. \^u.] NOJSnXAL CHRISTIANITY. 123 
 
 take place in a certain circle of minds which seem to 
 roam around the spiritual life of the Christian Church, 
 without being participants of its privileges, or believers 
 in its reality. They are not spiritually converted to 
 Christ, yet are unable to rid themselves of the Christian 
 civilization. By a centripetal force, Christianity holds 
 under restraint from downright philosophic heathenism 
 multitudes who never give evidence of an experience of 
 its saving power. Their religious dialect corresponds 
 to the fact. Such minds are held in check, but are not 
 swayed; they are illumined, but not warmed, by the 
 vital truths of the religion they profess to believe. 
 Among this large class of mental satellites of Christi- 
 anity you find the dialect which expresses the peculi- 
 arities of the life with God in Christ to be an unknown 
 tongue. Members of the House of Lords used to go to 
 hear the preaching of William Jay, and return, saying 
 that they could not understand him. He spoke of things 
 of which they found not the remotest conception in their 
 own mental history. Between him and them a great 
 gulf lay. And this because he preached to spiritual 
 Christians of the peculiarities of the Christian life. 
 
 To arrest this degeneracy of nominally Christian 
 minds, and put them upon an ascending track of Chris- 
 tian thought, a preacher needs to be master of a precise 
 religious style. The temptation, when seconded by the 
 amenities and the culture of the social life which Chris- 
 tianity creates, is almost overwhelming to yield to the 
 moral decadence of the secular mind, and permit Chris- 
 tianity to decline to the level of philosophic morality. 
 Preachers who do not consciously intend this may be 
 drawn into it insensibly. They gradually become reluc- 
 tant to employ the distinctive language of Christian ex- 
 perience, because it is the language of so much illiterate
 
 121 ENGLISH STYLE. [lkct. viii. 
 
 experience. They unconsciously incline to the more 
 philosophic methods of expressing the same ideas, but 
 ideas, which, in the philosophic dialect, are not the same 
 to any mind but theirs. 
 
 This was the fatal defect in the preaching of that cltiss 
 in the English pulpit represented by Dr. Blair. ^len 
 who are not deficient themselves in evangelical faith 
 may fall into the same error. It is one of the perils 
 incident to the intellectual refinement and the social 
 culture which Christianity creates. The pulpit should 
 be made a power of control over that culture, not a 
 servitor to it. This it may be made by cultivating in 
 its ministrations the dialect which is most precise in the 
 expression of the facts of the Christian life as realized 
 in the experience of the common mind. Dr. Chalmers 
 saw reason, in the drift of the Scottish pulpit of his day, 
 to warn the clergy that " Christianity is not a system of 
 respectability only." The diction of the pulpit often 
 gives a hint of social distinctions with which it ought 
 to have nothing to do. If it must be tested by any thing 
 in social caste, the test must be the fidelity of its expres- 
 sion of the common mind. To the common mind trained 
 under faithful preaching, holiness means more than vir- 
 tue ; sin means more than fault ; God means more than 
 heaven — more even than Deity ; salvation means more 
 than reformation ; the atonement means more than 
 divine favor; a Saviour means more than a heavenly 
 Father ; and the life eternal means more than the soul's 
 immortality. That is a false taste which would substi- 
 tute the general for the precise phraseology ; and that is 
 an effeminate decadence in which the pulpit slides down 
 that plane unconsciously. From the "common" to the 
 " rcspectr.ble," in the dialect of the pulpit, is a long and 
 chill inc: distance.
 
 LECT. vm.] BIBLICAL EMBLEMS. 125 
 
 The principle involved in this view applies as well to 
 the retention, in preaching, of certain biblical emblems 
 of truth. The degeneracy of which I speak encourages 
 the obsolescence of many of these, specially of those 
 which express the comminatory aspects of truth. On 
 these subjects the pictorial style of the Bible is more 
 exact in the conception it gives to the popular mind 
 than the philosophic dialect of the schools. This is one 
 illustration of the principle to which reference has been 
 made before, that a truth illuminated by metaphor may 
 be more exactly true than the same truth expressed in 
 any language which literal speech can invent. Figura- 
 tive utterance of such truths is often the ultimate ex- 
 pression of all forms of them possible to the human 
 mind. We get a more exact notion of the lightning by 
 seeing its lurid coruscations in the midnight sky than 
 we can from any description of it possible to language. 
 So, from the biblical emblem "hell fire," we obtain a 
 more trutliful idea of the future woe than we can from 
 any or all of the literal synonyms of the word " retribu- 
 tion." Is, then, the "lake of fire" a literal fact? No; 
 but to a human mind clothed by a human body it is the 
 more precise expression of the reality, simply because 
 there is more of it. We get but an approximation to 
 the reality in any form of language ; but the figurative 
 form is the ultimate form, beyond which expression is 
 impossible.
 
 LECTURE IX. 
 
 PERSPICUITY OF STYLE; ITS FOUNDATION IN CLEAR- 
 NESS OF THOUGHT. 
 
 For the object of the present discussions, perspicuity 
 of style needs to be considered in reference to four 
 things, — thoughts, imagery, words, construction. 
 
 I. Perspicuity must, like every other quality of a good 
 style, find its foundation in the thought to be expressed. 
 An important class of the causes of obscurity, therefore, 
 concerns the thoughts of a discourse. 
 
 1. Obscurity may arise from the absence of thought. 
 Dr. Campbell writes : " It hath been said, that in madmen 
 there is as great a variety of character as in those who 
 enjoy the use of reason ; and in like manner it may be 
 said of nonsense, that, in writing it, there is as great scope 
 for variety of style as there is in writing sense." jNIen 
 may write nonsense unconsciously. What conception 
 of truth have preachers had in discoursing of " the eter- 
 nal Now"? Certain it is, that if the pulpit has meant 
 by this phrase any thing more or other than the omnis- 
 cience of the Divine Mind, they have experimented with 
 an inconceivable idea. Language is at a deadlock at 
 the outset. If the phrase means the absence, from the 
 consciousness of the Divine Mind, of all knowledge of 
 succession in time, it is nonsense, in the sense of being 
 an impossible notion of the Deity. 
 
 A preacher is mentioned also by Dr. Campbell, who 
 once remarked it, as evidence of the goodness of God, 
 
 126
 
 LECT. rs.] UNCONSCIOUS NONSENSE. 127 
 
 that to our minds the moments of time come in succes- 
 sion, and not simultaneously ; " for," said he sagely," if 
 they had been so ordered as to come simultaneously, 
 the result would have been infinite confusion." Criti- 
 cism can characterize such a remark no otherwise than 
 by its echo, — "infinite confusion." What can surpass 
 it in vacuity of thought ? Who can parallel it with an 
 imitation or a caricature ? It reminds one of Southey's 
 criticism on a literary production which he deemed a 
 monument of folly. He said that " such pure, involun- 
 tary, unconscious nonsense is inimitable by any eifort 
 of sense." 
 
 This is sometimes, I will not say often, the real and 
 only cause of obscure passages in sermons otherwise 
 intelligible, — that the preacher talks on when he has 
 nothing to say. He plays on the keys of the organ, with 
 no wind in the pipes. His mind is vacant of thought ; 
 and to fill up time, or to round out the rhythm of a sen- 
 tence, he speaks words — words — words ! For the 
 moment he belongs to the class of authors of whom 
 Whately says, "They aim at nothing, and hit it." 
 Patches of such vacuity may be found in sermons which 
 as a whole are thoughtful. 
 
 Preachers are not wholly without excuse for this 
 defect. Their labor in mental production is almost 
 immeasurable and incessant. No other profession in 
 this respect lays so heavy a tax on the mind's creative 
 faculty. An eminent member of the Boston bar once 
 said, in comparing his own profession with that of the 
 pulpit, that he did not know a man among his profes- 
 sional brethren who ever did or could, for one year con- 
 secutively, create the equivalent of two sermons a week 
 such as he listened to every Sunday. No mind is so 
 rich in its resources, and so perfectly under the disci-
 
 128 ENGLISH STYLE. [lect. ix. 
 
 pline of its own will-power, that it can do such work 
 without sometimes and transiently writing mechanically, 
 and therefore writing nonsense. The mind at such 
 times works as in dreams. The links and rivets of 
 logical thinking are broken, and the style of expression 
 degenerates into mumbling. 
 
 2. A much more frequent cause of obscure expression' 
 in sermons is vagueness of thought. Vague flunking 
 necessitates indefinite utterance. Utterance can be no 
 wiser than the thought is. A man can not say what 
 is not in him to say. The style of vague thinking can 
 not be specific. It has no point. The thinking is not 
 forceful enough to compel clear expression. Sydney 
 Smith has written a capital criticism on Dr. Samuel 
 Parr : " He never seems hurried by his subject into ob- 
 vious language." This hits the mark of defect in many 
 sermons. A preacher's subject, if he has one, and has 
 so mastered it as to have clear thoughts upon it, will 
 force him into an obvious style. He can not help it if 
 the subject be one which falls within the range of the 
 hearer's comprehension. He must speak the plain truth, 
 as we call it, like a plain man talking to plain men. 
 
 It used to be said of Napoleon, that he did not under- 
 stand diplomacy, and that he never practiced the diplo- 
 matic style. The statesmen of Europe were perplexed, 
 because they could always understand him ; that is, 
 his style was that obvious style which can not be mis- 
 understood, if the author has written what he meant. 
 When he left Paris for Waterloo, he declared his pur- 
 pose to deliver a pitched battle at or near that locality, in 
 language so plain, that his opponents could not believe 
 that he was not deceiving them. They well-nigh lost 
 the battle by not taking him at his word. A certain 
 critic of Napoleon's style attributes this clearness of it,
 
 lECT. IX.] VAGUE THINKESTG. 129 
 
 SO uncommon in the dispatches of statesmen, to the 
 uniform intensity of his thinking. His mental working 
 in all things was so intense, that his style was illumi- 
 nated. He could not help saying what he meant, though 
 Europe was in a maze because they could always under- 
 stand him. This is the kind of mental working which 
 the pulpit needs, — intense working, which sets style on 
 fire by the friction of thought and language. Several 
 memoranda deserve to be noted on this topic. 
 
 One is, that vague thinking may be mistaken for pro- 
 found thinking. This is not infrequent in the pulpit. 
 Difficult themes belong to the pulpit. Vague thinking 
 on such themes clothes itself in general terms. These 
 general terms re-act on the preacher's mind, leading him 
 to believe that the generalness is the necessary sign of 
 profoundness. The obscurity which springs from his 
 own poverty of thought he attributes to the inevita- 
 ble poverty of language in dealing with such thought. 
 "Words, words, nothing but words," is the criticism 
 of Carlyle on some of the nebulous poetry of Robert 
 Browning. Similar is the criticism which the robust 
 sense of the common people is sometimes tempted to 
 pass upon philosophical passages in sermons. It is not 
 fair to an attentive and sensible hearer to pass off 
 upon him thoughts half formed, under the name of deep 
 thinking. 
 
 What do the common people mean when they describe 
 a preacher as " a great generalizer " ? Usually they 
 mean, that he is obscure, through the want of finished 
 thinking. Fontenelle's rule in composition was this : " I 
 always try first to understand myself." No man will 
 write obscurely who thoroughly understands himself. 
 No speaker will speak obscurely in oral address who 
 will first faithfully practice his speech on himself as an
 
 130 ENGLISH STYLE. [lect. ix. 
 
 imaginary hearer. "Should I understand this sermon 
 if it came first upon me with no preparatory thinking, 
 and in oral form, in the style which I have given to it ? " 
 Apply this test, and the probabilities are that it will 
 never delude you into preaching of the nebulous order. 
 
 Again : vagueness of thought is a fruitful source of 
 self-contradictory style. Often our chief difficulty in 
 understanding a writer is, that we can not attach any 
 idea to his language without making him contradict 
 himself: therefore we infer that we do not understand 
 his meaning. Yet, in the majority of cases, we probably 
 do understand him as well as he understood himself. 
 Men of willful opinions are often led into an obscure 
 style by self-contradiction. Their conclusions are fore- 
 gone conclusions. With evidence, or without it, they 
 are bound to reach certain results. They are impatient 
 of the cautious, logical process which would disclose 
 their inconsistency. Hence they launch into a style, 
 which, to self-possessed minds, appears to be self-contra- 
 dictory, so far as it expresses any thing. 
 
 The Duke of Wellington once said that the true way 
 to advance contradictory propositions was to affirm both 
 vehemently, not attempting to prove either. Less posi- 
 tive minds than his choose to disown the contradiction, 
 and therefore they cover it in a November fog. This 
 may be done with no distinct consciousness of the decep- 
 tion. The speaker is self-deceived. I can not but think 
 that the popular notion, that human responsibility and 
 predestination are irreconcilable opposites is due in 
 great measure to the want of masterly thinking, and the 
 existence, consequently, of obscure teaching, on those 
 subjects in the pulpit. A preacher should never be con- 
 tent to leave the impression on his hearers that those 
 truths are irreconcilable to the human mind. They are
 
 LECT. IX.] AFFECTED PKOFOUNDKESS. 131 
 
 not so. We had better not preach on them at all 
 than to plunge them into that quagmire, and leave them 
 there. 
 
 Further: the remedy for obscurity of style arising 
 from vagueness of thought, obviously is either a more 
 thorough discipline or a more thorough furnishing of 
 the mind. In such an exigency one must have a more 
 vigorous thinking power, or certain materials of thought 
 which are absent. Sometimes both are needed. The 
 vital point to be observed is, that no mere study of dic- 
 tion as such can remedy such an evil as this. Study of 
 one's style may disclose the evil, but can not remedy it. 
 The remedy lies back of rhetorical criticism. More 
 power or more knowledge, or both, must fit a man to 
 discuss subjects on which his style exhibits such incom- 
 petence. 
 
 3. Obscurity of style related to the thoughts of dis- 
 course may spring also from the affectation of profound 
 thought. It is one of the subtle laws of nature, that 
 nothing which is affected is so clear as that which is 
 genuine. In judging men, we call a genuine character 
 a transparent character. So, in style, nature is more 
 intelligible than art. 
 
 Let it be observed, that clear thinking may be made 
 obscure in the expression by the attempt to clothe it 
 in the philosophical forms of profound thinking. The 
 real thought, the kernel when the husk is off, may be 
 so simple that it is the last thing a hearer would suspect 
 of being so magnificently hidden. Let this be illus- 
 trated by an extract from the essays of the late George 
 Brimley, librarian of Trinity College at Cambridge. He 
 is discoursing upon the nature of poetry, and he solilo- 
 quizes thus : " A poetical view of the universe is an 
 exhaustive presentation of all phenomena, as individual
 
 132 ENGLISH STYLE. [lect. ix. 
 
 phenomenal wholes, of ascending orders of complexity, 
 whose earliest stage is the organization of single co- 
 existing phenomena into concrete individuals, and its 
 apotheosis the marvelous picture of the infinite life, no 
 longer conceived as the oceanic pulsation which the 
 understanding called cause and effect." Indeed ! Yet 
 the writer was no fool. His essays show that he had 
 some thoughts. Probably one is struggling, like Mil- 
 ton's half-created lion, to see the light in this fathomless 
 and boundless revery. I venture the guess that the 
 kernel of it was a very simple thought, which Dugald 
 Stewart would have expressed in three lines which an 
 educated man need not have read a second time. Read 
 this of George Brimley's the twenty-second time, and 
 are you the wiser ? 
 
 In some instances, by the legerdemain of style, a 
 truism may be made unintelligible. A writer in the 
 " Westminster Review " discourses in this fashion : An- 
 other curious observation upon philosophic activity is, 
 that the co-ordination of all the functions which consti- 
 tute the whole intellectual energy of philosophic minds 
 is preserved in its plenitude for only a short period of 
 their whole duration of life. There occurs, and gener- 
 ally at an early point in middle life, an epoch when the 
 assimilation of scientific material and its ulterior elabo- 
 ration proceed with an energy more vigorous and more 
 continuous than is ever afterwards attained by the same 
 mind. This phase of philosophical super-activity is 
 always succeeded by an intellectual phase characterized 
 by less expenditure of simultaneous powers." I do not 
 say that this has no meaninor. But what is its meaninsr? 
 •If I do not miss it in the volume of its long-taUed vo- 
 cabulary, it is this, and this is the whole of it, — that the 
 mind of a metaphysician is more vigorous for a time
 
 LECT. IX.] PHILOSOPHICAL STYLE. 133 
 
 near middle life than it ever is afterwards. Why could 
 not the reviewer say that, if he must say a thing so 
 obvious, and be content ? 
 
 Again : the fact deserves notice, that, in the study of 
 modern philosophy, a professional man needs to be on 
 his guard lest his style of public speech should become 
 infected with the disease of artificial depth. I find in 
 much of the philosophical style of our age, as it seems to 
 me, a needless multiplication of novel words, odd words, 
 imported words, archaic words, general words for spe- 
 cific thoughts, and a haziness of general effect, which 
 wearies a reader as a blurred picture wearies the eye. 
 When the writers are charged with obscurity of diction, 
 and they excuse it on the ground of its necessity to that 
 which they call "the higher thinking," I confess that I 
 am incredulous. That necessity appears to me to be 
 pushed to the extreme. Many thoughts which I find 
 wrapped up in this style of "the higher thinking" do not 
 look, when one comes at them, to be so inexpressibly 
 lofty. They lie on a plane a long way this side of the 
 third heaven. Often they are very simple thoughts, not 
 novelties in philosophy, but susceptible of expression in 
 very homely English. 
 
 That a profound mind doing honest work can iK)t 
 make profound thought clear, implies intellectual dis- 
 ease or imbecility in the rest of mankind to an extent 
 which is never true, except in effete or decadent races. 
 It is more probable that some of our philosophical writ- 
 ers strain after the look of profoundness when the 
 reality is not in them. That was a perilous principle 
 which Coleridge advanced respecting the capacity of 
 human language, that it can not express certain meta- 
 physical ideas, and therefore that clearness of stj^e in a 
 metaphysical treatise i&^ 2^rima facie^ evidence of super-
 
 134 ENGLISH STYLE. [lect, ix. 
 
 ficialness. As Coleridge was accustomed to illustrate 
 it, the pool in which you can count tlie pebbles at the 
 bottom is shallow water: the fathomless depth is that 
 in wliicli you can see only the reflection of your own 
 face. This would be true if thinking were water. But 
 the principle opens the way to the most stupendous im- 
 positions upon speculative science. It tempts authors 
 to the grossest affectations in style. In the study of 
 modern psychology, therefore, a preacher needs to be on 
 his guard. We may safely treat as a fiction in philoso- 
 phy any thing which claims to be a discover}", yet can 
 not make itself understood without huge and unman- 
 ageable contortions of the English tongue. 
 
 Further: it should be noted, that, when this disease of 
 affected profoundness finds its way into the pulpit, it is 
 probably, of all faults in homiletic discourse, the most 
 offensive if it be detected. Sometimes, though rarely, 
 a perverted taste exists, which fails to detect the impo- 
 sition on good sense. Then hearers are fascinated by a 
 dialect which nobody understands, but which to dis- 
 cerning ones sounds hollow. The}^ throng around the 
 puffing and swelling preacher, as boys crowd around a 
 drum, and for essentially the same reason. A Presby- 
 terian missionary in Syria writes that Mr. Moody's ser- 
 mons, wlien translated into Arabic, do not at all meet 
 the Arabic ideal of an oral discourse, because they are 
 so easily understood. The popular idea of a sermon 
 there, he says, is that it should be composed in the 
 profoundest possible dialect. The less hearers can 
 understand of it, the better. They crave only the rever- 
 berations of it on the tympanum of the ear. 
 
 When Occidental taste falls into such juvenility, all 
 we can say of it is, that it must needs be that offenses 
 come, but woe unto him through whom they come !
 
 LECT. IX.] ABSTBUSE THINKING. 135 
 
 Such an affectation can not exist here, unless it be cre- 
 ated and fostered by the pulpit. It is never originated 
 by the good sense of the people. When it does exist 
 among them, it is short-lived. Good sense in the pulpit 
 is speedy death to it. While it lasts, we have only to 
 ignore it, and preach like plain men talking to plain 
 men. If the times seem out of joint, and will not bear 
 it, remember Dr. Arnold's reply, when cautioned against 
 a style of speech which the times would not bear : " I 
 do not see how the times can help bearing any thing 
 that an honest man has the resolution to do." Any 
 false taste in a community will give way to courage. 
 
 4. Thought may give occasion for obscurity of style 
 by its real profoundness. Subjects may be too abstruse 
 for oral discussion. Speculation may be too refined for 
 popular comprehension. Argument may be too long- 
 protracted for the power of attention in a promiscuous 
 assembly. 
 
 One form of this defect is that of pursuing simple 
 themes into complicated relations. No theme is so sim- 
 ple that it can not be handled abstrusely. The most 
 simple truths are elemental truths. They are princi- 
 ples. They are foundations and pillars on which sys- 
 tems of truth are constructed. Language can not render 
 all the relations of such truths clear to all minds in oral 
 speech. A preacher encounters in the discussion of such 
 themes a peril which grows out of his very culture : it 
 is that of pursuing his theme into intricate sinuosities 
 of treatment in which his own mind may revel, but the 
 minds of his hearers be " in wandering mazes lost." The 
 subject may be a trite one : its very triteness may be his 
 temptation. Obscurity may be caused by the desire to 
 avoid commonplace. We find examples of such themes 
 in the being of God, the duty of repentance, the nature
 
 136 ENGLISH STYLE. [lkct. ix. 
 
 of sin, the necessity of an atonement : in short, in any 
 of the standard and hackneyed topics of tlie pulpit. 
 The most obscure sermon it has ever been my lot to 
 hear was a sermon on the truthfuhiess of Christ. 
 
 Robert Southey says of Edmund Burke, " Few con- 
 verts were made by him, because, instead of making 
 difficult things easy, he made things easy in themselves 
 difficult to be comprehended, by the maimer in which 
 he presented them ; evolving their causes, and involv- 
 ing their consequences, till the reader whose mind was 
 not habituated to metaphysical discussion knew neither 
 in what his argument began, nor in what it ended." A 
 very truthful criticism is this upon some sermons. 
 
 A caution, however, needs to be observed on this 
 danger : it is, that we should not underrate the power 
 of language to make difficult things clear to the popular 
 comprehension. This, I think, is the present tendency 
 of clerical judgment in our own country. We are too 
 timid, rather than too bold, in choosing abstract themes 
 for the pulpit. Discussions are imagined to be above 
 the level of the people Avhich are not so. Subjects are 
 excluded, therefore, which need discussion. One of the 
 tests of a preacher's homiletic powers is the degree of 
 his faculty of making profound thought lucid to undis- 
 ciplined minds. Remember always that abstractness 
 is not necessarily abstruseness. Remember, also, that 
 the Anglo-American mind is wonderfully elastic in the 
 reach of its command over great and fundamental 
 truths. The American town-meeting is a powerful 
 educator of the people. It creates a great many think- 
 ers upon the principles and roots of things. 
 
 Preachers may learn wisdom in this respect from 
 secular oratory. The most successful speakers to the 
 popular mind on secular themes are, after all, the men
 
 LECT. IX.] SENSIBLE PEEACHIKG. 137 
 
 of thought. There is a certain tact often witnessed in 
 secular speech which plants itself never below the level 
 of the popular thought, always above that level, yet so 
 near it as to secure popular sympathy, and always to 
 make itself understood. I doubt whether this tact is 
 ever consciously chosen as an expedient : it is a gift. 
 But the men who possess it never fail to gain a hear- 
 ing ; and as a rule they succeed, Avhen demagogues who 
 despise the people, yet truckle to their tastes, fail. 
 
 When President Lincoln was once inquired of what 
 was the secret of his success as a popular debater, he 
 replied, " I always assume that my audience are in 
 many things wiser than I am, and I say the most sen- 
 sible thing I can to them. I never found that the}^ did 
 not understand me." Two things here were all that 
 Mr. Lincoln was conscious of, — respect for the intel- 
 lect of his audience, and the effort to say the most sen- 
 sible thing. He could not know how those two things 
 affected the respect of his audience for him^ their trust 
 in him as their superior, and their inclination to obey 
 him on the instant when they felt the magnetism of his 
 voice. But he saw, that, say what he might in that 
 mood, he got a hearing, he was understood, he was 
 obeyed. 
 
 So it will inevitably be in the pulpit. The best 
 preaching is the " sensible " preaching. Good sense 
 can make any thing intelligible which good sense will 
 wish to utter to the popular mind, or which good sense 
 will care to hear. We are in more danger of sup- 
 pressing truth which hearers can understand than 
 of attempting to express truth which is above them. 
 " Overshooting " is not so frequent as shooting into the 
 ground. Wordsworth says, " There is no excuse for 
 obscurity in writing; because, if Ave would give our
 
 138 ENGLISH STYLE. [lect, ix. 
 
 whole souls to any thing, as a bee does to a flower, there 
 would be little diHiculty in any intellectual employ- 
 ment." John Foster was a marvel and a model of 
 patience and of energy in forcing profound thought 
 into expression. He often si)ent hours, as he tells us, 
 in the labor which he calls "pumping;" that is, forcing 
 his thoughts up to the surface of a familiar diction. 
 Head his essays ; see what his thoughts were ; then 
 observe the transparency of his style. With such an 
 example in view, one need never despair of discussing 
 intelligibly in the pulpit any subject which ought ever 
 to be heard of there. 
 
 5. A speaker's thought may lead him into an obscure 
 style through his own familiarity with it. The style of 
 a studious preacher may grow more obscure as he grows 
 older. Language may become less serviceable to him 
 in the communication of thought, because less necessary 
 to him in its conception. The Rev, Dr. Gillies says of 
 the Rev. Dr. Maclaurin, that his style underwent this 
 change so perceptibly as to suggest a decline of intel- 
 lect. Probably it was no more than the heedlessness of 
 a mind which consulted its own wants rather than those 
 of its readers. The ver}^ perfectness of a man's knowl- 
 edge may impair his power to communicate, unless he 
 protects himself against the danger by voluntary pre- 
 caution. 
 
 6. Thought may lead to obscure expression through 
 rapidity in the succession of thoughts. The majority 
 of minds require time to take in a difficult thought, and 
 make acquaintance "with it. They need to dwell upon 
 the point of an argument. They require illustration, 
 varied statement, repetition. A diffuse style, therefore, 
 the sign of a slow succession of thought, is a necessary 
 style for some subjects and some audiences.
 
 LECT. IX.] RAPIDITY OF THOUGHT. 139 
 
 Rapid succession of disorderly thought is the general 
 infirmity of excited minds. Extemporaneous speakers 
 are often thus embarrassed. The wheel takes fire from 
 the friction of its own revolutions. This is the cause 
 of the majority of the blunders of extemporaneous 
 speaking. Irish "bulls" have their counterparts in 
 some of the phenomena of extemporaneous oratory. 
 They are not expressive of a vacant mind, but of the 
 reverse. They indicate a freshet of thought. The 
 speaker in the English Parliament, who, in the tumult 
 of patriotic enthusiasm, said, " Sir, I would give up 
 half, yes the whole, of the constitution, to save the other 
 half," had a thought to express, and a valuable one ; 
 but it overslaughed his tongue. The speaker, who, in a 
 paroxysm of tempestuous loyalty, said, "Sir, I stand 
 prostrate at the feet of my sovereign," was not affect- 
 ing any surprising feat of gymnastic agility. His 
 thought formed itself first in the standing posture : the 
 prostration was an after-thought. 
 
 Sir Koche Boyle, whose speeches have so long been a 
 thesaurus to rhetorical writers of illustrations of rhe- 
 torical blunders, was not void of thought, even in the 
 well-known instance of his inquiry, " What has poster- 
 ity done for us ? " He had a thought which was entirely 
 logical to his purpose. It was that of the reasonable- 
 ness of reciprocity of service. Probably he was driven 
 into a vacuum of thought by the burst of laughter 
 which followed, and which he met by explaining, " By 
 posterity, sir, I do not mean our ancestors, but those 
 who are to come immediately after." One of the aims 
 of conquest in the mastery of extemporaneous speech 
 is that of beating back the rush and trampling of 
 thoughts which huddle themselves into these bovine 
 forms of style.
 
 LECTURE X. 
 
 PERSPICUITY OF STYLE, CONTINUED, — THE USE OF 
 IMAGERY. 
 
 II. Perspicuity of style, having its foundation in 
 the thoughts to be expressed, is further affected by the 
 use of imagery. 
 
 1. Obscurity may arise from incongruous imagery. 
 Imagery is painting. The expressiveness of it is 
 measured by its congruity. More frequently than 
 otherwise, the incongruity of imagery consists in its 
 irrelevance. It may not be contradictory to the truth, 
 but may have no natural concern with it. Lord Shaftes- 
 bury speaks of a "wilderness of mind." What clear 
 idea does one receive from that ? He also writes of an 
 " obscure climate " of the human intellect. What is an 
 obscure climate, what is any " climate," of the intellect ? 
 ]\Iake pictures mentally of these attempts at imagery, 
 and what is the look of them ? Such images blur 
 thought by taxing the attention to discover resem- 
 blances which do not exist. Congruity is the first 
 requisite and test of a genuine imaginative diction. 
 
 2. Similar is the obscurity caused by the use of 
 mixed imagery. The Hon. Henry A. Wise of Virginia 
 will be immortalized for having executed John Brown, 
 rather than for perpetrating the following before the 
 House of Burgesses : " Virginia has an iron chain of 
 mountains running through her center, which God has 
 placed there to milk the clouds and to be the source 
 
 140
 
 LECT. X.] LEARNED IMAGERY. 141 
 
 of her silver riversy "What, in detail, is the fact corre- 
 sponding to a chain of iron drawing milk from the 
 clouds, which flows in rivers of silver? The juxta- 
 position, also, of the milk and the river, is quite too 
 suggestive of a less dignified occurrence. Surely the 
 mind of man, when it seriously expresses itself in such 
 inconceivable compounds, seems fearfully and wonder- 
 fully made. 
 
 The mixture of metaphor with literal expression is 
 often the cause of obscurity. The interpretation of the 
 Fifty-first Psalm is disputed, chiefl}^ because of its in- 
 termingling of letter and figure. " I acknowledge my 
 trangressions," " Restore unto me the joy of thy salva- 
 tion : " these are indubitably literal. " Purge me with 
 hyssop," "that the bones which thou hast broken may 
 rejoice:" these are as indubitably figurative. There- 
 fore the theological world is divided on the question 
 whether the following is literal or figurative : " I was 
 shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive 
 me." Is " original sin " taught in these words, or not? 
 It is purely a question of rhetoric. 
 
 3. Obscurity, again, may be occasioned by the em- 
 ployment of learned imagery. 
 
 The style of Jeremy Taylor, for the practical uses of 
 preaching, was well-nigh ruined by his excessive use 
 of his classical library. Imagine yourself rehearsing the 
 following passage in a sermon anywhere outside of a 
 Latin school. " They thought there was ... in the 
 shades below no numbering of healths by the numeral 
 letters of Philenium's name, no fat mullets, no oysters 
 of Lucrinus, no Lesbian or Chian wines. Therefore 
 now enjoy the descending wines distilled through the 
 limbec of thy tongue and larynx ; suck the juices of 
 fishes, and the lard of Apulian swine, and the condited
 
 142 ENGLISH STYLE. [leot. x. 
 
 bellies of the scarus : but lose no time, for the sun drives 
 hard, and the shadoAV is long, and the days of mourning 
 are at hand." Jeremy Taylor preached this gospel at 
 Golden Grove, which was nearly as if you should preach 
 it at the west parish of Andover. He had an audience 
 of less than fifty, of whom possibly five remembered 
 dindy something of their studies of Horace at Oxford, 
 and the rest knew no more of what the preacher meant 
 than of the sources of the Nile. 
 
 I have elsewhere noticed that Charles Sumner ob- 
 scured his oratory by excessive indulgence in classical 
 allusions, which, even in the United-States Senate, be- 
 long to the dying reminiscences of collegiate life. He 
 used to roll forth from a too faithful memory a string 
 of classical recollections, which his hearers felt to be 
 untimely when the liberty of the nation was trembling 
 in the scale. His opponents could charge upon him 
 sentiments which he disowned, because the clearness 
 of his meaning was obscured through the loss of force 
 occasioned by illustrative materials which were not in 
 keeping with a national emergency. 
 
 It should be remarked, however, that the objection 
 to learned imagery is no apology for low imagery. The 
 pulpit demands an elevated style in imagery as in vo- 
 cabulary. You can scarcely do greater violence to the 
 popular associations with the pulpit, and therefore to 
 your hearer's prompt acceptance of 3'our meaning, than 
 by the use of coarse, vulgar, or ludicrous illustrations. 
 The popular mind never originates vulgar associations 
 with the pulpit, never craves vulgar materials from the 
 preacher. If they receive them from him, their repug- 
 nance of feeling will often obscure their perceptions of 
 his meaning. Any thing will embarrass the passage of 
 truth to their minds which creates in them a conflict
 
 LECT. X.J EXCESS OF IMAGERY. 143 
 
 of taste. A preacher can never safely array against 
 his preaching an outraged sense of reverence among his 
 hearers. 
 
 4. Another cause of obscurity in the use of imagery 
 is an excess of imagery. This may obscure the meaning 
 by exaggeration. It may produce the same effect by 
 overloading a thought. Imagery not needed to illus- 
 trate a thought must tend to cover it from the hearer's 
 sight. A hearer's power of perception may be impaired 
 by it through mental weariness. Few things are so 
 wearisome to the brain as a rapid review of a gallery 
 of paintings. Aside from weariness of eye, there is an 
 expenditure of thought in that which the spectator must 
 supply by his own imagination. An excessively picto- 
 rial style makes a similar demand, and produces a simi- 
 lar effect. Mental weariness thus induced diminishes 
 the clearness of a hearer's perception. Such a discourse, 
 therefore, lives in his memory, only as a jumble of pic- 
 tures. 
 
 The same result may be produced, if weariness is not, 
 by attracting attention to the style for its own sake. 
 Attraction to the style is distraction from the thought. 
 " How beautiful the metaphor ! How novel, how luxu- 
 riant, how elaborate ! One revels in a tropical garden." 
 A hearer who finds time in listening to a discourse to 
 make such silent comments as these, loses b}^ so much 
 the significance, and therefore often the clearness, of the 
 ideas. "Why is it that the " Pilgrim's Progress " seldom 
 suggests religious ideas to children ? To discern the 
 religious teaching beneath the allegorical painting re- 
 quires a mature mind. Even for mature minds we 
 write explanatory lectures on the allegory. Edmund 
 Burke often obscured an argument by excess of im- 
 agery. Byron said of Curran, that he had heard Curran
 
 144 ENGLISH STYLE. [lect. x. 
 
 speak more poetry than he had ever seen written. It 
 was no compliment to an orator. The style of the pul- 
 l)it in respect of imagery, I conceive, should be grave, 
 severe, intense, not luxuriant, not rampant. 
 
 Excess of imagery is most hurtful when no imagery 
 is needed. Take the following, from John Quincy 
 Adams. His thought is this, that scientists have been 
 obliged to coin nomenclatures from the Greek language. 
 This is a pure fact in philology. In a literal statement 
 it is perfectly clear : it needs no pictorial representation. 
 But Mr. Adams vaults into the imaginative saddle in 
 this style : " The sexual combinations of Linnaeus, and 
 the chemical separations of Lavoisier, are alike exhib- 
 ited in Grecian attire. The loves of the plants must 
 murmur in the same dialect which alone can sound the 
 dirge over the dissolution of water. Neither the nup- 
 tials of the blossom, nor the generation of the gas, can 
 be accomplished but under Grecian names. The mar- 
 riage and the divorce, the generation and the destruc- 
 tion, have found no name by which they could walk 
 the world, without having recourse to the language of 
 Demosthenes and Homer." 
 
 One can not pronounce this nonsense. But what is 
 gained hy this galloping of fancy over a plain fact in 
 philological history ? It needs only a plain statement ; 
 the plainer, the better. It is obscured by imaginative 
 verbiage. Some of these figures suggest absolutely no 
 idea which is relevant to the point. What is meant by 
 the assertion that a Greek " dirge " is sounded " over 
 the dissolution of water " ? What clear notion does a 
 reader obtain from a picture of " marriage and divorce 
 walking in the language of Homer " ? Such a style in 
 oral address can scarcely rise above the intelligibility of 
 dreams.
 
 LECT. X.] ABSENCE OF EMAGEHY. 1 i5 
 
 5. Yet a truth lies over against tliat whicli has just 
 been named. If excess of imagery may obscure one's 
 meaning, on the other hand, it may be obscured by the 
 entire absence of imagery as well. Abstract thought 
 often needs to be made palpable : the senses must be 
 called in to the aid of the intellect. When the mean- 
 ing is not positively vague, it is not impressively clear 
 without a picture. A certain degree of dullness for the 
 want of imagery amounts to obscurity. A very simple 
 book may be unintelligible to a child for the want of 
 pictures. Said the missionary Carey to a young preach- 
 er, " I much approved your sermon, except that it had 
 no 'likes' in it. In our Lord's discourses one constant- 
 ly meets with the phrases ' like this,' ' like that.' Never 
 preach a sermon without ' likes.' " 
 
 Military commanders say, that in battle it is the eye 
 which is first vanquished. Similar is the experience of 
 the popular mind under the sway of oral discourse. 
 The first sign that an audience has fairly taken in a 
 speaker's thought, and the whole of it, may often be 
 seen in a hearer's eye. It is often produced by an 
 illustration which has flashed the meaning upon his 
 vision. " I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the 
 ear, but now mine eye seeth Thee, wherefore I repent," 
 is the confession of the patriarch when a new concep- 
 tion of the being of God first dawned on his mind. 
 
 This view suggests that the imaginative style in ser- 
 mons should be studied. It is as proper an object of 
 deliberate study as any other expedient of public sjjeech. 
 Why not ? The Rev. Dr. Witherspoon, when criticised 
 for the want of imaginative effort in his sermons, 
 replied, " I have never cultivated posies." This repre- 
 sents the idea which many sensible men have of the 
 cultivation of the pictorial style. They conceive it to
 
 146 ENGLISH STYLE. [i.kct. x. 
 
 be only the accumulation of finery and frippery. What 
 can such critics say of tlie usage of some of the first 
 class of pleaders at the bar in picturing tlieir argument 
 to the senses of a jury? The most successful pleaders 
 before juries are of two classes. The one class achieves 
 success mainly by solid logic ; the other class, by picto- 
 rial' vividness. To the latter class belong nearly all the 
 great criminal lawyers in modern practice. But do not 
 these men "cultivate posies"? 
 
 Why did Judge Pierrepont, in the trial of Surratt for 
 the assassination of President Lincoln, parade before the 
 jury the maps showing Surratt's line of travel, the guns 
 hidden at Lloyd's tavern, the diary of Booth, his eye- 
 glass, and the registers of the hotels at which Surratt 
 lodged? Not one of these was necessary to a literal 
 statement of the facts, and all could have been proved 
 by testimony. But testimony could not paint the facts 
 to the eye of the jury as this was done by the table on 
 which these mementos were spread out before them. 
 The aim of the prosecution was a purely rhetorical, not 
 a logical one. It was to make the facts more clear by 
 visible symbols. True, it was, in part, to make the facts 
 vivid as well as clear ; but it is impossible to separate 
 the two things. Where the aim at perspicuity ends, 
 and the aim at vividness begins, criticism can not deter- 
 mine. Perspicuity is insured if vividness is gained. 
 But was not this " cultivating posies " ? 
 
 If we can learn any thing from the experience of the 
 leaders of tlie bar, it is, that for clear, indubitable pres- 
 entation of difficult themes to the popular mind, the 
 studj^ of imaginative resources is most essential. To 
 no department of public speech can it be more so than 
 to that of the pulpit. The subjects of the pulpit pre- 
 eminently demand it. The hieroglyphic element in the
 
 LECT. X.] CLEARNESS OF VOCABULARY. 147 
 
 earliest forms of written language needs to be repro- 
 duced in rhetorical painting to make those subjects clear. 
 The necessit}' is by no means limited to illiterate hearers. 
 Said the late Judge McLean of the Supreme Court of the 
 United States, " I want sermons enlivened by incident. 
 Preaching should be piquant. I like an occasional anec- 
 dote if well put." " Enlivened," " piquant : " these 
 words carry the idea of perspicuity as well. Vivid- 
 ness and clearness differ only in degree. Do we not all 
 obtain clearness of conception from the pictorial news- 
 papers ? Why are pictorial illustrations deemed neces- 
 sary to a modern dictionary of the first class as an aid 
 to definition ? 
 
 III. The course of these discussions leads us now to 
 observe the relation of perspicuity of style to the ivards 
 of a discourse. 
 
 1. It should be remarked, that obscurity will often re- 
 sult from the use of words which are more or less tech- 
 nical to religious usage. We have before considered a 
 pure stj'le as the foundation of a clear style. The ne- 
 cessity of it, especially to oral address, and on religious 
 themes, and to the popular mind, has been remarked. 
 We need not repeat what has been said on these topics. 
 But let the principles which have been advanced be 
 applied to one thing which is the special duty of the pul- 
 pit. It is the need of watching the decadence of that 
 phraseology in popular speech and in homiletic usage 
 which expresses the peculiarities of Christian faith and 
 experience. I have defended the right of the pulpit to 
 use religious technicalities, so far as these are a neces- 
 sity to exact and full expression of Christian thought 
 or feeling. The pulpit has a literary right, in this re- 
 spect, equal to that of any other department of public 
 speech, or of any secular science. When Cha-istiau
 
 148 ENGLTSTT STYLE. [r.ECT. x. 
 
 peculiarities of thought pass into popular experience, 
 the people have- a corresponding right to their religious 
 dialect. 
 
 But every such peculiar dialect has a tendency to de- 
 cay in the popular usage, as well as in the philosophic 
 usage of the pulpit to which I have before referred. 
 The tendency is no peculiarity of religious style. It 
 exists in secular literature as well. It exists in the 
 language of art and in that of politics. Whatever is 
 technical to art, or science, or literature, or religion, has 
 a tendency to die out sooner and more absolutely than 
 the great staple of the language which is common to 
 them all. Religion comes under the common laAV more 
 obviously than other elements in the life of a people, 
 only because the subjects of religious thought are more 
 vital, and influences are always at work more actively 
 than upon secular life to cause religious life to deterio- 
 rate. Therefore the experience of one age becomes 
 imitation to the next age. The creeds of one genera- 
 tion become historic formulae to the next. The words 
 most vital to both belief and experience cease to mean 
 what they meant at the beginning. The electric life 
 goes out of them ; and, for clear expression of the truth, 
 they die. To the popular mind they often become blurred 
 in sense long before they are absolutely and hopelessly 
 defunct. This is a peril to which all forms of religious 
 faith, and forms of worship, and forms expressive of 
 the common religious feelings of men, are exposed. 
 
 A conscientious pastor needs to watch this tendency 
 to decadence in religious dialect, and either to arrest it, 
 by infusing a new life into that dialect in the popular 
 conceptions, or to hasten its decline by the adoption of 
 other phra-^eology in its place. The dialect technical to 
 art or sect or class has no literary right to live an hour
 
 LECT. X.] DECAY OF WORDS. 149 
 
 after the necessity of it to express living realities has 
 passed away. Thackeray, for example, cuts to the 
 quick, when he satirizes the use, by the Slite of the 
 fashionable society of England, of the phrase " misera- 
 ble sinners " in the Liturgy of the English Church. He 
 implies that to them it has no meaning, and that in the 
 use of it, therefore, they are worse than Pagans. If this 
 be true, the authorities of the church are bound either 
 to revive the real significance of the phrase by more 
 pungent and faithful teaching, or to drop it, as one of 
 the technicalities of religious confession which have 
 become hopelessly extinct. Other phraseology should 
 be substituted for it, — phraseology which shall have a 
 living meaning to living men. Confession of sin is the 
 very last thing to be stereotyped, and trusted to live on 
 its history. 
 
 The same necessity of vigilance exists in religious 
 sects whose traditions are not fixed in liturgic forms. 
 Extemporaneous prayer, in the pulpit and out of it, is 
 full of language which needs constant watching lest it 
 should become effete ; and this because it is more or 
 less made up of language technical to religious uses. 
 That language thus used is an inheritance. It began 
 to be, in a past age. It expresses the religious life of a 
 bygone generation. It comes under the same law of 
 decay which appertains to all other fixed language. 
 The danger is, that it will become, may have already 
 become, not the symbol, but the substitute, of thought. 
 Profound convictions are imperiled by the continued 
 use of conventional phraseology after the life of it has 
 gone out ; so that nothing in the real experience of the 
 people responds to it when they hear it or when they 
 use it. Preaching, praying, singing, talking, and the 
 administration of sacraments, in such a dialect, are hor-
 
 150 ENGLISH STYLE. [lect. x. 
 
 rible attempts to galvanize a corpse. Give to the people 
 any thing but that. Do something, or another thing, 
 or all things, to get rid of conventional meanings of reli- 
 gious words. Supplant indtation by a new experience. 
 Use any language which is necessary to the transforma- 
 tion. In no other way can you make the world believe 
 that an honest church is represented by an honest pulpit. 
 
 2. Obscurity may be induced by the preponderance in 
 style of other than the Saxon elements of our language. 
 With no conscious cultivation of a Saxon style, a writer 
 who is eminently clear will possess a style in which the 
 Saxon words outnumber all others. In the English ver- 
 sion of the Lord's Prayer, not more than one word in. 
 eleven are of other than Saxon origin. This is proba- 
 bly a fair index to the proportions of the language as 
 actually used by the masses of an English-speaking peo- 
 ple. It does not follow, that the same proportions are 
 necessary to render discourse intelligible to them from 
 the lips of others ; but it does follow, that a style which 
 is pre-eminent for perspicuity will be, in the main, from 
 Saxon roots. Transparent discourse to a popular audi- 
 ence will be largely Saxon in its vocabulary. Discourse 
 not positively obscure may be difficult of comprehension 
 if other than a Saxon vocabulary preponderates. Such 
 a style as the prose style of Milton, even though every 
 word be authorized English, may require in oral ad- 
 dress a closeness of attention by the hearer which few 
 audiences will give. 
 
 Specially should the emphatic words of a sentence, if 
 possible, be Saxon. What is the defect of Edmund 
 Burke's celebrated diatribe against metaphysicians? 
 " Their hearts," he says, " are like that of the principle 
 of evil liimself, — incorporeal, pure, unmixed, dephleg- 
 mated, defecated evil." The use of two unusual and
 
 LECT. X.] SAXON VOCABULARY. 151 
 
 Latinized words obscures the climax of the invective. 
 Few hearers understand them. Journalists especially 
 are often affected in their use of the Latin and Greek 
 elements of the language. One writes of "lethal wea- 
 pons: " he could not say " deadly weapons," for he would 
 have been too easily understood. Another says, " The 
 water was incarnadined with blood : " he could not say 
 " reddened with blood," for that would have been tame. 
 Other things being equal, it adds much to the trans- 
 parenc}' of style if the resultant words, in which the 
 emphasis of the idea lies, or the hinges on which 
 the connection turns, be Saxon. The people take in 
 the force of such words easily and quickly. 
 
 The thinking and the reading of the masses of the 
 people are in Saxon dialect. Their conversation is 
 almost entirely Saxon. Hence, as hearers, they feel 
 more at home with Saxon speech than with any other. 
 Note one or two illustrations of a Saxon and a Latin 
 dialect in contrast. When Noah had entered the ark, 
 the sacred narrative, as given by our translators, reads, 
 " The Lord shut him in." Suppose they had translated 
 it, " The Lord incarcerated him." Contrast such a 
 Avord as " inculpate " with its synonym "blame;" is 
 there any doubt which would be most perspicuous to 
 the popular thought ? Dr. Chalmers once said in the 
 General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, "Mr. 
 Moderator, I desiderate to be informed," etc. Can it 
 be questioned that he would have been more promptly 
 understood if he had been content to say, " I wish to 
 know " ? 
 
 You will often find that a sentence, every word of 
 which may be authorized English, has a sickly haze 
 hanging over it, as you imagine your utterance of it to 
 hearers, which is entirely due to its Latin vocabulary.
 
 152 ENGLISH STYLE. [lect. x. 
 
 It becomes transparent the instant that yoii strike out 
 Norman words from the points of empluisis, and put 
 Saxon words in tlieir pLace. This suggests a means of 
 cultivating a perspicuous style, Avhich is of special 
 moment to preachers, who, as Wesley used to say to his 
 clergy, "though they think with the learned, must speak 
 with the common people." In oral address to the 
 people, use, as far as possible, their Saxon vernacular. 
 3. Perspicuity of style may very obviously be im- 
 paired by the habitual use of ambiguous words. Every 
 highly finished language like our own abounds with 
 words which have divergent and even contrasted mean- 
 ings. We speak, for example, of a "nei"vous writer," 
 meaning a strong writer : we speak of a " nervous 
 woman," meaning a weak woman. We say, " He over- 
 looked the transaction," meaning that he gave it his 
 supervision : we say, " He overlooked the error," mean- 
 ing that he neglected to mark it. De Quincey speaks 
 of the " active forces of human nature : " does he mean 
 those which concern external action, or those which are 
 vigorous, as distinct from sluggish? ]Malthus, in dis- 
 cussing the laws of jiopulation, shocked the English 
 people by advocating what he called " moral restraints " 
 upon marriage. Many understood him to mean, by 
 implication, that marriage was a sin. The confusion 
 arose from the ambiguit}^ of one word. Dean Swift 
 spoke of "the reformation of Luther." His opponent 
 understood him to mean the personal revolution in the 
 character of Luther. Ambiguity caused by the loca- 
 tion of so insignificant a word as the preposition " of " 
 clouded a page. In the eighth chapter of the Epistle 
 to the Romans, St. Paul is represented as saying, 
 " Neither death nor life . . . shall separate us from the 
 love of God." Commentators tell us that tliis may
 
 LECT. X.] ABSTEACT WORDS. 153 
 
 mean the love of God to his people, or their love to 
 him. Here, again, tlie insignificant preposition becomes 
 the emphatic hinge on which the meaning turns. " What 
 I want" said a pompous orator, " is common sense." 
 — " Exactly so ! " said his antagonist. 
 
 To this class of errors belong those which consist of a 
 literal use of figurative words and a figurative use of 
 literal words. Offenses from this cause against precis- 
 ion of style, at a slight advance in degree of ambiguity 
 become offenses against perspicuity. That which to 
 one audience is defective in precision only, to another 
 will seem defective in clearness. Errors of biblical 
 interpretation arising from this cause are abundant. 
 The whole theory of inherited guilt rests upon such 
 errors. The entire biblical argument for Swedenbor- 
 gian hermencutics has the same origin. Language ori- 
 ginally used in song has been made to teach dogmatic 
 truth. The early Latin hymnology contains in the 
 germ nearly all the dogmatic errors subsequently inter- 
 polated in Christian creeds. As originated, they were 
 the most of them liturgic metaphors, nothing more. 
 
 4. Obscurity of style may be caused by an excessive 
 use of general and abstract words. Oral discourse es- 
 pecially demands a specific and concrete vocabulary. 
 An inordinate use of philosophic terms, however intelli- 
 gible each one may be, will often obscure an idea by the 
 number of such terms. Be wary in multiplying such 
 words as "organic," "relations," "proportions," " uni- 
 son," "causality," "potential," "transcendent," "sub- 
 sidiary," "correlative," "objective," "subjective." A 
 style in which such words are the staple of expression 
 may throw a fog over a subject which would otherwise 
 lie in sunlight. 
 
 The habitual use of impersonal titles of the Godhead
 
 154 ENGLISH STYI-E. [lect. x. 
 
 tends, for a similar reason, to obscure the idea of a 
 personal God. "The Deity," "the iVlmightj," "the 
 Supreme," " tlie Eternal," " Providence," " Heaven " — 
 these, as synonj-ms of " God," tend to blur the popular 
 conception of divine personality. Dr. Arnold detected 
 the dawn of pantheism among the Socinians of England, 
 long before they were themselves aware of it, in their 
 avoidance of the personal names of God. 
 
 Affectation in style may take the form of an evasion 
 of concrete expression. Simple, homely, specific words, 
 which a man's good sense first suggests to him, are then 
 abandoned, and he seeks to lift up his thoughts b}^ the 
 leverage of grandiose phraseology. Says one writer of 
 this sort, " There is some subtle essence permeating the 
 elementary constitution of crime, which so operates, that 
 men become its involuntary followers by the sheer force 
 of attraction, as it were." One can " expiscate " an idea 
 from this language (to use one of Hugh Miller's ambi- 
 tious words) ; but we can not catch it as it flies in oral 
 speech. A recent political writer describes a celebrated 
 contemporary as a " republican of progressive integ- 
 rity." What does he mean ? If a critic may extort an 
 idea from the language, can a hearer do so on the spur 
 of a moment? 
 
 Swedenborg writes : " All the voices of the celestial 
 joyfulness qualify, commix, and harmonize in the fire 
 which was from eternity in the good quality." This is 
 the natural style of discourse in dreams. The style of 
 modern spiritualism illustrates this error in a degree 
 Avhieh is suggestive of insanity. Sometliing abnormal 
 in the connection between words and ideas seems to dis- 
 locate both. The natural laws of thought seem to be 
 suspended. The modern seer tallis and writes in som- 
 nambulistic phrases. His constructions are delirious.
 
 LECT. X.] DISTENSION OF STYLE. 155 
 
 As a purely psychological phenomenon, it is no marvel 
 that spiritualism is maniacal in its tendency. 
 
 5. Another occasion of obscurity in the use of lan- 
 guage is an excessive diffuseness. Ben Jonson speaks 
 aptly of a " corpulent stj'le." Such a style weakens the 
 momentum of thought. An idea sometimes depends for 
 its clearness on the stimulus to attention which springs 
 from quick movement. The corpulent diction is pon- 
 derous and slow. Is your thought abstract, and there- 
 fore not easily comprehended ? Then let it be packed 
 into few words, and discharged upon an audience like 
 the load of a musket. Perspicuity depends on the state 
 of the hearer's thinking as much as on the speaker's 
 thought. Some thoughts we can not make clearer than 
 they are by the mechanism of style : something is 
 needed to quicken the hearer's faculty of perception. 
 Laconic utterance will often do this. You can be hit 
 by a puffball, and not know it ; not so if 3'ou are hit by 
 a bullet. Similar is the difference between the diffuse 
 and the condensed style as a means of stimulus to the 
 hearer's thinking j^ower. 
 
 Preambles, reports of committees, diplomatic resolves, 
 are often obscure through mere distention of style. The 
 authors beat about the bush in fear of saying a thing 
 shortly. A committee on street-railwaj's reports to the 
 Legislature of New York in this manner : " It is not 
 to be denied, that any system which demands the pro- 
 pulsion of cars at a rapid rate, at an elevation of fifteen 
 or twenty feet, is not entirely consistent, in the public 
 estimation, with the greatest attainable immunity from 
 the dangers of transportation." No style deserves to be 
 called perspicuous which needs a second reading. This 
 specimen does so. What is the sense of it expressed 
 shortly? Abandon the negative circumlocution, ex-
 
 156 ENGLISH STYLE. [r-ECT. x. 
 
 change long words for short ones, and s])eak without 
 hidirection. Tlicn the statement is reduced to this, "It 
 is true that people think that a railway twenty feet 
 above the street is dangerous." This is all that the 
 honorable committee meant. But it does not sound 
 elaborate : therefore the idea was bloated into the al- 
 dermanic diction. 
 
 Herbert Spencer founds the whole theory of style on 
 the principle of economizing the mental force of hearers. 
 Any thing that economizes attention without loss of per- 
 ception adds to the clearness of an idea. Therefore a 
 style which taxes attention by needless circumlocution 
 tends to produce obscurity. The power of attention in 
 the most willing audiences is limited : beyond its limit, 
 speech to them is nothing but words. Moreover, a re- 
 dundant stj'le will in many cases distract attention from 
 the thought to the words. Hearers are bewildered. 
 Though disposed to give attention, their minds are di- 
 verted from the working words to the sinecures. Style 
 is often, like a hive of bees, made up of workers and 
 drones. Let me give you an illustration selected from 
 a work on natural science, written by a clergyman of 
 the English Church, a graduate of one of the great uni- 
 versities, and who has half a score of honorary initials 
 attached to his name. The style is very tedious : it is 
 comically dull. It is impossible to exaggerate it in 
 caricature. You will bear with it for the sake of ob- 
 serving the multitude of other faults than obscurity 
 which burden a style made plethoric with words. 
 
 " All extei'nal objects are in theu* truest sense visible embodi- 
 ments or incarnations of divine ideas which are roughly sculptured 
 in the liard granite that underlies the living and breathing surface 
 of the world above ; penciled in delicate tracery upon each bark- 
 ilake that cnconipas.se.s the tree-trunk, each leaf lliat trembles in the
 
 LECT. X.] EXCESSIVE CONCISENESS. 15T 
 
 breeze, each petal that fills the air with fragrant effluence ; assum- 
 ing a living and breathing existence in the rhythmic throbbings of 
 the heart-pulse that urges the life-stream through the body of every 
 animated being; and attaining their greatest perfection in man, 
 who is thereby bound by the very fact of his existence to outspeak 
 and outact the divine ideas which are the true instincts of humanity, 
 before they are crushed or paralyzed by outward circumstances. 
 . . . Until man has learned to realize his own microcosmal being, 
 and will himself develop and manifest the god-thoughts that are 
 continually inbreathed into his very essential nature, it needs that 
 the creative ideas should be incarnated and embodied in every pos- 
 sible form, so that they may retain a living existence upon earth." 
 
 Have you ever seen a yellow fog hanging over a piece 
 of marshland, which makes the scenery look as if it had 
 the jaundice ? Like that is this specimen of style. If 
 the writer had deliberately set about the experiment of 
 overloading his thought with as many defects of diction- 
 as he could crowd into the given space, he could not 
 have succeeded better. Note the drawling length of 
 construction, the involutions of clauses upon clauses, 
 "Alps on Alps," the tautological repetitions, the com- 
 pound words, the new-fangled words, the straining after 
 eccentric words, and the sickliness of the general effect. 
 You find almost every style here but that of good taste 
 and good sense. Imagine its delivery in oral address on 
 a warm Sunday afternoon in July ! We may well com- 
 mend it to the chaplain of a nervine hospital, in which 
 patients congregate who are afflicted with insomnia. 
 
 6. A certain cause of obscurity in style is the oppo- 
 site of the one last named. It is excess of conciseness. 
 In moderate degree, as we have observed, conciseness is 
 an aid to precision, but in excess impairs it : so, in mod- 
 erate degree, conciseness promotes perspicuity, but in 
 excess clouds it. Hence arises the difficulty of translat- 
 ing sententious authors. Do you not remember how
 
 158 ENGLTSIT STYLE. [i.ect. x. 
 
 the style of Tacitus tried your patience? In all lan- 
 guages is found a class of autliors, who, like Tacitus, 
 lay too heavy a tax upon interpreters by the multitude 
 of their suppressed words. An excessively elliptical 
 style can not be a ver}^ clear style. 
 
 But it should be remarked, that, in oral speech, the 
 perspicuity of laconic utterance depends partly on elocu- 
 tion. Aided by an animated delivery, complete thoughts 
 may be conveyed by hints. A shrug of the shoulder 
 may express a thought without words. Pantomime may 
 be made transparent. An Italian talks with his fingers. 
 Some speakers can express more by their eyebrows than 
 by their tongues. Those parts of a sermon which admit 
 of these and other positive auxiliaries to utterance in 
 delivery may admit of an extreme of conciseness which 
 would be unintelligible without such auxiliaries. This 
 effect can not be jnit on tame discourse ; but, if the force 
 of thought admits it, delivery becomes the complement 
 of language. The hearer's receptive power is quickened. 
 Tone, look, gesture, attitude, mean as much to him 
 as words. Bold words, unqualified words, extravagant 
 words, the extreme of hyperbole, may not be misunder- 
 stood with such a commentary of action. False words 
 may not deceive : contradictions may be true. Of 
 American speakers on the platform, Mr. John B. Gough 
 presents a notable example of this tribute of elocution 
 to style. Mr. Gough in pantomime can express more 
 than some preachers who read without delivery.
 
 LECTURE XL 
 
 PERSPICUITY OF CONSTRUCTION. 
 
 A STUDIOUS writer, and especially one whose work 
 compels a careful adjustment of language to the recep- 
 tive powers of a mixed assembly, soon learns that the 
 perspicuity of style is vitally dependent on clearness 
 of construction. Construction is as vital to style as to 
 architecture. Stiffness of construction tends to obscu- 
 rity. Any thing unfriendly to the sense of ease is inimi- 
 cal to clearness. A hearer wearies of a measured drill 
 of diction in which sentences file out like the squads of 
 a regiment. INIonotony of construction tends to obscuri- 
 ty. It lulls the thinking power. It almost necessitates 
 monotone in delivery. Circumlocution in construc- 
 tion tends to obscurity. Did j^ou never discover the 
 cause of a certain dimness of impression in the want of 
 quick movement of discourse? The speaker's thought 
 is a stone in a sling from which it is never ejected. He 
 talks around, and around, and around ; yet you do not 
 see the upshot of the business. Abruptness of construc- 
 tion tends to obscurity. Why is Carlyle's "French 
 Revolution " hard reading ? Mainly because of the jerks 
 in style, by wliich English syntax is so rudel}' dealt with 
 that half your mental force is expended in re-adjusting 
 words to sense. Any defect which is pervasive in style 
 tends so far to defeat the object of speech. Yet very 
 little is achieved if criticism ends with such general ob- 
 
 159
 
 160 ENGLISH STYLE. [lect. xi. 
 
 servations as these. I must incur the risk of wearying 
 you by some specifications in detail. A few such will 
 at least illustrate the kind of criticism to which every 
 man should subject his own productions. 
 
 1. Recalling, also, the fact observed in a former Lec- 
 ture, that defects in precision of construction, and defects 
 in perspicuity of construction, are the same in kind, 
 differing only in degree, we may profitably note as one 
 source of obscurity a defective arrangement oi pronouns 
 and their antecedents. Alison the historian says of the 
 Russian soldiers, upon their entry into Dresden, " They 
 lay down to rest behind their steeds, picketed to the 
 walls, which had accompanied them from the Volga to 
 the Don." " Which " logically refers to " steeds," 
 grammatically to the " walls." Immediate proximity 
 does not always decide the natural connection between 
 a pronoun and its antecedent. A distant antecedent 
 sometimes by its prominence may displace the nearer 
 and the true one. Prior, in his " Life of Burke," 
 writes, " The war then exciting attention to the Ameri- 
 can Colonies as one of the chief points in dispute, they 
 came out in two volumes octavo." Who are " they " ? 
 He means that the chief points in dispute were then 
 published ; and so grammatical connection would indi- 
 cate. But the construction leads one to suppose that 
 the American Colonies were the publishers ; yet the 
 word " colonies " is the more remote antecedent. Prox- 
 imity, then, can not always be trusted to determine the 
 question. Dr. Chalmers, in a speech on Christian union, 
 says, " I am not aware of any topics of difference which 
 I do not regard as so many men of straw ; and I shall 
 be delighted if these gentlemen get the heads of the 
 various denominations together, and make a bonfire of 
 them.'''' Bonfire of what, or of whom? — of the "men
 
 LECT. XI.] PKONOUNS AND ANTECEDENTS. 161 
 
 of straw," or of the "heads of the denominations"? 
 Here, again, proximity does not settle the question. 
 The more remote antecedent is the true one. 
 
 Sometimes confusion is created by the repetition of 
 the same pronoun with different antecedents. Arch- 
 bishop Tillotson writes : " Men look with an evil eye 
 upon the good that is in others, and think that their rep- 
 utation obscures them, and that their commendable quali- 
 ties do stand in their light; and therefore they do what 
 they can to cast a cloud over them., that the shining of 
 their virtues may not obscure themy Who are " they "? 
 Who are "them"? What is "their"? What, who, 
 which, is any thing in this round-robin of pronouns? 
 A burlesque on grammatical antecedents could not be 
 more adroitly executed. 
 
 Sometimes this defect amounts to a blundering obli- 
 viousness of all antecedence. The following tearful 
 reproof was given by a judge of the State of New York 
 to a prisoner just convicted : " Prisoner at the bar, 
 nature has endowed you with a good education and 
 respectable family connections, instead of which you go 
 around the country stealing ducks." This is found 
 among the " Humors of the Day." But in what is it 
 essentially less elegant or accurate than the following, 
 from Loring's " Hundred Boston Orators " ? " William 
 Sullivan was grandson of John Sullivan, who came from 
 Ireland in a ship ivhich was driven by stress of weather 
 into a port on the coast of Maine, and settled at Ber- 
 wick." How did John Sullivan's ship reach Berwick? 
 Is Berwick one of the ports on the coast of Maine? 
 Again he writes: "His oration produced such a strong 
 impression, that it led to his election to the House of Rep- 
 resentatives, and was afterwards elected to the Senate." 
 Are orations eligible to the Senate in Massachusetts ?
 
 162 ENGLISH STYLE. [i.ect. xi. 
 
 This blundering in antecedence is often burlesqued 
 by Mr. Dickens. His colloquial pictures of low life are 
 full of it. In the extreme it marks the absolute absence 
 of culture. Bret Harte illustrates this in the " Heathen 
 Chinee." "Wljicli I wish to remark," says "truthful 
 James ; " and again, " which we had a small game." 
 
 This defect sometimes destroys, not only the finish of 
 an elegant style, but the very substance of the speaker's 
 meaning. The following incident in the history of the 
 United-States Senate will illustrate this : — 
 
 The 7th of March, 1850, was a critical date in the 
 career of Daniel Webster. He then delivered his last 
 great speech in the Senate. It was in defense of the 
 Fugitive-Slave Law. The country rang with denun- 
 ciations and defenses of that speech till he died. One 
 of the most effective anathemas upon it depended on 
 the antecedent of a pronoun. As reported at first, the 
 speech read thus : " Mr. Mason's bill, with some amend- 
 ments, ivhich I propose to support to its full extent." 
 This committed Mr. Webster to the bill as it then stood 
 with amendments then before the Senate. Some of 
 those amendments were deemed by antislavery men the 
 most atrocious features of the bill. " But," said Mr. 
 Webster, " I have been misreported. What I said was 
 this, ' Mr. Mason's bill, which, with some amendments, I 
 propose to support in its full extent.' " This committed 
 him to the bill indeed, but with amendments of his own, 
 which might ameliorate the bill, and render it less objec- 
 tionable to his constituents. His reputation with them 
 hung for a time upon the syntax of that one sentence. 
 The death of the great statesman two years later was 
 attributed by many to his loss of the nomination and 
 election to the Presidency. If this was true, his epitaph 
 might have been inscribed, with more truth than is com-
 
 LECT. XI.] ADJECTIVES AND ADVERBS. 163 
 
 mon to epitaphs, " Died of tlie dislocation of a relative 
 pronoun." 
 
 Few writers exist who do not sometimes blunder in 
 the adjustment of pronouns to their antecedents. Says 
 Reinhard, in his " Memoirs and Confessions," " I have 
 always had difficulty in making a proper use of pro- 
 nouns. Indeed, I have taken great pains so to use them 
 that ambiguity should be impossible, and yet have often 
 failed in the attempt." If a careful writer and a prac- 
 ticed critic often failed, what can be expected from a 
 reckless writer, to whom study of style appears con- 
 temptible ? 
 
 2. A similar source of obscurity in construction is a 
 defective arrangement of adjectives and adverbs. Adjec- 
 tives and adverbs are qualifying words. This is their 
 sole use. What do they qualify? is often a capital 
 inquiry, on which the whole sense depends. " Such was 
 the end of Murat at the premature age of forty-eight : " 
 so writes Mr. Alison. His construction does not make 
 sense : Murat's age could not be " premature." Did 
 he reach the fatal age of forty-eight in less time than 
 his contemporaries ? Alison means to say, " Such was 
 the premature end of Murat," etc. 
 
 " The command was reluctantly forced upon Prince 
 Eugene," he writes. Did Napoleon, then, act against his 
 own will? The historian says that, but the connection 
 shows that he did not mean that. He meant to say, 
 that the command was received with reluctance. Again 
 he writes, in speaking of Napoleon : " He could only live 
 in agitation ; he could only breathe in a volcanic atmos- 
 phere." That is to say, in agitation and in a volcanic 
 atmosphere, all that he could do was to live and to 
 breathe. Good sense is this, but just the sense which 
 Alison did not mean. Change the location of the ad-
 
 164 ENGLISH STYLE. [lect. xi. 
 
 verb, and you perceive what he did mean, " He could 
 live only in agitation ; he could breathe only in a 
 volcanic atmosphere." Once more : " When Napoleon's 
 sj^stem of government became unfortunate alone, it was 
 felt to be insupportable." Does he mean that it became 
 insupportable when misfortune found it without allies ? 
 Not at all. He means to say, " Only when Napoleon's 
 sj'stem of government became unfortunate, it was felt 
 to be insupportable." 
 
 The location of an adverb is one of the most perplex- 
 ing details of composition. One must have a very well 
 trained and quick taste to decide upon it intuitively 
 with uniform accuracy. Take, for example, the word 
 " only," which is sometimes adverbial, and sometimes 
 adjective, in its qualifying force. I select from Gib- 
 bon's History a sentence of moderate length, which 
 contains the word. Observe how many distinct mean- 
 ings may be obtained by simply sliding it gradually from 
 the beginning to the end of the sentence. 
 
 First, " Only they forgot to observe, that, in the first 
 ages of society, a successful war against savage animals 
 is one of the most beneficial labors of heroism ; " that 
 is, they did some things well, but one thing not well, — 
 " they forgot to observe," etc. Secondly, " They only 
 forgot to observe," etc. ; that is, either they were the 
 only persons who did so ; or, thirdl}', they did not 
 intentionally neglect the fact, they only forgot it. 
 Fourthly, " They forgot to observe, that only in the 
 first ages of society," etc. ; that is, there is but one 
 period in the history of society in which the fact ob- 
 served is true. Fifthly, " They forgot to observe, that, 
 in the first ages only of society^'' etc. ; that is, it is not 
 true in the ages preceding organized social life. Sixthly, 
 " They forgot to observe, that, in the first ages of society,
 
 tECT. XI.] LOCATION OF ADVERBS. 165 
 
 only a successful war against savage animals," etc. ; that 
 is, not war which is a failure. Seventhly, " They forgot 
 to observe, that, in the first ages of society, a successful 
 war only against savage animals," etc. ; that is, not a 
 war for their preservation. Eighthly, " They forgot to 
 observe, that, in the first ages of society, a successful 
 war against only savage animals," etc. ; that is, not a 
 war against animals of domestic use. Ninthly, " They 
 forget to observe, etc., war against savage animals is 
 only one of the most beneficial labors ; " that is, there 
 are other such labors of heroism. Tenthly, " They for- 
 got to observe, etc., a successful war against savage 
 animals is one of only the most beneficial labors of 
 heroism ; " that is, it is not to be deemed a labor of 
 inferior worth ; or, eleventhly, " They forgot to observe, 
 etc., that such a war is one of only the most beneficial 
 labors of heroism ; " that is, it is not to be regarded as 
 a pastime. Twelfthly, " The}* forgot to observe, that, 
 etc., is one of the most beneficial labors of heroism 
 only ; " that is, no virtue inferior to heroism is com- 
 petent to the task. 
 
 Here are no less than twelve distinct shades of 
 thought, not all of them elegantly, not all precisely, 
 but all perspicuously, expressed, with the aid of em- 
 phasis in the reading, by simply sliding one word 
 from point to point from the beginning to the end of 
 a sentence of but twenty-seven words. 
 
 It is said in one of our standard text-books on rheto- 
 ric, that it has been proved by experiment, that the 
 line in one of Gray's poems, 
 
 " The plowman homeward plods his weary way," 
 
 can by transposition be read in eighteen different ways 
 without losing good English sense. The words of the
 
 1G6 ENGLISH STYLE. [lect. xi. 
 
 line are susceptible of over five thousand different com- 
 binations. One writer adduces a sentence of which the 
 words are susceptible of four hundred and seventy-nine 
 millions of distinct combinations. A curious writer 
 transcribing them at the rate of a thousand a day 
 would complete the record in thirteen hundred and 
 twelve years. In the same proportion of grammatical 
 constructions to alphabetic combinations which exists 
 in the possibilities of the line from Gray, the elements 
 of this sentence would admit of more than seventeen 
 hundred thousand grammatical sentences. This illus- 
 trates the degree of peril to which a careless writer is 
 exposed, of saying what he does not mean. It illus- 
 trates, also, the difficulty which a critical writer may 
 experience in saying with perfect perspicuity what he 
 does mean. 
 
 De Quincey confirms this view. In some remarks on 
 the writings of St. Paul he observes : " People who have 
 practiced composition as much and with as vigilant an 
 eye as myself know also, by thousand of cases, how 
 infinite is the disturbance caused in the logic of a 
 thought b}^ the mere position of a word so despicable 
 as the word ' even.' . . . The station of a syllable may 
 cloud the judgment of a council." 
 
 3. Obscurity in construction may be caused by a 
 defective arrangement of the qualifying clauses of a 
 sentence. The laws which govern qualifying clauses 
 are the same with those which govern qualif^-ing words. 
 The danger of obscurity is therefore the same. " When 
 the foundation of the Pagan mythology gave way, the 
 whole superstructure, of necessity, fell to the ground : " 
 thus writes that " vigilant " writer De Quincey, in one 
 of his philosophical essays. Did the Pagan doctrine of 
 " necessity " depend on the Pagan mythology ? and did
 
 LECT. XI.] EMPHATIC CLAUSES. 167 
 
 he mean to say that ? He does say it. " I know not 
 how they can be saved from perishing there by famine, 
 without parliamentary assistance : " so writes Robert 
 Southey, in one of his letters. Did the absence of 
 parliamentary aid aggravate the evil of death by 
 starvation ? and did he mean to imply that ? He does 
 imply it. An affectionate farewell was that recorded 
 by an editor in Connecticut, who published the item of 
 local news, that a man down there " blew out his 
 brains, after bidding his wife good-by, with a shot- 
 gun." But enough : such constructions doom them- 
 selves. 
 
 4. Another occasion of obscure construction may be 
 a failure to express the true order of thought in the 
 emphatic portions of a sentence. We have just been 
 considering obscurity in secondary clauses. The same 
 evil often pervades the whole structure. The order of 
 succession is no order ; it jumbles the sense ; it is chaos. 
 Dr. Johnson writes : " This work in its full extent, beins: 
 now afflicted with the asthma, he had not the courage 
 to undertake." Who, what, which, had the asthma ? 
 An express-company advertises that it will not be re- 
 sponsible for loss by fire, or the acts of God, or Indians, 
 or other enemies of the government." East Tennessee 
 has a tombstone on which is inscribed this epitaph ; 
 " She lived a life of virtue, and died of cholera-morbus 
 caused by eating green fruit in the hope of a blessed 
 immortality. Go thou and do likewise." On a tomb- 
 stone in a churchyard in Ulster, Eng., is the following : 
 " Erected to the memory of John Phillips, accidentally 
 shot, as a mark of affection by his brother." 
 
 Who can solve the enigma, that epitaphs are such a 
 storehouse of rhetorical blunders ? Is the world of the 
 living in conspiracy to burlesque the dead ? The litera-
 
 168 ENGLISH STYLE. [lect. xi. 
 
 ture of the pulpit does not equal in this respect that of 
 the tombstone ; but that degree of clearness which is 
 essential to an elegant perspicuity is often sacrificed 
 in sermons by heedlessness of construction. It is no 
 sufficient apology for such errors that they are detected 
 as soon as seen. That is the acme of the evil : hearers 
 detect them as well. A public speaker needs such a 
 habit of mental command of construction, that he shall 
 unconsciously eject such blunders from his style in the 
 heat and swift movement of composition. Style must 
 be as nimble as thought. 
 
 5. Obscure construction is often due to an excessive 
 or careless use of ellipsis. " He must be an irreparable 
 loss to his family : " so writes Dr. Arnold, in a letter of 
 condolence. The error is not infrequent in the col- 
 loquial style of cultivated people. The ellipsis is un- 
 warrantable, for some such construction as this : " His 
 decease occasions an irreparable loss to his family." 
 " The French Government made great exertions to put 
 their navy on a respectable footing ; but all their efforts 
 on that element resulted in disaster." On what ele- 
 ment ? The writer, Mr. Alison, has named none in the 
 context. Alison's History abounds with such miscon- 
 structions : search for them anywhere ; you can not go 
 wrong. 
 
 A common instance of a careless use of ellipsis, which 
 calls for reconstruction, is found in certain forms of 
 inverted sentence. " Conscious of his own importance, 
 the aid of others was not solicited." The biographer 
 of Curran writes of him : " Eminent at the bar, it is in 
 Parliament we see his faculties in full development." 
 You can not parse these sentences by the rules of Eng- 
 lish s^^ntax. When the Rev. Dr. Harris was inaugurated 
 to the presidency of Bowdoin College, the clergyman
 
 LECT. XI.] USE OF ELLIPSIS. 169 
 
 appointed to deliver the address of induction began 
 thus : " Rev. Dr. Harris, sir, having been elected presi- 
 dent by the unanimous vote of the boards of trustees 
 and overseers of Bowdoin College, I come on their behalf 
 to induct you," etc. Grammatically this implies that the 
 orator appointed to give the address was the president- 
 elect. To express the real meaning with grammatical 
 precision, the whole sentence must be reconstructed, or 
 broken into two. 
 
 A frequent form of careless use of ellipsis occurs in 
 cases in which the phrases " the one " and " the other," 
 or " the former " and " the latter," are employed. Not 
 always are these forms obscure, but they always need 
 to be scrutinized. Specially if they are repeated in a 
 series of antithetic declarations, they need extreme care. 
 
 Another form of ellipsis which may easily degenerate 
 into obscure construction is that of a hj-pothetical ex- 
 pression of an alternative. An example must explain 
 this. " If this trade be fostered, we shall gain from 
 one nation ; and if another, from another." " If we 
 hold to the faith of the church, we shall have the con- 
 fidence of the church ; and if not, not." Such ellipses 
 as these carry the idiom to its extreme. The subject 
 must be very simple, and the thought very direct, to 
 render them perspicuous. We can not, for this reason, 
 exclude all extreme ellipses : we can only say that they 
 should be studiously, and not abundantly used. If such 
 a construction suggests a doubt of its clearness, let it 
 be abandoned. 
 
 In Fronde's " History of England " we find this sen- 
 tence : " Had Darnley proved the useful Catholic which 
 the Queen intended him to be, they would have sent 
 him to his account with as small compunction as Jael 
 sent the Canaanite captain ; or they would have blessed
 
 170 ENGLISH STYLE. [lect. xi. 
 
 the arm that did it, with as much eloquence as Deborah." 
 Grant White indicates the excessive omission of needed 
 words in this example by inquiring, " How small com- 
 punction did Jael send the Canaanite captain? What 
 degree of eloquence did the arm attain that did it with 
 as much as Deborah ? What was it ? How much elo- 
 quence was Deborah ? " Style which suggests such 
 blind queries is slovenly. The connection may prevent 
 obscurity, but not a loss of precision. Style in which 
 such looseness is indulged will often degenerate from 
 the loose to the obscure. The step between is not so 
 long as that between the sublime and the ridiculous. 
 
 6. A still further cause of obscurity in construction 
 is an abuse of the parenthesis. Parenthesis may cause 
 obscurity by its position. It may be so located as to 
 break the flow of sense. It may separate a verb from 
 its nominative by too large a hiatus. Some writers thus 
 put into an English sentence the peculiarities of Latin 
 syntax. A Roman ear could bear in this respect what 
 an English ear can not. A iDarenthesis is a chasm : 
 the hearer must be able to vault over it. Not all 
 hearers are agile enough to do that, if the position of 
 the parenthesis holds asunder vital and emphatic frag- 
 ments of the tliought. 
 
 Parenthesis, again, may cause obscurity by its length. 
 It is a digression. If it be of excessive length, it may 
 impair the recollection of that which went before, and 
 attention to that which comes after. One of the dif- 
 ficulties in interpreting the stjde of St. Paul in his Epis- 
 tle to the Ephesians is the abundance of parenthetical 
 inclosures of the inspired thought. Parenthesis may 
 also obscure the sense by the form of parenthesis witliin 
 a parenthesis. An amendment to an amendment, a 
 patch upon a patch, a wheel within a wheel, are bewil-
 
 LECT. XI.] ABUSE OF PARENTHESIS. 171 
 
 dering. Rarely is such an involuted style suited to oral 
 speech. 
 
 Abuse of parenthesis is one cause of the obscurity of 
 German constructions. A German sentence is often a 
 conglomeration, rather than an arrangement of materials. 
 It is voluminous rather than lucid. One critic says that 
 there are books in German which consist of one or two 
 enormous, overgrown, plethoric sentences. De Quincey 
 criticises the German sentence as an arch between the 
 rising and the setting sun. He declares that a sentence 
 by Kant was once measured by a carpenter, and found 
 to be a foot and eight inches long. When not paren- 
 thetic in form, a sentence may be so in fact. A reader 
 of it must make it so in order to deliver the sense well. 
 A multiplication of interdependent yet loosely jointed 
 clauses may have the effect of the extreme abuse of 
 parenthesis. To recur once more to the most affluent 
 source of rhetorical blunders, Alison's History, I select 
 the following ; viz., — 
 
 " Nations, like individuals, were not destined for im- 
 mortality." This is the thouglit in a nutshell. Now 
 observe how he expands it. " In their virtues equally 
 as their vices, their grandeur as their weakness, they 
 bear in their bosoms the seeds of mortality ; but in the 
 passions which elevate them to greatness, equally as 
 those which hasten their decay, is to be discerned the 
 unceasing operation of those principles at once of cor- 
 ruption and resurrection, which are combined in hu- 
 manity, and which, universal in communities as in single 
 men, compensate the necessary decline of nations by the 
 vital fire which has given an undecaying youth to the 
 human race." This passage has not one mark of paren- 
 thetic structure in punctuation, and it needs none ; but 
 its burden of dependent clauses with suspended sense
 
 172 ENGLISH STYLE. [lect. xr. 
 
 has the dead weight of parenthesis of the most cumbrous 
 form. The thought is obscure. Nothing else gives to 
 English style such a leaden weight of words as this 
 packing of suggested clauses into all the interstices of a 
 sentencQ. 
 
 7. Obscurity of construction may be caused also by 
 that figure of rhetoric which is technically termed " ana- 
 coluthon." Says Mr. Webster, in his apostrophe to 
 Gen. Warren, in the first oration at Bunker Hill, " Ah, 
 Him I How shall I struggle with the emotions which 
 stifle the utterance of thy name ? " So in the well-known 
 invective of Cicero, in his oration against Verres : " It 
 is an outrage to bind a Roman citizen, etc. ... to 
 crucify him — what shall I call it ? " The idioms of 
 all languages permit this figure of rhetoric when the 
 sentiment calls for it and the speaker means it. The 
 philosophy of it is clear. It implies a sudden overflow 
 of emotion beyond the confines of orderly grammati- 
 cal speech. Eloquence, in such examples, is like the 
 torrent of the Mississippi : it forces for itself abnor- 
 mal channels. But let the same license of speech be 
 adopted as a grammatical blunder, and it must pass for 
 that. If no emotion compels its use, no canons of 
 good taste tolerate its use. Few things are so fatal to 
 the transparency of style as the adoption of the impas- 
 sioned figures of speech when nothing in the thought 
 demands them. Such a style is oratorical abortion. 
 
 8. Finally, rhetorical construction may be made ob- 
 scure, or, if not obscure, not precise, by the combination, 
 in one sentence, of materials irrelevant to each other. 
 Proximity of thoughts in one sentence implies mutual 
 relationship. If none exists, that instinct of good hear- 
 ing which expects it is balked. It looks for the point 
 of connection, and can not find one. Through sheer
 
 LECT. XI.] niEELEV^\:JsT COXXECTIOXS. 173 
 
 misdirection of attention, the thought escapes. Says a 
 reporter, in giving an account of a case of suicide, " His 
 head was supported by a bundle of clothing, hut all 
 efforts to revive the vital spark were fruitless." This 
 is ludicrously inconsequent. But is it more so than the 
 following, from a certain historian who shall be name- 
 less ? " Tillotson was much beloved by King William 
 and Queen Mary, who appointed Dr. Tennyson to suc- 
 ceed him." Were Tillotson and Tennyson first-cousins? 
 If not, why should the two facts be recorded in the same 
 breath ? A reader instinctively searches for the latent 
 connection. 
 
 Artemus Ward burlesques this error by saying, " I 
 am an early riser, hut my wife is a Presbyterian." A 
 passable jest is this for Artemus Ward. But is it any 
 more inconsequent than the following ? " Their march 
 was through an uncultivated country, whose savage 
 inhabitants fared hardly, having no other riches than a 
 breed of lean sheep, whose flesh was rank and unsavory 
 by reason of their continual feeding upon seafish." 
 Plere we begin with the tramp of an army, and end with 
 the effect of a fish-diet on the quality of mutton. Let 
 an abstract and dignified subject be treated in the pul- 
 pit in a style composed of a succession of such sentences 
 as these, and you can easily imagine the effect on the 
 search of a hearer after latent connections. Herbert 
 Spencer's theor}^ of style is so far true as this, that all 
 attention of the hearer which is absorbed in the search 
 for relations which do not exist is so much abstracted 
 from relations which do exist. The result is a waste of 
 both thought and interest. We are never more sight- 
 less than when we are looking at nothing, yet struggling 
 to see something. 
 
 A single remark is suggested by this review of the
 
 174 ENGLISH STYLE. [lect. xi. 
 
 causes of obscurity in construction. It is, that the most 
 laborious and original thinkers have been the most faith- 
 ful critics of construction. Profound thought finds 
 such study a necessity to an expression of itself. John 
 Foster used to spend days on one sentence. He wrote, 
 rewrote, enlarged, contracted, transposed, till he satis- 
 fied his thought. He often discussed construction in 
 his correspondence with literary friends. He pursued 
 the study of style with an artist's enthusiasm. True, 
 that enthusiasm was excessive : he injured his style by 
 extreme elaboration. Yet it is doubtful whether much 
 of his thinking could have found expression otherwise. 
 The more he labored for exact expression, the more 
 thought he found wliich was worth expression. To tliis 
 is attributable the marvelous richness of some of his 
 essays. 
 
 On the contrary, negligent critics of construction be- 
 come by that very negligence indolent thinkers. The 
 habit soon grows of trying to express none but thoughts 
 wliich can be expressed with ease. One's thinking tends 
 always to the level of one's habit of utterance. First 
 thoughts in first forms become the staple of such a 
 one's productions. That is the very essence of common- 
 place. Such men in the pulpit decry elaborate preach- 
 ing, and are often suspiciously conscientious in doing so. 
 It can not be too deeply impressed on a youthful writer, 
 that style is thought. In the long-run, each will be the 
 gauge of the other. The study of style is the study of 
 thought. Original thought demands original style, 
 neither of which will come unbidden to a dormant or 
 an indolent mind.
 
 LECTURE XII. 
 
 EXCUKSUS. — THE INTELLECTUALITY OF THE PULPIT. 
 
 Befoee leaving the subject of perspicuity of style, an 
 excursus suggested by it demands attention. It is the 
 inquiry, What principles should regulate the degree 
 of intellectuality of the pulpit? This subject I have 
 partially discussed in another volume, under the title of 
 " Masterly Preaching," But a pastor often encounters 
 the question in a broader range, in which the very 
 existence of the Calvinistic ideal of the pulpit seems to 
 be called in question. I designate it as the Calvinistic 
 ideal of preaching, because it is chiefly in the Calvinis- 
 tic group of denominations that the most elaborate tj'pe 
 of homiletic discourse has found place. 
 
 Such discourse is often both assailed and defended 
 on grounds which open the question anew, and in its 
 most general form. Other questions are seen to be 
 vitally dependent on' this. "VVe can neither affirm nor 
 deny on those secondary topics, till we have deter- 
 mined the elementary principles by which the intellec- 
 tual level of the pulpit shall be adjusted. The question 
 whether certain subjects shall be discussed at all in the 
 pulpit, the question of certain methods of rhetorical 
 treatment, the question of transferring to the pulpit 
 certain lines of argument which are indispensable in 
 theological science, the question of a permanent as 
 compared with an itinerant ministry, the question of 
 
 175
 
 176 ENGLISH STYLE. [lect. xii. 
 
 evangelistic as related to pastoral preaching, even the 
 question of the length of sermons, and, back of all 
 these, the question what is a Cliristian sermon, — all 
 hinge more or less critically on the degree of intellec- 
 tuality which is permissible or necessary in the most 
 effective preaching. If there are any principles tend- 
 ing to a settlement of the general question, a young 
 pastor needs to consider them, and to do it early in his 
 ministry. That is a disastrous mistake, prolific of 
 regrets and self-reproaches, which a youthful preacher 
 makes, who tries to sustain his pulpit by a style of 
 preaching, which, intellectually measured, is either 
 beyond his right, or beneath his privilege. Short pas- 
 torates, lamentable failures, discouraging disgusts, are 
 the result of earl}^ blunders on this theme. They may 
 cast a blight over one's whole ministry. Let us, then, 
 endeavor to settle whatever may be settled by observ- 
 ing the following principles : — 
 
 1. The intellectualit}' of the pulpit should be such, 
 that the Scriptures shall be made intelligible and real 
 to the popular mind. This appears self-evident. If the 
 Scriptures are the word of God, they are designed for 
 the world and for all time. They must be assumed to 
 be fitted to the average intelligence of the world, and 
 this in all ages. It must be assumed, also, that they 
 are adapted to the subject of oral address. Preaching, 
 not printing, is the chief means of their dissemination. 
 
 Yet the Bible is, as a whole, the most profoundly 
 thoughtful book in all literature. It is a book of prin- 
 ciples which run under all history, all philosophy, all 
 political and social economy. It is a book of difficult 
 argumentation. It is a book of occult analogies and 
 correspondences. We characterize it as truthfully when 
 we pronounce it a book of mysteries as when we laud its
 
 LECT. xn.] BIBLICAL PREACHING. 177 
 
 simplicity. It comes to us as a revelation from Heaven. 
 It professes to disclose to us a segment of the history of 
 the universe. No human mind, unaided by supernatural 
 wisdom, could have framed such a compendium of the 
 principles of God's government. It is self-evident, then, 
 that no pulpit can be a genuine representative of the 
 volume, which stands on a low plane of intellectual 
 activity. Fearful gaps of inadequacy must exist in the 
 work of such a pulpit. The most severe and intricate 
 labor ever undertaken by the mind of man is that of 
 projecting such a revelation into the mental and moral 
 history of a race of beings who are filled with moral 
 antipathies to its spirit, and doing this mainly by the 
 art of oral speech. In the achievement of such a work, 
 the purely intellectual uplifting of mankind is the great 
 miracle of popular education. It is in keeping with 
 such a work, that no human mind should ever have 
 originated it without the help of miraculous inspiration, 
 and that none can expect success in it without the help 
 of divine illumination. 
 
 Estimated thus from the intellectual groundwork of 
 the Bible, preachiug must of necessity be a supremely 
 intellectual work. Whatever else it is, it must be this. 
 Genuine preaching, viewed in the sum total of one's 
 ministry, can be nothing less ; and genuine hearing of 
 the gospel can be nothing less. It ought never to be 
 a work of mental luxury, either to preach or to hear a 
 revelation from Heaven. Either hearing or preaching 
 which is such a luxury is presumptively defective. 
 
 2. The intellectual quality of preaching should be 
 such as to satisfy the intellectual cravings of a Chris- 
 tianized people. The pulpit must recognize the civil- 
 izing power of Christianity over the general mind. 
 Certain results of religious regeneration are purely
 
 178 ENGLISH STYLE. [le(t. xn 
 
 intellectual. Tastes are created by spiritual renewal 
 which are not at all essential to salvation. The think- 
 ing power of regenerate mind is put to high service, and 
 fired by intense motives : therefore that power is often 
 reduplicated in volume. A taste for thoughtful dis- 
 course, for logical discourse, for the proof of things, 
 for truth in lofty forms, and intricate combinations, 
 and imaginative beauty, — I say, a taste for this supe- 
 rior exercise of intellect is created by the normal action 
 of Christianity upon a regenerated mind. It is purely 
 a craving of intellect. Souls can be saved on a lower 
 plane of intellectual culture. But God's method of 
 working is to lift the race, in the process of redemp- 
 tion, up to the highest plane of being of which the sub- 
 jects of it are capable under the conditions of probation. 
 
 The principle involved in this method is illustrated 
 in other departments of divine procedure. It discloses 
 itself in one of the fundamental laws of phj-sical well- 
 being. Physical health excites a craving for physical 
 exercise. Strength in the arm incites desire to use the 
 arm. The young of all animals crave brisk motion for 
 its own sake. A lamb skips because it can skip. An 
 antelope leaps because it can leap. Consciousness of 
 power rouses the will to use power. So, in the moral 
 world, regeneration elevates intellectual power, and 
 with that, under purely natural law, comes the desire 
 to put that power to use ; and hence arises a craving for 
 such materials of thought as shall demand its use. 
 
 The Christian pulpit must recognize this law of the 
 working of regenerate mind. Natural cravings under 
 the elevating and refining power of Christianity must 
 be satisfied. This can not be done without a pulpit of 
 broad intellectual vision. Specially should it be noted 
 that this demands a growing and progressive pulpit.
 
 LECT. xn.] EELIGIOUS AWAKENINGS. 179 
 
 From age to age, from generation to generation, from 
 an ancient to a modern phase of civilization, the pulpit 
 must receive constant increments of intellectual force, 
 if it is to meet, and utilize faithfully, the natural fruits 
 of its own work. The pulpit of a past age can not be 
 in this respect the model for the pulpit of this age, 
 unless Christian thought has in the mean while made 
 no progress. He would not be a wise bishop now who 
 should imitate Archbishop Tillotson in excluding from 
 his sermons every thing which his servant-maid could 
 not understand. Homiletic rules respecting simplicity 
 and intellectuality in preaching, which fitted the church 
 of five centuries ago, ought not, in the natural course 
 of things, to regulate the preaching of to-day. The 
 presumption is, that those rules are antiquated. St. 
 Paul's distinction between " milk " for " babes " and 
 "meat" for "men" is an expressed recognition of this 
 principle of the civilizing power of Christianity as 
 aifecting the intellectual character of the pulpit. 
 
 3. The intellectual quality of preaching should be 
 such as to balance the emotional excitements which Chris- 
 tian truth is fitted to produce. One of the profoundest 
 laws of our being, a law the violation of which is most 
 disastrous to the spiritual economy, is that of proportion 
 between emotion and thought. Distortion ensues, if 
 that proportion is seriously disturbed. Christian truth 
 is fitted to awaken the most intense emotions of which 
 our nature is susceptible. It may be so preached as 
 to create admirable material for fanatic excitements. 
 Those elements of our theology M'hich appeal to fear 
 are in their nature overwhelming. Acting on minds 
 of a certain susceptibility, those which appeal to hope 
 are equally so. The supernaturalism of Christianity is 
 capable of such abuses as to overpower reason. It can
 
 180 ENGLISH STYLE. [lect. xn. 
 
 be SO preached, that its natural effect shall be morbid 
 alternation between ecstasy and despair. Add to its 
 natural forces, when thus unbalanced, the auxiliary- 
 power of sympathy in great assemblies, of the expect- 
 ant mood in listening to preachers of great reputation, 
 and of novelty in the succession of religious stimulants, 
 and the result may be a conflagration of the religious 
 emotions. 
 
 I am unable to resist the historic evidence, that some 
 of the evils attendant and consequent upon the " Great 
 Awakening," in the time of President Edwards, which 
 he deplored, and struggled in vain to control, were, in 
 part, the fruit of the preaching of some of his contem- 
 poraries, and might have been reasonably anticipated. 
 Christian theology is a system fitted in the forms of oral 
 speech to command large audiences, and, under certain 
 conditions, to make them frantic with irrational feeling. 
 Its very power to produce the extreme of good involves 
 the power to produce the opposite extreme, of evil. 
 Tempestuous preaching of half-truths will often set 
 the pulpit to rocking on the billows of popular excite- 
 ment, and leave it there. Then religious emotions 
 degenerate into religious passions ; and, among an un- 
 cultured people, religious passions and animal passions 
 lie in close affinity. Such is the testimony of expe- 
 rience. 
 
 The natural command of Christian truth over our 
 emotive nature furnishes a principle, therefore, by which 
 to gauge the degree of intellectuality in preaching. The 
 natural counterpoise to emotion is thought. The natu- 
 ral balance to the working of stimulated and compli- 
 cated feeling is an accumulated and quickened force 
 of the thinking power. Aside altogether from the mate- 
 rial of thought, the thinking process is a conservative
 
 LECT. xn.] THOUGHT PEOPOETIONED TO FEELING. 181 
 
 process. It tends to keep the emotions in equilibrium. 
 In a moment of sudden and passionate impetuosity of 
 feeling, a self-poised mind instinctively says, "Let me 
 think." The same is the instinct, in a large assembly, 
 of that which we term the common sense. What is 
 common sense ? It is the collective mind in equipose. 
 A speaker who would control, and bend to use, a state 
 of paroxysmal emotion in a great audience, urges them 
 to " stop and think." A crowd in a panic is saved, if 
 one of nature's leaders is at hand, who can induce them 
 to stand still, and give the common sense a chance to 
 be heard in calm thinking. Gen. Garfield in New York, 
 on the day of the assassination of President Lincoln, 
 stilled the rage of the surging populace by uttering a 
 great biblical truth, the very words of which subdued 
 passion into thought : "Clouds and darkness are round 
 about him." It was the still voice of God. 
 
 This, then, is a regulative principle to the intellectu- 
 ality of preaching. Proportion it always to the existing 
 state of emotional excitement. The more successfully 
 the pulpit produces its normal effect upon the sensibili- 
 ties of hearers, the more heavily should it tax their 
 thinking power. In practice this principle will work in 
 two ways. On the one hand, it will forbid merely 
 stimulative appliances to an audience which is already 
 tremulous with excitement ; and, on the other hand, it 
 will forbid as imperatively the accumulation of merely 
 intellectual appliances upon an audience which is spir- 
 itually dying under its own somnolence. 
 
 If the Calvinistic pulpit has committed any radical 
 error in development of its theory of preaching, it has 
 been that of contenting itself with athletic intellectual 
 force in times of spiritual decline. When the heart of 
 a church has fallen asleep, and the ingathering of a
 
 182 ENGLISH STYLE. [lect. xn. 
 
 youthful constituency has well-nigh ceased, the phenom- 
 enon has been sometimes witnessed, of a ministry strain- 
 ing itself to the utmost in defense and in development 
 of speculative othodoxy, perhaps in hot controversy 
 with skepticism, with no alarms and no pains at the 
 spectacle of a slumbering church and a dying world. 
 That is war upon the fitness of things. It is labor 
 against the natural conditions of success. Preaching 
 on the Westminster Catechism to an audience in which 
 the gray heads are unnaturally numerous is ominous of 
 evil. A mass of spiritually torpid mind ought not to 
 be crowded with the most ponderous intellectual weights 
 from the pulpit above. Such mind needs first the awa- 
 kening of its emotive nature. That is best achieved by 
 the zealous preacliing of a few simple facts of biblical 
 truth. Men in that condition do not need an intellectual 
 uplifting. They need rather to be made to feel the 
 truths they know. A zealous rather than a profound 
 pulpit is the need of the hour. 
 
 On the other hand, a mass of spiritually live mind 
 should not be crowded by excessive hortation from the 
 pulpit. Such mind needs the more profound and in- 
 tricate truths of Christianity. The most simple, direct, 
 emotional preaching should be in times of spiritual 
 decline or of stationary experience ; the most elaborate 
 preaching, with only possible exceptions, in times of 
 religious awakening. If men are trembling with pas- 
 sionate excitement, set them to thinking. Give them 
 sermons which they can not understand without think- 
 ing. But if men are surfeited with religious knowl- 
 edge, strong in religious beliefs, and are living calmly 
 on an inherited faith, luxuriating in a history of Chris- 
 tian culture, then probe their sensibilities. Preach to 
 them incisive and trenchant sermons. Preach that
 
 LECT. xn.] INSPIRED EXAIVIPLES. 183 
 
 which they can not listen to with calm intellectual 
 assent, and no more. So preach, that heart shall quicken 
 heart. Give them truth under a baptism of fire. 
 
 Look, for illustration, at the contrast between the 
 prophetic and the apostolic ideals of preaching. The 
 prophets lived chiefly in decadent periods of the Jew- 
 ish Church. They were, for the most part, reformers : 
 therefore their preaching was very simple, not original, 
 largely hortator3\ A prophetic discourse was often one 
 unbroken roll of thundering denunciation : it was filled 
 with impassioned apostrophe and commination. The 
 apostles, on the contrary, lived in a time of religious 
 awakening. They ministered to a pentecostal age. 
 They addressed the church when "first called Christian," 
 in the fervor of its ardent infancy. Spiritual life was 
 young, buoyant, jubilant, and, if need were, heroic : 
 therefore their preaching was largely upon the most 
 profound and difficult truths of a new religion. Then 
 was the time chosen for laying the foundations of that 
 which time developed into the most elaborate system of 
 theology the world has known. It was one which has 
 given character to the most splendid literatures and 
 philosophies in history. 
 
 The theory here illustrated is confirmed by the fact, 
 that, in all subsequent periods, the preaching which has 
 swayed the most powerful awakenings of the church to 
 new forms of religious life, which has probed the sensi- 
 bilities of men most profoundly, yet has kept them most 
 true to the ideal of a divine life, and most free from 
 crotchets in belief and from fanatical eccentricities, has 
 been of the apostolic type. It has been rich in intel- 
 lectual resources, doctrinal, argumentative, original. It 
 has been preaching which required thinking in the deliv- 
 ery and in the hearing.
 
 184 ENGLISH STYLE. [f.ect. xii. 
 
 Tlie principle, then, is apt to all times : proportion the 
 intellectual quality of preaching to the state of emo- 
 tional excitement, and you can not fail to meet, in this 
 respect, the wants of all varieties of spiritual condition. 
 Test the principle by your own observation of the spir- 
 itual history of churches and communities. Do you not 
 sometimes see a state of spiritual deadness prolonged 
 and deepened by an excess of intellectual elaboration 
 in the pulpit? Do you not as frequently see a revival 
 of religion diluted and finally checked, if not perverted 
 into fanatic vagaries, by an excess of unthoughtful hor- 
 tation in the pulpit ? When the Infinite JNIind is in spe- 
 cial converse with the minds of men, then is the time 
 when both preacher and hearer need to summon into 
 service their best intellectual resources. Days of Pente- 
 cost demand " great sermons." 
 
 4. The intellectual character of preaching should be 
 such as to assist the tendenc}^ of popular thought to sys- 
 tematize Christian truth. The fact is often overlooked 
 in our study of the conditions of success in preaching, 
 that the human mind craves system in its faith respect- 
 ing any thing which profoundly concerns it. Any thing 
 which men care enough about to make it the subject of 
 a settled faith, they crave in the forms of systematic 
 faith. In India, where the transmigration of souls is a 
 cardinal doctrine of religion, the treatment of animals 
 is reduced to a most elaborate and reticulated system. 
 Under the Mosaic institutions, personal cleanliness had 
 a profound symbolic meaning. Therefore ablutions of 
 the body were systematized as a part of Jewish theology. 
 Beginning in fragmentary belief, any popular religion 
 tends always to work out for itself a system. It craves 
 self-consistency. It builds on logic. It reaches after 
 truth in link with truth. All prolonged and earnest
 
 XECT. xn.] SYSTEMATIC FAITH. 185 
 
 thinking on religious themes drifts towards this con- 
 cinuity of structure. Fluid at first, the popular faith is 
 sure to crystallize. 
 
 This craving for system is no peculiarity of educated 
 minds. Illiterate minds, as well, feel the pulsations of 
 it, whether they succeed or not in the eye of theologic 
 science in producing a rounded theologic mechanism. 
 They will struggle after something which they believe 
 to be in a measure rounded and equipoised. The popu- 
 lar mind is restless till it finds something which satis- 
 fies this innate longing for a constructed faith. Little 
 as the people read systems of divinity, every spiritually 
 quickened mind is naturally a builder of systematic the- 
 ology. All men make systems if they care enough 
 about religious truth to believe any thing in earnest. 
 Men who think to a purpose do not think in dreams. 
 
 This is a condition of the popular mind which the 
 pulpit ought to meet, and to which it ought to render 
 an effective aid. The natural hel^^ers of the people in 
 the work of systematizing their religious knowledge are 
 the pastoral clergy. Yet that is a work which the clergy 
 can not do without a lofty ideal of intellectual preach- 
 ing. Every pastor of long service among one people 
 should preach in substance a theological sj'stem. To do 
 it, he must rise above the humbler range of homiletic 
 effort. Like St. Paul, he must preach things " hard to 
 be understood." Like the apostle at Troas, he must 
 sometimes be " long preaching," even to the discomfort 
 of some sleepy hearers like Eutychus. He must deliver 
 many sermons, modeled rather on the Epistle to the 
 Romans than on the Hebrew Psalmody or the Christian 
 Beatitudes. Is not this an obvious half-truth by which 
 a preacher's straining to simplify his pulpit needs to be 
 qualified ?
 
 186 ENGLISH STYLE. [lect. xn. 
 
 5. The intellectuality of preaching should preserve a 
 certain equality with the intellectual awakening of the 
 age. Not only is " milk " fitted to " babes," and " meat " 
 to " men " individually. There are also infantile ages 
 and virile ages. The preaching of the middle ages, when 
 few but clergymen, and only a minority of them, could 
 read and write, must have been a very different thing 
 from the preaching which prevailed at the date of the 
 revival of letters. A general quickening of mind can 
 not but have authority in giving intellectual character 
 to any institution which assumes to be a guide to popu- 
 lar thought. We utter a truism in saying that it will 
 never do for the pulpit to fall behind the times in intel- 
 lectual force. Rather should it lead the times in reli- 
 gious inquiry. And its right to lead depends on its 
 power to lead. In matters in which the popular mind 
 needs leadership, might is right. An imbecile right to 
 leadership is a contradiction. 
 
 The bearing of this principle upon the pulpit of our 
 own age is obvious. Ours is beyond all precedent an 
 age of intellectual awakening. The revival of letters 
 from the fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries was in- 
 fantile, in the comparison, with the general uplifting of 
 the human mind in all the great nations of our times. 
 Ours is not an age of faith. Indeed, a general awaken- 
 ing of national minds never took place before. Intel- 
 lectual quickenings of former times were restricted to 
 select classes. The Elizabethan age in English letters 
 left the masses of the English people where it found 
 them, — immersed in ignorance and brutality. The 
 creation of such a mind as Shakspeare made less im- 
 pression on the popular tastes than a bear-baiting at 
 Smithfield. The idea of a popular education and a 
 popular literature is of recent origin ; and this for the
 
 LECT. XII.] POPULAR INDEPENDENCE. 187 
 
 very good reason that a reading populace or a reading 
 peasantry is of recent origin. 
 
 The fact is a vital one also to the pulpit, that popular 
 religious inquiry does not keep itself on a level with 
 popular faith. Ours is an age of inquiry rather as the 
 antagonist of faith than its auxiliary. It is not an age 
 of still and reverent receptivity towards the pulpit,- or 
 any other oracle of belief. The popular attitude to- 
 wards all oracular teaching is that of an independence 
 which leans over hard upon defiance. " Who are you ? 
 Are not we the people?" is the salutation which the 
 popular mind now gives to anybody who assumes to 
 instruct and direct it. Inquiry asserts itself as a pro- 
 test against beliefs obsolete and obsolescent. Any man 
 who now assumes to be a leader of men works over a 
 furnace in which the elements melt with fervent heat. 
 Elements antagonistic and explosive lie in perilous 
 proximity. 
 
 The pulpit of such an age must clearly be an intel- 
 lectual power, or nothing. What precisely do we mean 
 by this? Not that the pulpit must preach science, 
 philosophy, politics, reform, — the things about which 
 the age is so wide-awake and so polemic ; but in its 
 own proper sphere, as an institution of religion, it must 
 be sympathetic with the popular awakening. It must 
 be, and be seen to be, the peer of other intellectual 
 forces of the age. That is an ominous state of things 
 in which the other liberal professions fall out of sym- 
 pathy with the clergy as an order of cultivated men. 
 That is a capital error in which the province of the 
 pulpit is restricted even to the middle strata of society. 
 The pulpit should know no such thing as social stratum. 
 If none should be deemed too low for its teaching, none 
 should be deemed too high. In its proper sphere it
 
 188 ENGLISH STYLE. [lect. xn. 
 
 should be an authority to all. On this lofty table-land 
 it must stand in the popular esteem, or nowhere. Men 
 will not sustain it as an historic monument commemora- 
 tive of the beliefs of the past. As such, its claim to 
 authority will be scouted as an impertinence. 
 
 On a moderate scale, but a very significant one, we 
 have an illustration of this in the decline of the plat- 
 form among us as a means of religious instruction and 
 inspiration. Time was, when the anniversaries of the 
 great organizations which the American church has 
 made the almoners of her charities were to the religious 
 public what the week of the Passover was to the ancient 
 Hebrews. Some of us have seen a crowd of a thousand 
 and more people standing in the street for an hour at 
 twilight, waiting for the doors to open for a meeting of 
 the American Tract Society. The magnates of the 
 church deemed themselves honored by an invitation to 
 speak upon its platform. Now the entire audiences of 
 four or five such societies in one metropolitan center 
 scarcely exceed a thousand ; and the American Tract 
 Society — what is it, and where ? I mean no disparage- 
 ment of that venerable institution. It is doing its 
 ancient work, perhaps, more efficiently than ever. But, 
 in respect to this point of the influence of the religious 
 platform, it participates in the common decadence. The 
 eloquence of the platform in that sort of service is obso- 
 lescent. The pulpit will slide down the same plane if 
 it suffers itself to fall below the general level of the age 
 in intellectual force. Its downward momentum will be 
 all the more rapid for the weight of historic prestige 
 which it carries. Napoleon judged men shrewdly when 
 he said, that, in the long-run, the world is ruled by the 
 preponderance of intellectual being, — so much intellect, 
 so much power. Nothing in the divine methods of pro-
 
 LECT. xii.] PREACHING AND INFIDELITY. 189 
 
 ceclure exempts religious institutions from the operation 
 of this law. 
 
 6. The pulpit should be so administered in respect to 
 intellectual ability as to command the jjopular confidence 
 in it as the swperior of infidelity. What does this require 
 of the pastoral clergy? Not that they should inces- 
 santly fling the gage of battle to infidelity on the Lord's 
 Day. But in place of that two things are essential. 
 
 One is, that, whenever a preacher does attempt to con- 
 trovert skepticism, he should do it in a masterly way. 
 He must be, and be seen to be, at home in handling its 
 strong points and its latest forms of argument. He 
 must speak as one who has lived through the fascina- 
 tions of a suspense of faith. On rare occasions he 
 should so preach on the strong points of infidelity as to 
 make the impression that he knows them by heart, and 
 a great deal more. A thorough-bred preacher can pre- 
 sent a more imposing array of argument against his own 
 faith than skepticism ever dreamed. From that under- 
 ground of a faith below faith, he should seem to be able 
 to toss up the batteries of infidelity to the sky. He 
 should make the impression that beneath his own 
 silence there is nothing that he fears. 
 
 Yet it is a truism, that no preacher can make this im- 
 pression without being the master which he assumes to 
 be, nor without putting robust intellectual power into 
 his sermons. Modern infidelity is an intellectual giant 
 in comparison with any thing in the infidel records of 
 the past. It is to the infidelity of history, in many 
 respects, what the Copernican is to the Ptolemaic as- 
 tronomy. It is learned in resources, shrewd in tactics, 
 well informed in the Cliristian argument, vigilant of 
 its weak points, self-possessed in assurance, and, withal, 
 morally earnest in spirit. It seeks, and not without
 
 190 ' ENGLISH STYLE. [lect. xn. 
 
 fascinating reasons, to establish the ethics of the Bible 
 without the God of the Bible. He must be a citizen of 
 no mean city who shall cope successfully with such a 
 foe. It is time for the pulpit to cease confounding infi- 
 delity with depravity. We should have done with the 
 stories of infidel death-beds. For the purpose for which 
 they are commonly used, all pith has been taken out of 
 them by the testimony of intelligent physicians. As 
 argument for one thing or another, they go for nothing. 
 And an argument which goes for nothing goes for less 
 than nothing : it is a reason for the contrary. 
 
 The other thing needed in the equipment of the pul- 
 pit for its encounter with infidelity, is, that the average 
 of preaching on other subjects should be of such intel- 
 lectual force as to suggest the ability of the preacher 
 to cope with infidelity if summoned to the front. The 
 credit of the pulpit with the people depends largely on 
 their faith in what it can do. In the majority of con- 
 gregations there are no infidels. Men abandon public 
 worship before they surrender their inherited beliefs. 
 A preacher, therefore, may not in half a lifetime be 
 driven by the necessities of his people to challenge 
 infidelity to the battle directly. But by indirection 
 he needs to gain the prestige of ability to do it. That 
 prestige he must gain from the average of intellectual 
 force, of learning, and of logical integrity, which be- 
 comes visible in his ordinary sermons. A sermon to 
 children may give hints of ability to instruct philoso- 
 phers. An exposition of the Lord's Prayer to a Bible- 
 class may furnish suggestions of learning sufficient to 
 interpret the first chapter of Genesis to a company of 
 geologists. Though uttering never a word in direct 
 assault upon infidel error, a preacher may legitimately 
 create in his hearers the conviction that he is a man
 
 LECT. xn.] PROTECTION OF THE PULPIT. 191 
 
 whom infidels will wisely let alone- The battle is more 
 than half gained in the hands of a chief who obviously 
 can gain it. We do not need to witness the rush of 
 the combatants, and hear the blare of trumpets and the 
 clash of arms, if we can see where the strongest bat- 
 talions are. The pulpit needs this Napoleonic mastery 
 of the situation. 
 
 7. The intellectual dignity of the pulpit should be 
 such as to enable it to dispense with all varieties of protec- 
 tive authority. The spirit of our times is indubitable in 
 its drift towards the exclusion of the clergy from every 
 form of protection not inherent in their own character 
 as men and their ability as leaders of men. Never 
 before was the right of leadership thrown back so abso- 
 lutely upon the power of leadership as now. He will 
 lead who can lead ; no other. Not only are the bald 
 forms of union between Church and State obsolete 
 among us, but those social usages, and the silent defer- 
 ence which that union gave birth to, and which once 
 gave to the clerical profession a prestige not awarded to 
 kindred orders, are obsolescent. The pendulum now 
 swings to the opposite extreme. Often a preacher does 
 not receive the deference to which, as a cultured man, 
 he is fairly entitled. Dr. Chalmers, on certain occa- 
 sions, concealed the badge of his profession. 
 
 The last thirty years have witnessed a silent change 
 in one point of clerical prerogative, which, though not 
 of vital moment in itself, is still a very bright straw, 
 significant of the popular drift. I refer to the fact that 
 the clerical guild is no longer the recognized sponsor 
 for its own membership. The time was, and not long 
 ago, when the choice of pastors to vacant pulpits was 
 largely determined by clerical advice. Rarely does any 
 important church submit its action to such counsel now.
 
 192 ENGLISH STYLE. [lect. xn. 
 
 The democratic spirit of the Congregational polity is in 
 this resjject pervading — shall we say infecting — the 
 usages of more conservative sects. A Presbyterian 
 synod, a Reformed classis, an Episcopal bishop, have 
 not now the prerogative they once had to give to a 
 clergyman rank and employment in the pulpit. Even 
 the Methodist bench of bishops, whose word theoreti- 
 cally assigns to every ecclesiastical inferior his place of 
 service among a silent and acquiescent flock, find their 
 authority often overruled by democratic hints, which 
 they judge it not conducive to the welfare of the church 
 to ignore. 
 
 This change has an unmistakable meaning. It is that 
 the pulpit is cut loose from any and every adventitious 
 support. It must stand on its own bottom. The preach- 
 ing power of the land must pass for what it is. Its pres- 
 tige with the people is just what itself creates. If it is 
 never less, it certainly is never more. Under such con- 
 ditions, no pulpit can stand which does not deserve to 
 stand. None can stand which has not such breadth and 
 weight of intellectual resources as to command the 
 respect of a wakeful and thoughtful age. The pulpit 
 must come under the same complications which test the 
 strength of other professions. Humanly speaking, it 
 must take its chances. Think what we may of it, this 
 is one of the fixed conditions of success in the pulpit of 
 the future. Wise men will accept it without revolt. 
 Strong men will face it without alarm. The men who 
 can face it are the men whom the world wants. They 
 are the men to whom it will render that obeisance, 
 which, in the long-run, the inferior must for ever pay to 
 the superior mind. The thing which ought to be will 
 be. 
 
 8. The intellectual quality of the pulpit should be
 
 LECT. XII.] ALLIANCE WITH THE HOLY GHOST. 193 
 
 such as to be in close afiSnity with the intellectual dig- 
 nity of the ivork of the Holy Ghost in the salvation of 
 men. A chill of repulsion may be felt momentarily 
 from the thought that the Spirit of God is careful for 
 degrees of intellect in his service. Has he not chosen 
 weak things to confound the mighty ? Has he not 
 ordained that foolish things shall confound the wise ? 
 In the working of an Infinite Mind, where is the wis- 
 dom of this world ? True ; but here we have to deal 
 with balanced elements. We destroy an equipose which 
 God never disturbs, if we put asunder the simplicity 
 and the grandeur of God's word. Its transparency and 
 its mystery should be held with even hand. 
 
 The fact vital to the present purpose is, that the work 
 of the Holy Spirit, without which the pulpit is but 
 sounding brass, is a work which deals with spiritual 
 immensities. It is a work of Spirit upon spirit. An 
 eternal Spirit broods over an immortal spirit. It has to 
 do with the most profound and unfathomable principles 
 of which the human mind can conceive. Regarded 
 solely in their intellectual reach, as thoughts which 
 the mind of man must grasp, and hold close in faith, 
 they are truths which impose silence on the awestruck 
 listener. 
 
 Observe this as illustrated in that revolutionary 
 change which takes place in spiritual conversion. The 
 subject of such a transformation comes into possession 
 of great thoughts. They are profoundly disciplinary 
 and creative in their re-action upon mental faculty. 
 They often seem to the believer to open an unexplored 
 world. Astronomers, measuring the orbits of the stars, 
 and laboring to express, in numbers whose very magni- 
 tude makes them insignificant, the speed with which 
 light travels, do not have to deal with thought so oppres-
 
 194 ENGLISH STYLE. [lect. xii. 
 
 sive in its grandeur to the human intellect as are those 
 elemental ideas which a human being revolves in that 
 hour of suspended destiny in which he asks and answers 
 the question, "What must I do to be saved?" 
 
 A philosopher and a child alike must ask and answer 
 the great inquiry. Each one must ask and answer it in 
 his own moral solitude. There is a converse with God 
 in the process, which calls after it communion with all 
 other infinite and eternal things. 
 
 Let us pursue a little farther this line of suggestion 
 by observing the working of the Holy Ghost in the 
 religious quickening of elect nations and races. There 
 we discern on an imperial scale the same creation of 
 great thoughts, and arousing of thinking power. Great 
 religious awakenings and reformations set in motion 
 upheavals of national minds, and put them upon the 
 track of intellectual discovery. Long-buried truths are 
 exhumed. Lost arts are rediscovered. Occult principles 
 of immeasurable reach leap into the light. New ideas 
 which wise men have labored for come suddenly into 
 the possession of the common mind. Thinkers wide 
 apart in point of locality give utterance to them simulta- 
 neously. The very air seems full of revelations. Great 
 men are created in resplendent clusters. The hearts of 
 nations throb with the lifeblood set in motion by new 
 ideas. Races elected to great deeds come to the front, 
 and take the lead of the world. Then follows a golden 
 age. Such phenomena attended and succeeded the 
 awakening of Europe at the epoch of the Reformation. 
 Thoughtful men looked on in awestruck silence at the 
 wonder-working of God. 
 
 When the Holy Spirit thus wakens nations from the 
 sleep of centuries, he employs, with other instrumentaK- 
 ties, tliat of the Christian pulpit. Among the great
 
 LECT. xn.] WASTE IN DOING GOOD. 195 
 
 powers which thus upheave the world are found great 
 preachers. The thoughts which then regenerate the 
 nations are chiefly religious thoughts. Any preacher 
 called of God to the work of such a period steps into 
 an arena crowded to overflowing with quickened intel- 
 lect. He is the herald of the great truths which agitate 
 men's souls. He handles the great discoveries in which 
 men feel God's nearness. The resultant truth, there- 
 fore, to which these reflections tend, is, that, in such alli- 
 ance with God, a preacher has no right to do a weak or 
 a little thing. He has no right to degrade such truths 
 by his methods of speech. He has no right to give to 
 them the driveling of an indolent mind. On such a 
 theme, for instance, as that of the incarnation, it is 
 an impertinence and an irreverence to preach a feeble 
 sermon. Better silence on such a subject than incom- 
 petence. There is a certain dignity of mental process 
 below which the pulpit ought never to fall, because of 
 its alliance with the working of the Holy Ghost. The 
 abortions of sensational preaching, the conceits of 
 clerical mountebanks, the doggerel ditties by which the 
 old songs of the church are parodied, the flummery 
 of "salvation armies," and the pettiness of churchly 
 usages which subordinate the pulpit to the altar, — 
 these are all degrading to the sacred alliance of man 
 with God. The incongruities involved in them are 
 profane. 
 
 It matters little to the purpose that some good is 
 done, or appears to be done, by these degradations. 
 We are often quite too lenient and short-sighted in our 
 judgment of wasteful ways of doing a little good. 
 Often we are specially oblivious of the huge offset to 
 the little good by immense and silent damage. To an 
 aeronaut falling from a balloon in mid-air, the suspension
 
 196 ENGLISH STYLE. [i.ect. xii. 
 
 of the law of gravitation would do some good. In a 
 rafrino; conflafjration, the elimination of fire from the 
 elements of nature would do some good. In a wreck 
 at sea, the sinking of the Atlantic into the bowels of the 
 earth would do some good. Yet Nature is not, therefore, 
 short-sighted in her wisdom. Gravitation dashes the 
 aeronaut to the earth, tire burns up cities, and wrecks 
 are swallowed in the ocean, as aforetime. The same 
 fixedness of law sways the moral world. There are 
 principles governing the usefulness of preaching which 
 lie deep in the constitution of things. Chaos begins 
 again if they are violated. There are fitnesses of things 
 to things, congruities between antecedents and se- 
 quences, which can not be ignored in the policy of the 
 pulpit, without collisions and convulsions in the long- 
 run, and destruction at the last. Evil always outruns 
 good when evil is done for the sake of the good. One 
 of these underlying principles which have the fixedness 
 of laws in the usefulness of the pulpit is that of the 
 congruity of its work in respect of intellectual dignity 
 with the work of the Holy Ghost whose decrees it 
 executes. Like must minister with like, or there is 
 no ministry but catastrophe and ruin. No really great 
 work for eternity is ever done in this world which is 
 not reverent work. When God sends a prophet to the 
 nations, he does not come with noise and tumult, at the 
 head of armies, heralded by blare of trumpet, and beat 
 of drum. He comes with face buried in his mantle, and 
 prostrate on the ground, hearkening for a still small 
 voice. 
 
 Such are some of the general principles which should 
 determine the question of the intellectuality of modern 
 preacliing. If they seem too general to determine any 
 thing but the drift of a preacher's efi'ort to do the best
 
 LECT. XII.] EVAISTGELISTIC PREACHESTG. 197 
 
 that his own intellectual force admits of, this is as 
 specific a result as the question needs. Questions in 
 detail which must arise under it, if answered in the 
 same spirit, can not well lead us astray. 
 
 From the views here expressed, several inferences 
 deserve notice. One is, that the intellectuality of 
 preaching must necessarily be variable. Not only must 
 it vary with different ages, but it must be adjusted to 
 the state of different communities. Congregations side 
 by side may differ widely in their receptive power to- 
 wards the authority of the pulpit. The underlying 
 principles being always the same, their application must 
 obviously vary with those social affinities which have 
 been dominant in gathering the constituents of different 
 churches. 
 
 Again : an itinerant pulpit can not be safely accepted 
 as a model in point of intellectual elevation for that of 
 a permanent ministry. In the nature of the case, it is 
 impossible that an itinerant preacher should illustrate 
 the intellectual conditions of success wliich a stable 
 ministry requires. The Calvinistic ideal of the pulpit 
 demands a studious life, and continuity of service. 
 
 For similar reasons, an evangelistic ministry can not 
 be a model for a settled pastor. One of the perils at- 
 tending the successes of evangelists is, that pastors may 
 be tempted to imitate their fluent and superficial uses 
 of the Scriptures. Nothing could be more unphilosophi- 
 cal. The apparent successes of some illiterate evangel- 
 ists are a remarkable phenomenon. They are by no 
 means to be ignored by a wise pastor. Valuable hints 
 may be derived from them by an observant and candid 
 looker-on to whom such methods of working may be 
 distasteful. But imagine even the most versatile pastor 
 endeavoring to imitate the methods of the most sensible
 
 198 ENGLISH STYLE. [lect. xn. 
 
 evangelist, — his free and easy use of texts, his large 
 proportion of anecdote and biography in the structure 
 of sermons, his unstinted indulgence in autobiography 
 for the sake of giving piquancy to discourse, and his 
 uncouth attempts at dramatic impersonation. The ex- 
 periment would very soon tell its own story of disgust 
 and defeat. 
 
 The very existence of the best forms of evangelistic 
 preaching presupposes repetition of a few discourses to 
 diiferent audiences. Even such an evangelist as Mr. 
 Moody — perhaps the best of his class that our times 
 have witnessed — could not indulge, without satiety to 
 his hearers, in the unstudied effusions which constitute 
 the staple of his discourses, if he had not twenty years 
 of evangelistic labor behind him from which to draw 
 illustrative incidents of a very stimulating sort. So far 
 as the success of his preaching is due to rhetorical expe- 
 dients, it is attributable to his familiar stories from real 
 life, more than to all other elements combined. Pastors 
 may learn from them such lessons as these, — the value 
 of biographical reading, the ease with which success 
 reduplicates itself with time, and the vast receptive ca 
 pacity of audiences in listening to the plainest speech, 
 if it be but the speech of a man in earnest. But how 
 long would the resources of even twenty years of such 
 success as his last in a continuous ministry to one audi- 
 ence ? The style of preaching most unfit to be imitated 
 by a settled pastor is that of the most effective evangel- 
 ist. The very elements of discourse which give to an 
 evangelist his power over fleeting assemblies are those 
 which pall most speedily, and finally fall flat, on the tastes 
 of a permanent audience. Homiletic wisdom we must 
 accumulate from the studies of a lifetime : no one man 
 can teach it to us entire by example, and, least of all, a
 
 LECT. xu.] THE CALVINISTIC PULPIT. 199 
 
 man, who, by the conditions of his service, can not be a 
 student. 
 
 The views we have considered are illustrated and con- 
 firmed by the history of the Calvinistic theory of preach- 
 ing in its practical working. This ideal of a permanent 
 pulpit has always been the most intellectual one in Chris- 
 tendom. It has created the ablest clergy the world has 
 known. It has contributed to literature nearly all the 
 literary standards which have sprung from the pulpit. 
 Everywhere it has found affinity with the most intel- 
 lectual elements in Christian communities. It has com- 
 manded the docile hearing of a larger proportion of men 
 than any other ideal of preaching. It has attracted 
 men of the liberal professions and their cultured fami- 
 lies. That large class from the middle ranks of society 
 which represents the culture of mind as distinct from 
 the culture of manners has fallen under the teaching 
 of the Calvinistic pulpit more generally than under that 
 of any other. Our pulpit has met the demand of such 
 culture for an educated and stable ministry. It has 
 held for the pulpit the world's respect also in the most 
 cultivated ages of history. It has kept the pulpit from 
 extinction in ages of revolution, when infidelity has 
 flooded the nations. In the most profound and pure 
 revivals of religon it has been dominant, when, without 
 it, the church would have been swept into a maelstrom 
 of fanaticism. And to-day it lives as the most vigorous 
 representative of Christian thought, and one which 
 seems to have the most promising outlook upon the 
 future. So far as any thing of human origin can be 
 confirmed by the divine sanction in history, this Calvin- 
 istic theory of a high-toned intellectual pulpit is thus 
 confirmed. It speaks for itself no uncertain sound. A 
 century of disaster could not blot out the record of
 
 200 ENGLISH STYLE. [lect. xii. 
 
 what it has been and has done for the redemption of 
 mankind. 
 
 To name but a few illustrious examples, mark such a 
 pulpit as that of Calvin at Geneva, that of Knox at 
 Glasgow, that of Edwards at Northampton, that of 
 Chalmers at Edinburgh, that of Finney at Oberlin, 
 and that of Albert Barnes at Philadelphia. These were 
 all of them filled with men of apostolic ardor. The 
 emotional resources of great hearts were there poured 
 out in profusion. Powerful religious awakenings were 
 the fruit of them. Yet not one of them could have been 
 what it was and is to the world, were it not for the 
 thinking powers which were there consecrated. They 
 illustrate magnificently the practicability of combining 
 great hearts with great intellects, deep feeling with deep 
 thinking, intellectual conquest with the baptism of the 
 Holy Ghost. Such union of elements which men would 
 often put asunder constitutes the power which God 
 honors in all signal triumphs of the gospel. In crises 
 of history they are never sundered in the ministrations 
 of the pulpit. In calmer times they never fall into any 
 marked disproportion to each other without disaster ; 
 and that disaster is never remedied till the equipoise is 
 restored.
 
 LECTURE XIII. 
 
 ENERGY OF STYLE ; ITS FOUNDATION. 
 
 Is energy of style susceptible of definition? Not 
 otherwise than by the use of its synonyms or by illus- 
 trative emblems. Energy is not, as Dr. Campbell de- 
 fines it, vivacity of style. A lamb or a kitten may be 
 vivacious, but neither is a symbol of energy. There is 
 a style which may aptly be called a frisky style, but that 
 is not a vigorous style. Again : energy is not merely the 
 superlative of perspicuity^ as it seems to have been re- 
 garded by Dr. Lindley Murray. Perspicuity underlies 
 energy as it underlies other qualities, but it is not the 
 equivalent of energy. The style of the multiplication- 
 table is clear, but it is not forcible. Light is the emblem 
 of perspicuity : lightning is the emblem of energy. 
 
 Further : energy is not merely ionpressiveness of dic- 
 tion. Some writers contend that all eloquence consists 
 in impression. A mathematical demonstration, then, is 
 eloquent in that it produces an effect. An oration of 
 Demosthenes is its kindred in producing impression. 
 Starlight, a lily-of-the-valley, the song of a nightingale, 
 an seolian harp, are all eloquent in the same sense that 
 this quality is attributable to a volcano or an earth- 
 quake. Those diversities of diction, therefore, of which 
 these objects are symbols, are all alike. When you have 
 said that they are impressive, you have said all there is 
 to be said of them in the way of definition. 
 
 201
 
 202 ENGLISH STYLE. [lect. xm. 
 
 This theory is either a play upon words, or it is a false 
 conception of things. It leaves no room for distinguish- 
 ing energy from any other kind of impression produced 
 by language. On such a principle you can not distin- 
 guish an oration from a song, not even a comic song 
 from an elegy. These words, which have their syno- 
 nyms in all languages, — energy, strengtli, force, vigor, 
 — do certainly express an idea not otherwise definable 
 than by interchange of these words. They convey an 
 idea which the common sense of men never confounds 
 with the impressiveness of a mathematical theorem, or 
 that of a bird-of-paradise, or that of the tail of a pea- 
 cock. These words are ultimate in all languages ; so 
 that we can not add to their significance, except by 
 material emblems. We can only say that energy is a 
 peculiar kind of impressiveness : it is the impressiveness 
 of strength as distinct from that of clearness ; it is the 
 impressiveness of force as distinct from that of beauty ; 
 it is the impressiveness of vigor as distinct from that 
 of vivacity. Leaving it thus undefined, except by 
 interchange of synonyms, we are in no more danger of 
 mistaking it for either of the impressive qualities from 
 which it differs than we are of mistaking an elephant 
 for a humming-bird. 
 
 I. The most important suggestions in the discussion 
 of energy of style arrange themselves naturally under 
 several topics, of which the first is the principle that the 
 foundation of a forcible discourse must be laid in the 
 state of the writer's mind in the act of composing. 
 
 1. Let it be observed that a forcible writer must have 
 tliouglits to which forcible expression is appropriate. 
 Energetic expression is not apt to all varieties of thought. 
 A truism this, yet it is often overlooked by preachers. 
 The fact that preaching is always discourse on serious
 
 LECT. xm.] FORCE NOT ALWAYS APT. - 203 
 
 themes, often induces an oblivion of all other aims of 
 style, except the single one of forcible impression : hence 
 the monotone of solemnity often heard in the pulpit. 
 The chronic straining after force is relieved by no af- 
 fluence of vocabulary, no versatility of construction, no 
 mobility of expression, because it is not regulated by care 
 to fit expression to thought. When delivery takes on 
 the same monotone, the result is the proverbial droning 
 of the sermon. No other delivery is natural to such a 
 diction. Neither the delivery nor the diction is toler- 
 ated anywhere but in the pulpit. 
 
 Observe, then, that not all serious thought is the 
 proper subject of energetic expression. Some thoughts 
 as existing in the speaker's mind are too feebly con- 
 ceived to be naturally put forth with energy. Words 
 can not put on them by authority of the dictionary a 
 quality which is not in them. 
 
 Again : unimportant thought, however clear, is not the 
 proper subject of energy of expression. Speakers who 
 ignore this create in their style a gap between expres- 
 sion and thought, which commonly results in bombast. 
 This is only another mode of putting upon a thought 
 a quality which is not in it. You can not speak with 
 energy of an infant's rattle or a tuft of thistledown, 
 without uttering burlesque. Rufus Choate once poured 
 out an impassioned strain of eloquence, in a vocabulary 
 which no other man could equal, in defense of his cli- 
 ent's right to a side-saddle. It convulsed the Boston 
 bar with laughter. 
 
 Further : some thoughts are important, and as clear as 
 they can be, and yet are not becoming subjects of an 
 energetic utterance. Some thoughts are necessarily 
 iyidejinite in any truthful conception of them by a finite 
 mind. They depend, for all the impressiveness of which
 
 204 ENGLISH STYIiE. [lect. xin. 
 
 they are susceptible, on a certain degree of vagueness. 
 Define tliem sharply, and they are no longer true. The 
 immortality of the soul, the eternity of God, divine 
 omnipresence, are examples. All thoughts suggestive 
 of the infinite in time or space must be clouded to finite 
 vision in order to be truthful. They must be felt, if at 
 all, through a remote perspective, — so remote as to 
 create a certain dimness of outline which gives room 
 for the imagination to play. You can not drag them out 
 of their sublime reserve by the mere enginery of style. 
 
 Why is it that arithmetical calculations of the length 
 of eternity are always flat, except to a juvenile taste ? 
 Inspired taste never attempts that impossible achieve- 
 ment. The Scriptures hint at the expression of multi- 
 tude by allusion to the stars as a symbol, but even 
 that they never elaborate. The hint is thrown out to 
 the imagination of the reader, and left there. The 
 favorite expedient of the pulpit at one time, for lifting 
 the popular thought to some adequate notion of eternal 
 duration, was to measure it by the number of grains of 
 sand on the seashore, each grain representing an almost 
 inconceivable cycle of years, and the grains being count- 
 less in number. You can not expand beyond a very 
 moderate degree the conception of eternity which a 
 mature mind has, by such machinery of description. 
 You only inflate it. You are fortunate if the collapse 
 does not render it ridiculous. It is like measuring the 
 globe of the earth by a soap-bubble. 
 
 A French preacher, by practicing a similar arithmeti- 
 cal ingenuity upon his audience, endeavors to illustrate 
 the certainty with which death must swallow up all men 
 in oblivion. He remarks, in substance, taldng the hint 
 probably from Saurin, " This audience may number 
 about eiffhteen hundred souls. Between the ajxes of ten
 
 LECT. xm.] ILLUSTRATIONS OF MAGNITUDE. 205 
 
 and twenty years there may be about five hundred and 
 thirty ; between the ages of twenty and thirty years, 
 about six hundred and fifty ; between the ages of thirty 
 and forty years, about four hundred and sixty." So 
 he proceeds to classify and count his audience, as if the 
 national census were before him ; and then he goes on 
 to say, " According to the national bills of mortality, 
 only twelve hundred and seventy of my hearers will be 
 living in ten years; in twenty years, only eight hundred 
 and thirty." Thus he reckons the prospect of life, as 
 if he were constructing tables for life-insurance ; and 
 the conclusion of his elaborate computation is, " So you 
 see, my brethren, that human society is in one continual 
 flux." The flatness of the inference is a caustic satire 
 on the rhetorical method of the discourse. It is as 
 eloquent as a table of logarithms. 
 
 Compare the foregoing with a passing hint at the 
 tears of Xerxes at the thought that his arm}^ of a million 
 of men would be in the grave in a hundred years. Which 
 of the two is the more impressive ? The fact was once 
 affirmed in a sermon, that if the whole past population 
 of the globe had been buried in regular order, side by 
 side, its surface would have been twice covered over 
 with graves. That brief hint at the number of the 
 dead produced a powerful effect so long as the truth of 
 it was unquestioned. But, unfortunately, a hearer of 
 mathematical taste set himself to reckoning the facts 
 geometrically, and found that the highest probable 
 number of the earth's past and present population 
 might have been buried, with room to spare, within the 
 area of Worcester County in Massachusetts. So long 
 as the preacher's statement was believed, however, the 
 hearer's imagination gave to it more than the force of 
 demonstration.
 
 206 ENGLISH STYLE. [lect. xm. 
 
 These are specimens of truths which must be left in 
 some indeterminate form, and given over to the hearer's 
 imagination, in order to be forcible. Dwell upon them 
 by an attempt to define them, and the effect is that you 
 flatten them. jNIilton recognizes this principle in the 
 fact that he makes no attempt to describe minutely the 
 angels wlio appear in the " Paradise Lost." He leaves 
 them in shadowy outline, in which we see their differ- 
 ences enough to know them apart, and no more. The 
 poet's instinct revealed to him a profound principle of 
 style. The principle is the same with that involved in 
 the philosophical basis of the second commandment of 
 the Decalogue. An idea, which, because of the finiteness 
 of the human mind, must depend on its indefiniteness 
 for its purest and most profound imj)ression, must not be 
 pictured nor carved. Hence arises the failure of modern 
 art to express on canvas the conception of the Deity by 
 the form of an aged and venerable man. Hence, also, 
 the failure of the Romish ritual to express by the cruci- 
 fix the mystery of the incarnation and atonement. 
 Define such ideas by the sharpness of material forms, 
 and you degrade them to a level with material forms. 
 You compel the mind to part with the only faculty it 
 has by which to approximate the truths involved ; that 
 is, it parts with its own imagination. It exchanges the 
 imagination for the eye. It barters a spiritual faculty 
 for a sense. 
 
 Moreover, some thoughts not unimportant, and not 
 necessarily indefinite, are still not the proper subjects 
 of energetic expression. Thought in which beauty or 
 pathos is the predominant element does not admit of 
 energy in its utterance. Forceful words and metaphors 
 may be thrust upon it, but do not express it. When 
 President Edwards illustrated the grace of trust by the
 
 LECT. XIII.] ENTHUSIASM IN COMPOSING. 207 
 
 emblem of the daisy, he spoke beautifully, impressively, 
 but not with strength. Imagine that he had used an 
 oak, instead of a daisy ; or, more incongruously still, 
 fancy that he had poured out a volume of vehement 
 words, and piled around his thought martial metaphors ; 
 then conceive that he had enforced these with tem- 
 pestuous elocution, gesturing passionately with the fist 
 instead of the open palm. Would he have expressed 
 the grace of filial trust as well? 
 
 This suggests the most common defect, in point of 
 energy, in otherwise good composition. It is that the 
 speaker is not content with a style which fits the thought, 
 but must strain to force into it strength which is foreign 
 to the thought. Be it an earthquake or a summer 
 twilight which is to be represented, it must be clothed 
 with strength, like the neck of the war-horse. Evident- 
 ly, then, the first thing requisite to a genuine energy of 
 speech is the possession and the mastery of materials 
 which demand energy of speech. 
 
 2. In the same line of thought, a second requisite is 
 that one should speak or write with enthusiasm.^ " Logic 
 set on fire " is one of the recorded definitions of elo- 
 quence. " Heat is life, and cold is death," says a living 
 scientist. The absence of the element of heat in all 
 things tends to stagnation. A preacher may be an en- 
 thusiast in temperament, yet not in work. One may 
 be uplifted by emotional fervor in the abstract contem- 
 plation of the work, yet not in the discussion of the 
 present theme. One may be inspired by a present theme 
 as a subject of meditation, yet not inspired by it as a 
 subject of discourse. One may be eloquent on the 
 present subject to some audiences, yet not eloquent in 
 discourse to a present audience. Enthusiasm of com- 
 munication on a present theme to present hearers is 
 the power of movement in public speech.
 
 208 ENGLISH STYLE. [lkct. xni. 
 
 The history of the pulpit has often illustrated the fact 
 that some men who think passionately can not preach 
 passionately. Some who extemporize with fire can not 
 write with fire. All conditions must be favorable to the 
 generation and the emission of heat in order to secure 
 the superlative force in expression. It is an invaluable 
 mental habit, therefore, to picture an audience in the soli- 
 tude of one's study. This gives reality to the written 
 sermon as nothing else can. It makes a living thing of 
 it : it turns soliloquy into discourse — two things which 
 are very unlike, and which characterize two very dis- 
 similar styles of preaching. 
 
 Nothing else can take the place, or do the work, of 
 this force of feeling. Energy and enthusiasm co-exist in 
 character : they must co-exist in style. Scientists tell 
 us, that the force of the pulsations of a human heart is 
 measured by the weight of tons in twenty-four hours. 
 If all the beats of your heart in one day of time could 
 be concentrated into one huge throb of vital power, it 
 would suffice to throw a ton of iron a hundred and 
 twenty feet into the air. A fitting symbol is this of 
 the spiritual power which a human mind may put forth 
 in its great moods of inspired emotion. Faith then 
 hurls the mountain into the sea. One reason, the chief 
 reason, why some preachers exhibit power on great 
 occasions only, is that their emotive nature is roused 
 by great occasions only. It is this energy of passion 
 which renders the prophetic style of the Scriptures so 
 perfect a specimen of strength in discourse. The in- 
 spired mind was inundated by the torrent of its emo- 
 tions. 
 
 It deserves remark, that, in this respect, oratorical art 
 coincides in its requirements with the most profound reli- 
 gious culture. Observe how each confirms the other.
 
 LECT. xm.] INTELLECT AND PIETY. 209 
 
 Art affirms, that, to speak forcibly, a man must speak 
 with soul on fire. Therefore a preacher must preach 
 that which is his own by the right of profound experi- 
 ence. But, to preach such experience, he must possess 
 it ; and, to possess it, he must he a man of God. Reli- 
 gious culture can speak no otherwise, and can go no 
 farther. The conscience of the man and the instinct of 
 the orator proclaim the same thing. If St. Paul had 
 been inspired to teach homiletics upon the pure princi- 
 ples of rhetorical art as illustrated in Demosthenean 
 eloquence, he must have said precisely what he did say 
 as an apostle of Christianity, " Though I speak with the 
 tongue of men and of angels, and have not charity, I 
 am become as sounding brass." 
 
 I beg you to note such points of kindred between the 
 religious culture of the man and the professional cul- 
 ture of the orator. Both lay the same injunction on a 
 preacher. Some religious minds do not recognize this ; 
 and such minds have a way of expressing their pious 
 emotions at the expense of the oratorical instinct, which 
 creates an unnatural antagonism between the two. 
 Religion can no more afford this than eloquence can. 
 It is one variety of that violence to nature which Dr. 
 Arnold had in mind, when he said, " I fear the approach 
 of a greater struggle between good and evil than the 
 world has yet seen, in which will happen the greatest 
 trial to the faith of good men that can be imagined, if 
 the greatest talent and ability are on the side of their 
 adversaries, and they have nothing but faith and holi- 
 ness to oppose to them." A preacher should never 
 suffer his own mind, in any thing even the most trivial, 
 to fall under tlie tyranny of a secret antagonism between 
 conscience and intellect. No servitude is more degrad- 
 ing or more hopeless.
 
 210 ENGLISH STYLE. [lect. xni. 
 
 3. The materials to which energy of expression is apt, 
 being in posesssion, and these being projected in the 
 style by the force of [)ersonal enthusiasm in the preacher, 
 energy requires still further, that, in the act of compos- 
 ing, he shall write or speak with an vmmediate object in 
 view. 
 
 Oral discourse is sometimes soliloquy in its nature. 
 If not such as a whole, it often is such in unwary pas- 
 sages. It may degenerate even into revery, or rise on 
 the wing into rhapsody. Then, the speaker is only 
 thinking aloud. The whole power of his discourse is 
 expended on himself. No audience is pictured in his 
 imagination : therefore no projecting force aims the 
 discourse at an object outside of his own being. Such 
 preaching can not appear supremely forcible to hearers. 
 To them it can appear to be only what it is. This 
 defect exists in the experience of the pulpit in great 
 variety of degree, from that of indirectness only, to that 
 of downright inanity of diction. More frequently than 
 otherwise it is found in fragments of the sermon in 
 which the preacher has momentarily written without a 
 tense aim. Sometimes, however, it is the chief charac- 
 teristic of a juvenile production. 
 
 In the Church of St. Mark, in Venice, a traveler 
 observes a collection of mosaics and columns which in 
 themselves are of great beauty, some of them of untold 
 value. They are trophies of ancient Venetian victories. 
 But the spectator can not help asking, " What have 
 these things to do here ? This column which supports 
 nothing — why is it here? This mosaic of a battle- 
 scene — what is the pertinence of it in a Christian 
 church ? This fragment from a Turkish mosque archi- 
 tecturally has nothing to do — what is the meaning of 
 it in a place of Christian worship? This Ionic pillar
 
 LECT. XIII.] URGENCY OF OBJECT. 211 
 
 from the Acropolis of Athens stands upright, with 
 nothing above it which gives a reason for its location 
 — why is it here in the Church of St. Mark ? " Incon- 
 gruity of association offsets one's admiration of these 
 relics of Venetian history, simply because one discovers 
 no object wliich they can serve in keeping with the 
 place. 
 
 A juvenile discourse is often of similar character, filled 
 here and there with irrelevances, indirectnesses, object- 
 less paragraphs, impertinent illustrations, things inter- 
 polated for their own sake, allusions from afar thrust in 
 for the speaker's delectation, but which to the hearer are 
 unimpressive, because void of any meaning which con- 
 cerns Jiim. Such discourse is apt to appear to a hearer 
 indolent. Its movement is laggard. Time hangs heavy 
 in listening to it. A short sermon thus constructed is 
 tedious, and a long one intolerable. This must be so, 
 for the reason that the hearer is not sensible of beings 
 made the object of the sermon. Least of all does the 
 discourse create the sense of its having been created for 
 him, and predestined to reach him. 
 
 On the contrary, discourse which has an object — a 
 palpable object, an immediate object, an urgent object, 
 an object incessantly present to the speaker's thought, 
 to which he hastens on for the hearer's sake — is sure 
 to be in some degree energetic discourse. Why does 
 everybody spring at a cry of "Fire"? For the same 
 reason, direct preachers are almost always energetic 
 preachers. Serious defects are often sustained by this 
 one excellence. It is one of the chief sources of the 
 vigor of St. Paul's Epistles. Longmus calls the style of 
 St. Paul the " anapodeictic " style, that is, the style, not 
 of one in search of, but of one in possession of, 
 truth, and using it eagerly for an object.
 
 212 ENGLISH STYLE. [lect. xiir. 
 
 This anapodeictic style has been illustrated in the 
 discourses of all the great preacliers who have been 
 leaders in great awakenings of the popular conscience. 
 Savonarola, Wickliflfe, Latimer, Luther, Calvin, Knox, 
 Edwards, Finney, — all gave superlative examples of it. 
 Those now living who have listened to the last of these 
 great historic preachers recall nothing else so character- 
 istic of him as that he never preached a sermon, or a 
 fragment of one, without an object, — an exigent object, 
 a present object, an object made as luminous to the 
 hearer as to the preacher, and an object which concerned 
 the hearers more than all the world besides. This was 
 the one overpowering impression of his discourses. The 
 style of them was like a concave speculum, which con- 
 centrated all Tuya of light upon one point, to illuminate 
 that point, to make that point glow till the eye was 
 blinded if it looked away. Yet this was done calml3^ 
 Few preachers have depended so little upon external 
 drapery, and so much on pure thought. Few made so 
 little ado in the conquest of a hearer's convictions. 
 His sermons were solid thought, packed in solid lan- 
 guage, and built around a listener, so that he could not 
 get out and away from it, with either a quiet conscience 
 or an honest intellect. 
 
 EXCURSUS. 
 
 The importance of this element of directness in preach- 
 ing gives pertinence to an excursus at this point, on the 
 inquiry. What is the groundwork of this marvelous 
 power of direct and solid thought in sermons ? It lies 
 in a very simple principle, which, because of its sim- 
 plicity, we are apt to overlook. It is the individuality 
 of moral influence. Strictly speaking, moral influence 
 never moves men in the mass. It reaches first the indi-
 
 LECT. XIII.] rSDIVIDUALITY IN PREACHIXG. 213 
 
 vidual man, each one in his singleness. The response 
 to it is an individual experience. The depth of it is 
 proportioned to the sense of moral solitude awakened 
 by it. " Alone with God ! alone with God ! " this is 
 the interior and unutterable sense awakened by the 
 most powerful preaching. The sum total of such power 
 is nothing but the aggregate of such individual contri- 
 butions. 
 
 Moral influence, also, is individual in the fact that it 
 penetrates individual souls more profoundly than it can 
 penetrate society as such. Social changes are relatively 
 superficial changes. They are hints of a " lower deep " 
 in the inarticulate experience of the individual. Every 
 man has strata of being which social relations do not 
 bring to the surface. Each one knows his own, but 
 only in an unbroken solitude. Each lives them, but 
 never communicates them, and never can. Only results 
 of them, and those not the most profound, come to the 
 upper air in the form of sympatliies. The soul and God 
 are the only two beings in the universe who know what 
 the man is in that inner and silent consciousness. 
 
 Yet preaching aims chiefly at those depths of individ- 
 ual being in which the soul is alone with God. True 
 preaching should have a profoundness of reach which 
 in one sense imitates the work of the Holy Ghost in 
 regeneration. It achieves nothing worthy of the pulpit, 
 if it fails of that singleness and depth of individual 
 aim. We talk grandly, often, of reaching the " public " 
 from the pulpit. But, to a preacher of apostolic reach, 
 the public as such is nothing. His aim is at the individ- 
 uals who compose the public. Do not be deceived by 
 the glamour of reputation with the public. It counts 
 for notliing except as it represents grasp upon individ- 
 ual hearts. The decline of pastoral toil in deference to
 
 214 ENGLISH STYLE. [lect. xm. 
 
 what are dignified as public labors is a woful loss to 
 the spiritual power of the pulpit. 
 
 Said one of these mistaken pastors, "I can not visit 
 my people. I am a public man : my public duties leave 
 me no time and no force for private intercourse with 
 individuals." Doubtless he believed it. He may have 
 thanked God that he was not as other men in the hum- 
 bler walks of ministerial service. But what was he 
 doing as a public man ? He was lecturing to lyceums ; 
 he was debating in conventions for the extension of 
 suffrage ; he was writing articles for newspapers, on life- 
 insurance, on domestic architecture, on heating houses 
 by steam conveyed underground, and doing a thousand 
 and one things, many of which had not even a collateral 
 connection with the proper business of his life. "Was 
 he a busy man ? Yes : he never had an idle hour. His 
 life was a rush. Was he a busy minister ? No : the 
 great majority of his hours were idle hours. His pulpit 
 suffered in depth and singleness of aim, and therefore 
 in spirituality of result, by that substitution of rej)uta- 
 tion with the public for power with individual souls. 
 In the extreme of this error we find a minister given 
 over of God to the breeding of horses. " Should a 
 wise man fill his belly with the east wind ?" 
 
 This modern twist in the policy of the pulpit, by 
 which it is made the servitor to countless matters of 
 civilization only, and by which civilization supplants 
 redemption, is a fearful one in its possible bearings on 
 the church of the future. 
 
 Dr. Chalmers never hit the target in the eye more 
 deftly than when he said on a topic kindred to the one 
 before us, " The public is a big baby." Accordingly, 
 he never felt that his most vital work as a minister of 
 Christ was in any thing which gave evidence by visible
 
 LECT. xm.] DTEECTNESS OF Am. 215 
 
 signs of having caught the popular breeze, and of 
 bandjdng his own name back and fortli in the gossip 
 of the hour. He loved, rather, to seek out individuals 
 in " Burke's Close," in the West Port of Edinburgh. 
 There he found the work which he revered. The 
 platform was nothing to him except as he could make 
 it tributary to the regeneration of "Burke's Close." 
 There he could feel the roots of all other success. 
 
 Returning, now, to the topic which has led us to this 
 digression, I remark that forceful preaching has always 
 a quality which claims and exercises this right of way 
 to individual souls. We feebly call it directness. It 
 grows out of the vision of a distinct, a single, an imme- 
 diate, an urgent object. It concentrates power upon 
 the one hearer. Oftener than otherwise, it expresses 
 itself in the consciousness of the preacher by his literally 
 addressing a sermon to one man. The sermon reaches 
 a class by reaching the one man for whom it has been 
 constructed and to whom it is delivered. Any discourse 
 prepared in the light of such vision must have some 
 power. Our minds are so made that we can not help 
 feeling the tenseness of the preacher's aim. It com- 
 municates itself to his style by peculiarities which 
 we can not always define, but which we always feel. 
 We may not believe the discourse ; but the preacher 
 believes it, and we believe in him. Therefore, for the 
 time, we can not but feel the magnetism » of his concen- 
 trativehess. We tremble in sympathy with the arrow 
 which is eager for its mark. 
 
 One of the most profound criticisms ever made upon 
 a sermon was made by a plain, blunt man upon a 
 discourse which to some appeared elaborate, finished, 
 faultless. It was not faultless ; it was not finished as
 
 216 ENGLISH STYLE. [lkct. xiii. 
 
 a sermon ; it was not even elaborate. And the blunt, 
 plain man disclosed its radical defect in one breath by- 
 remarking, " Very good ; yes, vei^y good — but what 
 then ? What of it ? I did not feel that it hit me : did 
 you feel that it hit you ? " A volume of homiletic wis- 
 dom was compressed in those words. That is a poor 
 sermon, and, if designed for a sermon, it is as poor a 
 specimen of literature as of any thing else, of which 
 the hearer's conscience can honestly say, " Very good ; 
 but what of it ? "
 
 LECTURE XIV. 
 
 ENERGY OF STYLE ; FOUNDED IN SELF-POSSESSION. 
 
 Vigorous materials, enthusiasm in composing, and 
 an immediate object in view, will not of necessity and 
 always secure the supremely forcible expression. One 
 other element is requisite. It is, that, in the act of 
 composing, a preacher should be self-possessed. A French 
 critic says that eloquence is not delirium. Carlyle adds, 
 " We do not call a man strong who has convulsions, 
 though in the fit ten men can not hold him." For 
 superlative force in style a man must be master of his 
 subject, his audience, his occasion. He must not permit 
 them to be master of him. Enthusiasm must be so 
 under control as to be susceptible of use at the speak- 
 er's will. 
 
 Shakspeare had in mind the element of oratory corre- 
 sponding to this when he said, " In the very torrent and 
 tempest, and, as I may say, whirlwind, of his passion, 
 he must acquire and beget a temperance that may give 
 it smoothness." Fury in speech is not energy. Observe 
 the difference. It marks the line between certain 
 common defects and excellences in preaching ; and it 
 suggests, also, the factitiousness of certain popular 
 cravings by which the pulpit is beset. 
 
 Mark, then, that uncontrolled enthusiasm is founded 
 on a partial mastery of thought. It is necessarily one- 
 sided. So far, it is ignorant. Absolute mastery of a 
 
 217
 
 218 ENGLISH STYLE. [lect. xiv. 
 
 truth never puts a man out of reason. By seeing a truth 
 all around, we see it as modified by other truths. We 
 see it as balanced by its opposites. The loss of a 
 balanced mind is always the loss of something true. 
 Therefore unbalanced enthusiasm leads to false asser- 
 tions in style. It prompts to inconsiderate superlatives. 
 Qualifications are ignored. Metaphor ceases to be 
 auxiliary to truth : it becomes intemperance of speech. 
 An intemperate style thus formed invites and is aggra- 
 vated by an intemperate delivery. The utterance of 
 such a style demands vociferous tones. A severity of 
 countenance approaching to a scowl is becoming to it. 
 Gesture with the fist becomes instinctive in place of 
 gesture with the open palm. The entire physical mag- 
 netism of the speaker is perverted to exaggerated and 
 repellent uses. 
 
 A passionate style, therefore, tends always to defeat 
 itself. Like any thing else that is overwrought, it invites 
 re-action. It disgusts, it shocks, it wearies, it amuses, 
 according to the mood of the hearer. Practically it is 
 weakness, not strength. Why is it that we are often 
 inclined to laugh at an angry man? Shrewd politicians 
 understand that one way to defeat an opponent is to 
 fret his good nature, and let him defeat himself. iMake 
 a man furious in debate, and you make him harmless. 
 Entice a man into a duel, and he is politically dead, 
 whether the bullet reaches him or not. 
 
 Daniel Webster in middle life was a model of self- 
 possession, and therefore of power. His habit was to 
 restrain himself under the provocations of debate ; never 
 to be tempted by them into petty skirmishes with oppo- 
 nents ; to wait till the great principles involved could 
 be reached, and then to handle them, rather than the 
 men who denied them. In his old age he lost prestige
 
 LECT. XIV.] STYLE OF DE QUINCEY. 219 
 
 in this respect, and with a corresponding loss of power. 
 The English Parliament used to laugh at Edmund 
 Burke's most solemn adjurations, because they exceeded 
 the dignity of self-collected speech. Lord Brougham 
 was more frequently defeated by his own petulance 
 than by the argument of his opponents. 
 
 One of the most remarkable examples of intemperate 
 style among modern essayists is that of De Quincey. 
 His is a most fascinating style to young writers ; excel- 
 lent, therefore, for the purpose of mental quickening. 
 But you will find that it will not wear well to your 
 maturer tastes, and that its most serious defect is its 
 want of the dignity of self-possession. The following 
 will illustrate my meaning: "Any man of sound sense 
 might take up the whole academy of modern econo- 
 mists, and throttle them between heaven and earth with 
 his finger and thumb, or bray their fungous heads to 
 powder with a lady's fan." Again : he writes of " a 
 dilemma, the first horn of which would be sufficient to 
 toss and gore any column of patient readers, though 
 drawn up sixteen deep." Fortunate is it for the future 
 of the English language that he did not tax it with a 
 description of the other horn. Yet you will observe 
 that no personal ill-will is expressed in these invectives, 
 no anger, no petulance, no malign hostility. The strain 
 of the style is jocose rather. Still it is intoxicated style. 
 It is a reckless threshing of language, in which you lose 
 the sober thought in its sober truthfulness, and are only 
 astounded at the words. 
 
 EXCUESUS. 
 
 The chief use of the criticisms now before us for the 
 service of the pulpit is to put us on guard against ascetic 
 and vindictive preaching. At no other point in the
 
 220 ENGLISH STYLE. [lect. xiv. 
 
 series of homiletic discussions which are to come before 
 us, can I more naturally treat than here the preaching 
 of the doctrine of retribution. Let me ask you, then, to 
 note, in the form of excursus from the topic immediately 
 in hand, some thoughts on the weakness of intemperate 
 strength in certain methods of discourse upon eternal 
 punishment. 
 
 1. Observe, first, that descriptions of the condition 
 of lost souls are powerless for good if they result in the 
 painting of savage pictures. One of Titian's rules of 
 coloring was, that only a small part of the canvas 
 should ever be in deep shade, no matter how somber 
 the subject. Even in the engraving of a death-scene, 
 the major-part should be in light shading, or, at most, 
 in mezzotint. The same is true of the painting of 
 despair by speech. Excess of gloom may blur all 
 impression. The denunciatory language of the Scrip- 
 tures may be so used as to be weak in proportion to 
 its severity. Ringing changes upon the biblical words 
 " hell," " damnation," " eternal death," " everlasting 
 punishment," may be devoid of the biblical energy 
 through mere dislocation. Expanding in order to in- 
 tensify the biblical emblems of perdition, such as "fire," 
 "hell-fire," "brimstone," "lake of fire," "the worm that 
 dieth not," may be so executed as to express fury, not 
 energy. For salutary impression it may be the most 
 useless of all discourse. 
 
 2. The early English pulpit needs to be studied with 
 precaution, because it was so generally infected with tliis 
 error. Even Jeremy Taylor, whose sense of beauty was 
 often a solvent of images of terror, yet was often over 
 borne, by his imaginings of a lost state, into representa- 
 tions which seem to our modern taste brutal. They are 
 impressive only as theatrical illusions. The moral and
 
 LECT. XIV.] VINDICTIVE PREACHING. 221 
 
 the sensuous elements in them are in inverse propor- 
 tions to each other, M. Angelo's painting of the Last 
 Judgment indicates that the English pulpit of Jeremy 
 Taylor's time had inherited this sensuous taste from pre- 
 ceding ages. That painting leaves on the mind of the 
 spectator, as its ultimate impression, a densely packed 
 mass of human limbs and faces in all conceivable varie- 
 ties of physical contortion. Its hideous anatomy is its 
 most marvelous characteristic. As a painting, it may 
 deserve the enthusiasm of artists ; but, as a spiritual ex- 
 pression, it is neither forcible nor true. Yet such was 
 the taste in which the English pulpit of the subsequent 
 century was trained. 
 
 An example of some of the best preaching of our 
 English fathers in this respect, I find in the sermons of 
 one Henry Smith, who bore the title of "Lecturer at 
 Clement St. Dane's," and was contemporary with Jeremy 
 Taylor. His theme is the " Woe of Eternal Remorse." 
 He discourses thus : " Who can express that man's hor- 
 ror but himself? Sorrows are met in his soul at a feast. 
 Fear, thought, and anguish divide his soul between 
 them. All the furies of hell leap upon his heart as 
 upon a stage. Thought calls to fear ; and fear whistle th 
 to horror ; and horror beckoneth to despair, and saith, 
 ' Come and help me to torment this sinner.' One saith 
 that she cometh from this sin ; another saith that she 
 Cometh from that sin : so he goeth through a thousand 
 deaths, and can not die." We may admire this as an 
 antique specimen of art : it may have had value in its 
 day. But would a modern copy of it in an American 
 pulpit be even a curiosity ? Would it not start anew 
 the discussion of a second probation ? 
 
 Another example is selected from a sermon by Bishop 
 Latimer. He often preached literally " with a ven-
 
 222 ENGLISH STYLE. [lect. xiv. 
 
 gcance." The following occurs near the close of one of 
 his discourses : " Will ye have Jesus Christ ? What say 
 ye? Spe'ak now — now or never. See, sinners! I offer 
 you the Lord. Will you accept him ? Ah, poor Christ ! 
 Must he go a-begging? Out, ye hard-hearted! What 
 will Christ say when he comes to judge you ? I'll tell 
 you what he'll do. He will bind you in bundles, and 
 burn you. He will say, ' Here is a bundle of drunk- 
 ards : Devil, take them. Here is a bundle of liars : 
 Devil, take them.' " 
 
 We must not scorn this as a piece of scenic display. 
 I\Ien who go to the stake for their faith do not sport 
 with it in theatrical illusions. Such preaching may not 
 have been powerless in rude times, and among a people 
 who were familiar with the strolling theaters of England. 
 That was a scenic age. Theatrical entertainments were 
 one method of intellectual teaching. The very gro- 
 tesqueness of the picture drawn by Latimer may not 
 have aroused then the sense of the ludicrous. To a 
 rude taste the grotesque heightens the terrific. Some 
 of the most vivid scenes in Dante and in Milton are at 
 first only repulsive ; but an infusion of the unnatural 
 into other elements of descriptive painting intensifies 
 the impression of the whole as a work of art. By a 
 people of a ruder age, art in the pulpit may not have 
 been detected as such, and criticised unfavorably. Lati- 
 mer may therefore have produced a powerful impression. 
 We must suppose this, to account for the fact that the 
 authorities feared him, and the people obe^'ed him. The 
 world does not burn imbeciles for their opinions. But 
 is it difficult to imagine how a modern imitation of 
 Latimer's appeal would be received by an American 
 audience ? 
 
 Have you not listened to sermons on retribution, not
 
 LECT. XIV.] ENEEGY IN RESERVE. 223 
 
 SO graphic as this sketch from Latimer, which impressed 
 you as merciless? Have you not heard comminatory 
 preaching wliich was sheer declamation ? You could 
 not believe that the preacher had any real appreciation 
 of the truth he proclaimed. He fumed and stormed and 
 roared, because he had no adequate, or even inadequate, 
 conception of the infinite fact he was uttering. I hope 
 there is less of such preaching now than formerly. I 
 have never heard it from an educated preacher. If you 
 have heard it, was it effective ? Did you feel it ? Did 
 others seem to feel it? I doubt even the indurating 
 effect of such discourses. Men are not hardened by 
 that which they do not feel at all. I have seen men 
 sleeping under such sermons as soundly as they ever did 
 in their cradles. I have seen young people flirting, and 
 children playing bo-peep, while such discourse was in 
 progress ; and they were at least as usefully employed 
 as the preacher, for I never saw an audience religious- 
 ly moved by such preaching. It was " sound and fury, 
 signifying nothing." 
 
 3. The most vital human element in the preaching 
 of retribution is the calmness of suppressed emotion. 
 Force in reserve, suggesting, not parading, itself, is the 
 true power of such discourse. This mental self-posses- 
 sion should be expressed in both style and manner. 
 Such a mental state is the inevitable result of the moral 
 emotions which are becoming to the preaching of that 
 doctrine. What are those emotions? Obviously tliey 
 are balanced opposites. Confidence in the evidences of 
 retribution, or at the fact of retribution, complacency 
 in the justice of retribution, compassion for the soul in 
 peril of retribution, and adoration of God in the inflic- 
 tion of retribution, — these are the central moral exer- 
 cises which should characterize the preaching of the
 
 224 ENGLISH STYLE. [lect. xnr. 
 
 doctrine. Co-existing, they must qualify and limit each 
 other. They must produce a self-constrained sense of 
 the reality which can not express itself ferociously any 
 more than it can do so flippantly. A savage style is 
 impossible to a preacher who has such a conception of 
 the doctrine as that represented in the vision of St. 
 John in the Kevelation. A tempestuous delivery, also, 
 is inconceivable under such conditions. 
 
 4. To no other doctrine is elocution so vital as to that 
 of eternal punishment. It should never be vociferated : 
 still less should it be delivered theatrically. Its deliv- 
 ery should be the expression of an awestruck and 
 broken spirit. It should be preached as one would talk 
 it in private to one's dearest friend. In its best forms 
 it is not premeditated. It is the involuntary outpour- 
 ing of a full soul. " My heart shall cry out for Moab," 
 says Isaiah, at the height of prophetic denunciation. 
 The comminatory style of prophecy is often restrained 
 by such refluent waves of sympathy with the doomed 
 ones. So should all retributive preaching be relieved 
 by outbreaks of personal compassion from the heart of 
 the preacher. This will inevitably fuse the hardness, 
 and soften the belligerence, of the delivery. Never 
 should the pulpit seem to be the throne of an avenging 
 angel. 
 
 The force of comminatory preaching should be the 
 still force. The calm, tense nerve of William Tell in 
 aiming at the apple on the head of his son is a symbol 
 of the energy which should send the arrow of such 
 preaching quivering to its mark. The self-possession of 
 the pilot who sat down with the weight of his own life 
 on the safety-valve, as his only hope of holding his 
 vessel off the breakers, is an emblem of the suppressed 
 and awestruck power with which we should proclaim
 
 LECT. XI^^] COMIMINATORY ELOCUTION. 225 
 
 the damnation of souls. Such will be the manner of 
 preachers who really feel their own words in disclosing 
 an eternal hell. The consciousness of personal concern 
 with the truth he utters will press the preacher's soul 
 down to the verge of awestruck silence, which nothing 
 but the command of God would induce him to break. 
 
 There is something profoundly symbolic of a great 
 preacher in the reluctance of Moses to speak at all as 
 the leader of God's people. That was indicative of a 
 great heart. He had overwhelming conceptions of 
 truth. His faith had seen God in the burning bush. 
 To his inmost soul God was a consuming fire. Such 
 should be the mental habit of one who would preach an 
 eternal retribution. How can such as he speak such a 
 truth, otherwise than in low and gentle tones ? How 
 can he rant about it ? How can he gabble it to men 
 who are no more exposed to it than himself? He must 
 proclaim it, if at all, with the sympathy of a fellow- 
 sinner breathing in his words, and thrilling in liis tremu- 
 lous hands, and modulating his tones, and melting in 
 his eye. By no other manner can he represent Baxter's 
 model of " a dying man speaking to dying men." 
 
 No other than this still preaching of retribution is 
 ever really felt by an audience. Vociferation on such 
 a subject does not move men : declamation does not. 
 The manner which approaches most nearly to no man- 
 ner at all is the one to which men open their hearts. 
 Hearers may be nervously stimulated by ranting com- 
 mination. So they may be by a drum. But even that 
 they cease to feel when its novelty is gone. When that 
 excitement subsides, declamation of retributive woe 
 ceases to be even interesting. It has never gone deeper 
 than the tympanum of the ear. Men sleep under it as 
 under the fall of a mill-stream. Wide-awake men
 
 226 ENGLIvSri STYLE. [lect. xiv. 
 
 deride it : it becomes the butt of scoffers, as it deserves 
 to be ; for there is nothing in it which is either godlike 
 or humane. 
 
 5. Tlie still elocution is the one which we instinc- 
 tively associate with the comminatory preaching of 
 Christ. From no other lips have ever proceeded such 
 revelations of eternal woe as those of the Man of 
 Sorrows. His is the model of retributive discourse for 
 all ao:es. It is the " wrath of the Lamb " wliich we are 
 commissioned to preach. Yet who thinks of him as a 
 stentorian preacher ? Who imagines him as a declaimer 
 in the twenty-third chapter of St. Matthew ? Well do 
 painters represent him as gesturing with the open palm, 
 or with the monitory finger pointing skyward. Is there 
 in the galleries of Italy a solitary picture in which he 
 appears gesturing with the fist ? Who believes that he 
 ever pounded the desk, if he had one in the synagogues 
 of Judaea ? or that he stamped his foot in divine anger, 
 or wriggled his shoulders, or rivaled the bulls of Bashan 
 in his intonations? To him we owe the most terrific 
 emblems of eternal woe ever put into human speech. 
 But who conceives of him as dwelling on those emblems, 
 as if he reveled in them ? Who ever dreams of him as 
 mouthing them with theatrical emphasis ? Do we not 
 think rather of his low and solemn tones, his sitting 
 posture, his stooping form, his still or tremulous hands, 
 his melting eye, and the nameless ways in which the 
 wail of agonized expression would call to its aid every 
 feature and member of the worn body in bearing his 
 message of doom to the doomed ones ? Every word of 
 denunciation that he ever uttered brings with it to our 
 ears the echo of his lamentation over Jerusalem. Such 
 is all genuine preaching of retribution. Thus men 
 always preach it when they are in earnest. The more
 
 LECT. XIV.] EMBLEMS OF KETEIBUTION". 227 
 
 nearly it resembles the gentleness of our Lord, the more 
 profoundly do men feel it, and say of it, " Never man 
 spake like this man." 
 
 EXCUESUS. 
 
 At this point our discussion naturally opens the way 
 to a collateral question, which the drift of opinion, and 
 the taste of the age, obtrude upon our attention. Let 
 us consider, in the form of a second excursus from the 
 topic in hand, the inquiry, Ought the biblical emblems 
 of eternal punishment to be employed by the modern 
 pulpit? Three facts seem conclusive in answer. 
 
 1. One is, that we have no evidence that any thing 
 else than those emblems can express so truthfully to 
 embodied mind the facts of retributive experience in 
 eternity. 
 
 Modern ideas of the range of a physical resurrection 
 have suffered some damage. We often restrict it to the 
 future of the redeemed. That the bodies of the lost 
 are also raised is dropped out of the conception often 
 entertained of their immortality. Must not this be re- 
 garded as one of the devices by which the human mind 
 evades the vividness of unwelcome truth? It is natu- 
 ral to close our eyes to a flash of lightning. So do we 
 instinctively welcome any eyelid which shall help us to 
 blink the reality of everlasting pains. We spiritualize 
 them. We wrap them in philosophic thought. Say 
 what we may of this process as designed to intensify 
 our conception, it produces no such effect on the ma- 
 jority of minds. Even to the best of us in our average 
 moods, that which we feel at the ends of our fingers is 
 more real to us than an abstract thought. Is not a 
 grain of sand in your eyeball more profoundly real to 
 you than the transit of Venus? So, by remanding our
 
 228 ENGLISH STYLE. [lect. xrv. 
 
 thought of retribution to the realm of mind alone, we 
 in fact please ourselves with the dignity of our theology 
 at the expense of its reality. 
 
 We have no warrant for this restricted acceptance of 
 a bodily resurrection. If the bodies of the righteous 
 are to live again, analogy, as well as revelation, should 
 lead us to believe the same of the bodies of the wicked. 
 Both are to be " clothed upon." Where, then, is the 
 hope of deliverance for the wicked from that law of the 
 divine government by which the body symbolizes in its 
 experience the moral condition of its spiritual habitant ? 
 The drift of sin is to physical suffering. Moral deprav- 
 ity tends always to a corrupt and tortured body. Cer- 
 tain diseases are the product of certain crimes. The 
 whole catalogue of human pains, from a toothache to 
 angina pectoris, is but a witness to a state of sin expressed 
 by an experience of suffering. 
 
 Carry this law into the experience of eternal sin, and 
 what have we ? A spiritual body, reduplicated, it may 
 be, in its capacities for suffering, yet inhabited and used, 
 and therefore tortured by a guilty soul ; a body per- 
 fected, it may be, in its sensibilities, inclosing and ex- 
 pressing a soul matured in its depravity. By all the 
 analogies we know of touching the relations of body to 
 spirit, what else than the scriptural emblems of retri- 
 bution can express, even to the utmost stretch of our 
 imagination, the facts of a state of eternal guilt ? 
 
 2. Again : it is a fallacy that the modern mind does 
 not need the physical symbols of retribution to impress 
 the fact. Some thinc^s the world can not outsfrow. 
 Among these is the dependence of embodied mind on 
 pictorial representations of spiritual truth. Even if 
 culture does relieve a fragment of the race from some 
 forms of this dependence, it has no such effect on the
 
 LECT. XIV.] PICTORIAL EXPRESSION". 229 
 
 vast majority of mankind. They remain, as all ages 
 have found them, wedded to material images of unseen 
 things. Why is it that we shrink from such images of 
 eternal pain ? Is it for any other reason than that they 
 do brand the facts upon our vision as no other device of 
 expression can? The majority of men are children in 
 their love of pictures. Why are pictorial newspapers 
 regarded as an advance of triumphant journalism ? 
 
 It is not true that culture changes essentially this 
 dependence of mind on sight for its most vivid concep- 
 tions of truth. Said a judge of the Supreme Court of 
 the United States, in a critique on the American pulpit, 
 "I want abstract truth pictured to my eye." Culture 
 and rudeness alike crave the emblem. A sight of the 
 cathedral at Cologne for five minutes gave to Sir Chris- 
 topher Wren a conception of architecture which a life- 
 time of theoretic study could not have created. The 
 most gifted minds are not in this respect essentially dif- 
 ferent from yours or mine. A sailor before the mast is 
 their equal and ours in his dependence on a sight of the 
 Bay of Naples for his most truthful conception of marine 
 beauty. We all crave the teaching of the eye. Have 
 we not some conceptions which we never had before the 
 stereoscope was invented ? 
 
 Many of the retributive devices of human law are 
 founded on this dependence of the human mind on 
 physical impressions of spiritual ideas. Capital punish- 
 ment can not be vindicated on other grounds. It is 
 a scenic exhibition of human justice. On the same 
 ground, an English judge has recently advocated tlie 
 restoration of the scourge as a penal instrument for 
 certain crimes ; not because other punishments are not 
 commensurate with their guilt, but because other pun- 
 ishments make no adequate moral impression on the
 
 230 ENGLTSn STYr.E. [lect. xiv. 
 
 senses of the criminal, or on the imagination of other 
 men. He contends that wife-murder can not be extir- 
 pated from England by other means. 
 
 This relation of spiritual ideas to the physical expres- 
 sions of them lies very deep in all retributive govern- 
 ment. The world has not outgrown it, and never can. 
 It is one of the ingrained laws of embodied mind. Hence 
 the biblical emblems of eternal woe can never be spared 
 from the resources of the pulpit. The last age of the 
 world will need them as profoundly as the first. They 
 may be abused : they often are abused in ways for which 
 there is no decent authority, divine or human. The 
 literature of the pulpit contains in this respect specimens 
 which are worthy only of savages. But these emblems 
 can not on this account be wisely disused. The desire 
 of the pulpit and the demand of the pew for their disuse 
 are alike evidences of an insurrection of the human 
 heart against the truth which they express. We lean 
 to an abandonment of the symbol, because our effemi- 
 nate faith revolts from the thing. 
 
 3. We have no evidence that the scriptural emblems 
 of retribution were originated for transient use only. 
 They bear no signs of a temporary purpose. They were 
 not peculiarities of an ancient dispensation. They 
 reached their most lurid grandeur, not under Jewish, 
 but under Christian teaching. No inspired hint is 
 given, that they are destined to outlive their usefulness. 
 They resemble nearly all the personal titterances of our 
 Lord in the fact that they have the look of ultimate 
 revelations. 
 
 The most significant fact about these emblems is their 
 authorship. The believing world is awed by the fact 
 that they w^ere tittered by Him. No other threatenings 
 of future woe in the Scripttires equal these coals of fire
 
 LECT. XIV.] THEEATENINGS OF CHRIST. 231 
 
 from his lips. It seems as if, for some occult design, all 
 other inspired oracles held back, and spoke with half- 
 suppressed voices, that the most overwhelming denun- 
 ciations of the wrath of God might break upon the 
 world with his authority. Was there not such a design ? 
 Was there not a far-seeing purpose in this obeisance of 
 all other inspiration on this theme to his? Does it not 
 look like a foresight of the rebellion of the human heart 
 through coming ages against the truth which these em- 
 blems portray. Does it not look as if God meant thus 
 to forestall and to silence, through all time, the insur- 
 gent clamors of mankind to be eased from the pressure 
 of that truth upon the conscience ? 
 
 If God intended that this doctrine should die out in 
 the ultimate stages of human faith, should we not expect 
 to find some intimations of that intent in the teachings 
 of Christ? If he meant, in some golden age of the 
 future, to lift the world to a high table-land of refine- 
 ment, on which the lurid gleams of hell could be safely 
 put out like a spent-fire which has done its work, and is 
 no longer needed, should we not reasonably look for 
 premonitory hints of that purpose in the personal revela- 
 tions of our Lord? Where should we look for some 
 recondite foregleams of that latest glory, if not to the 
 dying confidences of the Master with his disciples ? In 
 his teachings on other subjects we do find such seed- 
 thoughts, prophetic of truth to be revealed. We find 
 principles which are ultimate. We find finished forms 
 of truth, beyond which the world's wisdom can go no 
 farther, but which lay all coming ages under tribute. 
 We find oracles which seem to bend forward, and wait 
 for the coming generations, ready and eager to respond 
 to their last inquiries. We find elemental maxims, 
 "hard sayings " in the time of their utterance, wliicli
 
 232 ENGLISH STYLE. [lect. xiv. 
 
 lay dormant for centuries, apparently because they were 
 designed for final uses in the world's maturity. "We 
 find a Being whose very life was a future, and whose 
 person was a prophecy. 
 
 It is in the very midst of such a galaxy of truths 
 that we find these supreme disclosures of the eternal 
 wrath of God. How, but in one way, can we interpret 
 this ? How, but to one purpose, can we understand the 
 fact that our Lord says not one syllable, from first to 
 last, which softens the retributive teachings of the elder 
 Scriptures? He retracts not one word, dilutes not one 
 threatening, abrogates not one penal sanction, eases not 
 one pang of coming retribution, and never hints that 
 the benignity of God requires any such relaxing of 
 eternal justice. More than this : it is He who intensi- 
 fies all previous disclosures of the penalties of sin. It 
 is Re who unrolls on lurid canvas these appalling pic- 
 tures of the judgment and the after-world of despair. 
 It is He who exhausts the forces of human speech on 
 this theme, so that all later wisdom stands dumb. 
 What else can this mean than that God intended in the 
 very person of Christ to confront, in advance, the drift 
 of the human heart on this subject, and to tone up the 
 world's faith to God's own thought of retribution ?
 
 LECTURE XV. 
 
 PREACHING THE DOCTRINE OF SIN. — MEANS OF ENERGY 
 COMMON TO LITERAL AND FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE. 
 
 Energy of style as affected by self-possession in the 
 act of composing leads us to consider, at some risk of 
 too remote digression, a third excursus, on the danger 
 of convulsive strength in preaching on the doctrine of' 
 sin. The following varieties of this defect deserve 
 attention : — 
 
 1. The theory of depravity is often intemperately 
 expressed, to the detriment of a sense of its reality in 
 the mind of the hearer. This is a theme on which more 
 depends on rhetorical form than on scientific exactness 
 of statement. The theory of inherited guilt, for in- 
 stance, so long as it is restricted to scholastic forms of 
 statement, may do no harm, because it is not taken in 
 by the hearer, and felt to be a reality. But let that 
 theory be projected vividly in the style by the ordinary 
 means of forcible expression, and it becomes impotent 
 for any purpose of salutary impression, because it pro- 
 duces revolt of the common sense of men. Nobody 
 believes it, and nobody can. 
 
 2. Denunciations of organized forms of sin are often 
 weak through intemperate energy. The world has yet 
 much to learn of the philosophy of reform. On the 
 subject of human servitude, for instance, it is not the 
 unmitigated and reckless tone of rebuke commonly 
 adopted by professional reformers which achieves suc- 
 
 233
 
 234 ENGLISH STYLE. [lect. xv. 
 
 cess. It has not been so in our own history. The 
 national conscience never responded to the diatribes 
 which were the chief utterances of the " abolitionists," 
 technically so called. An undercurrent of distrust held 
 the nation back from the storm of abuse by which 
 they sought to overwhelm American slavery. Ultimate 
 history will make a different record from that which 
 appears to be written now. When the philosophy of 
 reform comes to be better understood, it will be seen 
 that the power which lifted the national conscience, and 
 consolidated it against the national sin, was the temper- 
 ate and balanced testimony of the American Church. 
 
 All that frantic and vituperative reform achieved was 
 to substitute passions for principles. The consequence 
 was a volcanic, instead of a pacific, overthrow of the 
 wrong. The masses of the people, especially, never 
 adopted the policy of infidel reformers in that crisis of 
 our history. They went into the final conflict reluc- 
 tantly. The Christian theory of reform commanded 
 their confidence, and, if let alone, would have carried 
 them to a bloodless victory. 
 
 The world has yet to appreciate in full the supremacy 
 of spiritual over material forces in the treatment of 
 organic wrongs. We have yet to give full weight to 
 the superiority of silent over tumultuous revolutions. 
 We have yet to comprehend the worth of temperate as 
 compared with intoxicated opinion. We have, there- 
 fore, yet to realize the ascendency of the calm, self- 
 collected utterances of souls moved by God's Spirit 
 over the corrosive and often malign teachings of pro- 
 fessional reformers. Until these lessons are learned by 
 heart, the world must advance by j^aroxysms, in place 
 of those tranquil changes in whicli Christianity imitates 
 nature in the most blessed and permanent of her opera- 
 tions.
 
 LECT. XV.] INTEMPERATE EEPROOF. 235 
 
 The Christian pulpit should give expression to this 
 view in the style it adopts in the treatment of organ- 
 ized forms of sin. Vituperation in such discourse is 
 not power. Frenzied discussion never settles any thing. 
 Malign denunciation never carries conviction in the end. 
 The real power of the pulpit in such national contro- 
 versies does not lie in silence, indeed ; but neither does 
 it lie in passionate debate. Its real power is the power 
 of temperate opinion, expressed in guarded and bal- 
 anced speech, and specially in fidelity to spiritual prin- 
 ciples and the use of spiritual resources. So Christianity 
 has always spoken against organic wrong when it has 
 been successful. 
 
 3. Descriptions of individual guilt also often suffer 
 
 from intemperate expression. The Rev. ]\Ir. M , 
 
 a Methodist preacher of great distinction twenty years 
 ago, once described the guilt of a gambler by a stento- 
 rian delivery of this invective : " He would rattle the 
 dicebox on the grave of his father, and stake his salva- 
 tion on the threshold of hell." Well, perhaps he 
 would. But saying it thus does not convict hun, nor 
 give to others any very vivid conception of his guilt. 
 If we could see the thing done as composedly as we 
 listen to such a description of it, it would do very little 
 to deter us from the crime. John Foster says that such 
 preaching " resembles a false alarm of thunder : a sober 
 man, not wont to be startled by sounds, looks out to see 
 if it be not the rumbling of a cart." 
 
 4. Reproofs of the inconsistencies of Christians are 
 often powerless through excess of severity. Said one 
 thoughtful man of the world, "Judging by the tone 
 of the pulpit, I should suppose that you Christians are 
 the worst men living." Intemperate rebuke leaves be- 
 hind it a malign impression. That is never powerful
 
 236 ENGLISH STYLE. [lect, xv. 
 
 rebuke of good men, which is founded on an ascetic 
 theory of the Christian life. The most renowned sati- 
 rists have not aimed at an ascetic reproof, even of vice. 
 Critics have remarked how much Juvenal's satires gain 
 from his good nature. Artists say that Hogarth's 
 satirical paintings are made doubly impressive by the 
 introduction of children. Thackeray's criticism of the 
 fashionable life of London is saved from cynicism, only 
 b}" his obvious good feeling. One principle runs through 
 all these examples : it is that the power of rebuke is 
 augmented by kindly expression. The same principle 
 should pervade the addresses of the pulpit to infirm 
 believers. Unmitigated reproof is never powerful, be- 
 cause it is never true. It is not addressed to unmiti- 
 gated guilt. 
 
 5. A word here deserves attention, upon the physi- 
 ognomy of the" preacher. Ascetic impression is often 
 made in condemnatory preaching, by unconscious sever- 
 ity of countenance. We express more than we mean, 
 because our faces speak beyond our words. 
 
 " Oh, wad some power the giftie gie us 
 To see oursels as others see us ! " 
 
 It is the misfortune of some preachers that they have 
 stern faces. Children are afraid of them. By dint of 
 hard labor and trouble and sickness and self-distrust, 
 they have acquired hard features, which redouble the 
 severity of reproof from their lips. That which is called 
 " faithful preaching " must therefore be often measured 
 by the sense which uncontrollable habits of lip and brow 
 will put into it. A chronic scowl may make simple 
 earnestness express misanthropy. A means of useful- 
 ness which is worth a lifelong culture of benignant feel- 
 ing and cheerful thoughts is a beaming countenance.
 
 LECT. XA-.] MORBID CONFESSIONS OF SIN. 237 
 
 For the want of this, reprimand from the pnlpit may 
 become a philippic. 
 
 6. The intemperate style sometimes infects and wea- 
 kens confessions of sin. St. Paul knew himself to have 
 been guilty of persecuting the church of Christ. It was 
 not intemperate in him to call himself the " chief of 
 sinners." Such confession from such a man did no 
 violence to his conscience or his common sense. But it 
 does not follow that all converted men can properly use 
 that language of themselves. Not only is it untrue, but 
 it expresses an intoxicated working of conscience which 
 the good sense of other men repels. 
 
 Passages are extant in some religious diaries which 
 ought never to have been written, still less exposed to 
 the public eye. They express the weakness of a dis- 
 torted conscience. The Rev. Dr. on one occasion 
 
 wrote thus in his diary (I quote it from memory) : 
 " It has seemed to me to-day that my depravity is more 
 profound than that of Satan himself." Soon afterwards 
 he entered this confession : " At a recent date I re- 
 corded that my depravity seemed to me more profound 
 than that of Satan. To-day I feel like asking pardon 
 of Satan for making the comparison." We speak and 
 think tenderly of a good man who has been tempted in 
 a moment of weakness into such humiliation. But does 
 the confession give us any very powerful conception of 
 
 sin ? Who believes it of Dr. ? Who accepts it as 
 
 a becoming model of confession? Who sympathizes 
 with it as a manly experience which we ought to have 
 any desire to imitate? Such a confession expresses a 
 hysteric paroxysm of conscience, not its healthy and 
 vigorous working. 
 
 Returning now from these excursus, it should be re-
 
 238 ENGLISH STYLE. [lect. xv. 
 
 marked, further, that the popular taste and Christian 
 experience often conflict with each other in the recep- 
 tion of the intemperate style. Although it produces on 
 the popular mind no salutary impression, some forms of 
 it do create a theatrical interest. Here lies the tempta- 
 tion to the indulgence of it. It gratifies a craving for 
 coarse stimulus. It entertains the sensuous, and often 
 the malign emotions, as a species of scenic acting. This 
 will be the more apt to occur if such preaching is ac- 
 companied with a passionate delivery. I suspect that 
 this theatrical interest was the character of the effect 
 produced on Dr. Franklin by the preaching of White- 
 field, who often indulged in intemperate speech. The 
 real weakness of it morally is often concealed by the 
 illusion of a dramatic effect. A preacher is tempted to 
 yield to a popular taste of this kind, because it insures 
 to him a hearing. 
 
 A very significant fact, therefore, should be allowed to 
 come to the rescue of his good sense : it is, that the drift 
 of Christian experience is vigorously averse to the theat- 
 rical craving. That drift is perceptible in proportion 
 to the depth of the experience. The holiest minds have 
 no such craving. With intellectual culture, or without it, 
 the ultimate result is nearly uniform. One of the first 
 evidences which the people of Kilmany detected of the 
 spiritual revolution in the character of Dr. Chalmers 
 was that the vehemence of his delivery was moderated. 
 A similar effect is sometimes seen in revolutions of style. 
 A deepening of religious tone moderates extravagances 
 of utterance. Have you not observed this in the prayers 
 and exhortations of the conference-meeting? Have you 
 not known the presence of the Holy Spirit to be indi- 
 cated, apparently, by chastened tones of voice, by tem- 
 perate expressions of truth, by charitable judgments of
 
 LECT. XT.] SEVERITY FN PREACHING. 239 
 
 character, by style and manner indicative of gentle sur- 
 prises, as if new views of truth were opening upon the 
 vision ? Have we not learned to judge of the parity 
 and depth of religious awakenings by a certain balance 
 of character and stillness of working? 
 
 Such facts bear with great force on the philosophy of 
 preaching. They suggest that the most profound con- 
 ceptions of truth tend always to a state of repose. The 
 interest they excite is the interest of equalized sensibili- 
 ties. Symmetry of emotion results from intensity at 
 many points. In such a stage of Christian culture 
 there is a remote resemblance to the serenity of the 
 mind of God. 
 
 The style of the pulpit, therefore, it should be remem- 
 bered, has a natural expression for this mature experi- 
 ence of truth. That expression is never passionate. 
 Its chief characteristic is its simplicity. It is apt to 
 choose language rather for what it suggests than for 
 what it expresses. It is full of thought, puts life into 
 dead words, gives hints of many truths in its way of 
 representing one, makes opposite truths illuminate each 
 other, indulges in contradictions which are more truth- 
 ful than truisms, puts the hearer on the track of dis- 
 covery, invites an intense but self-collected delivery, 
 and leaves at last, in its best examples, a sense of still- 
 ness like the repose indicated by the deepest soundings 
 of the sea. Have you not listened to such preaching, 
 at least in fragments of sermons ? Have you not read 
 such passages in the literature of the pulpit ? Do you 
 not find them in the writings of St. John ? 
 
 Recognize the fact, then, that the most intense energy 
 of expression is realized in the style here described, 
 and that, if a preacher will command it by thought 
 which needs it, he may depend on a response to it from
 
 240 ENGLISH STYLE. [lect. xv. 
 
 the Christian culture of the pew. Preach, therefore, 
 your best thoughts to your best hearers, let the popular 
 craving be what it may. Preach the best experience 
 you find in you to the best experience you find around 
 you. You can not be disappointed in the result. You 
 will often be sensible of silent responses, which will be 
 the witness of the Holy Ghost. 
 
 II. We have thus far considered energy of style as 
 having its foundation in the state of a writer's mind in 
 the act of composing. We now advance to regard it as 
 assisted hij certain means tchich are common to the literal 
 and the figurative uses of language. 
 
 1. Of these, several relate to the words of a discourse 
 considered singly. And first, energy is promoted by 
 the use of pure words. Purity of style assists energy, 
 partly because it assists perspicuity, but more directly 
 because it tends to make style intelligible at the moment 
 of its utterance. Lab}Tinthine style tends to feeble 
 impression. Slow evolution of the meaning is, for that 
 reason, weak. But rapidity in a hearer's discovery of 
 thought enlivens, and therefore enforces, thought. This 
 is the working of a pure English vocabulary. The force 
 of it is augmented by the silent sympathy of a hearer 
 with his vernacular tongue. That which energy adds 
 to perspicuity is chiefly movement of the sensibilities of 
 hearers by the aid of their imagination. Of this power, 
 vernacular style must be the chief medium ; and the 
 most perfect vernacular is the purest English. 
 
 On a similar principle, energy is augmented by the 
 preponderance of a Saxon vocabulary. The strength of 
 a Saxon style has become one of the truisms of litera- 
 ture. " Saxon " is a synonym of " strong." It is wor- 
 thy of remark, that public speakers often talk Saxon 
 who do not write it, nor employ it predominantly in
 
 LECT. XV.] STYLE OF DR. JOHN'SON". 241 
 
 public address. A man's colloquial style often discloses 
 his Saxon birthright, when a Latinized dialect prevails 
 in his continuous discourse. This is sometimes the ex- 
 planation, in part, of the fact that a preacher produces 
 more impression by his extemporaneous than by his 
 written discourses. It is, that, in extemporaneous dis- 
 course, he speaks as he talks ; and he talks Saxon. His 
 extemporizing is thus homely, as distinct from stately 
 speech. It is speaking home to the sympathies of hear- 
 ers. A stereotyped criticism on a bookish speaker is, 
 " You should speak more as you talk." This means, in 
 part, " Use more liberally a Saxon vocabulary." 
 
 Perhaps the most remarkable illustration in literary 
 history of the contrast between extemporaneous and 
 written styles is found in Dr. Samuel Johnson. John- 
 son the conversationalist and Johnson the essayist were 
 two different men. In writing he was a Latin slave : in 
 conversation he was a Saxon prince. Short, crisp, blunt 
 monosyllabic words abounded in his colloquial style ; 
 and such words in our language (those, at least, which 
 are naturally used colloquially) are almost all Saxon. 
 Dr. Johnson ruled English letters in his day mainly by 
 what he talked, not by what he wrote. His fame grew 
 out of what we speak of as the Johnson Club. Gold- 
 smith, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Edmund Burke, and Bos- 
 well knew him at his best, because they heard him talk. 
 In our own day his works are little read. If he could 
 have respected his Saxon vocabulary enough to have 
 made it the warp of his written style, his works might 
 have lived another century beyond us. But no: he 
 could talk Saxon, but he must write Latin. The ghost 
 of Cicero haunted him when he took to his pen. His 
 first conception of a thought was commonly in Saxon 
 forms ; and he then deliberately set to work, as other
 
 242 ENr.LTSri style. [lkct, w. 
 
 sophomores have done, to translate it into an English 
 mimicry of the Ciceronian. Macaulay has made you 
 familiar with amusing instances of this. 
 
 Every preacher may find it worth his while to search 
 his own colloquial style, to see if he has not already 
 at his command there resources of Saxon vigor which 
 he is not using in his public speech, but which are per- 
 fectly pure, racy English, and therefore as well fitted to 
 public speech as to the table-talk. 
 
 Yet the claims of a Saxon style must be qualified. 
 Lord Brougham lays down the rule, to which in theory 
 he makes no exception, " Always prefer the Saxon 
 word." But in practice he constantly disregarded the 
 rule, as every writer will do who indulges much in con- 
 templative or philosophic thinking. The Greek and 
 Latin importations into our language are indispensable 
 to such thinking. They are more varied and more pre- 
 cise than the words of Saxon stock. We are safe in 
 saying, that a Saxon vocabulary should be chosen when 
 strength of style is the chief quality which the thought 
 demands. But often the thought requires not so much 
 strength as precision. Then the Saxon must give place 
 to the Latin or Greek derivative. The thought, again, 
 may require beauty or pathos of expression. Then one 
 instinctively chooses the word which is capable of melli- 
 fluous utterance; and that most surely is not the Saxon 
 word. For some conceptions a sensitive waiter will 
 long for a liquid dialect like the Tuscan. But such 
 qualifications leave the general principle intact, that a 
 Saxon vocabular}^ is a strong vocabular}^. It should, 
 therefore, predominate in the expression of strength 
 of thought. 
 
 Energy of style is further augmented by the use of 
 specific words. " Thou art my rock," " my fortress,"
 
 rECT. xv.J SPECIFIC AND SHORT "WORDS. 243 
 
 " my tower," " my shield," " my buckler." Why does the 
 Psalmist use these specific emblems, instead of saying, 
 " Thou dost preserve me," " protect me," " befriend 
 me " ? It is because the specific quality of the symbols 
 gives reality to the thought by their appeal to the ima- 
 gination. In like manner, the Scriptures discourse upon 
 the two future worlds, heaven and hell. Rarely, if ever, 
 does the Bible present these as states of being, and 
 never as qualities of character. The inspired thought 
 conceives of them as places : the inspired style therefore 
 paints them as things. It describes persons in them. 
 Heaven is a city, a country, a building, mansions ; music 
 is there ; harps are there, crowns, palms, robes, rivers, 
 thrones, gates, walls. So the Bible represents hell as 
 a place of fire, a lake of brimstone, prepared for the 
 Devil. Its population is personal. Employ these rep- 
 resentations as we may theologically, they involve 
 the secret of a very vital force in preaching on such 
 themes. The scriptural type of preaching on the future 
 worlds is, in the main, not didatic, it is picturesque. 
 The force of it is due largely to the specific element in 
 the style. 
 
 Energy is still further promoted by the abundant use 
 of short words. Run over in your minds such syno- 
 nyms as these: "wish and desire, breadth and latitude, 
 joy q,nd felicity, sure and indubitable, height and alti- 
 tude, law and regulation, guess and conjecture." Are 
 we not sensible of a difference in the force of these 
 words, which is due almost wholly to their diversity 
 in length? The chief defect in the vocabulary of Dr. 
 Chalmers is the preponderance of long over short words. 
 Vigor of expression often depends on surprises in thought, 
 and therefore on quick turns in style. There is said to 
 be even a painful force in the strokes of the wing of a
 
 244 Exr.Lisir style. [lect. xv. 
 
 humming-bird, arising from the almost inconceivable 
 rapidity of their succession. Force in style may be due 
 to a similar cause ; but a style in which long words 
 greatly preponderate can have no quick strokes in ut- 
 terance. The intent of the author is often disclosed 
 prematurely. The plot of a sentence, if I may use the 
 figure, is detected before it is ripe. 
 
 Analyze your own sentences sharply, and you will 
 often find that you have, in the heat of composition, 
 written with unconscious guile. Your style here and 
 there is a trap. It is so constructed as to catch the 
 listener in surprises: you detect in it a series of ambus- 
 cades. If, then, it be so constructed, by a large pre- 
 ponderance of long words, as to give the hearer time 
 to discover the catch prematurely, it defeats itself. An 
 unwieldy style, through excess of this long-winded 
 structure, resembles the movement of a crocodile in 
 chasing its prey. An agile boy, it is said, can keep him- 
 self out of its way by running in a circle. Recall the 
 familiar example which Macaulay gives from Dr. John- 
 son. Said Johnson, speaking of " The Rehearsal," a 
 production then fresh to the critics of London, " ' The 
 Rehearsal ' has not wit enough to keep it sweet." This 
 is brief, quick, Saxon strength. But, after a pause, he 
 summoned to his aid the dignity of autocratic criticism, 
 and remarked, " I should have said, ' The Rehearsal ' 
 has not vitality sufficient to preserve it from putrefac- 
 tion." This is the style of the crocodile. 
 
 It needs hardly to be said that the choice of short 
 words may be easily abused. A style made up of mono- 
 syllables would be the extreme of affectation. '• Rob- 
 inson Crusoe " was, a few years ago, translated into 
 monos3-llabic words. But "Robinson Crusoe" is ad- 
 dressed to a juvenile taste. Even children will not
 
 tECT. XV.] LACONIC STYLE. 245 
 
 long patter through a story of that length in monosyl- 
 labic slippers. The man must have been a wiseacre 
 who is said to have read fifteen pages of it without dis- 
 covering that it was not the original. 
 
 Energy is also aided by the choice of words whose 
 sound is significant of their sense. " Hiss, rattle, clat- 
 ter, rumbling, twitch, swing, sullen, strut," are speci- 
 mens of words not relatively numerous in our language, 
 but very forcibly expressive, because their sound redu- 
 plicates their sense. Ought onomatopoetic words to be 
 chosen studiously? Will not the deliberate selection of 
 them cultivate an affected energy ? Doubtless it may do 
 so ; but the instinct of speech has created such words 
 in all languages, and that which the human mind thus 
 sanctions, literary taste may wisely select. Why not, as 
 well as other elements of speech which carry the same 
 authority? They do not constitute a sufficiently large 
 proportion of any language to form a strong temptation 
 to an aifected use. 
 
 2. One of the means of augmenting energy of expres- 
 sion, which concern both the literal and figurative uses 
 of language, relates to the number of words. It is 
 conciseness of style. Conciseness has been already 
 considered as tributary to perspicuity and to precision : 
 it is more conducive to energy than to either. It has 
 passed into an axiom in criticism, " The more concise, 
 the more forcible." Many years ago Kossuth, the 
 Hungarian patriot, in an address in the city of New 
 York, expressed the idea that the time had gone by 
 when the people could be depended on for their own 
 enslavement by standing armies. He compressed it 
 into two words. Said he, " Bayonets think." The 
 words caught the popular taste like wildfire. They took 
 rank with the proverbs of the language immediately.
 
 246 ENGLISH STYLE. [lect. xv. 
 
 The idea was not new, but the style of it was. It had 
 been floating in the dialect of political debate ever 
 since the battle of Bunker Hill, but never before had 
 it been condensed into a brace of words. The effect 
 was electric. Millions then, for the first time, felt it as 
 a fact in political history. Within a month the news- 
 papers of Oregon had told their readers that bayonets 
 think. Everybody told everybody else that bayonets 
 think. In style it was a minie-bullet : everybody 
 who heard it was struck by it. Such is the force of a 
 laconic dialect. 
 
 The most important violations of conciseness as affect- 
 ing energy are three. One is tautology. A weak style 
 is sometimes due to no other cause than repetition of 
 ideas in varied language. This is toil without progress. 
 A tendency to tautology was created in English style by 
 the Norman Conquest of England. As you are aware, 
 from the time of William the Conqueror, the Norman 
 was made by law the dialect of the court, Saxon remain- 
 ing the vernacular of the people. The usage, therefore, 
 grew up of expressing thought consecutively by the use 
 of words from both dialects, and meaning precisely the 
 same thing. In the Book of Common Prayer, which 
 was constructed for court and people alike, this tautol- 
 ogy is still discernible in such phrases as " assemble and 
 meet together," "dissemble and cloak," "pure and 
 holy," "confirm and strengthen," "joy and felicity." 
 Traces of the same feature still exist among us, espe- 
 cially in the dialect of extemporaneous prayer. Diffuse 
 writers commonly betray their diffuseness in this yoking 
 of Saxon and Norman synonyms together. 
 
 Do you not recognize the following words in couples 
 as having become standard yokes in style of the second 
 and thkd rate? — "Null and void, clear and obvious,
 
 tECT. XV.] VERBOSE STYLE. 247 
 
 pains and penalties, forms and ceremonies, bounds and 
 limits, peace and quiet, sort or kind, weak and feeble, 
 mild and gentle, just and righteous, rules and regula- 
 tions, trust and confidence " ? Some of these do not 
 illustrate strictly the contrast of Saxon and Norman 
 roots ; but, of these couples, in every instance one word 
 was familiar to the Saxon mind, and the other to the 
 Norman. In the first blending of the two dialects 
 hundreds of such twins found their way into the usage 
 of writers. For a time they were a necessity. But, now 
 that the two dialects are welded into one, such couples 
 are no longer needed. They encumber style by need- 
 less synonyms. Yet that usage has infected the entire 
 history of English diction from that day to this. It 
 has led to the duplication of a multitude of words not 
 distinguished by that diversity of origin. One of the 
 first acts of a young writer, therefore, in the criticism 
 of his own discourses, should be to examine the braces 
 of words, and see if they do not comprise needless 
 synonyms. 
 
 Similar to the tautological sacrifice of conciseness, 
 and 3'et distinct from that, is verboseness. This occurs 
 when words are introduced which express unimportant 
 shades of thought. Sentences, the gist of which might 
 be compressed into half their length, are extended to 
 make room for hints which add a little, but not much, 
 to the weight of thought. They do not add enough to 
 compensate for the increase of bulk and the labor of 
 carriage. Complex sentences are needlessly preferred 
 to simple ones. 
 
 In poetry, conciseness is thus often sacrificed to rhyme. 
 Rhetorical text-books give an example from Dr. John- 
 son. Imitating one of Juvenal's poems, he commences 
 thus : —
 
 248 ENGLISH STYLE. [lect. xv. 
 
 " Let observation with extensive view 
 Survey mankind from China to Peru." 
 
 One critic satirizes this couplet by saying that it is only 
 expressing in rhyme this thought : " Let observation 
 with extensive observing survey mankind extensively." 
 Yet the defect is not exactly that of tautology: it is 
 a verbose insertion of minor hints for the sake of the 
 measure. 
 
 In prose, and specially in inexperienced writers, the 
 error is most frequently committed by piling together 
 qualifying words and clauses. Adjectives, adverbs, and 
 adjective and adverbial clauses, if they do not add force 
 enough to support them by their intrinsic worth, must 
 of course be carried by the rest of the sentence. They 
 may, therefore, make all the difference between heavy 
 and sprightly movement. The more weighty the 
 thought, the less force it may have, if, relatively to 
 the main idea, it is a dead weight. Style, to be forcible, 
 must have celerity of movement. Thought thus borne 
 on words must be capable of quick utterance. Words 
 must be wings. Rapid succession, if coherent, is the 
 token of energetic thinking. Thought is a quick pro- 
 cess, the most nimble that we know- of. " As quick as 
 thought," we say, and we can say no more, to express 
 rapidity. Energy of expression must always convey 
 that quality in thought. Yet to do this it must have 
 buoyancy proportioned to the weight it carries. "With- 
 out this, we say of style that it drags, no matter how 
 solid the materials. 
 
 Verboseness is often the peril of the scholastic as op- 
 posed to the popular style. A scholar commonly writes 
 in retirement and at his leisure. He writes under the 
 influence of tastes and habits which keep liim aloof from 
 real life. He is apt, therefore, to take his time for it.
 
 LECT. XV.] SKETCHIXG IN STYLE. 249 
 
 The mere sense of leisure will often make a man plod. 
 He involves, he complicates, he twists, he tangles his 
 thought, merely because he has the time to do it. A 
 pressure from without which should crowd him, would 
 create force of style by compelling him to quicker move- 
 ment. Dr. Arnold showed a very keen observation of 
 men and things when he said to a friend who urged him 
 to write more for the newspapers, " I can not write well 
 for the newspapers. A newspaper demands a more con- 
 densed style than I am master of, such as only the 
 mingling in the actual shock of opinions can give a 
 man." This is the true ideal of a popular style, — as 
 true of the pulpit as of the editor's chair. 
 
 I select as a specimen of that kind of force which con- 
 ciseness alone may create in style, the following descrip- 
 tion of China : '' It is a country where roses have no 
 fragrance, and women no petticoats ; where the laborer 
 has no sabbath, and the magistrate no sense of honor ; 
 where the roads bear no vehicles, and the ships have 
 no keels ; where old men fly kites ; where the needle 
 points to the south, and the sign of being puzzled is to 
 scratch the heel ; where the seat of honor is on the left 
 hand, and the seat of intellect in the stomach ; where to 
 take off your hat is an insolent gesture, and to wear 
 white is to put yourself in mourning ; which has a litera- 
 ture without an alphabet, and a language without a 
 grammar." This is in style what sketching is in art. 
 The passage contains not one adverb, only one adjective, 
 not one qualifying clause, and nothing expressive of a 
 secondary idea. It reminds one of national proverbs, 
 which are commonly models of that density of thought 
 which the compressed wisdom of ages deserves. Who 
 ever heard of a long-winded proverb ? 
 
 It is a singular idiosyncrasy sometimes detected in
 
 250 ENGLISH STYT^E. [lect. xv. 
 
 public speakers, that they are verbose in the use of cer- 
 tain favorite parts of speech. One has an unconscious 
 favoritism for adjectives, another for adverbs, another 
 for substantives in apposition. In manuscript sermons 
 I have sometimes transformed a weak style into a com- 
 paratively strong one by running the pen through three- 
 fourths of the adjectives. This curious phenomenon of 
 composition deserves to be remembered in a preacher's 
 criticism of his own discourses. The style of Rufus 
 Choate, magnificent as it was in the affluence of its 
 vocabulary, would still have been invigorated if it had 
 been shorn of one-half its adjectives. 
 
 But the view here suggested should be qualified by 
 the remark, that sometimes the qualifying word imparts 
 a tonic to the style. One such word may condense the 
 whole emphasis of the utterance. De Quincey, descant- 
 ing on the falsehoods of Pope as being no indication of 
 recklessness of the feelings of other people, says, "In 
 cases where he had no reason to suspect any lurking 
 hostility, he showed even a paralytic benignity." A 
 half-page of description could not so forcibly express 
 the sarcasm which is flung at Pope in this one word. 
 
 One other method by which the want of conciseness 
 may impair energy of expression is that of a needless 
 circumlocution of thought. Circumlocution of thought 
 is not necessarily tautological nor verbose. No more 
 words may be employed than are needful to express 
 thought circuitously. The fault lies in multiplying 
 words by a circumlocutory train of thinking, when di- 
 rect thinking is equally good, and, if so, better, because 
 it is direct. Says Mr. Disraeli, in a speech on the hus- 
 tings, " The national debt is nothing but a flea-bite." 
 But in the House of Commons he scruples to repeat 
 the figure in its strong, homely form, but says, "The
 
 LECT. XV.] CIKCXJMLOCUTORY STYLE. 251 
 
 national debt is nothing but the incision of the most 
 troublesome, though not the most unpopular, of insects." 
 Why this polite euphemism ? Circumlocutory thought 
 displaced directness, and that made just the difference 
 between weakness and energy of diction.
 
 LECTURE XVI. 
 
 ENEKGY OF STYLE, CONCLUDED. — CONSTRUCTION. — RHE- 
 TORICAL FIGURE. 
 
 The last Lecture closed witli a consideration of con- 
 ciseness of style as generally tributary to energy. The 
 view there presented is subject to exceptions in which 
 conciseness is the reverse of energy. Exception occurs 
 where conciseness is obviously affected. Affectation 
 of any thing is never other than a wealaiess. A friend 
 of Dr. Johnson died, and he wrote to his widow a note of 
 condolence, thus : " Dear madam, oh ! " In less than 
 a year she married again, and he wrote a note of con- 
 gratulation, thus : " Dear madam, ah ! " This would 
 satisfy Lacedaemonian taste in respect to brevity, but 
 what is the effect of the laconics rhetorically? Would 
 the first note comfort a disconsolate widow? Would 
 the second please a comforted widow ? Neither. Both 
 are extremes of affectation, in which the doctor was 
 thinking of his very smart style. No style is unpres- 
 sive which is not sincere. 
 
 Again : exception obviously occurs where diffuseness 
 is necessary to perspicuity. For some audiences, on 
 some subjects, as we have seen, perspicuity demands dif- 
 fuseness. In such cases, energy, of course, demands the 
 same. Perspicuity always lies back of energy. The form 
 of concise force is delusive if the thought is not clear. 
 It is not entirely fair to criticise an author by fragments 
 of his composition dislocated from their connections ; 
 
 252
 
 LECT. XVI.] OBSCURE CONCISEKESS. 253 
 
 but the following are examples^ wliich, read in their 
 connections, would still, I think, represent obscure con- 
 ciseness. They are taken from the earlier essays of 
 Ralph Waldo Emerson. " The way of life is by aban- 
 donment." " With the geometry of sunbeams the soul 
 lays the foundation of nature." " I, the imperfect, adore 
 my own perfect." " The soul knows only the soul." 
 " The world globes itself in a drop of dew." " The 
 great genius returns to essential man." " Praj'er is the 
 spirit of God pronouncing his works good." " The devil 
 is an ass." 
 
 Such aphoristic sentences abound in the style of 
 Emerson in his early manhood. They are laconic, but 
 they are not forcible. The question is not whether 
 they convey any meaning, but do they convey any such 
 force of meaning as that professed by their extremely 
 laconic form ? Their compactness promises a great deal : 
 does the reader realize the promise ? Who is sure that 
 he understands them ? How many of these sage prov- 
 erbs, which by their form put themselves by the side 
 of the apothegms of the ages, will you remember in a 
 week? Probably none but the compliment to Satan, 
 and that is asinine in more senses than one. It will 
 cling to your memory rather as a rude jest than as the 
 utterance of an axiomatic truth. 
 
 If you desire a " dictionary unabridged " of specimens 
 of weakness in style caused by obscure conciseness, let 
 me whisper to you confidentially, that you should bor- 
 row on some dark night, and under pledge of secrec}^, 
 from some very juvenile friend, or from some country 
 tavern, "Tupper's Proverbial Philosophy." Yet that 
 book has found a hundred thousand buyers ! 
 
 Exception to the principle that conciseness is energy 
 occurs in some examples of descriptive writing. Ed-
 
 254 ENGLISH STYT.E. [lect. xvi, 
 
 rnund Burke, in his speech on the nabob of Arcot, de- 
 scribes the effects of the war carried on by the East India 
 Company in the Carnatic territory. An unimaginative 
 speaker, seeing things in what Bacon calls " dry light," 
 would have said, "The war was a war of extermina- 
 tion : " this was the whole of it. An indignant and dif- 
 fusive speaker, boiling over with his wrath, would have 
 said, " The war was murderous, inhuman, devilish." 
 His invective would have spent itself in epithets. But 
 Burke, more forcible than either, compresses his indig- 
 nation, has not a word to say of the character of the 
 war, but describes the facts, and leaves them to speak 
 for themselves. He says, " When the British army 
 traversed, as they did, the Carnatic for hundreds of 
 miles in all directions, through the whole line of their 
 march they did not see one man, not one woman, not 
 one child, not one four-footed beast of any description 
 whatever." Energy of thought here requires particu- 
 larity of detail : therefore energy of expression requires 
 many words. 
 
 Sometimes a descriptive speaker needs to gain time 
 for a thought to take hold of an obtuse hearer. Macau- 
 lay says of the effects of the French Revolution, " Down 
 went the old church of France, with all its pomp and 
 wealth." This is forcible fact forcibly put. But he 
 intensifies it by saying, " The churches were closed ; the 
 bells were silent ; the shrines were plundered ; the silver 
 crucifixes were melted down ; buffoons dressed in sur- 
 plices came dancing the carmagnole, even to the bar of 
 the Convention." By these details, time is gained for 
 the imaarination to realize the main truth that the church 
 was destroyed. Longinus illustmtes the two styles here 
 contrasted by the examples of Demosthenes and Cicero. 
 He says, " Demosthenes was concisely, Cicero diffusely
 
 LECT. XVI.] ENERGY OF DIFFTJSEKESS. 255 
 
 sublime. Demosthenes was a thunderbolt : Cicero was 
 a conflagration." 
 
 Exception to the general principle before us takes 
 place, also, in certain momentary utterances of intense 
 emotion. Profane men in a fit of passion do not swear 
 concisely. Intense emotion may express itself, on the 
 spur of the moment, by a volume of words. Passion 
 heaps words on words, piles epithet on epithet, repeats 
 itself once and again, and thus creates in style that kind 
 of energy which a torrent symbolizes. A volley of 
 oaths is the transient utterance of overwhelming wrath. 
 The single tremendous oath of studied force is the ex- 
 pression of cool purpose and self-collection. Dignified 
 discourse sometimes admits a style which transiently 
 resembles that of overpowering passion. Style, then, 
 does not condense, but expands thought, pours it forth 
 in a volume of sound. Words at best are but hints. 
 They are but symbols of ideas. The sum total of them 
 is a symbol as well as the units. A flood of words may 
 have the same kind of force as that of a flood of tears. 
 
 But is not this contradictory to the principle we have 
 considered, that energy demands self-possession? Yes, 
 it is so in appearance, but not in fact. I have said that 
 it is transient, often momentary. Naturally it occurs 
 in fragments of discourse. Its brevity is a sign that it 
 involves no loss of mental balance. You give way to 
 emotion in it, as if with full consciousness that you do 
 it of design, and that the ebullition will subside at your 
 will. Did you never pause in the street to watch a 
 horse at the top of his speed, when at first you doubted 
 whether he was not a runaway ? And, when you saw 
 that his rider had liim well in hand, did not your first 
 thought enhance your sense of power in the second? 
 There is in style a phenomenon which resembles that.
 
 256 ENGLISH STYLE. [lect. xvi. 
 
 Speech carried to the verge of frenzy, but indulged only 
 for the moment, then reined in, and used for a purpose, 
 becomes an evidence, and therefore an instrument, of 
 power. Disorder ruled and utilized is the exponent of 
 superlative power. 
 
 3. Not only does energy of style concern words con- 
 sidered singly; not only the number of words; but 
 there is a class of tributaries to it which concerns the 
 construction of sentences. We can not wisely carry 
 criticism of construction beyond a few simple principles. 
 For the most part, in practice, it must be left to the 
 bidding of the oratorical instinct. But in written com- 
 position especially, the three following principles of 
 rhetorical mechanism may be applied without detriment 
 to freedom in composing. 
 
 One is, that emphatic words be so located that their 
 force shall be obvious. Observe, this criticism does not 
 concern the choice of emphatic words : it concerns loca- 
 tion only. The where is often more significant than the 
 what. The distinction often made between the natural 
 and the inverted order of a sentence is fallacious. Any 
 order is natural which makes obvious the full force of 
 the language. The oratorical instinct needs to be so 
 trained, that in practice it will spontaneously choose 
 the natural order, be it inverted or direct. Yet one 
 may deliberately apply this as one principle of mechan- 
 ism in style, that a sentence should not commonly end 
 or begin with an insignificant word. 
 
 The ending and the beginning of a sentence are the 
 only two localities with which criticism can consciously 
 concern itself, in the act of composing, without loss of 
 freedom. But so far, conscious vigilance may direct 
 the pen. Therefore we should not end a sentence with 
 a little word, unless the connection gives it emphasis.
 
 LECT. xn.] MECHANISM OF SENTENCES. 257 
 
 One writer, who probably means no more than this, lays 
 down the rule (so the text-books tell us) that a prepo- 
 sition ought not to close a sentence. The most conclu- 
 sive answer to such a rule is the very form in which the 
 rhetorical instinct of the critic cast the statement of it. 
 He puts it thus : " A preposition is a feeble word to end 
 a sentence with^ This rule, though in more adroit 
 form of statement, has long encumbered the books on 
 rhetoric. It is indefensible in any form. A preposition 
 as such is by no means a feeble word. What can be 
 finer than this from Rufus Choate ? " What ! Banish 
 the Bible from our schools ? Never, so long as there is 
 left of Plymouth Rock a piece large enough to make a 
 gunflint of! " This is purest idiomatic English. Our 
 Lord's rebuke to his disciples is fashioned, in our trans- 
 lation, on the same model. " Ye know not what man- 
 ner of spirit ye are o/"." The old Scotch interrogative, 
 "What for?" is as pure English in written as in collo- 
 quial speech. 
 
 The prejudice against this prepositional form of end- 
 ing grew out of the affectation of Latin construction at 
 a time when English literature was despised, and noth- 
 ing was deemed worthy of respect which was not of 
 ancient classic origin. The true principle, and the only 
 one which the oratorical instinct can use in the act of 
 composing, respecting the ending of a sentence, is the 
 one I have named, — that a sentence should not need- 
 lessly be ended with an unimportant word of any kind. 
 A similar rule holds good, but with more frequent ex- 
 ception, respecting the beginning of a sentence. When 
 energy of expression is required, we should not, if we 
 can avoid it, locate at the beginning insignificant words. 
 Certain declarative phrases, such as "• it is," " there is," 
 are employed to start the movement of sentences when
 
 258 ENGLISH STYLE. [lect. xvi. 
 
 often they are notemphatic : they are only mechanical 
 expedients for setting the ball in motion. Among inex- 
 perienced writers, the word "and" probably begins 
 more sentences than any other word in the language. 
 
 Important words, when the flexibility of style will 
 permit, should end a sentence and begin it, if force of 
 expression is the quality demanded by the thought. 
 Beyond this, criticism can not, in my judgment, instruct 
 the instinct of the orator, which is in every man. Obey 
 that instinct, and you can not go wrong. The most 
 fruitful cause of languid style is heedless composing. 
 Writers are never among those fortunate architects who 
 build better than they know. The majority of us often 
 ignore our best and plainest intuitions. Hence comes 
 all our insignificance in speech. 
 
 The mechanism of sentences may assist energy fur- 
 ther by the conscious use or omission of the conjunctive 
 beginning. I have just observed that the word " and " 
 probably begins more sentences in the productions of 
 inexperienced writers than any other in the language. 
 This fact gives importance to intelligent criticism of all 
 forms of conjunctive beginning. Let it be observed, 
 then, that the conjunctive beginning is forcible if the 
 succession of thought requires it. Often it does so. 
 Something is needed to express or to hint the fact of 
 continuity. The idea of inference, or of other sequence, 
 or of qualification, or of contrast, is to the point. In- 
 stinctively, then, you link sentence to sentence by 
 beginning the second of two with " but " or " and," or 
 an adverbial term which has a conjunctive effect, like 
 " yet " or " nevertheless." What is the exact force of 
 this conjunctive beginning? It is to bridge over the 
 period preceding. Sometimes energy requires that. 
 
 But, without such demand of thought, the conjunc-
 
 j-ECT. XVI.] CONJUNCTIVE FORCE. 259 
 
 tive beginning is meaningless, and therefore vapid. Did 
 you never hear an inferior conversationalist begin sen- 
 tence after sentence with the corrupt formula " and-er " ? 
 That indicates momentary vacuity of mind. The speak- 
 er is on the hunt for something to say. The " and-er " 
 has no conjunctive force. Not once in a score of times 
 does the connection demand a reminder of that which 
 went before. This mongrel expression is only an inter- 
 jectional expletive, by which the speaker holds on to 
 the right of utterance while his mind is exploring. To 
 compare it with a thing on a level with it in dignity, it 
 is like the travelling-bag which you leave to represent 
 you when you for a moment leave your seat in a rail- 
 car. Precisely such is the needless use of the conjunc- 
 tive beginning in written discourse. In the succession 
 of thought it has no conjunctive force. Therefore style 
 it is not. It is language not freighted with sense. 
 
 Oral delivery may be sadly weakened by the conjunc- 
 tive beginning. Punctuation may remedy it to the eye 
 in print ; but, orally delivered, such sentences lose their 
 only sign of separation. The period is bridged over 
 when you do not mean it, and your style runs together. 
 Two, even three, possibly four, short sentences, which 
 for force of utterance ought to be short, and ought to 
 be uttered with crisp delivery, are stretched into one 
 long one ; made long by that most flattering expedient 
 of composition, a mechanical coupling of ideas. The 
 conjunctive beginning, therefore, should be intelligently 
 used. Use it when you mean it. Drop it when it is 
 only the sign of vacuum. Common etiquette requires 
 you to conceal a yawn. 
 
 Again : energy may be expressed in the mechanical 
 construction of style by the skillful use of the periodic 
 structure. What is meant by a rhetorical period ? Re-
 
 260 ENGLISH STYLE. [lect. xvi, 
 
 call for a moment your collegiate text-book. The period 
 is a structure in which the completion of the sense is 
 suspended till the close. The ancient rhetoricians com- 
 pared it to a sling, from which the stone is ejected after 
 many circuits. A loose sentence is one in which the 
 end might grammatically occur before the close. Such 
 a sentence is a chain, from which a link may be dropped 
 from the end, and it will still be a chain, and will have 
 an end. The periodic sentence is a glass ball : to part 
 with a fragment of it is to ruin the whole. 
 
 One effect of the periodic structure is to throw for- 
 ward emphasis upon the end. Also, by the suspense of 
 the sense, attention is claimed till the close. Further : 
 the period satisfies all the expectation it excites. In the 
 act of attending to discourse, the mind of a hearer 
 always gravitates. Its instinct is to seek a state of rest, 
 and to rest at the first point at which rest is grammati- 
 cally possible. In listening to the period, it finds but 
 one such point : in listening to the loose construction, 
 it may find man3% Besides, the period permits the dis- 
 closure, to the hearer, of the growth of a thought. 
 Here lies its chief advantage. A loose sentence can 
 grow, only as the tail of a kite grows. A period has 
 symmetry : its parts do more than cohere ; they are 
 interdependent and interlocked. The construction fur- 
 nishes scope for that visible evolution and involution of 
 thought which constitute the charm of the most power- 
 ful style. Critical description of this is very tame. 
 But look, for examples, at the style of Jeremy Taylor, 
 of Milton's prose-works, and of Edmund Burke. Those 
 passages which will strike 3'ou as the most eloquent are 
 the passages of sustained, prolonged intercurrence of 
 ideas by means of the periodic mechanism. 
 
 In the most perfect examples of extemporaneous
 
 LECT. XVI.] THE PERIODIC STYLE. 261 
 
 style, thought actually grows thus in the mind of the 
 speaker. He does not know the whole of it when he 
 commences a sentence. Yet, by oratorical instinct, he 
 chooses the broad, circular, periodic inclosure ; and in it 
 his mind careers around and across, gathering its mate- 
 rials as it goes. To the hearer that process of invent- 
 ing thought is made visible, yet without suggesting the 
 weakness of after-thought. I am stretching criticism 
 to the verge of uselessness by attempting description of 
 this process, but you will recognize the reality in the 
 best of your reading. A certain loftiness of imagina- 
 tive thinking can not be expressed without a skillful 
 and free use of the periodic structure. Short, dense, 
 antithetic sentences will not do for it. Many are mas- 
 ters of these who can not command the other. Dr. 
 South could not. If he had been able to do it, he would 
 have been a more genial critic of Jeremy Taylor. 
 
 Once more : the periodic style assists energy of ex- 
 pression by a certain roundness of construction which 
 is favorable to dignity of delivery. Difficult of execu- 
 tion though it be, and requiring certain phj^sical 
 resources which few possess in their perfection, when 
 well matched by a grand physique, in person, voice, 
 attitude, and gesture, it carries every thing before it. 
 The Rev. R. S. Storrs, D.D., of Brooklyn, is an example 
 of a speaker whose physique and elocution invite the 
 use of the periodic style ; and he often employs it with 
 great power. 
 
 But it should be observed, as a balance to the view 
 here given, that the periodic structure may be abused. 
 Scarcely any other mechanism of style invites abuse so 
 fascinatingly as this. Inordinately used, it may impair 
 energy in three ways. One is by an artificial stateliness. 
 The following, from Mr. Hallam, will illustrate this:
 
 2G2 ENGLISH STYT.E. [lect. xvi, 
 
 " The mystical theology, which, from seeking the illu- 
 minating inllucnce and the piercing love of Deity, often 
 proceeded onward to visions of complete absorption in 
 his essence, till that itself was lost, as in the East from 
 whence this system sprung, in an annihilating panthe- 
 ism, had never wanted and can never want its disciples." 
 It would be difficult to find in the language a feebler 
 sentence than this written on a serious theme. Its 
 flaccidity of style is due entirely to the extreme of the 
 rhetorical period. In style, as in manners, ease must 
 temper stateliness. 
 
 Abuse of the period may impair energy also by a slov- 
 enly crowding of the language. I can not more briefly 
 express the point of this criticism than by recalling to 
 you a familiar one from De Quincey on the defective- 
 ness of German construction. The construction which 
 is indigenous to the German mind is the ideal realized 
 of this abuse of the period. De Quincey writes of it 
 thus : " Every German regards a sentence in the light 
 of a package . . . into which his privilege is to crowd 
 as much as he possibly can. Having framed a sentence, 
 therefore, he next proceeds to pack it ; which is effected 
 partly by unwieldy tails and codicils, but chiefly by 
 enormous parenthetic involutions. Qualifications, limi- 
 tations, exceptions, illustrations, are stuffed and violently 
 rammed into the bowels of the principal proposition. 
 That all this equipage of accessories is not so arranged 
 as to assist its own orderly development, no more occurs 
 to a German as any fault than that in a package of 
 carpets the colors and patterns are not fully displayed. 
 To him it is sufficient that they are there.'''' You doubt- 
 less recognize the original, in this caricature, of many 
 sentences in the writings of Kant. 
 
 Abuse of the period, furthermore, impairs energy in
 
 LECT. XVI.] FORCE OF IMAGERY. 263 
 
 oral address by rendering a forcible delivery impossible. 
 In either form, that of excessive stateliness or that of 
 slovenly crowding, impressive elocution is beyond the 
 reach of art. Try it. Could you deliver well three 
 pages of Sir Thomas Browne ? Could you preach im- 
 pressively one of Kant's sentences, covering an octavo 
 page, and packed at that? You must chant the one, 
 and mouth the other. In adopting the resonant peri- 
 odic structure, a preacher should see to it that the 
 passage be so adjusted as to deliver well. We must 
 sacrifice an excellence in written style, if it is not also 
 an excellence in oral speech. A daring exploit is it, 
 under some conditions, to speak the period at all. A 
 double-bass voice in an auditorium whose acoustic pro- 
 portions put in a claim for a hearing of its own will 
 doom any specimen of the periodic style to ridicule. 
 
 III. Thus far, energy of style has been treated as 
 depending on the state of a writer's mind in the act 
 of composing, and as depending on certain tributaries 
 which are common to both the literal and the figurative 
 uses of language. It remains now to consider it as re- 
 lated to certain means which are peculiar to figurative 
 speech. 
 
 Of these should be first recalled those principles con- 
 cerning imagery which were named as essential to per- 
 spicuity. In treating that branch of our general subject, 
 the chief causes of obscurity in style were mentioned, 
 and discussed at length. They were, incongruous image- 
 ry, mixed imagery, learned imagery, excess of imagery, 
 and the absence of imagery. • We need not traverse 
 the same ground again any farther than to observe that 
 the same causes may render style feeble which render it 
 obscure. Indeed, they may do so, by making it ob- 
 scure. Any thing that blurs a thought deadens its force.
 
 264 ENGLISH STYLE. [lect. xvi. 
 
 Good taste is even more sensitive to the force of imagery 
 than to its clearness. 
 
 The little that needs to be said beyond this will re- 
 call to you your collegiate text-books. I might be well 
 content with a general reference to them, if it were not 
 for certain suggestions of a professional character which 
 will not be found there. Two preliminaries here will 
 prevent misconception. One is, that figure in speech 
 is not confined to imagery strictly so called. Construc- 
 tion in style admits of figure. This is what the books 
 mean when they enumerate " figures of rhetoric." A 
 sentence by its very structure may be figurative when its 
 words are not so. By an occult sense, style may be made 
 figurative when its words are as literal as the alphabet. 
 Irony, for instance, is one of the " figures of rhetoric." 
 
 The other preliminary is, that the object of naming 
 these " figures of rhetoric " is not to facilitate a me- 
 chanical use of them. The use of them ought not 
 to be mechanical. Criticism which should make them 
 so would be worse than useless. Moreover, criticism is 
 useless in assisting the invention of these figures of 
 speech. The invention must come from the instinct of 
 an excited mind, or it can not be at all. The most that 
 criticism can do is to confirm the oratorical instinct in 
 the use of such resources, and to guard against abuses 
 of them. We may therefore pass rapidly over them, 
 remarking only such hints as may subserve the tasteful 
 and forcible use of them in the pulpit. 
 
 1. The instinct of oratory numbers among its sim- 
 plest figures of rhetoric the climax. Climactic ^ order 
 
 ^ I coin the word " climactic," on the ground of its regularity of 
 structure, like that of "eclectic," "mystic," "hysteric," "ictic," etc., 
 and chiefly on the ground of the absolute necessity of it to the fullness 
 of the language. ISIany writers use it, ignoring the fact that usage haa 
 not yet established it beyond dispute.
 
 LECT. XVI.] ANTITHETIC STYLE. 265 
 
 itself expresses an idea, — that of rise in thought. It is 
 a symbol of cumulation, and cumulation of thought is 
 force. In few expedients is the skill of a writer more 
 constantly put in unconscious requisition than in this of 
 the pertinent use of the cumulative structure. In the 
 order of adjectives, of adverbs, of verbs, of substantives, 
 of clauses, a choice is practicable, which commonly cli- 
 max should determine. You are heedless of the instinct 
 of oratory, if you say, " he was beloved and respected," 
 instead of saying, "-he was respected and beloved," 
 unless the " respect " in question is the point which 
 needs enforcement. Would you say, " he had a good 
 conscience and a Roman nose " ? Why, then, reverse 
 the order of climax in any energetic speech? Climax 
 reversed is one form of burlesque. A succession of 
 tapering sentences, advancing from the greater to the 
 less, makes one feel as if one were sitting on an inclined 
 plane. By confusion of order, proceeding from greater 
 to less and from less to greater in succession, style may 
 seem to make a zigzag movement. 
 
 2. The instinct of forcible utterance recognizes the 
 energy of antithesis in style. Antithetic structure ex- 
 presses an idea, — that of contrast. Contrast itself is 
 force. De Quincey supposes the whole structure of the 
 " Paradise Lost " to rest, as a work of art, on a designed 
 multiplication of contrasts. That which some have 
 charged to the pedantry of Milton he claims to be the 
 effect of a lurking antagonism of effects. The intro- 
 duction of architecture into pandemonium, and again 
 into paradise, he vindicates, not by any law of historic 
 probability, but simply by the law of imagination, which 
 invents and delights in reciprocal collision of ideas. 
 
 It is this intrinsic energy of contrast which inclines 
 deep feeling to express itself in contradictions. St.
 
 266 ENGLISH STYLE. [lect. xvi. 
 
 Paul, with no oratorical theory about it, pours out his 
 profound experience in forms which are false, yet which 
 deceive nobody : " Sorrowing, yet always rejoicing ; 
 dying, }' et we live ; having nothing, 3^ et possessing all 
 things." What is the secret of this language from De 
 Bray, the Huguenot martyr ? — " These shackles are 
 more honorable to me than golden rings : when I hear 
 their clank, methinks I listen to the music of sweet 
 voices and the tinkling of lutes." Contrast promotes 
 force, also, by augmenting conciseness. Contrast saves 
 words. Of two contrasted ideas, each is a mirror to the 
 other ; and a mirror gives you vision, instead of words. 
 Pithy, condensed sayings, which, because of their force, 
 pass into proverbs, and live for ever, commonly take 
 the antithetic form. The majority of the proverbs of 
 Solomon are of the antithetic structure. 
 
 3. The intuition of the orator recognizes the interro- 
 gation as a tribute to energy in style. Few expedients 
 of speech so simple as this are so effective in giving 
 vigor to style. A sermon comparatively dull may be 
 made comparatively vivacious, and so far forcible, by a 
 liberal sprinkling of interrogatives. Is a declarative 
 utterance of a truth tame ? Put it as an inquiry. Ask 
 a question which implies it, and the silent answer may 
 be more impressive to the hearer than any words of 
 yours. Does an antithetic expression disappoint you? 
 Try the mark of interrogation. Put it to the hearer 
 as if he must sharpen it by a response. I do not mean 
 that this is to be put on mechanically, but that you 
 should throw your own mind into the mood of colloqu}^. 
 Single out one man in your audience, and talk with him. 
 Jeremiah Mason, who contested with Daniel Webster 
 the headship of the Boston bar, used, in addressing 
 juries, to single out one man in the jury-box, the man
 
 LECT. XVI.] INTERROGATIVE STYLE. 267 
 
 of dullest look, of immobile countenance, who went 
 to sleep most easily, and then directed his whole plea to 
 him, keeping his e3'e upon him till the man felt that he 
 was watched, and that the counsel had business with 
 him. That kind of impression can often be wrought 
 into your style, and made to come out of it again to 
 the one hearer whom it is aimed at. The effect of that 
 mental change in you will be magical. The style which 
 was humdrum becomes alive, because you have come to 
 life. The thought springs, because you spring. There 
 is no mechanism about it: it is an honest expression 
 of a new force within you. 
 
 Observe briefly the philosophy of the interrogative. 
 It makes a hearer active in the reception of a truth. 
 The chief craving of the majority of worshipers is for 
 something to do : hence the popularity of congrega- 
 tional singing and of liturgic responses. An interroga- 
 tive style in the sermon produces a similar effect. An 
 interrogation is an appeal : an appeal invites silent re- 
 joinder. Did you never see a hearer's lips move, or his 
 head nod or shake, in answer to an interrogation from 
 the preacher? Again: interrogation is an expression of 
 confidence. It is a bold utterance, and therefore force- 
 ful. The instinct of earnest speech does not put doubt- 
 ful opinions into the interrogative style. If we doubt, 
 we do not give the hearer a chance to reply, even silent- 
 ly : therefore we say our say, but ask no questions. 
 This is the instinct of keen oratory. Interrogation is 
 the electric wire which carries from speaker to hearer 
 the sign of vivid conviction. Hence arises the popular- 
 ity of interrogatives among earnest talkers. The common 
 people, when roused, spring to the interrogative. Men 
 scold in interrogatives. This is only the vulgar counter- 
 part of the same feature in the philippics of Demosthenes.
 
 268 ENGLISH STYLE. [i.kct. xvi. 
 
 Further : tlie interrogative style invites, yes, com- 
 inantls, an animated delivery. He must be a remarkable 
 speaker who for an hour in succession can deliver well 
 declarative sentences without an interrogative break. 
 No matter how weighty nor how skillfully constructed, 
 a speech gets nothing if it asks nothing. The elocution 
 natural to it flattens it. On the contrary, he must be 
 fearfully and wonderfully made who can not in public 
 speech put life into a question. Can you drawl a 
 question ? Can you sing a question ? Can you make 
 humdrum of a question ? Can you deliver a series of 
 questions without a quickening of your elocution ? Try 
 it. Experiment on Shylock's talk with Salarino : " I 
 am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew 
 hands? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you 
 tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we 
 not die ? And, if 3-ou wrong us, shall we not revenge ? " 
 If the interrogative could do nothing else than to ener- 
 gize delivery, it would be indispensable to a forcible 
 style for that. Florists say that a bouquet of flowers is 
 never perfect without one yellow blossom in honor of 
 the sun. So the expedients of rhetorical figure are 
 incomplete without the interrogative. The instinct of 
 earnest speech craves it, and will always have it, if the 
 speaker's taste has not been perverted by false notions 
 of dignity. 
 
 A modification of this figure is found in the colloquy. 
 This was formerly employed in the pulpit more freely 
 than now. Question and answer, with question again 
 and rejoinder, have often given an energetic presentation 
 of argument. This form of discussion by disputation, 
 as you are aware, was abundantly used by the ancient 
 philosophers. French preachers have used it with great 
 effect. Saurin has a sermon in which God and man
 
 LECT. XVI.] HYPERBOLE. — IROXY. 269 
 
 are represented in colloquy to which the audience are 
 summoned by a herald. Some of the most impassioned 
 passages of the Bible are in this style. 
 
 4. It scarcely needs a reminder that hyperbole is a fa- 
 vorite figure of rhetoric among energetic writers. Any 
 thing adds force to style which expresses strength of 
 conviction in the preacher. This hyperbole obviously 
 does. It needs only the caution that the preacher should 
 not allow it to pass for reckless assertion. It should 
 never be used, therefore, in statements of doctrine. To 
 this day, the question is a controverted one, whether St. 
 Paul speaks in hyperbole or not, in saying, " I could 
 wish myself accursed from Christ." 
 
 5. The forcibleness of irony needs no illustration. It 
 needs, rather, to be flanked with cautions, of which one 
 is, that it should not be a favorite with a preacher. As 
 an instrument of serious speech, it is corrosive. In 
 itself it repels good feeling. Were not this a world of 
 sin, and did not sin make fools of men who must be 
 answered according to their folly, irony might not be 
 numbered among the expedients of manly discourse. 
 Yet it is a curious phenomenon in literature, that many 
 of the most renowned satirists in history have been 
 clergymen. Rabelais, Scarron, Swift, Sterne, Sydney 
 Smith, Mather Byles, were all of the ecclesiastical order ; 
 but their names do not command the reverent remem- 
 brance of the church. 
 
 Again : irony should not be so keen as to be misun- 
 derstood. It is an instrument capable of an invisible 
 edge. Let it be so refined, that the reader does not 
 discern the truth lurking in the shadow of it, and it 
 ceases to be irony. Dean Swift once published a pam- 
 phlet on Irish children, in which he seemed to advocate 
 the importation of Irish children into England as an
 
 270 ENGLISH STYLE. [lect. xvi. 
 
 article of food. It had a great sale, and in England 
 produced a broad laugh. But a long-eared French critic 
 adduced it as a sign of the hopeless barbarism of the 
 English people. 
 
 6. The figure of exclamation deserves a caution rather 
 than commendation. It is excessively used in the pul- 
 pit. Not only in the monosyllabic forms " oh ! " and 
 " ah ! " but in the constructive forms in which the 
 whole sentence is made exclamatory, " How great ! " 
 " How important ! " " How solemn ! " " Awful moment ! " 
 " Fearful tidings ! " There is a style, which, for the free- 
 dom with which it employs such constructions, may be 
 fitly termed the exclamatory style. It is very easy com- 
 position ; it is a facile way of beginning a sentence : 
 therefore we employ it excessively. It is a sign of 
 indolent composing. Our inquiry, therefore, should be, 
 When may we omit it? and our rule, to dispense with it 
 whenever we can. Dean Swift commends a reader who 
 said it was his rule to pass over every paragraph in 
 reading, at the end of which his eje detected the note 
 of exclamation. Home Tooke denied that exclama- 
 tions belong to language : he said they were involuntary 
 nervous affections, like sneezing, coughing, yawning. 
 
 7. A speaker who is perfect master of his imagina- 
 tion will sometimes instinctively choose the figure of 
 vision to express his most powerful conceptions. The 
 life which it gives to style is splendidly illustrated in 
 some of the prophecies. The strictly proj)hetic state 
 was a state of vision of the distant future. Yet note 
 how instinctively secular oratory adopts the same expe- 
 dient. Napoleon, to his soldiers in Italy, says, " You 
 will soon return to your homes ; and your fellow-citizens 
 will say of you, as you pass, ' He was a soldier in the 
 army of Italy.' " So the inspired writer says, " Of
 
 LECT. XVI.] APOSTROPHE. — SOLILOQUY. 271 
 
 Zion it shall be said, This and that man was born in 
 her." Edward Everett's vision of " The INIayflower " 
 was more than equaled by some of Whitefield's experi- 
 ments with the same figure in the pulpit. No eloquence 
 furnishes grander material for the use of vision than that 
 of the pulpit. The advent of Christ, the crucifixion, 
 the ascension, the resurrection, heaven, hell, are themes 
 to which a preacher can scarcely do justice without this 
 intense and imperial figure. But, because it is so power- 
 ful, it needs a master of speech to execute it well. It 
 is one of the expedients of style which lie on the border- 
 line between the sublime and the ridiculous. Less than 
 the proverbial " step " separates them. 
 
 8. The most passionate forms of eloquence employ 
 the apostrophe with power. The early Christian preach- 
 ers used it to excess. The unseen world was very real 
 to their faith: therefore they often apostrophized the 
 departed as if present to their eye. It is thought by 
 some, that prayer to the saints had its origin in this 
 usage of the ancient pulpit, assisted as it was by the 
 early Christian hymnology, and specially displayed in 
 funeral-sermons. The most notable example of this 
 figure in secular literature is Mark Antony's apostrophe, 
 as represented by Shakspeare, over the dead hodj of 
 Caesar. The Rev. Dr. GrifiBn in the Park-street Church 
 in Boston once electrified the assembly by apostrophiz- 
 ing Voltaire as being in the world of the lost. " What 
 think you," said the preacher, — "what think you, Vol- 
 taire, of Christianity now ? " 
 
 The soliloquy should properly be regarded as a variety 
 of the apostrophe ; the latter being a direct address to 
 anybody who is not the natural audience of the speaker. 
 The soliloquy was often used by Rev. Dr. Davies of 
 Virginia. In the form of self-rebuke, he would often
 
 272 ENGLISH STYLE. [lect. xvi. 
 
 utter rebuke to others which they would bear in no 
 other way. Another modification of the apostrophe is 
 prayer. If reverently and seldom done, in the midst 
 of a discourse it may have marvelous power. Such 
 prayer has a double force : it is supplicatory, as ad- 
 dressed to God ; and it is an indirect appeal to men. 
 Massillon, preaching on the text, " Are there few that 
 be saved?" after seeming to restrict to a narrow, and a 
 narrower, and the narrowest limit, the number of the 
 elect, broke out with the apostrophe : " O God, where 
 are thine elect ? " It is said that the entire audience 
 sprang to their feet. 
 
 Is the exclamatory use of the name of God to be 
 vindicated as rhetorical apostrophe ? " My God ! " " O 
 God ! " " Good God ! " " In God's name ! " — are these 
 apostrophes? The French pulpit employs them with 
 great freedom. The Rev. Dr. Nott, the celebrated presi- 
 dent of Union College, defended and used them. The 
 piety of the American Congress often utters its devout 
 aspirations in this form. But these expressions are 
 exclamatory, not apostrophic. Commonly no devout 
 sense of the Divine Presence is felt in the use of them. 
 The use of them in oratory is of pagan origin. Greek 
 poetry is full of them : we owe them primarily to 
 Homer. They were in perfect keeping with the Greek 
 idea of the gods : rhetorically, therefore, they were not 
 a blemish in Greek oratory. Christian theism, however, 
 condemns them morally, and therefore Christian taste 
 condemns them rhetorically. 
 
 These are the chief of the figures of rhetoric which 
 the oratorical instinct has originated to assist its most 
 forcible utterances. The charm of them lies in their 
 variety: no one should be a favorite with a preacher. 
 The thing needed is the cultivated instinct, which shall
 
 LECT. XVI.] SINCERITY IK SPEECH. 273 
 
 choose them wisely. But the chief observation which 
 criticism has to make upon them is, that they all imply 
 force of emotion on the part of the speaker. Manu- 
 facture them, and they are but wooden playthings. 
 They reflect significance back upon the principle with 
 which these discussions began, — that a writer must 
 write, and a speaker must speak, from the honest state 
 of his own mind. That state must be such that he can 
 write, and can speak, with honest enthusiasm. Nothing 
 is powerful in speech which is not sincere. The inspira- 
 tion which shall command and use these expedients of 
 style must be, as one critic has expressed it, " not put 
 on from without, but put out from within."
 
 LECTURE XVII. 
 
 ELEGANCE OF STYLE ; DEPENDENT ON DELICACY. 
 
 A VERY vital quality, which is in many respects the 
 opposite of energy, is elegance of style. It may be 
 concisely defined as the quality by which thought as 
 expressed in language appeals to our sense of the 
 beautiful. 
 
 Beauty, like strength, is one of our ultimate concep- 
 tions. We can not define it but by the use of syno- 
 nyms, which, in return, fall back upon it for their own 
 meaning. Rusldn says, that the question why some 
 material objects seem beautiful to us, and others not, is 
 "no more to be asked than why we like sugar, and dis- 
 like wormwood." Sir Joshua Reynolds declares, that, if 
 an African artist were to paint his ideal of beauty, he 
 would produce a person of black, glossy skin, flat nose, 
 thick lips, and woolly hair. He also affirms that the 
 artist would be right : so greatly does the conception 
 of beauty depend on association. ^ 
 
 Beauty in style, I think, admits of partial analysis. 
 I find in it four distinct elements, one or more of which 
 exist in all elegant composition, and all of which are 
 discoverable in the most perfect forms of elegant speech. 
 These elements are delicacy, vividness, variety, and 
 harmony. 
 
 I. Elegance of style, then, may be first considered as 
 dependent on the element of delicacy. 
 
 274
 
 LECT. xvii.] THE FEMININE IN THOUGHT. 275 
 
 1. And, first, it has its foundation in delicacy of thought. 
 In " The Essay on the Sublime and the Beautiful," Ed- 
 mund Burke approaches this view by claiming that 
 smallness in an object is essential to its beauty. He 
 observes, " When nature would make any thing spe- 
 cially rare and beautiful, she makes it little. Every- 
 body calls that little which they love best on earth." 
 An affectionate husband is apt to call his wife little, 
 though she may weigh two hundred pounds. Dr. John- 
 son's wife was of nearly twice his own age at the time 
 of their marriage ; she was coarse and stout in person ; 
 she was affected in manners, and petulant in disposition ; 
 and he was far from being a man of refined feeling : yet 
 he used to speak of her as his " dear Letty," as a child 
 might speak of a pet kitten. The diminutive he coined 
 out. of her name, " Elizabeth." 
 
 Of beauty in style, that element which most nearly 
 resembles this of smallness in Burke's analysis is deli- 
 cacy. It is, if I may so speak, the feminine quality in 
 thought. Is there not a diversity in truth, correspond- 
 ing to diversity of sex in human character? Truths 
 are masculine and feminine in their affinities. Woman 
 originates certain conceptions more readily than man, 
 and appreciates them more keenly. Other conceptions 
 the masculine mind grasps the more profoundly. The 
 literature produced by the two sexes will bear traces of 
 this diversity, except in sporadic cases in which the one 
 sex is rabid with the craving to he the other. Certain 
 discoveries in science, certain works of art, certain 
 truths of religion, woman will not naturally originate, 
 any more than she will naturally be a drummer, or 
 choose a trombone as the accompaniment of her songs. 
 
 Elegance of style, I repeat, groups within its range 
 of expression these feminine qualities of thought. No
 
 276 ENGLISH STYLE. [lect. xvn. 
 
 genuine beauty can exist in literary expression without 
 them. Can you by any description of it in language 
 make chain-lightning beautiful ? Can you so describe 
 in words the boom of a cannon that it shall appear in 
 gentle undulations of beauty? But can j'OU, in de- 
 scriptive style, so represent a moss-rose, or the airs of a 
 flute, that they shall seem other than beautiful? These 
 diversities in style run through the whole realm of 
 thought. They can not be ignored without producing 
 literary deformities. The significance of this view in 
 its bearing ujDon beauty of discourse will be seen in the 
 following suggestions. 
 
 The principle in question refutes a certain prejudice 
 against an elegant style. Elegant taste in any thing 
 lives at the risk of being despised. Even among able 
 writers, elegance and effeminacy are often treated as 
 synonyms. The Jewish prayer of thanksgiving, " Lord, 
 I thank thee that I was not born a woman ! " finds its 
 kindred among literary tastes and canons of criticism. 
 Such is the reverence often felt for Gothic strength in 
 speech, that elegance of diction is condemned without 
 a hearing. We study to be perspicuous, because we 
 must be understood. We study precision, purity, and, 
 above all, force in style, because these add power to 
 clearness. But of an elegant style we are apt to think 
 as Wesley did of the manners of a gentleman, when he 
 told his youthful preachers that they "had no more 
 business to be gentlemen than to be dancing-masters." 
 A special incongruity is often imagined to exist between 
 beauty and the pulpit. 
 
 This prejudice is intensified by our English tempera- 
 ment. The English mind, and, as an offshoot of it, the 
 American mind as well, are not partial to the elegant 
 qualities, specially in public oral address. We are jeal-
 
 LECT. XVII.] AFFECTATION OF BEAUTY. 277 
 
 ous for our strength. We are proud of our Saxon stock. 
 We are, therefore, morbidly afraid of imposing on our- 
 selves by elegant literary forms. We are in this respect 
 what our language is, — hardy, rough, careless of ease. 
 The languages and temperaments of Southern Europe 
 are in this respect our opposites. We have cultivated 
 learning at the expense of taste ; they, taste at the 
 expense of learning. 
 
 This prejudice, moreover, is often aggravated by affec- 
 tations of the beautiful in literary expression. Affecta- 
 tions create caricatures of beauty : these repel taste, as 
 they repel good sense. That cast of character which 
 leads a young man to wear long hair, and to part it in 
 the middle, often appears in literature in a straining 
 after the feminine qualities of style when no beauty of 
 thought underlies and demands them. This nauseates 
 short-haired men, and lends reason to their prejudice 
 against the genuine because of the counterfeit elegance. 
 The cant of literature, like that of religion, is never 
 more disgusting than wlien it takes the form of the 
 exquisite. Morbid delicacy rasps manly nerves. 
 
 Dr. Johnson attributed the success of the Methodists 
 in Great Britain to their revolt from the friofid eleg^ance 
 which was mincingly practiced by the English clergy of 
 his day. Johnson said that the JNIethodist revolution 
 should be commended by all men of sense. He was 
 right. That revolution was not merely a recoil of piety 
 from worldliness : it was a revolt of English good sense 
 against a literary affectation. That which the Method- 
 ist clergy did from religious enthusiasm, literature 
 ought to have done through self-respect. 
 
 All this, and more, might be said in defense of the 
 prejudice against elegant discourse. Still, elegance 
 expresses a fact in literary diction. It is a fact no-
 
 278 ENGLISH STYI.E. [lect. xvn. 
 
 where else so essential as in the discourse of the pulpit. 
 Preachers have this practical question to ask and to 
 answer, How are the feminine elements in truth to be 
 expressed? In what language shall we clothe them? 
 What vocabulary, what constructions, what imagery, 
 what of the thousand expedients of style, shall we choose 
 for their equipment? Shall we write Avith perspicuity? 
 Yes ; but perspicuity can not express, for example, the 
 idea of filial trust. Shall we speak with precision ? 
 Yes ; but precision can not measure the affection of 
 David and Jonathan. Shall we experiment with en- 
 ergy ? It should seem so to the eye of the criticism in 
 question. But would you dare to preach an energetic 
 sermon on the text "That disciple whom Jesus loved"? 
 Energy as an expression of the beautiful in thought 
 is like lightning as a specimen of light. How, then, 
 shall the beautiful find outlet in the speech of the 
 pulpit ? 
 
 Dr. John Owen says of himself, " Know that you 
 have to do with a person, who, provided that his words 
 but clearly express his sentiments, entertains a fixed 
 and absolute disregard of all elegance and ornaments 
 of speech." This sounds well. What is more reasona- 
 ble? But the difficulty is, that considerably more than 
 half of the proper materials of the pulpit can not be 
 expressed without " elegance and ornaments of speech." 
 What shall we do with them ? What, on such a theory, 
 shall we do with more than half of the Bible ? Shall 
 we ignore in the pulpit the Psalms of David, Isaiah's 
 visions of the world's closing age, the parables of our 
 Lord, the inspired revelations of heaven, St. Paul's doc- 
 trine of immortality, his description of charity? Yet 
 not one of these can be becomingly expressed without 
 "elegance and ornaments of speech." No man can
 
 LECT. xvn.] BEAUTY AND STRENGTH. 279 
 
 otherwise preach upon them with any approximation to 
 the inspired spirit in them. 
 
 The question becomes one of signal importance to the 
 pulpit, in view of the immense preponderance of beau- 
 tiful thought within the compass of language. Does 
 not the material world present an obvious ascendency 
 of beauty over force, over sublimity even? The pro- 
 fusion of creative energy is nowhere else seen so clearly 
 as in the sportive production of objects beautiful to the 
 eye. So far as we know, many of them have no other 
 reason for their creation than their passive beauty. 
 Naturalists have conjectured that the more gorgeous 
 species of the butterfly have a sense of beauty which 
 enables them to enjoy the variegated coloring of their 
 own forms. They are believed to rest from their fora- 
 ging expeditions, on the cool surface of a leaf, in silent 
 and tranquil joy at the magnificence of their expanded 
 wings. So lavish is Nature in its creation of the beau- 
 tiful, and its provision of the sense of beauty to respond 
 to it through the sentient universe. Is not this em- 
 blematic of a similar profusion in the spiritual world ? 
 How is it with the perfected forms of human character 
 with which the pulpit has to deal so largely ? Which 
 is there in the ascendent, — beauty, or strength? To ask 
 this question is to answer it. Energy we find in savage 
 mind. The ultimate fruitage of culture we sum up 
 under the title of the "refinements of civilization." A 
 ripe mind of evenly balanced sensibilities will discover 
 in the world of thought, which is its mental atmosphere, 
 more of beauty than of any other single quality. 
 
 A moral design is obvious in this proportioning of 
 things. It is one with which the pulpit is most vitally 
 concerned. There, more than anywhere else, must the 
 feminine qualities of thought predominate. True, the
 
 280 ENGLISH STYLE. [lect. xvn, 
 
 pulpit finds immense forces in its materials. It must 
 deal with the grand and the terrific. To meet the emer- 
 gencies which sin creates, it must often obtrude these 
 into the foreground of its ministrations. It must know 
 the terrors of the Lord if it would persuade men. But, 
 after all, these are elementary forces. They are prepara- 
 tive, not ultimate, in their working. They are, for the 
 most part, destructive of evil, rather than constructive 
 of good. To the results of preaching they are what the 
 geologic cataclysms are to the preparation of the globe 
 for the well-being of man. Those resources of the pulpit 
 which build up men in the varieties and the harmonies 
 of Christlike manhood are chiefly the gentle forces, the 
 winning and the tranquil. Men become what the pulpit 
 would make them, not through fear, but through love, 
 and its auxiliaries in human nature. Truth descends 
 upon them like the rain, and distills like the dew. 
 Light, gra"vitation, the azAire of the sky, are emblems 
 of those resources which the pulpit employs in all its 
 ultimate constructive work on human character. 
 
 Test the truth of this. Take the ministry of a faith- 
 ful and successful pulpit for a period of ten years. 
 Number the sermons delivered in those years of up- 
 building. Mark the keynote of their subjects. What 
 was the real constructive power in them? You will 
 find in the inner history of any such ministry that love 
 has been the germinal idea, and beauty the external 
 symbol in the forms of language. Follow such a min- 
 istry to its fruitage in one character ripened under its 
 influence. Turn to the memoirs of saints, or, what is 
 more to the purpose, study an unwritten biography in 
 which unconscious sainthood is working itself out ; and 
 what do you find there ? Shapes, pencilings, hues, shad- 
 ings of thought and feeling, too delicate for art. What
 
 LECT. xvn.] BEATJTY IN CHAUACTEK. 281 
 
 a countless multitude of tliese make up the life that is 
 hid with Christ ! Behold the lilies of the field, how 
 thej grow ! The question, then, for the preacher to 
 decide is. How shall such a ministry reach its work, 
 and do it effectually, in any other ways than by forms 
 and combinations of truth in which beauty is the as- 
 cendent feature, and, of course, elegance in style is the 
 natural expression ? 
 
 Note the contrast with a style which shall express 
 the workings of sin in human life and its fruit in human 
 character. Sin is in its very nature turbulent. The 
 style which deals with it tends to violence. Preaching 
 about it suggests a coming tragedy. It craves a rough 
 dialect, and often repulsive imagery. Is there not a 
 keen sense of rhetorical congruity displayed in the choice 
 of the emblem by which Isaiah pictures enormous guilt 
 when he says, "Woe unto them that draw sin as with a 
 cart-rope " ? Would inspired taste have chosen such an 
 emblem as that to picture the final stages of a godly life 
 like that of the apostle John ? Yet holy experience is, 
 in this respect, only one example of what is true of a 
 vast proportion of those rich and choice combinations 
 of truth which form the best themes of the pulpit. 
 Again, therefore, must we press the question. How shall 
 these themes be fitly discussed in sermons ? Surely 
 not by the enginery of a forceful diction. Can you 
 picture to an audience the scene of the Last Supper, 
 and the loved disciple leaning on Jesus' bosom, by an 
 abrupt, startling style, jagged in its connections, filled 
 with martial metaphors, resonant with Miltonic periods, 
 or serrated like those of Carlyle, and backed by a fiery 
 delivery, with a clinched fist, a frenzied eye, bellowing 
 tones, and foot planted like that of a pugilist ? 
 
 The dependence of elegance on delicacy of thought
 
 282 ENGLISH STYLE. [lect. xvii. 
 
 suggests, further, the true reply to that theoretic error 
 which restricts elegance to ornament. Beauty in dis- 
 course interests in proportion to its expression of char- 
 acter. That is not beauty of high order which is not 
 full of character of high order. Often, therefore, the 
 thing which juvenile discourse chiefly needs is to dimin- 
 ish its adornment. Its elegance needs to be brought 
 down to a level with its real character as the herald of 
 thought. Some passages in Wordsworth's poetry, in 
 which he dwells fondly on natural scenery, are dull. 
 They are true to fact ; they are polished in form ; they 
 are melodious on the lips. A good rehearser of them, 
 on a calm summer's day, would give them in tranquil 
 recitative, which would soothe a tired hearer ; but they 
 would not interest an alert one. To such a one they 
 are dull. Why ? Because they lack thought propor- 
 tioned to their elaborateness of form. They fondle 
 commonplaces in the works of Nature : they make as 
 much of an apple-blossom as of a tropical garden. Noth- 
 ing in literary forms makes the impression of beauty 
 which does not carry thought enough to constitute a 
 certain ballast to the form. Ornament achieves noth- 
 ing above its own weight in thought. 
 
 Nevertheless, profusion of ornament is beautiful if 
 demanded by thought. If the nature of a subject be 
 such that the most characteristic expression of it re- 
 quires elaborate adornment, that elaborate adornment 
 is beauty. As the material world abounds with such 
 forms of beauty, and as the fine arts are immortalized 
 by them, so does style often express them in language. 
 
 Again : the dependence of elegance on delicacy of 
 thought discloses the most radical source of offenses 
 against this quality of style in the unfitness of the 
 thought to elegant utterance. No refinements of style
 
 LECT, xvn.] SACEAIMENTAL SERMONS. 283 
 
 can beautify that which is intrinsically coarse. Byron 's 
 "Don Juan" is not elegant; ingenuities of style can 
 not make it so ; no style can conceal its inherent vul- 
 garity. 
 
 The form of this defect to which modern preaching 
 is exposed is not an extreme one. It is that of falling 
 but a little below, and yet below, the level of cultivated 
 taste ; not so far below as to shock refinement, yet so 
 far as to fail to attract refinement. Of all the subjects 
 of the pulpit, that which is most frequently maltreated 
 by the waut of delicate taste is that of our Lord's suf- 
 ferings and death. I could give you examples if it 
 were desirable to repeat them, but you have doubtless 
 met with them in your experience as listeners to preach- 
 ing. Devotional feeling has been destroyed by the bal- 
 ancing against it of the cravings of good taste. The 
 biblical narratives of our Lord's physical sufferings need 
 to be handled with an affectionate delicacy of touch. 
 Much of the preaching of our immediate predecessors 
 on that theme can not be now a model for you. Chris- 
 tian thought has made a perceptible progress in the habit 
 of subordinating the physical, and exalting the mental, 
 element in the atoning pains. 
 
 No rule can be given, and none is needed. The hint 
 is sufiBcient, that elaboration of the biblical narrative 
 requires the same delicacy of treatment which one 
 would give to a narrative of the dying agonies of a per- 
 sonal friend. Medical science has collated facts bear- 
 ing upon the human physiology of Christ, and therefore 
 upon the scenes of the crucifixion and the garden, which 
 are not without interest or pertinence ; but I very much 
 doubt the value of them to the service of the pulpit. 
 They are, to say the least, materials of a perilous nature 
 as related to the sensibilities we widh to reach by sacra-
 
 284 ENGLISH STYLE. [i.ect. xvn. 
 
 mental sermons. In our most profound conceptions, 
 the infinite tragedy buries itself in an infinite mystery; 
 and there the instinct of good taste would leave it in 
 uufathomed depths. 
 
 Not only is coarse thought incapable of elegant 
 expression, but that is not an elegant style in which 
 beauty is attempted in the utterance of thoughts nega- 
 tive to that quality. Some of our materials are not 
 beautiful, yet are not the reverse : they are negative. 
 They lie outside of the range of beauty in language : 
 therefore they are not proper subjects of elegant utter- 
 ance. Forcibly uttered they may be, or perspicuously 
 uttered, or precisely uttered, but not elegantly uttered. 
 They may be the theme of a demonstration, or of a 
 philosophical argument, or of a i3hilii3pic, but not of a 
 poem, not of a i^ainting, not of a passage in elegant dis- 
 course. When expressed, they ought not to be adorned : 
 the adornment, if attempted, will be a failure. Such is 
 the verdict of good taste upon them. 
 
 Dr. Chalmers, for example, in one of his produc- 
 tions, writes of " contemplation " under the figure of 
 " a sensitive maiden flying from his mansion." What 
 for? It is for the noise of his door-bell. Is this a 
 beautiful expression of the fact that he could not think 
 well when disturbed by a clatter at the street-door? 
 Surely not ; and why not ? Simply because the idea had 
 no beauty in it : it could not support imagery; it had 
 no wings ; least of all could it lift itself gracefully on 
 the wings of an allegorical angel. Didactic preaching 
 is sometimes tempted to the error of imposing beauty 
 on ideas negative to that quality by the desire to avoid 
 commonplace. In didactic remark the problem of the 
 pen is to make it interesting. Dry fact lies at one 
 extreme, false ornament at the other. Commonplace
 
 LECT. xvn.] OVERWEOUGHT ELEGANCE. 285 
 
 imagery is perhaps more frequently perpetrated for this 
 reason than for any other. 
 
 Macaulay notices it as one of the signs of the decay 
 of art, that ornament is misplaced in the choice of its 
 objects. The same error indicates imperfect culture in 
 literature. A writer has gained one of the prime requi- 
 sites of a good style when he has acquired the courage 
 to say what he has to say, and then trust his own work. 
 If clear, didactic statement is all that the thought 
 demands, then clear, didactic statement let it be. Take 
 the risk of being commonplace. Never tack on gold- 
 lace in the attempt to improve linsey-woolsey. 
 
 Again : that is not an elegant style in which beauty 
 of form is excessive in degree. Often, as has been 
 before remarked, a speaker's thought is not weighty 
 enough to sustain elaborated style of any kind, and, 
 least of all, elaborated imagery. Architects tell us, that 
 a small specimen of the Gothic architecture is of neces- 
 sity in bad taste. No matter how perfectly finished, it 
 can not be good art. The reason they give is, that the 
 profusion of ornament which the Gothic order requires 
 can not be compressed into a small area. It must have 
 vast spaces, massive pillars, huge vaults in the ceding, 
 immense windows, prolonged distances in nave and 
 transept. Every thing about it must be congruous with 
 the grand and the magnificent. Therefore a Gothic 
 cathedral in miniature is a contradiction. So it is often 
 with the expression of thought in language. Profuse 
 embellishment must be supported by a certain bulk of 
 thought, so that the thought shall be felt through the 
 ornate and fanciful style, or the ultimate effect will be 
 finical. In the pulpit especialh', good taste is jealous 
 for the dignity of thought. It demands that never the 
 slightest sacrifice of that dignity shall be made to embel- 
 lishment of external forms.
 
 286 ENGLISH STYLE. [leot. xvn. 
 
 Further : the forms of becauty in style may be neu- 
 tralized by improbable conjecture in the materials of 
 thought. There was a profound rhetorical principle in 
 Bossuet's apothegm : " Nothing is beautiful but truth." 
 Why are fairy-stories unimpressive to adult minds? 
 Because the intrinsic untruthfulness in fact overbal- 
 ances all possible elegance of form. The final im- 
 pression is frivolous. To children the fairy-fiction is 
 delightful, because of the immensity of a child's power 
 of " make-belief." Men are not thus fascinated, because 
 they have outlived the age of such faith : they parted 
 with it when they dropped the game of marbles. Even 
 " The Arabian Nights " interests us chiefly as an historic 
 monument of an Oriental and childish civilization. As 
 a work of art, it makes no profound impression on the 
 modern and Occidental taste. Who cares for Aladdin's 
 "Lamp" by the side of Scott's "Ivanhoe," or Haw- 
 thorne's " Scarlet Letter " ? 
 
 A preacher's chief temptation to the error now before 
 us is in the form of advancing with excessive freedom 
 conjectures respecting the future life. Be3'ond a cer- 
 tain temperate and conservative degree, indulgence of 
 religious conjecture offends a perfect taste. Such dis- 
 course does not find its place in smooth congruity with 
 things known to faith ; and therefore it jars upon a 
 refined esthetic feeling. No graces of diction on the 
 outside of such conjectures can soothe the sense of vio- 
 lence done to truth by morbid or reckless guess-work. 
 
 The foundation of elegance in delicacy of thought 
 suggests, further, that we must find the fundamental 
 means of cultivating this quality in the cultivation of 
 refinement of perception. Refinement in our habits 
 of thinking, the habit of dwelling upon the beautiful in » 
 literature, distinguishing varieties of beauty, studying
 
 LECT. xvn.] CULTrVATION OF TASTE. 287 
 
 illustrations of beauty in external nature, observing 
 analogies between the beautiful in nature and art and 
 the beautiful in language, genial criticism of the best 
 poetry, studious enjoyment of the best imagery in 
 prose, attention to minutiae of style in which elegance 
 of construction chiefly appears : in short, any and every 
 exercise of mind which brings into chastened play that 
 sensibility to the beautiful which every mind possesses, 
 will refine our taste, and make our perceptions of beauty 
 truthful and prompt. 
 
 As there is a state of mental energy in production, so 
 there is a state of culture in which the perception and 
 the use of objects and literary forms of beauty shall be- 
 come habitual in one's mental working. This is the 
 improvement which those need chiefly whose style is 
 deficient in elegance. It is not the acquisition of a 
 stock of illustrative materials : it is something yet to 
 be developed in their mental constitution, — to be de- 
 veloped, I say, not to be created. It is a permanent 
 state of mental culture, which shall be to style what a 
 cultivated ear is to music. 
 
 This leads us to observe, that all preachers may pos- 
 sess it. It is a growth of that of which the germ exists 
 in every mind. No man can escape it who aims persist- 
 ently at any thing like concinnity of culture. That is a 
 fiction which some youthful writers entertain, that their 
 minds are not fitted to the cultivation of those qualities 
 which beauty in style represents. Clear writers they 
 may become, forcible writers, precise writers, prolific 
 writers perhaps, but not elegant writers. " The graces 
 of rhetoric," says one such preacher, " are not for me." 
 He narrows his culture, and contracts the range of his 
 power in public speech immensely, who subjects himself 
 to any such restriction. The elements which refined
 
 288 ENGLISH STYLE. [lect. xvn. 
 
 taste imparts to oral speech are no more " the graces of 
 rhetoric " than those which energy imparts are the forces 
 of rhetoric. They are graces of mind, innate in every 
 mind, susceptible of growth in every mental life, inevi- 
 table to any mind which is disciplined by prolonged and 
 symmetrical culture, 
 
 2. The dependence of elegance of style on delicacy 
 gives rise also to a second demand, — that of delicacy 
 of expression in the utterance of thought. Beauty in 
 thought is more difficult of expression than energy 
 in thought : it requires a more sensitive discrimination 
 of the significance of language. An elegant style, there- 
 fore, demands a more choice selection and arrangement 
 of words. This obvious principle has also significant 
 corollaries. 
 
 It suggests, in the first place, a large class of offenses 
 against elegance in style. They are that class which 
 results, not from unfitness of thought, but from inele- 
 gant language. The choice of a vocabulary may dis- 
 close these defects. Words have their aristocracy. 
 Some have a noble birth ; a magnificent histor}- lies be- 
 hind them ; they were born amidst the swelling and the 
 bursting into life of great ideas. On the contrary, there 
 are words which have plebeian associations. Some are 
 difficult of enunciation ; and, by a secret sympathy, the 
 mind attaches to them the distortion, perhaps the pain, 
 of the vocal organs in their utterance. A single un- 
 couth word may be to style what an uncontrollable 
 grimace is to the countenance. Neither is a thing of 
 beauty. Words not inelegant in themselves become so 
 through pedestrian associations which colloquial usage 
 affixes to them. Our Yankee favorite "guess" is a 
 perfectly good word, pure English, of good stock, and 
 long standing in the language. A better word, in itself
 
 LECT. x\^I.] INELEGANT VOCABTTLART. 289 
 
 considered, we have not in English use. But because 
 it is a colloquial favorite, used by everybody, od every 
 variety of subject and occasion, and often in a degraded 
 sense, as in the compound "guess-work," it has become 
 vulgar in the sense of " common ; " so that in many 
 connections in which the real meaning of it would be 
 entirely pertinent, the word would be inelegant. " Con- 
 jecture," or some equivalent, must take its place. 
 
 Wordsworth's poetry, again, is not wholly defensible 
 from the charge of using in poetic measure an inelegant 
 vocabulary. He believed in the poetry of common 
 things, common thoughts, common people, and their 
 common affairs. It was the aim of his life to lift up 
 into the atmosphere of romance things lowly and ob- 
 scure. " The Excursion " wrought in this respect one 
 of the silent revolutions of literature in the direct in- 
 terest of Christianity. But, in his attempt to effect that 
 revolution, he did lean to an extreme. E^ en his regal 
 imagination could not dignify such lines as tliese ; 
 viz. : — 
 
 " A hovisehold tub, like one of those 
 Which women use to wash their clothes." 
 
 But an objector inquires, and perhaps with half-sup- 
 pressed indignation, " Is it not good English ? and, if so, 
 must we drop it because it is not elegant ? " I answer 
 yes to both queries. It is good English, yet not good 
 poetry. If the idea is to be expressed at all in poetry, 
 — and I do not deny that it may be so expressed as to 
 escape criticism, — it must be by such a choice of lan- 
 guage as shall conceal the steam and the soap of a 
 washtub under some euphemism which shall be to the 
 idea what the rainbow, which is sometimes seen over a 
 washtub, is to that very necessary but homely article of
 
 290 ENGLISH STYLE. [lect. xvn. 
 
 household use. When beauty is to be expressed, we 
 must have a choice vocabulary. If Thomas Hood could, 
 by " The Song of the Shirt," tlirow a poetic halo over a 
 very humble article of his daily toilet, why may not 
 his equal do the same service for the weekly laundry? 
 But not by the extreme literalism of Wordsworth's 
 vocabulary. 
 
 Constructions, also, are exposed to peril of inelegance. 
 Certain varieties of them impress us, first and last and 
 always, with their want of ease ; and, no ease, no beauty. 
 It is as difficult to define them as to create them, yet 
 illustration by examples would tax jouv patience beyond 
 endurance. Few things are so unutterably dull as spe- 
 cimens of faulty construction in discourse, unless they 
 are of the comic sort ; and those would not be to the 
 present purpose. Perhaps the following hints will be 
 sufficient to recall them to you in your reading. 
 
 One is the bungling construction of dependent clauses. 
 These are huddled together, and seem to tumble over 
 each other. Mellifluous utterance of them is impracti- 
 cable. They are the despair of the elocutionist. They 
 seem as if the sole ambition of the writer had been to 
 be able to say, as De Quincey said of the German sen- 
 tence, " They are all there." Another is the military 
 sentence. The materials march out as if on drill. 
 They drop into rank too knowin2,iy to be lively. Ex- 
 cess of order is never beautiful, because never lifelike. 
 Another is the misplaced or excessive inversion of struc- 
 ture. The thoughts appear to move like a crab ; are 
 dragged forth, — the first last, and the last first, and all 
 looking the wrong way, — after the manner of the stolen 
 oxen backing into the cave of Cacus. Another is the 
 dislocated structure. Connectives are either absent, or 
 misplaced, or meaningless. The style jolts, like an un- 
 easy vehicle on corduroy roads.
 
 LECT, xvii.] INELEGANT IMAGERY. 291 
 
 These constructions may be sufficiently perspicuous. 
 They are often consistent with a good degree of energy. 
 Cromwell's speeches are full of them. Yet he made 
 himself understood, and so well understood that the 
 English Parliament did not care to ask him what he 
 meant a second time. But such constructions are not 
 elegant. There is no comeliness in them. It would be 
 a hard task to set Cromwell's speeches to the measure 
 of a chant, or even to make an Italian, with vocal organs 
 trained to the most euphonious language in the world, 
 rehearse them at all. 
 
 A similar defect betrays itself in inelegance of imagery. 
 Imagery is painting in words : any blemish impairs its 
 beauty. Therefore coarse imagery can not express beauty 
 in thought. Imagery the picture of which disgusts the 
 mind's eye degrades the thought it represents. This is 
 sometimes the designed effect. Macaulay designs it 
 when he says, " After the Restoration, peerages were 
 sold at Whitehall scarcely less openly than asparagus 
 at Covent Garden, or herrings at Billingsgate." The 
 image of an English coronet side by side with a bunch 
 of asparagus and a red herring paints the degradation of 
 the peerage as no literal description could. But Jeremy 
 Taylor wrought the same effect, though undesignedly, 
 when he compared the sufferings of Christ to " an um- 
 brella," because " men used them to shelter unholy 
 living." 
 
 For the same reason, commonplace in imagery can not 
 express, and still less can it impress, the beautiful in 
 thought. A metaphor elegantly impressive when it was 
 new may degrade an idea now because of its excessive 
 use. Imagery wears out, as the gloss of silk does. The 
 metaphor of the pebble, which creates ever-widening 
 rings when dropped into the water, is an example. Few
 
 292 ENGLISH STYLE. [r,ECT. xvii. 
 
 figures of speech bear criticism better than this. When 
 it was original, it can scarcely have had its superior 
 for beauty or suggestiveness. But does the memory of 
 man go back to the time when it was original ? It is 
 exhausted : it needs to be allowed to slumber in obliv- 
 ion. It should be disused till a future age shall re- 
 invent it. So powerful is originality in pictured speech, 
 that it will often ennoble a commonplace thought. A 
 conception which we had ceased to feel the force of 
 because of our monotonous familiarity with it, an ori- 
 ginal figure will often uplift, somewhat as death hallows 
 in our memory a commonplace character. 
 
 Again : unfinished imagery can not express beauty in 
 thought. A metaphor unsustained, and therefore incom- 
 plete, conveys no impression of elegance. Yet, on the 
 other hand, finical imagery is equally powerless. To be 
 overwrought changes imagery to finery. The impres- 
 sion is that of pettiness, not of beauty. What is the 
 defect in the message of the martyr Ridley to his fellow- 
 sufferer Hooper as they were going to the stake ? — " We 
 have been two in white : let us be one in red ! " It 
 speaks something for the nerve of a man, that he can 
 crack his joke within sight of the pile which will soon 
 shrivel his tongue to a cinder. But what can we say 
 for the good taste of a man who can so treat such a 
 death ? We might expect it from a hunter in the back- 
 woods, in view of Indian torture, but not from a bishop 
 of the Church of England. 
 
 Further : mongrel imagery does not express beauty. 
 Above all things else, beauty is self-consistent. Incon- 
 gruity is death to it. At an international exhibition of 
 the industrial arts in Vienna, I once saw the figure of a 
 kneeling Samuel, of the size of life, molded of castile- 
 soap. Why was it not " a thing of beauty " ? Yet is
 
 LECT. xvn.] ELEGANCE AS A TRIBUTARY. 293 
 
 Bisliop Heber more successful in his attempt to improve 
 the magnificent imagery of Milton ? Milton sees in 
 poetic vision " the gates of heaven on golden hinges 
 turning." Why is it that Heber fails, when he attempts 
 to save himself from plagiarism by representing the gates 
 of heaven as " rolling back on their starry hinges " ? 
 
 Before leaving this class of offenses against elegance in 
 style, it is worthy of remark, that, by avoiding them, a 
 certain degree of beauty may be infused into other quali- 
 ties of style. The polish of a steel blade contributes to 
 the keenness of its edge : so elegance may enhance per- 
 spicuity, or precision, or energy of language. True, in 
 such a combination, elegance is subordinate. The style 
 is not constructed for it ; the blade is not made for the 
 polish : but, as a tributary, it serves the purposes of 
 other qualities of style. An air of elegance may be 
 imparted to the most forcible style by the choice of 
 a select vocabulary, by finish of construction, and by a 
 delicate congruity of imagery. Energy is not always 
 convulsive. What was the defect of the style of an 
 eminent preacher in Maine, who, speaking of men's 
 rejection of Christ, said that '' they treated him as they 
 would a rotten apple " ? It surely was not obscurity ; 
 it was not weakness : it was a want of that sensitive 
 taste which ought to breathe its delicate sense of fit- 
 ness into the plainest phraseology and the roughest 
 imagery. 
 
 In the works of nature, it is remarkable how often 
 force and beauty are ranged side by side. In their 
 impression on the beholder, they often intermingle. 
 Flowers skirt the bases of volcanoes : rainbows grace 
 the retiring thunder-storms. In the Falls of Niagara, the 
 predominance of beauty or of sublimity depends on the 
 mood of the spectator, both are so affluent in their dis-
 
 294 ENGLISH STYLE. [lect. xvu. 
 
 play. Charles Dickens expressed the experience of the 
 majority of thoughtful travelers in looking upon them, 
 when he said, after giving utterance to his overpower- 
 ing sense of their sublimity, that the final and perma- 
 nent impression of them, which would live in his 
 memory, was that of tJicir beauty. Would not this be 
 almost the sole impression made by them upon the mind 
 of a deaf man, to whom they would present a picture 
 only, not modified by the sound of mighty waters ? 
 
 Similar combinations of energy and elegance are found 
 in human character. The choicest characters always 
 contain them. The world's perfect ideal of a man is 
 that of a gentle-man. Coleridge remarked, that he had 
 never met with a truly great man who had not a large 
 infusion of feminine qualities. One is impressed by 
 the truth of the sentiment in reading the memoir of 
 Daniel Webster. The ideal which history gives us of a 
 military character is one in which gentleness adorns 
 the heroic graces. The Christian ideal of manly force 
 is that of executive power wreathed with passive virtues. 
 The same blending of opposites is seen in the best 
 materials of thought for the work of the pulpit. That 
 which we call the " force of truth " is often the more 
 forceful for being tempered and adorned with the femi- 
 nine qualities of thought, and therefore with the ele- 
 gant graces of expression. They are best expressed 
 by a select vocabulary, by finished constructions, and by 
 congruous imagery. 
 
 The fact is worthy of special mention, that the culti- 
 vation of a taste for beauty in style is promoted hy a 
 study of the Old Testament. Dr. Henry More says 
 that " a man of confined education, but of good parts, 
 by constant reading of the Bible will naturally form a 
 more winning and commanding rhetoric than those who
 
 LECT. xvn.] THE PRECATIVE STYLE. 295 
 
 are learned." This is specially true of those elements 
 of colloquial dialect which involve an exercise of the 
 imagination. It was remarked by the friends of Pro- 
 fessor Stuart, that, after he had reached the age of sixty 
 years, the effect of his study of the Hebrew Scriptures 
 was seen in a manifest quickening of his fancy. He 
 was in this respect more youthful in his old age than in 
 his early manhood. His daily chanting of a Hebrew 
 Psalm in his study as a prelude to the labor of the day 
 infused a glow of beauty into his written pages. 
 
 You will observe the same effect of the Scriptures 
 often in the style of extemporaneous prayer. Uncon- 
 sciously, one acquires from reverent familiarity with the 
 Bible, and specially with its more ancient records, a 
 certain aptness and finish of devotional dialect which 
 no expedient of rhetorical art can achieve so well. The 
 perfection of liturgic style is the fruit of a mature Chris- 
 tian experience regulated in its liturgic expression by 
 a profound biblical taste. It is not the mechanical use 
 of biblical quotation by the sheer lift of memor}', but 
 the creation of one's own style and the expression of 
 one's own individuality by inspiration from biblical 
 taste. If you wish to become master of the richest 
 forms of public prayer, do not seek them chiefly in 
 printed liturgies. Seek them in the precative and the 
 lyric style of the Bible and in the unconscious imita- 
 tion of it by eminent saints. Aged Christians are often 
 models of power in public prayer, chiefly because of 
 their unconscious utterance of a profound religious life 
 under the sway of biblical ideals, which to them may be 
 the only ideals they know of lofty intellectual culture. 
 One of the most inspiring leaders in social prayer that 
 I ever knew was a plain sea-captain, whose almost only 
 literary possession was the Bible.
 
 296 ENGLISH STYLE. [lect. xvn. 
 
 The views here presented of the value of a refined 
 taste to the style of the pulpit need to be balanced by 
 a notice of the fact that luxuriousness of taste results 
 in languor of style. This is the chief peril of a studied 
 beauty in the forms of language. Composition is an 
 art. Elegant composition is a fine art. But it is liable 
 to this abuse : a fastidious taste attenuates thought. 
 The style which grows out of it tends to elaborated fee- 
 bleness through its expression of morbid sensibilities. 
 Dr. Arnold, for example, says, of the closing lines of 
 Wordsworth's Ode on Immortality — 
 
 " To me the meanest flower that breathes can give 
 Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears " — 
 
 that they are not founded upon a genuine Christian 
 taste. He contends, that, in such a world as this, the 
 Christian theory of life does not foster such exquisite 
 sensibility towards such inferior objects. A hectic beauty 
 is not natural beauty; neither is the style prompted by 
 a sickly taste the style of the most manly Christian 
 thought. 
 
 National literatures, so far as we can trace the stages 
 of their decline, die first at this point of effeminate taste. 
 Softening of the national brain begins in the organ of 
 ideality. Violent death never comes upon a great lit- 
 erature in its adult strength. Barbarian irruptions, 
 usurpations in government, and the conflagration of 
 libraries, have come upon nations after literary decline 
 has begun to show itself. The fatal and often the first 
 clear sign that a nation deserves and is doomed to 
 receive such visitations appears in the breaking-out of 
 a diseased luxuriousness of taste in its literature, after 
 a period of high culture. One part in the literary mis- 
 sion of Christianity is to rescue literature from this ten-
 
 LECT. XVII.] THE CHRISTIAN FUTUEE. 297 
 
 dency to disease. This it does by widening the reach 
 of cultured intellect, deepening the intensity of the 
 educated sensibilities, and thus rectifying the standards 
 of taste, and purifying and vitalizing taste itself. We 
 must look for revolutions of literary opinion as Chris- 
 tianity advances in its sway over human thought. No 
 aesthetic culture will live finally but that which is 
 Christian in its models. Educated Christian mind, 
 therefore, should be constantly feeling its way upward. 
 The world's literary future should be anticipated with 
 a trust like that of the old Hebrew Messianic fore- 
 thought.
 
 LECTURE XVIII. 
 
 ELEGANCE OF STYLE; DEPENDENT ON VTVTDNESS, ON 
 VARIETY. 
 
 II. The analysis of beauty in a previous Lecture leads 
 us to consider elegance of style as dependent, in the 
 second place, on the element of vividness. 
 
 Is vagueness of impression ever desirable in the ex- 
 pression of thought by language ? I answer, it is some- 
 times a necessity, but never where beauty of impression 
 is the chief aim of the discourse. Always a greater or 
 less degree of vividness enters into our sense of the 
 beautiful. Why is a diamond the most beautiful of 
 gems ? Why is it the only gem of which use never 
 tires ? Dealers in precious stones say that the popular 
 taste for it never even wavers. It is always salable, 
 and is the standard by which the value of other gems 
 is estimated. Yet the diamond has no beauty but its 
 brilliancy. The human eye is the most vital organ in 
 producing the impression of beauty in a human counte- 
 nance, because it is the most vivid object in the coun- 
 tenance. Poets describe the sun as the " golden eye " 
 of the heavens. The eye suggests life : it is life. All 
 varieties of beauty in the eye possess this quality. The 
 languid eye with drooping eyelash, if it expresses beauty, 
 is never dull. It may represent life in repose, but still, 
 life : no beauty of countenance fascinates if it is blurred 
 by a dull eye. A corresponding principle appertains to 
 thought as expressed in language. Vividness, in degree 
 
 298
 
 LECT. XVIII.] VIVIDNESS OF STYLE. 299 
 
 less or greater, is essential to all expression of beauty 
 in human speech. 
 
 Yet, pursuing the analysis a little farther, we find 
 that beauty does not demand or admit of vividness in 
 the superlative degree. The brilliancy of an insane 
 eye is not beautiful : it rather startles or affrights the 
 beholder, as the lightning does, and for a similar reason. 
 It is not easy to define the degree of vividness beyond 
 which beauty vanishes. In some cases, that degree is 
 very great. We have a definite and truthful idea when 
 we speak of magnificent beauty, of gorgeous beauty, 
 of dazzling beauty, of resplendent beauty. These, and 
 their equivalents in our vocabulary, indicate the com- 
 mon consent to the consistency of very great vividness 
 of impression with beauty in effect. But there is a 
 line at which vividness passes over from the realm of 
 the beautiful to that of the forcible or the sublime, and, 
 in its extreme, to that of the terrific. 
 
 Perhaps a sufficiently definite qualification of the 
 vividness which beauty demands is to say, that it must 
 be such as shall consist with that delicacy of impression 
 which we have seen to be an equal element of beauty 
 in discourse. In the most overpowering beauty we 
 shall find something which tempers vividness with refine- 
 ment. In a tropical flower of high-wrought coloring we 
 shall find refinement of texture, or gracefulness of out- 
 line, or delicacy in the shading of colors, or prismatic 
 reflection of tints in the sunlight, — something which 
 screens our taste from the gairish effulgence of intense 
 colors upon the eye : otherwise we do not call it beau- 
 tiful, but gaudy. The same combination of principles 
 holds good in style. Vividness of thought in high ' 
 degree, yet such degree as shall consist with delicate 
 impression on the whole, is the requisition of beauty.
 
 300 ENGLISH STYLE. [lect. xviii. 
 
 The bearing of these principles upon elegance of style 
 will be seen in several inferences. 
 
 1. We infer the obvious truth that elegance demands 
 distinctness of thought. To some minds, whose con- 
 ception of force is adequate to a strong style, the whole 
 idea of beauty is hazy. It comes to their consciousness 
 through an uncultivated instinct. Hence it is, that 
 juvenile attempts at the beautiful in language often 
 result in crowded symbols which suggest only general 
 ideas, and these diffusely, perhaps tautologically. Sim- 
 iles and metaphors, and rotund words, and rhythmical 
 constructions, are heaped into a page without stint, not 
 because a definite beauty of conception is so refracted 
 and multiplied to the mind's eye as to demand such a 
 variety of elegant forms, but because a misty notion of 
 that beauty is in the writer's mind, and he hastens to 
 give it shape by the patches of finery which he has on 
 hand. It is one of the thousand deformities of style in 
 which form alone is made to do the work of thought. 
 The hollowness of it rings in the ear of a discerning 
 critic. The only adequate corrective of such a defect 
 is nothing more nor less than intenser thinking. The 
 writer is not yet master of his work. He has not dis- 
 covered the original of the image which has charmed 
 him in his dream. He does not know whether it is an 
 angel, or a woman, or a mermaid. 
 
 2. From the necessity of vividness to beauty in 
 speech, we infer further the necessity of sensitiveness 
 of feeling to those varieties of eloquence in which the 
 beautiful predominates. As energy in style demands 
 force of feeling, elegance demands sensitiveness of feel- 
 ing. Both are founded on the same principle. The 
 thing expressed must find its kindred in the emotive 
 condition of the writer. No man can write vividly who
 
 LECT. xvm.] SENSIBILITY IN PREACHING. 301 
 
 does not write with feeling of some kind. But there is 
 a vast difference between the feeling of one who is tor- 
 mented by a truth, and that of one who broods over a 
 truth affectionately, or carries on a mental play with it. 
 Are there not some preachers who impress you chiefly 
 with a sense of the hardness of their natures? Their 
 discourses may be solid, packed with thought, loaded 
 with latent force ; yet they seem to grind like a mill- 
 stone. The defect in such preachers is in their emotive 
 nature. They have no play of sensibility, no wavelets 
 of feeling, none of the tell-tale of a mobile countenance. 
 Their style betrays all this on the principle of Buffon, 
 that the style of a man is the man himself. President 
 Grant disclosed this cast of mind, when at the World's 
 Jubilee in Boston, after listening to the most illustrious 
 musicians of the age, he said that the most melodious 
 thing he had heard there was the artillery. 
 
 Ministers of this mold are seldom or never great 
 preachers. They may be great as men of affairs, wise 
 on committees, forceful in executive miscellanies ; but 
 they have too much wisdom, and too little of emotive 
 spontaneousness, to be great preachers. So far as my 
 observation goes, men noted for their reticence are not 
 mighty in the pulpit. Certain powers which enter into 
 all eloquence are reticent in them there. Such men are 
 seldom versatile in illustrative preaching. Close rea- 
 soners they may be in argumentative preaching ; but 
 for the want of mobile sensibilities, which express them- 
 selves in pictorial forms of speech, they are doomed to 
 be uninteresting, and therefore their argument can not 
 get a hearing. Delicate and winsome discourse is not 
 possible to such men in their present state of culture. 
 He that winneth souls is not of that make- 
 It will be instructive to observe the singular analogy
 
 302 ENGLISH STYT.E. [lect. xviil 
 
 which exists in this respect between the work of the 
 pulpit and that of the fine arts. Painters and sculptors 
 say that beauty in their arts is the most difficult thing 
 to execute well. It is far more easy to represent on 
 canvas or in marble great energy of character or of 
 action than to represent equally great beauty. Scores 
 of artists can execute Centaurs and Laocoons, where 
 one can execute a Venus. The dog C«rberus can be 
 pictured by many a pencil which could not portray the 
 meeting of Orpheus and Eurydice. So is it in the kin- 
 dred art of poetry. The most marvelous creations of 
 Shakspeare are his feminine characters. Othello is more 
 easily drav/n than Desdemona. 
 
 3. From the necessity of vividness to beauty we infer, 
 again, the value of original thought as the material of 
 elegance in style. Thought which a writer feels to be 
 his own, he will most readily express with sensitive 
 emotion. Even commonplace thought is made vivid by 
 fresh emotion in the speaker. Let commonplaces be so 
 worked over in the mind of the preacher that his sen- 
 sibility to them is quickened to a new degree of exercise, 
 and that freshness of sensibility becomes, in its effect 
 on style, the equivalent of originality. Oral discourse 
 has in this respect an obvious advantage over written 
 style. It gives a speaker opportunity to throw the 
 whole force of the vian into his utterances. 
 
 Here lies the secret of the power of some preachers 
 in handling the least exciting topics of religion. The 
 great majority of the themes of the pulpit border on 
 the commonplace in the hearing of a Christianized 
 people. The best themes, those which the people need 
 most imperatively, are not novelties : they are the old 
 truths, the old doctrines, the old duties, the old texts. 
 That class of preachers possess a great gift, who can
 
 LECT. xvm.] SEVIPLIOITY IN STYLE. 303 
 
 infuse into these time-worn verities the originality of 
 revelations. The value of a profound and varied reli- 
 gious experience is discovered in such preaching ; and 
 this especially in its treatment of the more delicate con- 
 ceptions of religious truth. The majority of such con- 
 ceptions have their origin in the personal experience 
 of some believer. The biblical forms of them were 
 inspired through the medium of a personal religious 
 life. We owe them largely to the failures, the sins, the 
 chastisements, the struggles, the penitence, the faith, 
 the joy, of holy men. They speak with power to a 
 similar experience in all ages ; and, to speak thus from 
 the pulpit, they need to speak through a corresponding 
 personal experience of the preacher. A most profound 
 but much neglected principle of power in preaching is 
 this occult affinity of the man in the pulpit with the 
 man in the inspired message. The more sensitive that 
 affinity is, the more absolute is a preacher's mastery of 
 those refinements of truth which enter the hearts of 
 men as the dawn illumines their homes. The power 
 of such preaching is a still power, but it has no superior 
 among all the arts of public speech. For the want of 
 it, some preachers never rise above the level of argu- 
 ment and hortation. Their argument is dry, and their 
 hortation stale. 
 
 4. From the necessity of vividness as an element of 
 beauty, we infer further, as a general fact, the necessity 
 of simplicity of language to an elegant style. No other 
 quality than beauty makes such an imperative demand 
 for transparency. One of the most invariable concom- 
 itants of beauty in language is the absence of all 
 appearance of effort. It is the production of a mind 
 at ease. Why are the biblical narratives such perfect 
 specimens of elegance in historic style? The fact is
 
 304 ENGLISH STYLE. [lect. xviii. 
 
 often observed, that the evangelists, in their reminis- 
 cences of our Lord, never employ a commendatory 
 epithet in description of his person. Contrast, in this 
 respect, St. John with Homer. Beauty is the offspring 
 of leisure. The writer seems not to go in search of, or 
 to struggle for, any thing: he takes and gives what 
 comes to him. 
 
 But the necessity of simplicity to elegant expression 
 is a general principle : it has exceptions. Profusion 
 and intricacy of beauty in thought have their correla- 
 tives in style. The usual canons of criticism respecting 
 simplicity must be accepted with qualifications. A cul- 
 tivated taste recoils so sensitively from an affected style, 
 that it often expresses its demand for a simple diction 
 in hyperbole. 
 
 EXCURSUS. 
 
 A brief excursus is pertinent here, on the usage of 
 literary criticism in its commendation of the style of 
 Addison. For a century past, critics have never wearied 
 of lauding the calm, lucid, pure, colloquial simplicity of 
 " The Spectator." In the main they have been right ; 
 but their dictum has become extreme in becoming' exclu- 
 sive. Addison followed, in the history of English style, 
 a class of writers who had nauseated manly taste by 
 their magniloquence. They were conceited in thought, 
 and stilted in expression. The advent of Addison gave 
 relief to the literary mind of England by his homelike 
 and sincere diction, similar to that which a hearer feels 
 when a natural speaker follows a bombastic one. The 
 consequence was, that Addison so fascinated readers as 
 to carry them over to the opposite extreme of literary 
 taste. His noble connections, also, and his official rank, 
 lent an artificial glamour to his example ; and, from that
 
 LECT. xvni.J THE STYLE OF ADDISON. 305 
 
 day to this, his style has been pressed upon the study 
 of youthful writers as a model without exception, and 
 almost without a rival. No other name in English lit- 
 erature is adduced so often in rhetorical criticism as 
 that of a master of English style. He has been held 
 up to admiration and to imitation with an exclusiveness 
 of praise which no man's style has ever deserved, or, in 
 the nature of things can deserve. 
 
 In the first place, Addison's style is the style of an 
 author, not of an orator ; a fact wholly overlooked in 
 the general drift of criticism upon his works. Again : 
 as the style of an author, it is but one style, a rep- 
 resentative style, indeed, but still one only, and by no 
 means unlimited in its range of adaptations. No style 
 can be universally and unexceptionably good. Addi- 
 son's is no more unconditionally a good model than that 
 of Dr. Johnson, with which it is commonly contrasted. 
 No preacher can gain a very broad mastery of expres- 
 sion in the pulpit who forms his style on the model of 
 Addison alone. In oral address the style of Addison 
 is apt to degenerate into colloquial platitudes. He 
 seldom, if ever, wrote on subjects which admitted of 
 intensity of diction : at least, he never wrote intensely. 
 He had not an intense mind : he entertained no intense 
 convictions. Truth never tormented him to give it 
 utterance. 
 
 Specially, in the expression of complicated beauty, 
 the model which Addison illustrates is almost sure to 
 become, in the mouth of a preacher, unsuggestive, and 
 therefore dull. Beauty is often intricate in combina- 
 tions, and gorgeous in its display. The Greek mind 
 expressed its conception of this by the Corinthian order 
 of columnar architecture. There is a style in composi- 
 tion, and specially in oratory, wliich has this Corinthian
 
 306 ENGLISH STYLE. [lect. xvra. 
 
 beauty ; and it is a style of which scarcely an illustra- 
 tion can be found in Addison's writings. This Corin- 
 thian style some critics would pronounce florid, yet it 
 abounds in the works of nature. The pencilings and 
 shapes of foliage, the hues of flowers, the architecture 
 of trees, the configuration of clouds, the sculpture of 
 stalactites in caves, reproduce that of which the Corin- 
 thian column and its elaborated capital, with its fine 
 tracery of the olive-leaf or acanthus, were the expres- 
 sion to the Greek sense of beauty. Are these florid ? 
 Human ideality repeats the same thing in painting and 
 sculpture and music. Why should not language, indeed, 
 why must it not, picture and carve and build the same 
 conception of beauty in elaborate mechanism of style ? 
 It is a mechanism which yet is no mechanism, but a 
 growth, because it springs from intuitions which must 
 express themselves so, or be dumb. 
 
 5, From the dependence of beauty on vividness of 
 style, we infer, yet again, the importance of an easy 
 command of imagery to an elegant style. The origin 
 of alphabetic writing suggests the necessity of imagery 
 to vivid speech. The first form of written language 
 known to history was the hieroglj'ph. So the vividness 
 of written language at present depends very much upon 
 the relics of the hieroglyphic element which still remain 
 in every language, and upon the imitations of it ori- 
 ginated by authors in the form of more elaborate im- 
 agery. Write in pictures, and you can not fail to write 
 vividly. Imagery is essential to vivid expression, spe- 
 cially because the vividness of beauty must be felt 
 intuitively, not derived by reflective process. It must 
 reach the mind, as vision does, by a process which gives 
 no sense of duration. 
 
 III. The third element named in our analysis of
 
 LECT. xvni.] VAEIETY OF STYLE. 307 
 
 beauty leads us to consider elegance of style as depend- 
 ent on variety. 
 
 Hogarth's theory of the "line of beauty" depended 
 largely upon this element of variety. In what does the 
 beauty of a curve consist ? I can discern in it nothing 
 definable, other than variety and proportion. A straight 
 line may have proportion, but it is monotonous. The 
 curve adds variety, and this results in the elementary 
 figure which artists declare to be inherent in all beauty 
 of form. A serpentine path, the careering of a bird 
 in the air, Connecticut River as seen from Mount Hol- 
 yoke, the Rhine as seen from the Castle of Godesberg, 
 — these, as examples of figure and motion, are all em- 
 blems of beauty to which the rudest nature responds. 
 The rainbow, the shifting of clouds at sunset, the plu- 
 mage of a peacock, a mobile countenance, — these, as 
 specimens of color, are emblems of beauty ; yet not one 
 of them would excite our sense of the beautiful with- 
 out its variety. Music also, as an example of beauty 
 in sound, can not exist without variety. A drum has 
 none except in time; and how much beauty does a 
 dram suggest? 
 
 The same principle governs style. Monotony, even 
 of that which is in itself an excellence, destroys the 
 beauty of it. One critic defines the whole art of com- 
 posing as the art of varying thought skillfully. Cutlers 
 tell us, that the keenest razor will lose its temper, or 
 whatever that is which gives it the susceptibility of 
 taking an edge, if it is never allowed a period of disuse. 
 No sharpening process will perfect it for use till it has 
 for a while been at rest. Hair-dressers observe the 
 phenomenon, and describe it by saying that razors get 
 tired, as the hand does which wields them. So is it 
 with the rarest and keenest excellence in style : same-
 
 308 ENGLISH STYLE. [lect. xvm. 
 
 ness blunts it, in spite of the ingenuity expended upon 
 repairs. 
 
 1. How can variety of style be most readily acquired 
 as a habit of the pen? I answer, first, in sympathy 
 with what has been already said, that variety of style 
 must have its foundation in versatility of thought. 
 Thought in a versatile mind may compel variety in its 
 utterance. On the contrary, thought in a commonplace 
 mind may be so monotonous, that no art can create 
 variety in its expression. Utterance must be what the 
 mind is which thinks it. 
 
 De Quincey illustrates this concisely in a criticism of 
 the prose-style of Milton. He says, "Milton is too 
 slow, solemn, and continuous. . . . He 'polonaises,' with 
 a grand Castilian air, in paces too sequacious and proces- 
 sional. Even in his passages of merriment . . . his 
 thought and his imagery appear to move to the music 
 of the organ." This want of versatile movement does 
 not detract from the energy of the Miltonic style, but 
 it obliterates the sense of beauty. A certain degree of 
 agility is essential to the utterance of beauty. Even 
 the azure of the sky would appeal rather to our sense 
 of the sublime than to our sense of the beautiful, if it 
 were never varied by day and night, by dawn and twi- 
 light, by storm and sunshine, and by varieties of season. 
 So in style, that which momentarily is most beautiful 
 ceases to be so if it never varies. We should tire of 
 rainbows if they arched the heavens incessantly. 
 
 May it not have been one cause of the beauty of the 
 Greek language and literature, that they grew up among 
 a people who were passionately fond of the drama? 
 " They left," says one critic, "for the world's admira- 
 tion, theaters, while the Romans left amphitheaters." 
 The love of the drama permeated the very structure of 
 the Greek tongue, as it did the Greek taste.
 
 ■LECT. xvin.] IHENTAL, VERSATILITY. 309 
 
 For the uses of the pulpit, the following sugges- 
 tions deserve notice. The elegance of a discourse as a 
 unique structure is promoted by variety in the method 
 of discussion, by variety of divisions in form and sub- 
 stance, by variety in recapitulations of argument, by 
 variety in applications. Any prolonged discourse re- 
 quires variation in the keynote of the thought. Argu- 
 ment unmixed with illustration, poetic aspects of truth 
 in unbroken succession, declamation unmingled with 
 didactic remark, are too wearisome to please the sense 
 of beauty. Thought in the most brilliant pictures, 
 unrelieved by passages of repose, satiates the sense of 
 beauty. A traveler in Europe soon grows weary, and 
 therefore undiscerning, in exploring rapidly a choice 
 gallery of art. Its profusion of beauty becomes monot- 
 onous, and therefore antagonistic to its own meaning. 
 Mind sympathizes with the weariness of the eye. Simi- 
 lar is the effect of that style of discourse of which a 
 gallery of pictures is the emblem. 
 
 It is not unworthy of inspiration to believe, that, in 
 the construction of the Bible, God had a special object 
 in view in the versatility of mind, the variety of ages, 
 the diversity of national conditions and temperaments, 
 the multiplicity of historic crises, and the range of sub- 
 jects, which are wrought into the composition of the 
 volume. A book which should have been a unit in all 
 these particulars, rigidl}^ compact and iron-bound, could 
 not possibly have been so valuable for the purposes of 
 a revelation from heaven as the Scriptures are as we 
 find them. That they are Scriptures, instead of Scrip- 
 ture, is a most significant feature in their history and 
 their destiny. 
 
 If but few directions could be given for the intel- 
 lectual culture of a preacher, one of the few should
 
 310 ENGLISH STYLE. [i.ect. xvin. 
 
 surely be tliis: Cultivate mental versatility. Read a 
 versatile literature. Read other things than sermons. 
 Write other productions than sermons. Write reviews, 
 essays, colloquies, speeches for the platform. Even 
 tales and dramas may widen the range of a preacher's 
 pen. Think much outside of professional channels. 
 Think variously and broadly within the channels of the 
 profession. Preach to various classes of minds. Preach 
 to both sexes, to all conditions of social life, to all ages, 
 on all varieties of biblical themes, in all methods of 
 oral discourse, and to all diversities of Christian expe- 
 rience. Keep out of mental ruts by an intellectual 
 resjimen which shall make the formation of such ruts 
 impossible. 
 
 One of the pastors of the city of New York, forty 
 years ago, conceived the idea, early in his ministry, that 
 he could not preach to children. That notion, with its 
 corollaries, was a blight upon his whole ministerial life. 
 It was a mental concession of many other things than 
 the one it expressed. It involved a self-exclusion from 
 a large range of thought and subject and style and feel- 
 ing, which crippled his ministry at vital points at which 
 success was indispensable. It was like wearing a spiked 
 collar or a crape veil through a lifetime. For twenty 
 years he preached to a diminutive audience, whose 
 purses alone kept him in his place. The very last 
 sermon that he published indicated, in its style and 
 structure, the professional rut of a lifetime, which re- 
 quired precisely the discipline of preaching to children 
 to break it up and remove it. 
 
 2. That variety which elegance requires demands, 
 also, a varied vocabulary and construction. In this 
 respect the most essential requisite is a thorough com- 
 mand of the synonyms of the language, and the history
 
 LECT. xvni.] VARIETY OF CONSTRUCTION. 311 
 
 of its literature. Good taste revolts from the constant 
 yet needless recurrence of the same word or the same 
 collocation of words. Inelegances of construction are 
 easily corrected if attention is given to them : they 
 are the fruit of heedless composing. The following are 
 the chief of them ; viz., monotony in the length of 
 sentences, in the manner of beginning and ending sen- 
 tences, in the connections of the emphatic and depend- 
 ent clauses of sentences, in transitions, in the use of 
 aflfirmative, negative, interrogative, and antithetic struc- 
 tures, in the use of personal and impersonal pronouns, 
 in the use of the direct and the inverted orders of sen- 
 tences, in the use of some favorite peculiarity of con- 
 struction not easily definable by criticism. 
 
 One form of favorite mechanism in construction is 
 that in which a regular succession occurs, like the swing 
 of a pendulum. In other instances in which one feels 
 the sense of monotony, but can not at once detect the 
 cause, it is found, on a closer scrutiny, that the sentences 
 have more than two variations, but they occur in one 
 invariable order, with the sameness of a treadmill. Dr. 
 Johnson's style sometimes falls into this monotone in 
 mechanism. Hazlitt criticises it, saying that to read 
 or hear such passages from Johnson's writings is as 
 bad as being at sea in a calm, in which one feels the 
 everlasting monotony of the ground-swell. Charles 
 Dickens sometimes falls under the tyranny of his ear 
 in composing ; and then his style assumes an arbitrary 
 succession of a few constructions, in which thought is 
 subordinated to euphony of expression. A roll and a 
 swell and a return, in the boom of the style, if I may 
 speak so incongruously, destroy the sense of every 
 thing but the sound. One is tempted to chant the 
 passage.
 
 312 ENGLISH STYLE. [lect. xviii. 
 
 Minute criticism of construction sometimes discloses 
 a curious sympathy with certain geometrical figures, so 
 regular is the succession of triple, quadruple, quintuple 
 clauses, so many and no more, in what De Quincey calls 
 the 'packing of a sentence. The passage reads or sounds 
 as if the author were executing a fantastic wager, or 
 had a vow to perform in honor of a triangle or a 
 pentagon. 
 
 Criticism of defects like these may seem like trifling. 
 But often some kind of arbitrary mechanism like these, 
 not always obvious at a glance, renders discourse un- 
 gainly, and therefore wearisome, when the thought, if 
 we have patience to evolve it from its diagram, is full 
 of that material which demands elegant expression. 
 The human mind is desperately fond of routine. Make 
 a groove for it in which it may run by the force of 
 acquired momentum, and it will run on for ever without 
 change, and therefore soon without life. This is true, 
 from the most vital thought of immortal being down to 
 the word which drops from the point of the pen. In 
 the least, as in the greatest, nothing kills out life like 
 uniformity. In one aspect of it, the whole discipline of 
 humanity is aimed at the dislodgement of mind from 
 deadly routine. Change, to the degree of infinite vari- 
 ety, is the eternal law of life. It pervades the philos- 
 ophy of style, as it does every other expression of 
 intellectual being. 
 
 3. Furthermore : that variety which beauty of style 
 requires involves variety of illustration. This sugges- 4 
 tion opens a boundless field of criticism. We can trav- 
 erse it but very rapidly, noting only the most essential 
 principles. Generally, repetition of the same illustra- 
 tion in similar connections should be avoided. If the 
 illustration be a bad one, or an indifferent one, it does
 
 i.ECT. XVIII.] VARIETY OF ILLUSTRATION. 313 
 
 not deserve repetition : if it be a good one, repetition 
 betrays the author's estimate of it as such, and has the 
 look of vanity. In either case, an elegant taste is 
 offended. Write rather as if you were unconscious of 
 the quality of your style, and as if your mind were rich 
 in its abundance of illustrative stores. 
 
 Study variety of illustration by a command of vari- 
 ety of sources. An old homiletic rule used to be, tliat 
 a preacher should illustrate from no source but the 
 Scriptures. Strange is it that it never seems to have 
 occurred to the advocates of that rule, that the whole 
 force of biblical example is against it. The writers of 
 the New Testament did not limit themselves to the Old 
 Testament in illustration of truth. Our Lord employed 
 the works of nature for the purpose more frequently than 
 the " law and the prophets." Indeed, for what service 
 are the works of nature designed, if not to illustrate 
 spiritual truths ? Why do innumerable analogies thread 
 the material universe, if not to aid the intelligent uni- 
 verse in its knowledge of the Creator of both ? 
 
 Yet the material world should not be used for illustra- 
 tion indolently. Some preachers plod in commonplaces 
 by confining themselves, for illustrations, to the most 
 common objects and phenomena of nature, — such as 
 the sun, the moon, the stars, rivers, mountains, forests, 
 storms, clouds. Others limit their range of choice to 
 principles in science ; others, to the mechanic arts ; a 
 few, to the fine arts ; a larger number, to civil govern- 
 ment; many, to historical allusions, to mythology, to 
 literary fiction, to military art and history. Henry 
 Ward Beecher makes too exclusive use of his own child- 
 hood and his father's family for illustrative purposes. 
 His father had a similar favoritism for military life. A 
 lady once called my attention to the fact, that marriage
 
 314 ENGLISH STYLE. [lect. xvra. 
 
 and domestic life were favorite sources of illustration in 
 the sermons of the then recent alumni of the Andover 
 Seminary. One preacher of my acquaintance found his 
 favorite source of illustrations in the laws and phenom- 
 ena of disease. 
 
 For elegant illustration in the pulpit a preacher should 
 have no favorites. Cultivate a liberal acquaintance with 
 the mechanic arts, the natural sciences, history, biog- 
 raphy, the liberal professions, the trades, the fine arts, 
 mythology, fiction, civil and social life. Be at home 
 wherever you can lead the interest of jonv hearers for 
 new analogies. Then, to varieties of secular knowl- 
 edge, add command of biblical illustrations. 
 
 Again : for variety's sake, illustrations should not be 
 restricted to any one rhetorical form. Do not commonly 
 resort to the boldest of figures, nor always to the mild- 
 est. The French pulpit should not be imitated in its 
 excessive use of the apostrophe, nor the Methodist 
 pulpit in the extreme use of exclamation, nor Jeremy 
 Taylor in his too frequent use of vision. The only rule 
 admissible on this subject is the general one, the bolder 
 the figure, the less frequent should be its use. The same 
 principles should give variety to the proportion of rhe- 
 torical illustration. Illustration should rarely predomi- 
 nate over declarative or argumentative discussion ; yet 
 it should not be limited to pictorial words. Elegance 
 requires diversity in proportion, as in rhetorical form. 
 The extent to which a prolific and inventive mind can 
 execute illustrative variety is seen in the fact, that in 
 sixty-four volumes of the works of Paul Richter, one of 
 the most imaginative of German prose-writers, it is said 
 that only two or three illustrations are repeated.
 
 LECTURE XIX. 
 
 VARIETY OP STYLE, CONTINUED, — HARMONY OP STYLE. 
 
 Resuming the consideration of variety of style, let 
 us observe that the variety which an elegant taste 
 requires is assisted by variety of delivery. By this is 
 meant, not only that a versatile delivery is the natural 
 expression of a versatile style, but that it is a power- 
 ful auxiliary to the forming of such a style. 
 
 A very broad theme is this of the reciprocal effect of 
 style and elocution. A monotonous elocution insen- 
 sibly yet inevitably gives character to the style of one 
 who speaks much in public. A drowsy, drawling, nasal 
 delivery, if such be a preacher's habit, will brood over 
 and suffocate his writing. A brisk, energetic, versatile 
 delivery is an inspiration to the pen. Unconsciously, 
 we form our sentences, choose our collocations of words, 
 adjust the length of our periods, select our rhetorical 
 forms, and even manipulate our vocabulary, as we feel 
 intuitively that we shall utter them in the act of deliv- 
 ery. You will detect before long, if you care to do so, 
 this silent infusion of the genius of your elocution into 
 your written style. You may first observe it in the 
 proportion of long to short sentences ; but no feature 
 of style escapes affinity with delivery. Other things 
 being equal, your style will become what your manner 
 is. Each will grow into fitness to the other. 
 
 Therefore variety in delivery will promote variety in 
 
 315
 
 316 ENGLISH STYLE. [lect. xix. 
 
 style. A flexible voice, various intonation, gesture, 
 and position, will aid the growth of a varied command 
 of oral expression. You write a sermon, for example, 
 addressed to one man in your audience : you know his 
 spiritual condition; you have in mind the locality in 
 which he sits in the church ; you have his countenance 
 before you as you write ; you preach, not only about 
 him, but to him ; you foresee, that, in the application of 
 your discourse, you shall rise to your full height, and 
 lift your voice, or lower it to its most earnest key ; and 
 shall endeavor, by look and tone and gesture and atti- 
 tude, to make him feel that you ojiean him. Do you 
 think it possible that jon can have that scene before 
 you in prophetic vision, and with the moral sensibilities 
 appropriate to it alert in your heart, and 3'et can sit 
 with the dullness of a clam at your study-table, and reel 
 off a style like " Abraham begat Isaac, and Isaac begat 
 Jacob, and Jacob begat Reuben, and Reuben begat 
 Hanoch," and so on ? It is inconceivable. Any man's 
 imagination is too vividly clairvoyant to tolerate such 
 incongruity. Home Tooke even goes so far as to say 
 that no man can write a good style in prose who is not a 
 good conversationalist. Mr. Hazlitt adds, " No style is 
 worth a farthing which will not bear comparison with 
 spirited colloquy." 
 
 It is true that instances occur which seem to contra- 
 dict this view. Rapid speakers sometimes write for the 
 press in a crawling style. This is said to have been 
 true of Mr. Fox, the English statesman. Drawling 
 speakers also sometimes write vivaciously. But such 
 writers do not write mucJi for the purpose of oral deliv- 
 ery. They do not write enough to give their delivery 
 a chance to permeate their style. They either speak 
 extemporaneously, and therefore do not write well for
 
 LECT. XIX.] STYLE AND ELOCUTION". 317 
 
 the platform or the pulpit, or they do not speak at all, 
 and therefore do not write well for oral utterance. 
 Elocution and written style do not come in contact fre- 
 quently enough to create the reciprocal sympathy of 
 which I have spoken. 
 
 An amusing account is given by Lord Macaulay, of a 
 criticism by Sheridan upon the style and manner of 
 Mr. Fox and Lord Stormont in the British Parliament. 
 Sheridan had returned one morning from the meeting 
 of Parliament, and a friend asked him for the news of 
 the day. He replied that he had enjoyed a laugh over 
 the speeches of those two men. He said that Lord 
 Stormont began by declaring in a slow, solemn, nasal 
 monotone, that, "when — he — considered — the enor- 
 mity — and the — unconstitutional — tendency — of the 
 measures — just — proposed, he was — hurried — away 
 in a — torrent — of passion — and a — whirlwind — of 
 im-pet-u-os-i-ty." Mr. Fox he described as rising with 
 a spring to his feet, and beginning, with the rapidity 
 of lightning, thus : " Mr. Speaker such is the magni- 
 tude such the importance such the vital interest of the 
 question that I can not but implore I can not but adjure 
 the House to come to it with the utmost calmness the 
 utmost coolness the utmost deliberation.'''' 
 
 This surely does not look much like reciprocal sym- 
 pathy between manner and style. But scrutinize it 
 carefully, and you will find, even in this rare extreme, 
 that such a sympathy is struggling to unite them. 
 What is the fact with Lord Stormont's case ? It is his 
 drawling manner which gives him time to say in wliat 
 a tempestuous passion he is. He is uttering what he 
 knows to be untrue : a man in a genuine passion does 
 not stop to tell of it. Such a blunder is in perfect keep- 
 ing with the monotonous, crawling elocution. Note,
 
 318 ENGLISH STYLE. [lect. xrx. 
 
 also, the florid, figurative style in which he speaks of 
 the torrent and the whirlwind, and the carefulness with 
 which he supplies all necessary connectives. These are 
 both exactly the mistakes which one is likely to make 
 who affects the utterance of passion which has no exist- 
 ence. His style and his professed sentiment are incon- 
 sistent, but his style and manner are in conspiracy to 
 betray the falseness of the sentiment. 
 
 What is the case rhetorically with Mr. Fox ? Pre- 
 cisely the same. He is, in fact, anxious and impatient : 
 his style and manner combine to reveal this, though the 
 sentiment exhorts the House to be just the reverse. 
 Observe his pithy, literal vocabulary. He does not 
 know whether he is in a whirlwind or not. Lord Stor- 
 mont did know. Note Mr. Fox's compact syntax, in- 
 dicating his nervous haste by the absence of connec- 
 tives : " Such is the importance such the magnitude such 
 the vital interest," etc. The style gallops furiously to 
 its goal. Lord Stormont ambled along, sporting with 
 torrents and whirlwinds by the way. Few examples 
 can illustrate a more active affinity between style and 
 manner. Both are more truthfully significant than the 
 sentiment is, of the real state of the writer's mind. Let 
 lis not contemn, then, the graces and forces of delivery 
 as mere externals. Some of the subtle influences which 
 give character to discourse have their origin there. 
 
 IV. One topic remains to be treated in our discus- 
 sion of the quality before us. It is the dependence of 
 elegance on the element of harmony. 
 
 Beauty, strictly speaking, is confined to objects which 
 address the eye. But the sense of the beautiful thus 
 awakened, so far as analj^sis can detect it, is the same 
 with that awakened by objects which address the ear. 
 So close is the resemblance, at least, that usage recog-
 
 LECT. XIX.] HARMONY OF STYLE. 319 
 
 nizes it in the structure of language. We thus extend 
 the term " beauty " to objects of hearing. Beautiful 
 music, a beautiful symphony, a beautiful voice — these 
 combinations excite no sense of incongruity. On the 
 other hand, we extend the term " harmony " and its 
 equivalents to objects of sight. The harmony of a 
 building, of a painting, of a landscape, of a group of 
 statuary, expresses to us a perfectly intelligible idea. 
 
 True, such a use of language contains a figurative 
 element ; but usage justifies it, and thus recognizes the 
 resemblance, approaching identity, between the pleasur- 
 able emotions excited by certain objects through the 
 eye, and those by certain other objects through the ear 
 We pass and repass between the dominions of the eye 
 and the ear, with no sense of conflict or irrelevance. 
 An old writer says of the work of creation, " Nothing 
 has been made without music," and, again, " The whole 
 creation is a poem." The mythological notion of the 
 music of the spheres had its origin, doubtless, by transfer 
 from the beauty of light and motion in the stellar uni- 
 verse. In the criticism of style, therefore, we are in 
 perfect accord with usage in observing the element cor- 
 responding to proportion in form, and in defining it by 
 the word " harmony." Among other things the follow- 
 ing are worthy of special notice ; viz., — 
 
 1. The truthfulness of a discourse assists in disclos- 
 ing its beauty to good taste. Truth may not of itself 
 awaken the sense of beauty consciously ; yet nothing 
 susceptible of expression in language can be beautiful 
 without it. Good taste, as well as the moral sense, is 
 offended by a falsehood or an exaggeration. What do 
 we mean by the beauty of a truthful narrative, a truth- 
 ful description, a truthful argument ? It is not merely 
 the absence of artifice or of gaudy ornament, it is, in
 
 320 ENGLISH STYLE. [lect, xix. 
 
 part, the direct efiQuence of truth, which we feel. Good 
 taste acknowledges it as a thing of beauty. The refine- 
 ment of Christian sensibility enters into the question 
 to modify the instincts of taste. The false in sentiment 
 may so shock the sense of truth as to silence all re- 
 sponse of our lesthetic nature to the external beauty in 
 which the falsehood may be incarnate. Satan in the 
 guise of an angel of light ceases to be the angel of light 
 as soon as the Satanic nature is disclosed. The popular 
 myths of all Christian ages agree in representing the 
 form of the arch-demon with horns and hoofs, or dragon- 
 shape, whenever his moral nature is revealed. Beauty 
 vanishes at the moment of that revelation. So it is 
 with the works of Satan. 
 
 Of two poets, Lord Byron and Cowper, the Christian 
 poet would probably be right, in the decision of a ques- 
 tion of disputed taste, if the question involved the dis- 
 tinction between the true and the false. Cowper might 
 be disgusted by that which Byron would enjoy as a 
 matter of taste, and the Christian poet would be correct 
 in his intuitions. Standing on a higher level, he would 
 see through a purer atmosphere. A blasphemous poem, 
 the work of rarest genius, may so shock you that you 
 cease to feel its claims to imaginative beauty. Moral 
 deformity, to the vision of a true soul, may be the one 
 hideous feature in an assemblage of graces which shall 
 make them all odious. In the ultimate analysis of 
 thought, every thing is what it is morally. On the same 
 principle, the truthfulness of a discourse, while it may 
 not alone awaken the sense of beauty consciously, does 
 heighten that beauty when quickened by other things. 
 
 2. By a similar law of affinity, unity of sentiment in 
 a discourse assists the impression of beauty as discerned 
 by good taste. Harmony is founded on oneness of aim
 
 LECT. XIX.] THE ELEGANCE OF PROPRIETY. 321 
 
 in a well-constructed composition. There is a beauty 
 of its own in concinnity of structure. This alone may 
 not create elegance in distinct impression upon eesthetic 
 taste, but it does deepen that impression ; and the 
 absence of it may be so keenly resented as to destroy 
 the sense of elegance awakened by other things. The 
 conflict of inconsistent materials, the bungling of dis- 
 orderly materials, the shuffling of irrelevant materials, 
 the balking of contradictorj^ materials, — all are un- 
 friendly to elegance of speech, because they destroy the 
 sense of harmony. You can not make an elegant dis- 
 cussion out of a slovenly arrangement. The superlative 
 invention of genius in point of thought may be fore- 
 doomed to failure by a slipshod plan. Ecstatic impres- 
 sions of truth on the mind always tend to express 
 themselves in song. Prophetic inspiration was often a 
 poem. Hidden in the recesses of such experiences is 
 the element of harmony, which beauty always presumes, 
 and to which it invites response. 
 
 3. Elegance is further promoted by the fitness of a 
 discourse to the time, the place, the circumstances, and 
 the characters concerned in its delivery. I group these 
 things as comprising the most essential of certain things 
 external to the discourse itself, with which it should be 
 in keeping. There is an elegance of propriety which 
 depends chiefly on those relations of a discourse which 
 are here suggested. 
 
 Fitness to the time when a discourse is delivered is 
 essential to its perfect elegance. A sermon on the 
 Lord's Day, which is unbecoming to holy time, is an 
 offense against the canons of taste no less than against 
 good morals. Remarks in the house of God which are 
 irreverent to the associations of the place are, in like 
 manner, violations of good taste. That instinct of
 
 322 ENGLISH STYLE. [lecf. xix. 
 
 a Christian audience which recoils from boisterous 
 applause in a place of Christian worship is one of the 
 most prompt workings of high culture. That is a 
 coarse audience, moved it may be by a vulgar preacher, 
 which so forgets the proprieties of the place consecrated 
 to the worship of the Most High. 
 
 On the same principle, good taste enjoins harmony of 
 discourse with the spirit of an occasion. Why would 
 you not sing a comic song at a funeral ? Why not play 
 a dirge at a marriage-feast? For similar reasons, aes- 
 thetic taste requires the most cautious adaptation of a 
 discourse to the genius of an occasion, like that, for 
 example, of the administration of the Lord's Supper. 
 The sesthetic sense and the moral sense hover vigilantly 
 hand in hand over a very broad range of the pruprieties 
 of the pulpit. 
 
 The most important of these externals on which the 
 elegance of propriety depends is that of character. The 
 character of the speaker and the character of the hearer 
 are the criteria by which many questions concerning the 
 policy of the pulpit must be decided. That may be 
 an elegant propriety in a speaker of great age or of es- 
 tablished reputation which would be a flagrant imper- 
 tinence in a young man unknown to fame. John 
 Hancock, in an oration on the anniversary of the 
 Boston Massacre, delivered a severe invective against 
 the love of riches. It was accepted as authoritative 
 from him, because he was known to have risked, in 
 the defense of his country, the largest fortune in the 
 Colony. 
 
 In applicatory appeals to men from the pulpit, preach- 
 ers have frequent opportunities to obey or to violate 
 these proprieties of character. Aged men, men of un- 
 usual intelligence, women of high culture, and men of
 
 LECT. XIX.] PEOPKIETY IN APPEALS. 323 
 
 official rank, have a right that their personal character, 
 age, and social standing, should be delicately regarded 
 in the style in which they are individualized in the 
 appeals of a preacher. I include " social standing " 
 because in our country, even when social pre-eminence 
 is due chiefly to the possession of wealth, that is com- 
 monly a symbol and a proof of something in the man 
 which deserves respect. The junior of such hearers, 
 or their inferior in secular intelligence or in general 
 culture, is not at liberty to address them as in all 
 respects his equals. Why ? Simply because he is not 
 their equal ; and clerical fidelity is no excuse for im- 
 pertinence. 
 
 Preachers of humble birth, and of spirit less humble, 
 sometimes carry into the pulpit the infirmity of uncon- 
 scious jealousy of superiors, which was the fruit of 
 their early training. A liberal education should lift a 
 man above all that. The English ideal of a clergyman 
 is in this respect the true one, that a clergyman is, by 
 virtue of his profession, a gentleman. Note, for an ex- 
 ample, St. Paul's address to King Agrippa. Bear in mem- 
 ory the spirit of the Old and New Testaments : " Honor 
 the king ; bow down before the hoary head ; obey magis- 
 trates ; be subject to principalities." The whole atmos- 
 phere of the Bible is that which surrounds a gentleman 
 and a man of taste. It is fitted to create such ministers 
 as George Herbert and Henry Martyn. Because we 
 will not fawn upon great men, nor cringe before men of 
 wealth, it by no means follows that we must not observe 
 in the pulpit, as gracefully as out of it, the proprieties of 
 character which God has ordained in the constitution of 
 society. We practice no sycophantic utterance, we only 
 give expression to a beautiful sentiment in the language 
 of cultured speech, when we respectfully acknowledge
 
 324 ENGLISH STYLE. [leot. xix. 
 
 distinctions which God himself honors. In our age 
 and country, he is the bold preacher who will do this 
 thing ; not he who blurts out the impertinences which 
 mark his vulgar training, against rank and station and 
 office and wealth and honorable ancestry, knowing that 
 the lower sentiments and the baser passions of a minor- 
 ity of his hearers will greet him with applause. 
 
 To illustrate the effect of this error in the pulpit on 
 those who are the object of it, let me tell you a fact 
 from unwritten history. One of the most liberal found- 
 ers of the Andover Seminary designedly allowed his 
 property to accumulate with years, instead of frittering 
 it away in small donations to small charities, in order 
 that, before he should leave the world, he might do 
 something for the cause of Christ commensurate with 
 its magnitude. He silently plodded his way up to great 
 wealth, cherishing this purpose meanwhile. When at 
 last, in his old age, he was prepared to execute the plan 
 of his early manhood, he remitted the money to the 
 treasurer of the seminary, saying, as he did so, substan- 
 tially (I quote from memory), " I have been preached 
 at all my days for being a miser. Striplings with rosy 
 cheeks have berated me. But I should like to know 
 what would become of jout colleges and seminaries 
 which educate those good young men, if there were not 
 some such misers as I have been." Was it necessary 
 to clerical fidelity to have given just such an impression 
 to linger in an old man's memory ? Would not min- 
 isterial duty have been more wisely done if the canons 
 of good taste had been observed by an elegant fidelity 
 to the proprieties of character in the appeals of the 
 pulpit under which the servant of God had sat for 
 thirty years? 
 
 The strain of remark into which this subject has
 
 LECT. XIX.] EUPHONY OF STYLE. 325 
 
 enticed me indicates the indefiniteness of that element 
 of harmony on which elegance of discourse depends. 
 It is not always defined in specific language to which 
 one can point the finger. It is diffused, like a delicate 
 color, throughout. Good taste can often do no more 
 than to affirm its own intuitions, and leave them with- 
 out proof or illustration. Yet good taste in all other 
 minds will confirm them without debate. 
 
 4. Yet again : elegance, as dependent on harmony of 
 style, is often assisted by euphonious language. A dic- 
 tion which flows easily, and therefore is pleasing to the 
 ear, is becoming to the expression of beauty in thought. 
 Coleridge even goes so far as to say, that "wherever 
 you find a sentence musically worded, of true rhythm 
 and melody, there is something deep and good in the 
 meaning : " so profound, he thinks, are the sympathies 
 between euphonious words and correspondent ideas. 
 In support of the same criticism is the singular fact, 
 that great orators have commonly a poetic vein in their 
 natures. Cicero, Chatham, Fox, Mansfield, Curran, 
 Webster, Clay, Calhoun, Everett, all wrote poetry. 
 Some orators, of whom Webster is an example, have 
 defined the oratorical genius as in the last analysis 
 synonymous with the poetic genius : so potent is the 
 tendency of eloquent thought to clothe itself in poetic 
 speech. But in this, as in other elements of discourse, 
 it is the demand of the thought which creates the 
 euphonious utterance. The mechanism of style can 
 not put it on the thought if the demand is not in the 
 thought. The speaker must possess, and be possessed 
 by, what Milton describes as the 
 
 " Thoughts that voluntary moved 
 Harmonious numbers."
 
 326 ENGLISH STYLE. [lect. xix. 
 
 What constitutes euphony of style? I answer, so 
 far as practical criticism determines, it consists of three 
 things. One is smoothness of vocabulary. Languages 
 differ greatly in their susceptibilities in this respect. 
 Those of Northern Europe are inferior to those of the 
 South. The difference is chiefly in the predominance 
 of consonantal over vowel sounds in the national vocabu- 
 laries. An Italian sentence will contain four vowels 
 where an English sentence of the same length will con- 
 tain three. In Italian style, vowels form about one-half 
 of the letters used in oral speech: in English style, 
 vowels constitute but three-eighths. Yet any language 
 admits great variety in this proportion, depending not 
 so much on the conscious choice, as on the aesthetic 
 intuitions, of the speaker. 
 
 The structure of a speaker's vocal organs affects, in 
 some degree, his instinctive selection of the vowel and 
 the consonant in his style. A perceptible characteristic 
 of the style of some speakers is a predominance of the 
 consonantal sounds, which renders the style harsh and 
 repulsive to the ear. Natives of Southern Europe call 
 ours the "jawbreaking language," because of the fre- 
 quency of guttural, aspirate, and sibilant sounds. If, in 
 listening to vocal music, you have ever abstracted your 
 attention from the words and ideas, and caught only 
 the sounds, you must have been sensible of the extreme 
 harshness of the concentrated sibilant sounds from a 
 choir of voices. Some speakers have a deformity, which 
 no art can remedy, in their organs of speech, by which 
 the sibilant words and syllables in our language receive 
 excessive utterance when uttered at all. The tongue 
 and the roof of the mouth, with the upper jaw, bear such 
 proportions to each other, that the euphonious medium 
 between extremes in sibilant enunciation is impossible.
 
 LECT. XIX.] EUPHONY m CONSTRUCTION. 327 
 
 No choice is practicable, in such a case, except between 
 the hissing or whistling sound and the lisping of the 
 letter " s." A speaker who labors under this infirmity 
 will be mimicked by his juvenile hearers. Its effect on 
 euphony is irremediable. 
 
 Euphony consists, also, in a melodious arrangement of 
 clauses in the structure of sentences. These need to 
 be so arranged that accent and emphasis shall be easily 
 expressed. Emphasis in delivery will be sometimes sac- 
 rificed to the instinct of a good ear if the sentiment 
 requires rather euphony than force. The prose-style 
 of Milton furnishes examples in which a good speaker 
 might hesitate between the euphony and the emphasis. 
 A perfect style will so adjust expression to thought as 
 to leave no room for such hesitation. 
 
 Euphony consists, also, in a well-proportioned variety 
 of structure in successive sentences. A monotonous 
 repetition of any construction can not be made euphoni- 
 ous, except by singing it. The proverbial sing-song of 
 the pulpit is due largely to the laboring of style after 
 excessive euphony. One source of the weariness caused 
 by uninterrupted declamation is its effect on the ear. 
 The most animated oratorical style becomes soporific if 
 disproportionate. 
 
 How may euphony of style be wisely gained? In 
 my judgment, little can be said in answer to this inquiry 
 which is of practical value. The ancients made much 
 of it, however, descending with great care to minute 
 rules for the training of a public speaker in regard to 
 it. To me these seem too artificial for the use of a mod- 
 ern speaker. I never knew or heard of one who prac- 
 ticed them. Modern criticism remands them to that 
 fastidious taste which led Quintilian to instruct and 
 drill his pupils in the art of folding their togas, and
 
 328 ENGLISH STYLE. [lect. xix. 
 
 dressing their hair. The substance of all the wisdom 
 I have on the subject is comprised in four very simple 
 suggestions. 
 
 The chief thing to be relied on for cultivating a 
 euphonious style is attention to the instinct of a good 
 ear. Men differ astonishingly in their natural gifts in 
 this respect. Plutarch says that in his boyhood, while 
 his companions were reading ^sop, he read Cicero, 
 whose sonorous periods delighted his ear long before 
 he understood tiieir sense. Few moderns have excelled 
 Wordsworth in the exquisite delicacy of his sense of 
 sound. Hence the remarkable euphony of almost all 
 his poetry. I do not recall one abrupt line in " The 
 Excursion." Cultivate the accurate and quick ear; 
 then obey its instinctive decisions upon the sound of 
 style, and euphony is a sure result. 
 
 Again : in the act of composing, some deliberation 
 and choice are commonly practicable. A speaker is 
 seldom so carried away by the torrent of thought that 
 he does not, in fact, pause and deliberate upon many 
 things in his diction. We are not often insj)ired in 
 speech. Without detriment to thought, therefore, we 
 can choose intelligently the words which sound most 
 mellifiuously to the ear, and flow most smoothly from 
 the tongue. The same choice is practicable of construc- 
 tions. It is not necessary, because of our enthusiasm in 
 the act of composing, that we should make the rhythm 
 of our style sound like the roll of a lumber-wagon or 
 the beat of a drum. An eminent English author, it is 
 said, can not dot the " i," nor cross the "• t," in the or- 
 thography of his sentences : he employs an amanuensis 
 to do it for him. But the structure of his style would 
 be improved if he practiced deliberation enough to do 
 it himself. Practice will augment one's power of con-
 
 LECT. XIX.] EHYTHMIC STYLE. 329 
 
 scious choice, without at all impeding the flow of 
 thought. 
 
 Further : to gain euphony of style, practice revision 
 of your own style after the act of composing, when the 
 heat of production has had time to cool. Style needs 
 the heat of composing to give it richness and variety of 
 thought : it needs the temperance of criticism to impart 
 to it finish of expression. We do not disdain this labor 
 of review for the sake of other qualities of style, of 
 energy, for example : why not respect it for the sake of 
 elegance as well? If, as we have seen, elegance is essen- 
 tial to a large domain of thought, nothing that promotes 
 elegance is too diminutive to be worthy of an author's 
 care. Beauty is more susceptible of this kind of finish 
 than strength. Elegant composing, therefore, is like the 
 act of painting, in which the artist touches and retouches 
 the canvas till his artistic sense of beauty is content. 
 
 Once more : to gain a genuine euphony of style, break 
 up a distinctly metrical construction. The most strik- 
 ing feature in a certain kind of style is its resemblance 
 to blank verse. Some entire pages in the works of 
 Charles Dickens can be scanned as perfectly as a page 
 of hexameters from Virgil. The following passage from 
 " The Curiosity Shop " will serve for illustration ; viz., 
 " Then when the dusk of evening had come on, and not 
 a sound disturbed the stillness of the place ; when the 
 bright moon poured in her light on tomb and monu- 
 ment, on pillar, wall, and arch, and most of all, it seemed 
 to them, upon her quiet grave ; in that calm time when 
 all outward things and inward thoughts teem with 
 assurances of immortality, and worldly hopes and fears 
 are humbled in the dust before them, — then, with tran- 
 quil and submissive hearts, they turned away, and left 
 the child with God. When death strikes down the
 
 330 ENGLISH STYLE. [lect. xix. 
 
 innocent and young, for every fragile form from which 
 he lets the panting spirit free, a hundred virtues rise in 
 shapes of mercy, charity, and love, to walk the world 
 and bless it." 
 
 This does not rise to the dignity of Milton's "Para- 
 dise Lost," but it reminds one of Pollok's "Course of 
 Time." It is blank verse, yet is not poetry. The gen- 
 uine rhythm of prose does not naturally fall into such 
 regularity of meter. No man, it is true, will write thus 
 who has not a musical ear; but, in writing thus, the 
 ear tyrannizes over natural expression. The genuine 
 euphony of prose does not invite one to chant it. It 
 would be hj^percriticism to condemn a single sentence 
 of this metrical style ; but in the works of Dickens 
 we find whole pages of it, which might easily be set to 
 music. One test of this style, which condemns it for 
 oral address, is that it can not be well delivered. A 
 speaker can only rehearse it in measured recitative. 
 He must rehearse it very well to avoid sing-song. Car- 
 lyle gives to young writers the very sensible piece of 
 advice, that "all men who can speak their thought 
 should not smg it."
 
 LECTURE XX. 
 
 NATUBALNESS OF STYLE. 
 
 Tete pliilosopliical idea of the " fitness of things " is, 
 in some relations of it, an ultimate idea. We can not 
 carry analysis beyond it. For some of our convictions 
 we can give no reason other than this, — that a thing 
 is, or is not, becoming. It does, or does not, fit in to 
 the nature and demands of other things. Style has a 
 quality which expresses this relation of thought as 
 clothed in language. It suggests the interlocking of 
 cog-wheels in machinery. 
 
 More specifically, naturalness is that quality by which 
 style expresses the fitness of language to thought, of 
 both thought and language to the speaker, and of 
 thought, language, and speaker to the hearer. In any 
 complete example of it, it is thus complicated. It 
 extends to all the fundamental elements out of which 
 style grows. It stands related to them as proportion 
 does to architecture. We respond to it, not by saying, 
 " That is forcible, this is beautiful, the other is clear ; " 
 but we saiy, " It is becoming, it fits, the cogs interlock : 
 therefore the movement is without jar or needless fric- 
 tion." Such a quality must obviously depend for its 
 recognition entirely upon the intuitions of good taste. 
 Primarily we do not reason about it : we feel it, or wo 
 feel the absence of it. Being, as it is, the resultant of 
 qualities of style already discussed, the discussion of it 
 
 331
 
 332 ENGLISH STYLE. [lect. xx. 
 
 as distinct from those must necessarily involve some 
 repetition. 
 
 I. In what forms, chiefly, does naturalness of style 
 become perceptible to good taste? 
 
 1. In answer, be it first observed, that good taste 
 approves naturalness of style in a certain fitness of 
 expression to the subject of discourse. Style has a cer- 
 tain temper, like that of steel. It pervades every par- 
 ticle. This may or may not be becoming ; and the 
 question whether it is so, or not, depends often on the 
 simple relations of style to subject. Why is not a vola- 
 tile style suited to a discourse on immortality ? Why is 
 a ponderous style unsuited to a comic song? To ask 
 these questions is to answer them. The jests of the 
 French revolutionists under the knife of the guillotine 
 shock us, and the seriousness of a parody pleases us, 
 for the same reason, — the unfitness of things to things. 
 " The Marriage-Ring," the title of one of Jeremy 
 Taylor's sermons, suggests immediately the elegance of 
 style which ought to characterize its treatment. The 
 forty-seventh proposition of Euclid suggests the neces- 
 sary absence of the qualities of style which " The Mar- 
 riage-Ring" demands. Do not the opposite subjects 
 " Heaven " and "• Hell " compel us, by stress of subject 
 only, to associate with them certain opposites in the 
 stjde of theu' discussion? Ruskin contends for the 
 same distinction as fundamental to good painting. He 
 says, " Greatness of style consists first in the habitual 
 choice of subjects which involve profound passions. 
 The habitual choice of sacred subjects constitutes a 
 painter, so far forth, one of the highest order." 
 
 Let this secret sympathy between style and subject 
 be illustrated by a single quotation from the work of 
 Dr. Chalmers on " Natural Theology." For the purpose
 
 LECT. XX.] THE STYLE OF CHALilERS. 333 
 
 in hand, it is one of the most striking passages in the 
 language. His theme is the difficulty of comprehending 
 the past eternity of the Godhead. He vaults into the 
 expression of his thought in the following style ; viz., 
 " One might figure a futurity which never ceases to 
 flow, and which has no termination ; but who can climb 
 his ascending way among the obscurities of that infinite 
 wliich lies behind him? Who can travel, in thought, 
 along the track of generations gone by, till he has over- 
 taken the eternity which lies in that direction ? Who 
 can look across the millions of ages which have elapsed, 
 and from an ulterior post of observation look again to 
 another and another succession of centuries, and, at 
 each further extremity in this series of retrospects, 
 stretch backward his regards on an antiquity as remote 
 and indefinite as ever? Could we by any number of 
 successive strides over these mighty intervals at length 
 reach the fountain-head of duration, our spirits might be 
 at rest. But to think of duration as having no foun- 
 tain-head, to think of time with no beginning, to uplift 
 the imagination along the heights of an antiquity which 
 has positively no summit, to soar these upward steeps 
 till dizzied by the altitude we can keep no longer on 
 the wing ; for the mind to make these repeated flights 
 from one pinnacle to another, and, instead of scaling the 
 mysterious elevation, to lie baffled at its foot, or lose 
 itself among the far, the long-withdrawing recesses of 
 that primeval distance which at length merges away 
 into a fathomless unknown, this is an exercise utterly 
 discomfiting to the puny faculties of man. We are 
 called on to stir ourselves up, that we may take hold of 
 God. But the clouds and darkness which are round 
 about him seem to repel the enterprise as hopeless; and 
 man, as if overborne by a sense of littleness, feels as if
 
 334 ENGLISH STYLE. [lect. xx. 
 
 nothing can be done but to make prostrate obeisance of 
 all his faculties before him." 
 
 Does not this passage suggest vastly more than it ex- 
 presses of the weight and the magnitude of the thought 
 it carries ? Is there not a something here, which, call it 
 what we may, is more than the power of words ? The 
 style is not only crowded and weighted by the subject, 
 but is itself uplifted and expanded by the subject. 
 The salient faults of Dr. Chalmers's style become vir- 
 tues here, because they are sympathetic with the sub- 
 ject. Who objects to the ponderous words, and involved 
 constructions, and prolix sentences ? They are just what 
 the theme demands. The style is a picture of the mind 
 struggling and reaching out to grasp the conception of 
 the eternity of God. 
 
 2. Naturalness of style becomes perceptible to good 
 taste, also, in a certain fitness of thought and expression 
 to the relations of hearers to the subject. A painting 
 attributed to Michael Angelo, in one of the galleries of 
 Italy, represents the Virgin Mary standing erect and 
 calm at the foot of the cross, without a tear or other 
 trace of sorrow on her countenance. Artists defend 
 the painting by the theory that the mother of our Lord 
 was supposed to be divinely instructed in the meaning 
 of the crucifixion and the mystery of atonement, and 
 that inspired exaltation overjDowered her maternal sor- 
 row. But critics say, in reply, that this theory of the 
 painter was true only to him. The painting does not 
 explain it to the perplexed spectator. Spectators can 
 not be supposed to originate it. They must look at the 
 artist's work from their position, not from his. A Prot- 
 estant observer especiall}-, who sees in the Virgin mother 
 only a woman, not superior, perhaps not equal, to some 
 others of her sex, can not be supposed to divine the 
 secret of the painter's theology.
 
 LECT. XX.] THE DENUNCIATORY STYLE. 335 
 
 This may serve to illustrate one of the limitations 
 which good taste imposes upon the style of discourse, — 
 that it should be adjusted to the relations of the audi- 
 ence to the subject in hand. It must express truth to 
 their range and quality of conception : otherwise, it is 
 an unnatural style, as much so as if it expressed a false- 
 hood. Indeed, unnaturalness in this form may amount 
 to falseness of impression. Refraction of truth may be 
 equivalent to untruth. When no untruth is uttered, 
 the impression of truth may be a failure, through the 
 preacher's failure to appreciate the prepossessions, or 
 prejudices, or ignorance of his hearers. 
 
 For example, denunciation in the pulpit, to which at- 
 tention has been already directed, fails of its object more 
 frequently than it succeeds. Why? Abstractly consid- 
 ered, denunciation of sin can not be excessive. Even 
 denunciation of a sinner can not exceed his ill-desert. 
 Why, then, does our instinct of hearing often pronounce 
 it excessive ? Why do we revolt from it often, as an 
 impertinence ? Because it often is an impertinence : 
 literally and etymologically it is not pertinent to the 
 relations of hearers to comminatory truth. The con- 
 sciousness of sin is always forewarned, and therefore 
 fore-armed against such discourse. Style which ignores 
 this fact, and is devoid of tact in approaching the con- 
 science of the hearer, is sure to defeat itself. Through 
 the want of that mental balance which we have consid- 
 ered as essential to energy of utterance on certain sub- 
 jects, a preacher may fail to understand those delicate 
 adjustments of truth to its recipient's mood or habit 
 which are requisite to natural utterance. The relations 
 of sin to fear, and of both to the appeals of sympathy, 
 he may utterly overlook, and therefore he may utterly 
 fail in his aim.
 
 336 ENGLISH STYLE. [lect. xx. 
 
 Hence it is tliat the most successful preachers have 
 always been the most considerate students of the condi- 
 tion of their audiences. It is a remarkable fact in the 
 history of great religious awakenings, that those who 
 have been the most successful instruments in promoting 
 them have never practiced the policy of reserve in 
 preaching the severe aspects of truth. They have not 
 been silent upon the terrible sanctions of divine law. 
 They have preached those sanctions without compro- 
 mise or abatement. Those who crave and defend the 
 opposite policy in the pulpit have the whole history of 
 revivals against them. That preaching which has been 
 most successful in the spiritual regeneration of mankind 
 has built up its whole superstructure upon a foundation 
 of stern and uncompromising law. It has practiced 
 no concealment of the wrath of God against sin, and no 
 gloss upon the threatenings of his law against sinners. 
 
 Yet the success of such preaching illumines all 
 Christian history. How do we account for this ? The 
 reason is, that such preachers have been men of discern- 
 ment in the study of men, and men of tact in address- 
 ing men. Theirs have been the tongue of the learned 
 and the speech of wisdom. They have appreciated the 
 relations of guilt to truth. They have preached law 
 in the spirit and with the ingenuity of love. They have 
 preached truth in divine balance with truth. They 
 have offset appeals to the fears of men by respondent 
 appeals to hope. They have presented a diversified 
 round of truth to the diverse cravings of human nature. 
 Men have said of their preaching, " This meets my 
 wants, this fits my condition, this commands my trust." 
 Such has been the way of all great preachers who have 
 filled history with the story of their success in bringing 
 men to Christ. Preaching, as they did always, with an
 
 LECT. XX.] THE DOGMATIC STYLE. 337 
 
 object studied and defined in the welfare of the hearer, 
 they had a reason for saying what they said, as they 
 said it, and when they said it. They understood them- 
 selves, and understood their hearers. They knew what 
 they were about in the work they did. 
 
 This has been the way, also, of all great orators. So 
 Demosthenes spoke. So Napoleon harangued his sol- 
 diers within sight of the Pyramids. So Shakspeare 
 makes Mark Antony discourse over the dead body of 
 Csesar. Common criticism and common sense hit the 
 mark precisely when they say of such men, "These 
 are natural orators." Very true ; and in this respect 
 every man is a natural orator when he speaks in ear- 
 nest, and guided by the intuitions of good taste. 
 
 3. Further : naturalness of style becomes perceptible 
 to good taste in a certain fitness of discourse to the 
 relations of the speaker to his subject. The principle 
 here in view may be best illustrated by a few examples 
 of its violation. It is violated, for instance, by the 
 dogmatic style. Not often by glaring and conscious 
 usurpation of authority, but by an indefinite undertone 
 of discourse, a preacher may give to it a magisterial 
 sound. He dictates when he ought only to instruct. 
 He assumes what he ought to prove. Sometimes the 
 evil consists not so much in what is said as in how it is 
 said. A certain gait in the style betrays a swagger or 
 a lordliness of stride which awakens resistance. Dr. 
 Franklin, in criticising one of the appeals of the Ameri- 
 can Colonies to the king for a redress of grievances, 
 advised a more manly style. Said he, " Firmness carries 
 weight : a strut never does." When we detect the 
 " strut " in discourse, we are instinctively aroused to 
 cavil and to criticise. We can not help it. Probably 
 the pulpit is more exposed to this kind of unnatural
 
 338 ENGLISH STYLE. [lect. xx. 
 
 discourse than any other medium of public speech. In 
 no other kind of public speech do speakers so largely 
 address their inferiors in age and in intelligence. An 
 educated clergy generally preach to audiences the 
 majority of whom have reason to look up to them as 
 superiors. Such preachers have reason to assume the 
 prerogatives of superiors, but equal reason forbids a 
 dogmatic assumption. 
 
 A similar form of unnatural discourse is the patroniz- 
 ing style. Not by dogmatic assertion, but by an equally 
 offensive form of self-assertion, a preacher may make 
 the impression, that, in his measurement of things, the 
 truth he utters depends on him, not he on truth. Hints 
 at a preacher's abilities and qualifications to speak on a 
 given theme, apologies for the obscurities of truth, inti- 
 mations of the preacher's toil in mastering a subject, 
 comparisons with the work of others who have dis- 
 cussed it before him, claims to original discovery, of 
 which there is really very little in any pulpit, — these, 
 and other ways which criticism can not easily define, 
 may give to hearers the impression that the preacher 
 thinks much more of what he brings to his subject than 
 of what he gets from it. Self-consciousness breathes 
 in all that he utters. Is not this the impression which 
 a sermon sometimes obtrudes upon you, when you are 
 not looking for it, and can not point out the paragraph 
 in which the offense occurs ? You feel it as a pervasive 
 presence. The truth discussed seems to be treated like 
 the earthquake which one pompous scientist remarked, 
 " had had the honor to be noticed by the Royal Society." 
 
 Over against the form of unnaturaluess just observed, 
 is another, which may be termed the apologetic style. 
 The tone of discourse in this case is apologetic, not for 
 the subject, but for the preacher. By explicit or implied
 
 LECT. XX.] THE APOLOGETIC STYLE. 339 
 
 confessions of incompetence, by deprecations of criti- 
 cism, by the want of positive opinions, by the intimation 
 of doubts, by a style which marks the want of mastery, 
 a preacher may betray a want of confidence in his own 
 ability, and therefore in his own right, to preach on the 
 subject in hand. In the pulpit, ability and authority 
 are proportioned to each other. Might makes right. 
 If, therefore, standing in the place of an instructor, 
 he shrinks from the prerogatives and responsibilities 
 of an instructor, his style will disclose this. He will 
 not rise to the level of his theme, and handle it as one 
 who knows. A downcast air is given to his discussion 
 which tempts a cold-blooded hearer to ask him by what 
 authority he assumes to preach at all. Style is suscep- 
 tible of a quality corresponding to the blush of a diffi- 
 dent man. 
 
 It deserves note, that audiences are not flattered by 
 this apologetic treatment. They may give to it their 
 pity, but not their respect. They bear with less impa- 
 tience the dogmatic diction. Men love to be addressed 
 confidently, respectfully indeed, but fearlessly. We 
 would rather be brow-beaten than to be fawned upon. 
 We feel more respect for impudence than we do for im- 
 becility. We respect a pugilist more than a coward. 
 
 One other form of this kind of unnatural discourse 
 may be termed the apathetic style. The best description 
 which can be given of some preachers is, that they are 
 apathetic as opposed to sympathetic. They manifest no 
 sense of personal subjection to the truths they preach. 
 They seem to feel no sense of the power of truth over 
 their own souls, and therefore no sympathy with hearers 
 under their burden of convictions and quickened sen- 
 sibilities. Aloof and aloft from the lowland of humble 
 hearers, they preach as if truth concerned hearers only.
 
 340 ENGLISH STYLE. [lect. xx. 
 
 They speak it as a being from a superior world might 
 speak. 
 
 The verdict of an audience upon such discourse is the 
 most severe retribution that can fall on the head of a 
 living man. They say to the preacher, " You have no 
 heart. Your very fidelity in speech is grounded on 
 your want of sympathy with us in feeling. You can be 
 as an angel of judgment to us, because you do not feel 
 as a sinner with us at the bar." Men need a fellow- 
 sinner to preach to tliem. No other one thing do they 
 crave in this matter as they do the sense of fellow-feel- 
 ing in him who assumes to speak the message which 
 God sends. They want a brother-man to speak it. 
 They want to see the liquid eye, and feel the tremulous 
 human hand, of him who is one of themselves. Give 
 them these, and you may do what you will with them. 
 Lead them, say, " Come with me," and they follow you 
 at your bidding ; but drive them, say, " Go," and you 
 might as well preach to a congregation of corpses. 
 
 In opposition to all these forms of discourse a natural 
 style requires a just, temperate, manly appreciation, on 
 a preacher's part, of his own personal relations to the 
 truth he utters. If he has this in living force, it will 
 make itself felt in his preaching. He will not express 
 it by conscious effort and in chosen words : it will 
 express itself. His style will breathe it forth, like the 
 exhalation of a spice-plant. 
 
 4. Naturalness of style, again, becomes perceptible 
 to good taste in a certain fitness of expression to oral 
 discourse. The oral style of continuous discourse is dis- 
 tinct from that of the press on the one hand, and from 
 that of conversation on the other. Precisely what it is 
 wliich constitutes the peculiarity of the oral style, criti- 
 cism can not easily define. But in any striking example
 
 LECT, XX.] THE STYLE OF ORAL DISCOURSE. 341 
 
 of it we detect several features. One is the predom- 
 inance of concrete over abstract words in its vocab- 
 ulary. Oral discourse is essentially pictorial in its 
 nature. It abounds in words which are images, in 
 words which are things. It is opposed to that style 
 which throws the whole burden of speech upon the lit- 
 eral truthfulness of abstract phraseology. It denies the 
 necessity of this in the discussion of any subjects which 
 are proper themes of oral discourse. It is specially hos- 
 tile to that predilection for abstract phrase which leads 
 a speaker, and more frequently a writer, to fear obvious 
 expression. 
 
 An eminent German philosopher is said to have re- 
 written some pages of his manuscript in the revision of 
 it for the press, because, upon reading them to a com- 
 pany of friends, he found tliem intelligible at a single 
 hearing. He recast those pages into a more recondite 
 diction, on the ground, that, if his meaning were so obvi- 
 ous as to be understood by a hearer, the class of readers 
 whom he aimed to reach would not deem his work wor- 
 thy of their notice. Does not this deserve to be ranked 
 with those affectations which I have elsewhere denomi- 
 nated the cant of literature ? The style of nature in 
 oral speech is very simple in its aims. It repudiates all 
 forms of affectation. It betrays no fear of being un- 
 derstood. It shows no reluctance to being childlike in 
 its love of pictures. The more that a style spoken to 
 the ear can have of the resources which make thought 
 visible to the eye, the more potently does it achieve the 
 objects of oral utterance. 
 
 Again : the oral style inclines to a large excess of 
 simplicity over involution in the construction of sen- 
 tences. We are all sensible of the difference, in this 
 respect, between the style of the press and the style of
 
 342 ENGLISH STYLE. [lect. xx. 
 
 speech, when we compare our own styles constructed 
 by the two methods. The very same materials, in the 
 two methods of expression, we throw into totally differ- 
 ent constructions. We extemporize in shorter sen- 
 tences than we use in printed discourse, in more simply 
 framed sentences, with less of inversion and introver- 
 sion, and suspension of the sense. The difference is so 
 great, that it affects the organs of speech. These are 
 commonly less wearied by extemporaneous speech than 
 by the delivery of a written sermon. Physicians well 
 understand this. For the relief of bronchitis they often 
 advise preachers to abandon their manuscripts in the 
 pulpit. 
 
 One other feature in the style natural to oral dis- 
 course is the dramatic quality, which makes the hearer 
 active in the discussion of a subject. This partakes of 
 the nature of colloquy in effect, though not colloquy in 
 form. You have doubtless witnessed, perhaps experi- 
 enced, the power of this feature of style upon an audi- 
 ence. Did you never feel in listening to a speech as 
 if the speaker were questioning you, and you were in- 
 voluntarily responding? Did you never seem to be 
 yourself the questioner, and he the respondent ? Did 
 you never carry on a silent dispute with a preacher 
 through a whole discourse which commanded in you 
 the interest of dissent ? 
 
 These effects of powerful discourse in genuine oral 
 style may be often witnessed, and sometimes evinced 
 by visible signs. The sailor, who in listening to White- 
 field's description of a wreck forgot himself, and in 
 response to the preacher's impassioned cry, " What more 
 can he do?" answered, "For God's sake take to the life- 
 boat ! " illustrated that which we have probably all of 
 us felt, in less degree, when preachers have made us
 
 LECT. XX.] NATURAL STYLE — HOW ACQULRED. 343 
 
 parties in their discussion, and thrown upon us the re- 
 sponsibility of its application. The illusions of the stage 
 never gave to Garrick and Kean such advantage for 
 moving an audience to the responsive mood as some 
 preachers have found in their mastery of a dramatic 
 diction. In this variety of their success, we pronounce 
 such preachers natural orators. It is only, that, in obey- 
 ing the natural intuitions of an orator, they practice as 
 well the canons of criticism and the laws of good taste 
 in adjusting style to the objects of oral speech. 
 
 II. The views we have considered respecting the cog- 
 nizance of naturalness of style by good taste suggest 
 further the inquiry. By what means may a natural style 
 be most effectually acquired ? These may, for the most 
 part, be named with brief remark, because they are not 
 recondite, and they are found chiefly in certain things 
 which lie back of the study of style as such. They are 
 not greatly involved in the minutice of criticism. 
 
 1. You will anticipate me in mentioning as the first of 
 these means of gaining naturalness of style the habit of 
 mastering subjects of discourse. Let the word "habit" 
 be emphasized in this statement. Style depends more 
 upon the permanent state of a writer's mind than upon 
 any expedients of discipline, or moods of composition. 
 It has always its foundation in a speaker's character. 
 What the man is, his style will be. Naturalness espe- 
 cially is a fruit and a sign of a certain state of mental 
 discipline and a certain habit of mental action, which 
 will not permit a man to write or speak upon a subject 
 which is not well mastered. We do not walk naturally 
 in utter darkness. Neither do we speak naturally of 
 that of which the chief thing we are thoroughly con- 
 scious of is our ignorance, or our bungling knowledge. 
 Mastery is needed to create ease of movement. Style
 
 344 ENGLISH STYLE. [lect. xx. 
 
 must have the movement of conquest, not of struggle. 
 Says Ruskin, " Without absolute grasp of the whole 
 subject, there is no good painting." Partial conception 
 is no conception. 
 
 2. Another tributary to this quality of style is self- 
 forgetfulness in the act of composing. Unnaturalness 
 in almost any form of it may spring from a want of 
 composure. A speaker may be master of his theme, yet 
 not master of himself, and therefore not at ease about 
 himself. In such a mood he speaks nervously. A con- 
 stant strain is manifest in his style. He speaks as if he 
 were constantly thinking of his style. Its movement 
 is like that of one walking on tiptoe. The remedy is 
 the habit of self-forgetfulness in composing, whether 
 with pen or tongue. That state and habit of mind 
 which led Isocrates to spend fifteen years in adjusting 
 the sentences of his Panegyric could not fail to drill all 
 nature out of it. One might as well hope to acquire 
 natural vision by twisting and straining for fifteen years 
 to get a sight of one's own eyeballs. 
 
 3. A natural style is assisted by an absorbing interest 
 in the aim of a discourse. Note briefly a distinction 
 between interest in the details of a discourse and inter- 
 est in its aim. An example of one of these will best 
 illustrate both. In a speech delivered in the American 
 Congress by the elder Josiah Quincy, on the repeal of 
 the embargo laid upon our commerce with Great Bri- 
 tain in the war of 1812, we find the following passage ; 
 viz., — 
 
 " An embargo liberty was never cradled in Massachu- 
 setts. Our liberty was not so much a mountain- as a 
 sea-nymph. She was free as air. She could swim, or 
 she could run. The ocean was her cradle. Our fathers 
 met her as she came like a goddess of beauty from the
 
 LECT. XX.] THE AEM OF DISCOUESE. 345 
 
 waves. They caught her as she was sporting on the 
 beach. They courted her as she was spreading her nets 
 upon the rocks." In this strain the orator proceeds. 
 Mark now the quality of this style as related to the 
 professed aim of the whole speech. What was that 
 aim ? The ships of the merchants of Boston and Salem 
 and Newburyport and New London and New York 
 were rotting in their harbors. The aim of the legisla- 
 tion advocated by Mr. Quincy was to remove the em- 
 bargo, and send those shij)s to sea. Was his mind 
 intent on that in the passage here quoted? Did this 
 passage assist that aim, or could it naturally do so? 
 Not at all. The paragraph is vivacious ; its metaphors 
 are novel ; its diction is compact and clear ; it is a 
 specimen of what passed in those days for fine oratory. 
 But it was quite too fine for the sober and rather rough 
 work which the orator had before him. His interest 
 just then, all the enthusiasm of his mind in the busi- 
 ness, was expended on the embellishment of his style. 
 He was thinking of the beauty of it as a work of art. 
 He was speaking to Harvard College and its environs, 
 not to the Southern Congressmen whom it was his busi- 
 ness to win over to the commercial interests of New 
 England. If his own fortune had been embarked in 
 one of those rotting ships, and he was intent with his 
 whole soul on saving it by a vote of the Congress, he 
 would have found something to say more to the pur- 
 pose than courting a sea-nymph on the rocks. 
 
 This illustrates the importance to natural discourse 
 of an absorbing interest in the aim of it as distinct 
 from the development and embellishment of its details. 
 Keep always the practical object of a discourse in sight ; 
 keep it close at hand; let the shadow of it cover the 
 whole structure from beginning to end. This unity of
 
 346 ENGLISH STYLE. [lect. xx, 
 
 aim is itself nature. It will often give to a sermon the 
 most essential element of power, when many other ele- 
 ments are wanting. Again we involuntarily disclose 
 the secret of its power when we call it natural elo- 
 quence. 
 
 At this point, as at many others, comes to view one 
 explanation of the fact that ardent piety often gives 
 power to preaching which is not eminent for learning, 
 or depth, or refinement of taste. What is the philoso- 
 phy of it ? In part it is this : piety creates an intense 
 desire to do good by preaching; the desire creates a 
 proportionately intense aim at doing good ; and that 
 aim creates strong thought, and puts it into direct and 
 earnest speech. The working of such elements ap- 
 proximates the best results of intellectual force and 
 high culture. By instinct, a mind thus aroused and 
 kept in balance will reject excrescences from its style. 
 It will move right on in masterly progress to its object. 
 Cultivated taste only echoes its decision in pronouncing 
 such a style natural. 
 
 4. Still another help to the attainment of the style 
 in question is a strong confidence in the truth pro- 
 claimed. No man can preach well who has no faith. 
 None can preach well without a confidence amounting 
 to assurance of success by legitimate means and in 
 legitimate methods. Lose that confidence, and one of 
 two things must follow : either you w^ll work in mental 
 trepidation, and therefore not with mastery of 3-0 ur 
 work or of yourself ; or you will seek the show of suc- 
 cess by the use of illegitimate resources. The style 
 of the pulpit is sometimes unfitted to success, because a 
 secret distrust fills the preacher's mind of the practica- 
 bility of success. You can not do a thing which you 
 have no hope of doing. If you do not expect success,
 
 LECT. XX.] COKFIDENCE IN TEUTH. 847 
 
 you will not aim at success. You will shoot with an 
 unstrung bow. 
 
 On the other hand, the loss of trust in truth will 
 sometimes lead to the use of unnatural means of pro- 
 ducing counterfeit results. Hence arise the vagaries of 
 sensationalism in the pulpit. Exaggerated sentiment, 
 coarse illustration, vociferous appeals, violence of de- 
 scription, distortion of biblical metaphors, irrelevant 
 anecdotes, flings at the time-honored faith, parodies of 
 the hymns of the church, irreverent hypotheses of doc- 
 trine, — these and a multitude of the same spawn of 
 mingled impiety and imbecility may be brought to the 
 service of a pulpit from which the ancient faith in God 
 and in divine methods of speech has gone out. Mourn- 
 ful is the degradation of that public sentiment which 
 utters its religious responses only to the vulgarity and 
 the irreverence of " salvation armies." Great is the 
 fall of that pulpit which caters to the same tastes by 
 the arts of demagogues and the tricks of mountebanks. 
 Yet the tottering of the pulpit to such a fall may be 
 induced by a gradual decay of faith in its inspired mes- 
 sage and its legitimate methods. 
 
 There is a calm and earnest trust in God's ordinance 
 that truth shall do its work in the salvation of men, 
 which every preacher needs to make him what the world 
 calls a natural orator. Possessed of such a trust, all 
 preachers may be natural orators. That trust creates 
 a spirit of repose in the use of God's instrument. It 
 makes a preacher feel that he can afford to preach the 
 truth naturally. He need not exaggerate it ; he need 
 not distort it ; he need not deck it with meretricious 
 ornament ; he need not mince it, nor inflate it, nor paint 
 it. He has only to speak it in a spirit of reverence and 
 love, and let it do its work. It will do its work. He
 
 348 ENGLISH STYLE. [lect. xx. 
 
 may safely repose in it. In the very heat and turmoil 
 of the world's hostility to his message, he may wrap 
 himself in the spirit of a child's faith. That shall be 
 to him and to his life's work like the mantle of a 
 prophet. He may know in his inmost soul that his 
 words are the wisdom of God and the power of God. 
 
 In such a state of faith a preacher will preach in a 
 natural style, with no conscious effort to do it. He will 
 sx^eak with simplicity, because it is not natural to his 
 tastes to do otherwise. He will preach with a daring 
 neglect, even contempt, of illegitimate means of stimu- 
 lating the interest of hearers, which may astonish 
 observers who do not know where is the hiding of his 
 power. It is told of the first Napoleon, that, in his 
 most hard fought battles, he used to be restless, anxious, 
 irritable, and taciturn, until a certain turn was reached 
 in the execution of his maneuvers ; but that after that 
 crisis was gained, — a crisis invisible to all eyes but his, 
 — and long before victory seemed assured to his staff- 
 officers, he suddenly became calm, bland in his man- 
 ners, apparently careless in his orders, even jovial in 
 his conversation, and that, at the battle of Eylau, he lay 
 down to sleep on a hillock which the enemy's grape- 
 shot grazed without awakening him. In explanation of 
 his seeming temerity, he said that he fought a battle as 
 he had planned it from the beginning, and that after a 
 certain stage was arrived at in the evolution of his plan, 
 if all went well thus far, he knew that victory was sure, 
 liis work was done : that which remained was like the 
 closing steps in the solution of a mathematical problem, 
 which no power could change. 
 
 Similar, yet superior to the repose of genius in its own 
 destiny, is that rest in the power of divine truth which 
 a preacher may feel, and which, if he does feel it, will
 
 LECT. XX.] PRACTICE IN COMPOSITION. 349 
 
 go far towards realizing in his style of discourse the 
 naturalness of a perfect taste. 
 
 5. One additional means of acquiring a natural style 
 remains to be noticed : it is practice in composition. 
 Did you ever observe that a young man's chirographj^ 
 originally stiff, awkward, angular, bearing every mark 
 of juvenility, becomes often, in the process of time, 
 flowing and business-like, through mere practice in 
 rapid writing ? Though it may not gain the kind of 
 finish which belongs to the engraving of the copy-book, 
 yet you pronounce it superior to that, because it is a 
 natural hand. It expresses somewhat of the individu- 
 ality of the writer. 
 
 Similar to this is the indefinable elegance which style 
 may receive from large practice in composing. In the 
 Mstory of the fine arts, the most illustrious painters are 
 those who have painted most abundantly. Ruskin says, 
 " Of two touches as nearly as possible alike in other 
 respects, the quickest will invariably be the best." Of 
 perfect execution, velocity is an invariable quality. 
 This is, in part, the explanation of the fact that large 
 practice in composing tends to create a perfect style : 
 it is because much composing necessarily involves rapid 
 composing. It does not follow that the most volumi- 
 nous writers will necessarily be the most perfect writers. 
 But it does follow that practice in this, as in other 
 arts, will re-act upon natural genius, and develop it in 
 natural work. 
 
 Other things being equal, the most prolific writer will 
 be the most natural writer. The man who writes the 
 largest quantity with critical care will write most natu- 
 rally. In many instances in which other requisites to a 
 natural style exist, writers fail in this quality for no 
 reason other than that they have not written enough to
 
 350 ENGLISH STYLE. [lect. xx 
 
 write naturally. They have not become acquainted 
 with nature. I have known men to be confirmed in a 
 juvenile style, because they would not write abundantly- 
 Composing was a drudgery, and they allowed it to re- 
 main such by avoiding it when it was not compulsory. 
 Nothing could be more suicidal in the self-discipline oi 
 a young preacher. A preacher is by profession a writer. 
 He must write much. His mind must be trained to the 
 habit of composing. He must bring himself into a con- 
 stant state of mental productiveness. He needs to 
 acquire such command of liimself and his resources, 
 that composition shall be a necessity to him as an 
 expression of the contents of a full mind. 
 
 Izaak Walton wrote for the love of writing. Charles 
 Lamb wrote all his works for recreation in the intervals 
 of leisure from his clerkly toil in the East India House. 
 Probably not a page that he ever wrote was a drudgery 
 to him. Walter Scott, till his brain gave way, com- 
 posed always in a glee of enthusiasm. His daily contri- 
 butions to the press he captured with the ardor of a 
 sportsman. He often hesitated between the two, — 
 whether to sit down at his desk, or to go out among 
 the hills with his dog and gun ; for he enjoyed both 
 his pen and his gun with equal zest. He gained this 
 pleasurable ease in composition by long and constant 
 practice. He used to involve himself in literary engage- 
 ments purposely, that they might crowd him. He said 
 that he " never wrote so well, or felt so well, as when 
 the press was thundering at his heels with the demand 
 for more copy." 
 
 The same phenomenon is seen in the history of 
 Shakspeare's authorship. Scarcely any other feature 
 in his professional life is so marvelous as the amount 
 of liis v/ork and its rapidity. His working life was
 
 LECT. XX.] QUALITY AND QUANTITY. 351 
 
 compressed into about twenty-three years. During that 
 time he gave to the English stage an average of two 
 dramas a year. This, for such productions as his, and 
 continued through a series of 3*ears, was a miracle of 
 intellectual fertility. From the age of thirty years to 
 that of fifty-three, Shakspeare's mind must have lived 
 in that state of habitual production which is so neces- 
 sary to one in the clerical profession. 
 
 This prolific state, so far from degrading the quality 
 of production, elevates and enriches it. As the force of 
 a cannon-ball is augmented by its velocity, so the men- 
 tal power of composition is reduplicated by rapidity of 
 creation, if regulated by good taste. This mental con- 
 dition, in which composition becomes a delight, a neces- 
 sity, a demand of nature upon a full mmd, is the habit 
 which a preacher, above all other professional men, 
 needs to acquire in order to have uniform command of 
 natural discourse. You can not acquire it but by large 
 practice. Thinking will never give it to you. Study 
 of rhetorical treatises will never create it. General 
 reading will never do it. Criticism of the works of 
 others or of your own is powerless of itself to meet the 
 necessity. You must write and speak, speak and write, 
 till pen and tongue move spontaneously and joyously.
 
 appe:n'dix. 
 
 CATALOGUE OF WORDS AND PHRASES. 
 
 As a sequel to the foregoing Lectures, I proceed now to 
 some critical remarks upon TTords and Phrases which are 
 chiefly violations, either of English purity or of precision, 
 or are of doubtful authority in the usage of good writers. 
 Many of these are of special significance to the style of the 
 pulpit : others are of more general importance. In this 
 compilation I have made free use of the standard works on 
 English synonyms and on Americanisms. A special acknowl- 
 edgment is due of my obligations to Pickering's "Vocabu- 
 lary," Bartlett's "Dictionary of Americanisms," and a 
 manuscript Catalogue, resembling this, prepared many years 
 ago by Professor Park of Andover. Such a list of words 
 must necessarily be of temporary authority. The language 
 is constantly undergoing changes. Old words are becoming 
 obsolete : new words are coming into use. The obsolete, in 
 some cases, are returning into scholarl}^ use. In the same 
 manner, old significations of words retire, and return again, 
 and new significations are adopted, perhaps to undergo the 
 same mutations. A national mind is one of the most stable, 
 yet one of the most mobile, of created things. The litera- 
 ture and language which embody the recorded thought of 
 a nation are of the same character. The act of creating, 
 changing, improving, and extending such a catalogue as the 
 foUowmg, is one of the most instructive studies of the mother- 
 tongue, and one of the most effective expedients for keeping 
 one's style of composition in scholarly conformity to good 
 
 353
 
 354 APPENDIX. 
 
 usage. Every man whose profession in life is tliat of author- 
 ship or of public speaking needs the disciplinary influence 
 of constructing such a catalogue for himself. The following 
 is offered as a foundation, subject to correction and expan- 
 sion with the lapse of time and the growth of the language. 
 
 A. 
 
 Ability and Capacity are not exact synonyms. The one 
 expresses active power; the other, receptive power. But the 
 plural " abilities " includes both ideas. 
 
 Adherence and Adhesion were once interchangeable. Now 
 the one is restricted to things mental and spiritual ; the other, to 
 things material. "We speak properly of adherence to a principle, 
 and of the adhesion of iron. 
 
 Admire is improperly used in the sense of "desire; " as in the 
 expression "I should admire to go." In the seventeenth century 
 it was used to express wonder alone. Jeremy Taylor wrote, " In 
 man there is nothing admirable but his ignorance and his weak- 
 ness ; " that is, nothing surprising. Modern usage has added, in 
 its use of the word, to the idea of wonder, that of approval. 
 
 Alone is improperly used in the sense of "only;" as in the 
 phrase "the alone God." This word was originally written " aU- 
 one." Thus applied to the Deity, it was very expressive, and was 
 parallel to other compounds significant of the attributes of God ; 
 as, " almighty, all-seeing," etc. Later usage, it is to be regretted, 
 has abandoned the ancient form, and so lost from the word the 
 ancient idea of unity. " Alone " and " only " are not synonyms. 
 
 Alternative is often used, in improper construction, in the 
 phrase "which of two alternatives." In strict definition, an alter- 
 native is a choice between two things. We say, " This was the 
 alternative," and then specify two things between -which the choice 
 must be ma<le. Two alternatives imply four objects of selection. 
 Dr. Chalmers employs the word correctly when he says, ' ' My pm*- 
 pose might have been expressed in the following short alternative : 
 that, if I got my arrangements in the parish of St. John's, I would 
 not take the professorship; bot, if I did not get them, I would 
 think of it." Here are two hypotheses making one alternative. 
 
 Among and Between are not uiterchangeable. "Between"
 
 APPENDIX. 355 
 
 is the right word when only two are concerned; "among," when 
 more than two. 
 
 Ancient and Antiquated are not synonyms. An antiquated 
 thing is ancient : an ancient thing may not be antiquated. An 
 ancient institution may, for that reason, be the more worthy of 
 respect : an antiquated institution has outlived respect. 
 
 Anon is now obsolescent. In the phrase " ever and anon " we 
 sometimes hear it, but even there the word is retiring behind the 
 cover of iioetic license. 
 
 Apparent is in some connections improperly used as the syno- 
 nyni of "obvious." To say that an occurrence is apparent does not 
 necessarily mean that it is real, but may mean the reverse. We 
 speak of an apparent contradiction, which we do not admit to be a 
 real one. The phrase " heir-appaveut " suggests the contmgency 
 that the heir may not come to the throne. 
 
 Apprehend and Comprehend are improperly interchanged. 
 To apprehend a truth is to perceive it, to have some intelligible 
 notion of it : to comprehend a truth is to understand it in all its 
 compass. These are important words to the pulpit. We may 
 represent the mysteries of religion as apprehensible by the human 
 mind, but not as comprehensible. To apprehend them is sufficient 
 ground for faith : to comprehend them would be an act of reason. 
 
 Apprehensive is improperly employed in the sense of "under- 
 standing." " Apprehend " and " understand " are synonyms : " ap- 
 prehensive " and " understanding " are not. The element of fear 
 enters into the meaning of " apprehensive." We say, " I am appre- 
 hensive that it is too late." It is rarely used now in its etymological 
 sense except as a technicality in phiIosoph3^ 
 
 As is improperly used for "that." "I do not know as I shall 
 go " was once good English : now " as " thus employed is a vul- 
 garism. 
 
 Atonement in the sense of " reconciliation " is not pure Eng- 
 lish. Of words which can be misused, this is the most important 
 one in the vocabulary of the pulpit. Its history deserves study. 
 The old English meaning of it was doubtless its etymological 
 meaning, "at-one-ment." This nmst be conceded in the discussion 
 of the doctrine which it now expresses. Shakspeare, for instance, 
 says, " He and Aufidius can no more alone than violentest contra- 
 rieties." Fuller speaks of Moses as ^^ atoning two Israelites who 
 were at variance." Sir Thomas IMore speaks of two parties as
 
 356 APPENDIX. 
 
 " having no more regard to their old variance than to their new 
 atonement." Beyond question, the idea of the word in all these 
 cases was "reconciliation." 
 
 It must be conceded also, I think, that, so far as the notion of 
 " satisfaction " for sin is at present in the word, it has been put 
 there by theological science, and is of right there only as a techni- 
 cality of theological science. But that the idea of " sacrifice " for 
 sin is now the central one in " atonement " is no longer an open 
 question. ]\Iodern usage has fixed this interpretation beyond re- 
 call. It is but a ruse in theological controversy to assail the modern 
 doctrine of atonement under cover of the old English use of tj|fe 
 word. That use of it has entirely disaj^peared. 
 
 AvKRSE FROM VS. A VERSE TO. — ^\Tiich is right? Usage is 
 divided. Some cling to the first phrase on etymological grounds. 
 Others contend that the second phrase has vanquished etymology, 
 and is authorized by usage. Noah Webster and Dr. Todd, the 
 editor of Johnson's Dictionary, contend for " averse to : " Dr. 
 Witherspoon and Sir James Mackintosh prefer "averse from." 
 In the present balance of authorities, either form is allowable ; but 
 it can hardly be doubted that the etymological form will be dis- 
 placed, and " averse to " will hold ascendency in the language. It 
 is a curious phenomenon, that, when an etymological form has 
 begun to yield its place, it rarely becomes firmly fixed again. The 
 drift of usage is to its exclusion. It is like a loosened tooth. 
 
 Awful in the sense of " disagreeable " is an impropriety. It is 
 a provincialism of Xew England. Lambert, in his " American 
 Travels," says, " The country-people of Xew England speak of 
 every thing that creates surprise as being awful : they say an 
 " awful wind," " an awful hole," " an awful mouth." Robert Hall, 
 by a singular lapse from his usually pure dialect, emploj's the word 
 in the same sense. Two travelers at Rome once criticised Michael 
 Angelo's statue of Moses. " Is it not awful ?" said one. "Yes," 
 answered the other: "it is sublime." — "No, no!" rejoined the 
 other : " I meant awfully ugly." The second speaker used the word 
 in its legitimate sense of " inspiring awe." Dr. Barrow speaks of 
 God as an " awful Being." Dr. Watts describes the joys of heaven 
 as involving " awful mirth." This is another sense of the word, 
 that of being " filled with awe," once in good use, but now obsolete.
 
 APPENDIX. 357 
 
 B. 
 
 Base used in the sense of " found : " " He based his argument on 
 testimony." This use, till a very recent period, was condemned by 
 critics ; but it has made its way into the language. Dr. Whately 
 employs it, and he rarely uses a word not good English. 
 
 Belittle. — We need this word : we have no exact equivalent. 
 Some dictiomaries admit it. But at present it is not supported by 
 the best usage. Mr. Bartlett, the author of the most valuable work 
 we have on Americanisms, says that Thomas Jefferson is the only 
 author of distinction who has employed it. He is not sufficient 
 literary authority for the creation of a word. This word is one 
 of a large class of compounds of the word " be " which tempt a 
 loose writer. The fact deserves notice, that more than a hundred 
 of these compounds found in one of our standard dictionaries are 
 not good English. 
 
 Beside and Besides are not synonyms, yet are very frequently 
 so used by writers. " Beside " means " by the side of : " " besides " 
 means "in addition to." 
 
 Betrayal vs. Betrayment. — Which? Dr. Whately uses the 
 first ; Thomas Jefferson, the second. Both are condemned by some 
 critics. But we surely must have one of them. " Betrayal " is the 
 more frequently used, but "betrayment" has the more regular 
 English construction. At present either is allowable, but usage 
 inclines to the first. 
 
 c. 
 
 Calculate for Think is a provincialism of New England. Its 
 proper meaning is to "I'eckon." By a singular coincidence, this 
 latter word is also used as a provincialism at the West and at the 
 South for the idea for which " calculate " is employed in New Eng- 
 land. 
 
 Can but vs. Can not but. — Which? Shall we say, "I can 
 not but think," or " I can but think " ? The best usage prefers 
 the former. 
 
 Chastity and Chasteness are not synonyms. Dean Swift is 
 eminent for chasteness of style, but not for chastity of thought. 
 As applied to authorship, " chasteness " means rhetorical purity. 
 "Chastity" means moral purity. A pure woman has chastity; a
 
 858 APPENDIX. 
 
 pure stylfi has chasteness ; and both are chaste. Yet De Quiucey 
 improperly speaks of "cJiastity of style." 
 
 Christen for Baptizf, can not be condemned as bad English 
 BO long as the English Church retains it. But it does not at all ex- 
 press the true idea of baptism. In perfect English, " to christen " 
 is to Christianize. A heathen nation is christened when converted 
 to Christianity. An old writer says, " The most part of England 
 was christened in the reign of King Ethelred." From this use, 
 the word was transferred to the rite of baptism ; that, in the sense 
 of baptismal regeneration, being synonymous and the doctrine of 
 the Book of Common Prayer. In Shakspeare's drama "Henry 
 the Eighth," the king is informed of the birth of his daughter 
 Elizalieth, and asks Cranmer to baptize her, saying, "I long to 
 have this young one made a Christian." 
 
 Chuistianizatiox. — AVe have no such word in classic use, 
 though the dictionaries contain it. The participle " Christianiz- 
 ing" is employed in a substantive sense. Good taste avoids, if 
 possible, words of six syllables. Saxon idiom chooses brevity. 
 
 Christless is to be found in dictionaries, but not in the best 
 authors. It is a barbarism of the pulpit. 
 
 Coeval and Contemporaneous involve a nice distinction, for 
 which etymology furnishes no reason, but which usage authorizes. 
 " Coeval " is applied to institutions ; " contemporaneous," to indi- 
 viduals. Authors are contemporaneous, not coeval. 
 
 Community should not be used without the article, to express 
 the idea of "population." The article is often omitted when the 
 word expresses the abstract idea, as in tJie phrase " community of 
 goods." But to indicate the people of a city we should say " the 
 community." 
 
 Concept and Conception have a history. " Concept " was once 
 good English as the synonym of "conception." Then it fell into 
 disuse, and now is revived again by Sir William Hamilton and 
 others, but not as the synonym of " conception," but to signify the 
 idea conceived. But in any sense " concept " must be as yet re- 
 garded as a technicality of psychological science. 
 
 Conditioned, in the sense of "dependent upon." — American 
 dictionaries recognize this : but I venture the opinion, that, in the 
 best usage, the word is still restricted to its old meaning ; that is, 
 "stipulated." 
 
 Conduct is often improperly used without the reflexive pro-
 
 APPENDIX. 359 
 
 noun; as in the phrase "he conducts well." It should be, "he 
 conducts himself -well." 
 
 Conform with vs. Conform to. — Which? In my judgment 
 this is one of the cases in which etymology has given way to usage. 
 The Westminster Catechism obeys the usage of its own day and of 
 ours in saying, " Sin is any want of conformity unto the law of 
 God." 
 
 Continual and Continuous are not exact synonyms. " Con- 
 tinual," commonly, not always, means "with constant recurrence." 
 " Continuous " is the stronger word, and means, " without inter- 
 mission." We should be correct in saying, "Continual interrup- 
 tions prevent continuous study." 
 
 Compound Words. — I add this phrase here in order to give 
 some further criticisms upon the use of them. The following 
 memoranda deserve notice : — 
 
 1. The presumption is always against the purity of compounds 
 of great length. The license, in this respect, in which the German 
 mind luxuriates, the English language does not tolerate. The 
 Saxon taste, which inclines always to brevity, keeps multitudes of 
 words of this structure at bay. Individual authors coin them, but 
 the national mind rejects them. 
 
 2. The study of the German language and literature should be 
 conducted with precaution against tlie use of compounds. Ger- 
 man taste manufactures them without restriction. The German 
 language admits them without violence to its structure and its his- 
 tory. Not so the English language. Yet om- language suffers 
 from the use of German importations by students of German lit- 
 erature who are not classic in their rhetorical tastes. 
 
 3. Therefore, whenever a compound word betrays a foreign ori- 
 gin, it should be regarded with susisicion. Some such words have 
 doubtless become good English, but multitudes of other such have 
 not. 
 
 4. Compounds which from their signification are likely to be 
 of clannish or technical origin should be suspected. Multitudes of 
 such words, of a religious character, are not used at all outside 
 of the pulpit. Such words should be presumed to be barbarisms 
 till their right to a place in the language is proved by investigation. 
 
 5. Compounds which by reason of their construction are odd, or 
 difficult of enunciation, are presumptively not good English. Dr. 
 Orville Dewey coins the word " rich-man-uess " to express pride of
 
 360 APPENDIX. 
 
 purse. The oddity of the word should be enough to condemn it. 
 Scholarly taste never can have coined such a word. A member of 
 the American Congress once said that he was not a good speaker, 
 and that he was obliged to hold on to his desk and steady himself, 
 if he attempted to use the word "eleemosynary." Many of the 
 compound words which are lying around loose upon the outskirts 
 of our language, if tried by the same test, would fail of admission. 
 
 6. Compounds which evidently descend to low or comic style are 
 presumptively not pure English. A writer in our current litera- 
 ture coins the word "go-ahead-a-tive-ness." One need not pause 
 to investigate usage to know that such an abortion as this has no 
 place in classic English. An interesting phase in the history of 
 such compounds is witnessed in the history of the Greek literature. 
 In its earliest periods, when the language was in its infancy, as in 
 Homer and Ilesiod, compound words abounded. When the lan- 
 guage reached its maturity, in the works of the later poets and phi- 
 losophers, but few such words were used, or recognized by classic 
 authority. They are not favorites with Plato. At that period the 
 large majority of long compounds are found in the comic writers 
 alone. Aristophanes abounds with them. He is reported to have 
 once coined a word of seventy-seven syllables. They were used as 
 an expedient for expressing low or ludicrous ideas. 
 
 A striking similarity to this is seen in the use of such words in 
 our own language. They multiply in number as we descend from 
 serious and dignified productions to the comic and the vulgar. 
 Their spawn is in the swampy low grounds of our literature. 
 Therefore they are specially incongruous with the style of ser- 
 mons. 
 
 7. Yet it must be admitted, that, iu our language, compounds of 
 two syllables are very numerous. It is an old Saxon usage to coin 
 new words by linking two old ones. Such compounds as " dog- 
 star," "day-labor," "state-rights," are perfectly good, and scores 
 like them. ^\Tiy some, and not others, are admitted by the na- 
 tional taste, it is often impossible to say. A cultivated taste and 
 a delicate ear must gradually form one's style till extensive read- 
 ing has given to it a classic character. Years of unbridled license 
 in the use of compounds can only corrupt one's style hopelessly. 
 
 To illustrate the danger to which young preachers ai'e exposed 
 in this respect, let me rehearse to you a list of such compounds 
 which I ouce transcribed from a dozen manuscript sermons. They
 
 APPEiroix. 361 
 
 were the following ; viz., " Bible-readers, Scripture-motives, Bible- 
 truths, snail-like, soul-absorbing, soul-numbing, soul-destroying, 
 all-surpassing, brimstone-sins, peace-speaking, soul-filling, awe-in- 
 spiring, woe-engendering, sevenfold-heated, hell-counsels, never-to- 
 be-reconciled, stand-point, world-worship, world-worshipers, night- 
 revelers, cross-bearing, sin-polluted, self-growth, base-principles, 
 heaven-high, temple-builders, heaven-born, short-comings, gospel- 
 assurance, well-wishing, gaslight-views, self-same, heavenly-mind- 
 edness, winter-weary, self-surrender, sin-sick, cloud-muffled, white- 
 lipped, warmth-giving, zest-giving, heart-belief, soul-calmer, half- 
 way-measures, God-fearing, God-loving, God-defying, what-not, 
 rain-or-shine, subject-matter, serpent-like, gospel-artillery, all-em- 
 bracing, Bible-doctrines, quasi-poetical, heart-obedience, gospel- 
 statement, God-given, say-so, sin-disordered, gospel-influence, gos- 
 pel-truth, gospel-sinners, gospel-motives, gospel-hopes, gospel-ideas, 
 and gospel-argTiment." 
 
 I admit that some of these are good English. I have purposely 
 given the good and the bad together in order to present an exact 
 picture of the facts in the structure of a handful of sermons writ- 
 ten by men nearly all of whom were graduates of colleges. At 
 the least, fom'-fifths of these compounds have no other authority 
 than that of the pulpit. Many of them were the momentary coin- 
 age of the individuals who wrote them in the heat of composition. 
 Is not the good taste of scholars repelled by them? More than 
 this, is not the taste of gentlemen and of refined women offended 
 by them ? Coleridge commends the diction of a certain class of 
 poets, because they avoided " every word which a gentleman would 
 not use in dignified conversation." Tried by this test, how many 
 of these compounds of the pulpit could hold their place? Al- 
 though no preaclier has ever used them all, yet, if twelve men may 
 coin them all, one man may adopt them all. But what a mon- 
 strosity of taste such a style would be ! The large majority of 
 such words should be excluded, for the sufficient reason that we 
 do not need them for any pm-poses of scholarly and manly dis- 
 course. Therefore it is neither scholarly nor manly to manufac- 
 ture them. The very soul of a scholarly style is put out if such 
 barbarisms are put in.
 
 362 APPENDIX. 
 
 D. 
 
 Dkcioed vs. D^:cISIVE. — These are not synonyms. A decided 
 fact is one which is beyond dispute : a decisive fact is one which 
 puts an end to dispute. 1 may have a decided opinion, but it may 
 not be decisive of a controversy. A decided victory may not be 
 decisive of a campaign. 
 
 Declension is improperly used to signify the act of declining. 
 It is a good word to express a state of decline, or the process of 
 decline. But we can not say, " He sent in his declension of the 
 office." Webster's Dictionai'y admits the word in this sense, but 
 I do not find it in the works of the first class of English authors. 
 We need a word to express the act in question : we have none but 
 the participle " declining." Somebody was in distress for the right 
 word who reported that a certain officer had sent in his " declin- 
 iency." "Declinature" may yet make its way into reputable 
 use. 
 
 Deed used as a verb is a technicality of law, not good English 
 elsewhere. 
 
 Deity should not be used without the article except to express 
 the abstract quality of divinity. It is not the proper synonjTii of 
 "God." Even with the article, it deserves to be noted that the 
 word is in the pulpit a chilling and repellent synonym of " God." 
 One clergyman of mj- acquaintance was dismissed from his pastoral 
 charge ; and one of the objections of his people to his ministrations 
 was, that he called the divine Person " Deity." The objection meant 
 more than it expressed. It meant that his whole style was indirect, 
 impersonal, abstract, cold. The common people never sjieak of, 
 probably never think of, God impersonally. The pulpit should not 
 be less intense than the popular thought is in its conception of the 
 Godhead. 
 
 Delicious vs. Delightful. — The fii-st should always be re- 
 stricted to pleasures of sense. We should not speak of a delicious 
 joy, or peace, or communion. Even the phrase " delicious music " 
 implies the predominance of the sensuous element in the pleasures 
 of song. This is one of a class of words by which the pulpit often 
 degrades spiritual ideas. We have inherited from a former age a 
 propensity to express religious thought by an excess of sensuous 
 imagery, which approaches the voluptuous. Oriental tastes 
 demanded this : Occidental tastes are repelled by it. John Foster
 
 APPENDIX. 363 
 
 condemns the usage of the English pulpit in reducing so much of 
 religious experience to the level of the sense of taste. He says 
 that it makes religion seem "as if it were cooked." Sometimes it 
 is not even that : it is presented raw. 
 
 Delusion vs. Illusiox. — These are not exact synonyms, though 
 the dictionaries interchange them. Coleridge writes, "That illu- 
 sion, contradisting-uished from delusion." Dr. \Yhately indicates 
 the distinction tersely by recalling the etymology of the two words : 
 illiulo, "to make sport of;" deludo, "to lead astray." Illusion 
 exists in the imagination only : delusion affects conduct in real life. 
 The one is a mental error in a passive state ; the other, a mental 
 error in active working. The same error may be first an illusion, 
 and then a delusion. 
 
 Depravity and Depravatiox are not interchangeable. De- 
 pravity expresses the state or the quality; depravation, the act 
 or the process. 
 
 Deputize is one of the numerous coinages of verbs by the Greek 
 termination ize. The right word is "depute." 
 
 Deranged vs. Insane. — These are not equivalents, unless 
 the word " deranged " is qualified by the word " mentally " or its 
 synonym. 
 
 Desk for Pulpit, in the phrase "sacred desk." — This is au 
 Americanism, for which the only reputable authority I have met 
 with is John Quiiicy Adams. 
 
 Diction and Style are not exact synonyms. Style refers to 
 thought and language ; diction, to language only. Yet, where 
 exact definition is not necessary, these words may be interchanged. 
 
 Differ with vs. Differ from. — Which? Dr. Worcester and 
 the last editors of Webster's Dictionary defend the first of these 
 forms as being in good use in England, and gaining ground in 
 this country. They give Lord Brougham and Mr. Canning as 
 authorities. These are hardly conclusive authorities. In this 
 country, my observation has detected the phrase chiefly in the style 
 of newspapers. If we admit it, we must admit the phrase " differ 
 from " also ; for of that there can be no doubt. " Differ with " I 
 prefer to note as doubtful. 
 
 Disbelief and Unbelief involve a distinction of great moment 
 to the pulpit. " Unbelief " expresses less than " disbelief." It may 
 arise from ignorance or the want of evidence. " Disbelief " is moi-e 
 positive : it implies that evidence has been considered and rejected.
 
 364 APPENDIX. 
 
 The folly of an atheist consists in the fact that he affirms the negar 
 tive of that of whicli no human mind can know a negative. Yet the 
 distinction is of comparatively recent origin. AVhen our English 
 Bible was translated, the distinction was not clearly recognized in 
 the language. Our Lord, therefore, is represented as denouncing 
 the sin of unbelief, when the thing he did denounce was the more 
 positive sin of rejecting evidence. 
 
 DiSRKMKMBEU. — We have no such word in the language. I 
 have never heard it but in the city of Philadelphia. 
 
 Donate is one of the counterfeit coins of verbs from substan- 
 tives never used by writers of critical taste. The substantives 
 " donation " and " donative " are good words. 
 
 Don't. — The contraction is noticeable as being often used col- 
 loquially, and sometimes in the pulpit, for " doesn't." To say, even 
 conversationally, " he don't," is not grammatical, unless the sub- 
 junctive mood is employed. 
 
 DoxoLOGiZE. — It is astonishing that so scholarly a critic as Dr. 
 Worcester should have admitted this word into his dictionary on 
 the obsolete authority of the early editions of an English diction- 
 ary from which it was afterwards excluded. 
 
 Drouth for Duougiit. — A relic of Anglo-Saxon orthography. 
 Used by Lord Bacon, now a vulgarism. 
 
 E. 
 
 Effectuate. — AVe have no such word in classic use, though 
 dictionaries contain it. 
 
 Endow and Endue have a nice distinction in good English use. 
 " Endow " may be employed in reference to any qualities, mental, 
 moral, or physical ; "endue," to mental and moral qualities only. 
 Solomon was endowed with wealth, and endued with wisdom. 
 
 Energize is improperly used to signify exerting energy : its 
 true meaning is to impart energy. 
 
 England for Britain. — The error here is not that of calling 
 the three countries by the name of one : that is politically con-ect, 
 and sustained by usage. The error is the anachronism of desig- 
 nating the three kingdoms by the single name of England before 
 their union. The most scholarly usage would not authorize us to 
 say that " Caesar invaded England : " he invaded Britain. So Gaul 
 was conquered by the Romans, not France.
 
 APPENDIX. 365 
 
 Enthusiasm vs. Fanaticism. — The distinction between these 
 words is of recent origin, but is of great moment to religious expe- 
 rience. Formerly both words were employed to signify defects, 
 both being morbid excitements, differing only in degree. Isaac 
 Taylor, in his volumes on these manifestations of religious fervor, 
 treats the one as a morbid state, the other as a morbid state at- 
 tended with malign emotions. Recent usage has rescued the word 
 " enthusiasm " from association with mental disease, and author- 
 izes now its use to signify a healthy and normal excitement. Says 
 a living author, " The Puritans were enthusiasts for religious lib- 
 erty, not fanatics." Fifty years ago that distinction was unknown. 
 
 Epoch and Era should be distinguished. In loose usage they 
 are interchanged, and the principles on which our dictionaries are 
 compiled lead them to recognize this. Yet the distinction is valua- 
 ble, and the language is improved in precision by retaining it. An 
 era is a succession of time : an epoch is a point of time. An era 
 commonly begins at an epoch. We live in the Christian era, in 
 the Protestant era, in the era of liberty and letters. The date of 
 the birth of Christ was an epoch : the period of the dawn of the 
 Reformation was an epoch. 
 
 Equally as well is a phrase which I have often detected in 
 manuscript sermons, and heard in the pulpit. It is redundant. 
 " Equally well " or "as well" is pure English. But "equally as 
 weU " is barbarous; and " equally as well as," which is not unknown 
 in the dialect of the pulpit, belongs to the pre-adamic age. 
 
 Eternal and Everlasting are critical words to the pulpit- 
 Modern usage has developed a distinction which did not formerly 
 exist. " Everlasting " means now " without end ; " " eternal," with- 
 out beginning or end. Once they were interchangeable. Now we 
 should not designate the past eternity of God by the word " ever- 
 lasting" except in biblical quotations, as in the phrase "from 
 everlasting to everlasting." On the same principle of conformity 
 to usage, we drop the word " eternal," and substitute "everlasting," 
 in defining the doctrine of future punishment. 
 
 Evangelization is one of the long-winded words which more 
 classic use has curtailed to the participial noun " evangelizing." 
 
 Eventuate is a barbarism, like " eif ectuate," the origin of 
 which is unknown. 
 
 Except and Unless are confounded by heedless writers. "You 
 can not have it except you earn it" should be, " unless you earn
 
 366 APPENDIX. 
 
 it." The one is a preposition; the otl)er, a conjunction. The im- 
 proper use of "except" is a Southern provincialism. 
 
 Exhumate. — Somebody has coined this verb from the good 
 English noun "exhumation." "J'he true verb is "exhume." 
 
 Expect for Think is a vulgarism, probably suggested by the 
 similar use of the word "suspect" as the synonym of "think." 
 Both are provincial vulgarisms of Nev? England. 
 
 ExTitEME should not be used as if it were the positive form of 
 the adjective : it is the superlative. Good usage, therefore, does 
 not authorize the phrases "more extreme," "most extreme." 
 
 F. 
 
 Fall for Autumn is not objectionable colloquially ; but, in 
 public discourse, " autunm " is in better taste. It is to be re- 
 gretted that we have not retained uniformity of Anglo-Saxon titles 
 for the four seasons. We need the word "harvest" in place of 
 autumn, the old Saxon " hearfest." In the rural districts of Eng- 
 land one often hears the seasons indicated by the titles spring, 
 summer, harvest, winter. 
 
 Falsehood for Falseness. — The thing for the quality of the 
 thing is not precise. The lie is the falsehood : the untruthfulness 
 of it is the falseness. 
 
 Feel for Desike is a gross impropriety often heard in the pulpit 
 in the dialect of prayer. " We feel to thank Thee." The origin 
 of it I do not know, but it is too frequently heard to escape 
 censure. 
 
 Fellowship is improperly used as a verb. This use of it is 
 generally condemned as an Americanism. But it was thus used by 
 Sir Thomas Alallory, in the " History of King Arthur," and pub- 
 lished by the celebrated printer Caxton, in liSo. This error is 
 therefore of English origin ; but it has fallen out of good use there, 
 and is probably one of the words retained in this country by the 
 early emigrants from Great Britain. Many words and significa- 
 tions of this class are now supposed to be Americanisms which are 
 really old English, now obsolete in the mother-country, but not so 
 here. 
 
 Firstly for First. — "Secondly," "thirdly," etc., are correct; 
 but " first" is itself an adverbial form. Charles Dickens generally 
 uses "firstly." De Quincey also employs it. Preachers are ob- 
 viously much exposed to the error.
 
 APPENDIX. 367 
 
 Fix, in the sense of " to put in order," is incorrect. It is an 
 Americanism which has no authority in scholarly usage. The 
 proper meaning of the word is "to make firm." 
 
 Fixity for Fixedness is a barbarism. It is probably imported 
 from the French Jixite. To illustrate the distress for a barbaric 
 style which literary men sometimes manifest, the error of Robert 
 Boyle, the Irish philosopher, deserves notice, in coining the word 
 "fixidity." 
 
 G. 
 
 Genius vs. Talents. — What is the distinction ? Criticism is 
 uniform in admitting a distinction, not so in defining it. The 
 words should be noted as by no means interchangeable. See the 
 word " genius " in Webster's Unabridged DictionarJ^ 
 
 Get is often employed tautologically, as in the expression "I 
 have got it," when the meaning is only that I have it in possession. 
 The prejudice against this word and its inflection " got," which 
 prevails among half-educated people, is an affectation. Such is 
 especially the preference for "gotten" instead of "got." The 
 word, with its grammatical inflections, is perfectly good, even 
 classic English, and is one of the most valuable words in the lan- 
 guage. In addition to its variety of regular significations, what 
 should we do without it in its moi-e various idiomatic uses ; such 
 as, " get at," " get ahead," " get clear," " get on," " get up," " get rid 
 of," "get along," "get out," "get through," "get to," and others? 
 The danger of scholasticism is on the side of fastidiousness re- 
 specting such forms. 
 
 Gift is improperly used as a verb. I have sometimes, not often, 
 heard it. We have the participial form "gifted," and probably 
 the verbal use of " gift " has been coined from that. 
 
 Gospel. — Improperly employed as an adjective in a host of com- 
 pounds for which the pulpit alone is responsible ; such as, " gospel- 
 light," "gospel-privileges," "gospel-truth," "gospel-preaching," 
 "gospel-sinners," etc. Not one of these is in classic use. They 
 constitute a blotch upon the style of the pulpit, which is exceed- 
 ingly disgusting to scholarly hearers. Even illiterate hearers have 
 a dim instinct which disapproves them.
 
 368 APPENDIX. 
 
 H. 
 
 Habit, Custom, Usage, are improperly confounded. Yet I am 
 not positive as to their true distinctions. I suggest the following 
 for further observation ; viz., that "habit "is commonly, in strict 
 use, limited to the individual ; that " custom " implies the consent 
 of numbers; and that "usage" is a long-established custom. 
 Thus Shakspeare says, "How use doth breed a habit in a man!" 
 And Hooker writes, " Of things once received and confirmed by 
 use, loncj usage is a law sufficient." It may not be that these are 
 all the distinctions among these words established in the language, 
 but I think they are true so far as they go. 
 
 Happify is a barbarism which I have never met with but in the 
 dialect of the Methodist pulpit. Even " dictionaries imabridged " 
 do not contain it. 
 
 Haste and Hurry are not synonyms. The first does not imply 
 confusion : the second does. A man may reasonably be in haste, 
 never in a hun-y. Napoleon, after a great defeat, when nunutes 
 of delay might bring the enemy upon his retreat, wrote a proposal 
 for an armistice of a few hours ; and when it was suggested, that, 
 to save time, he should seal the document with a wafer, he said, 
 " No : give me the sealing-wax and a candle. A man should 
 never seem to be in a hurry." 
 
 Healthy and Healthful. — A valuable distinction has grown 
 up in recent years, which is not yet insisted upon by the lexicog- 
 raphers ; but scholarly usage should recognize it. " Healthy " 
 expresses the condition: " healthful " means "producing health." 
 
 Heaven is improperly used as the synonym of " God." Milton 
 speaks of "the permission of all-ruling Heaven." It must be con- 
 ceded that old English usage authorizes this, but the style of the 
 pulpit should reject it for its theological bearings. Any imper- 
 sonal title of God should be generally avoided. One of the expe- 
 dients by which the pulpit may preserve faith in the personality 
 of God, in the popular theology, is by never using language ^Ahich 
 implies the opposite, or may do so. 
 
 A memorandum deserves note here on this word as the root of a 
 multitude of English compounds to the use of which the pulpit is 
 addicted, but without scholarly authority. I find in Webster's 
 Dictionary no less than twenty-seven such compounds, of which 
 only the six following have, in my judgment, the support of good
 
 APPENDIX. 369 
 
 use or good taste; viz., "heaven-descended," "heaven-born," 
 "heaven-daring," " heaven-du-ected," "heavenly-minded," and 
 "heavenward." 
 
 PIeavenly-mindedness is one of the cant words for which we 
 are indebted to the Puritan pulpit. " A heavenly mind " expresses 
 the idea perfectly. " Heavenly-minded " carries the compound to 
 its extreme. 
 
 Hope is improperly used for "hope for." Dr. Channing, who is 
 not often guilty of unscholarly English, says, " We may hope the 
 blessing of God." 
 
 How is often improperly employed interrogatively for some 
 such query as, " What did you say, sir ? " This is a colloquial vul- 
 garism of New England. Thus used, the word has no meaning to 
 which it can be grammatically applied. A man not accustomed 
 to the dialect of cultivated society, if he has not understood the 
 reiijark of a friend says, " How ? " meaning that he desires a repe- 
 tition of the remark. Polite usage, in such a case, prescribes the 
 formula, " I beg your pardon," or " Excuse me, sir." These have a 
 meaning pertinent to the case. " How ? " signifies nothing. Such 
 colloquial eri'ors would not deserve a place here, were it not that 
 the indulgence of them in conversational habit inevitably creates 
 similar violations of good taste in written style. Dr. Oliver Wen- 
 dell Holmes remarks, that the two signs of ignorance of cultured 
 society are, that a man eats with his knife, and says, " Haow ? " 
 
 I. 
 
 Illy for III was in good use in Jeremy Taylor's time, but is 
 now obsolete. 
 
 Imagination and Fancy. — See Wordsworth's Preface to his 
 " Lyrical Ballads." That essay is a fine specimen of literary criti- 
 cism, and a striking example of the power of a great author to 
 evolve from a language a latent distinction which the national 
 mind, as represented by its educated classes, has felt vaguely be- 
 tween words, which, because of their vagueness, have been for gen- 
 erations used loosely. Probably Wordsworth has fixed those two 
 words, with their present meanings, in the language for ever. 
 "What is the distinction? Both words express exercises of the 
 mind's creative power ; but " imagination " is the more profound, 
 the more earnest, and the more logical. " Fancy " is the more
 
 370 APPENDIX. 
 
 superficial, the more playful, and often the more capricious. The 
 national mind has for a long time felt this difference, and has ex- 
 pressed it in the words "imaginative" and "fanciful." It did not 
 clearly recognize the same diiference between " fancy " and " imagi- 
 nation " till Wordsworth disclosed it. 
 
 Imperative and iMrEuious are very far from being synonyms. 
 One means " authoritative ; " the other, " domineering." God's law- 
 is imperative, never imperious. Imperiousness is always offensive. 
 "This imperious man will work ns all from princes into pages." 
 
 — SiiAKSPEARE. "His bold, coutemptuous, and imperious spirit." 
 
 — Macaulay. 
 
 Implicit in the sense of " undoubting," as in the phrase "im- 
 plicit trust," is recognized by the dictionaries, but not by the most 
 scholarly authors. Its proper meaning is the opposite of " exjalicit." 
 " Did he assent to the contract? Not explicitly, but implicitly ;" 
 that is, by implication. Etymology still rules the signification of 
 both these words. "Involved" and "evolved" express the con- 
 trast of ideas. 
 
 Yet it must be conceded that the word, in the sense here con- 
 demned, is making its way into good use. Only the more scrupu- 
 lous authors now reject it. De Quincey makes a concession to 
 it, when he says, that, in all his reading, he had found only two 
 authors, Coleridge and Wordsworth, who uniformly employ it in 
 its old etymological meaning. If only two writers within a large 
 range of literature are faithful to its ancient use, it must be far on 
 towards establishment in the language. 
 
 Improvement as applied to the conclusion of a sermon is now 
 obsolete, and was always a technicality of the pulpit only. 
 
 Inaugurate m the sense of "introduce" is an impropriety. 
 The proper sense is " to invest with office." It always refers to 
 some official solemnity. The derivation of it from the old Roman 
 augur indicates this ; the augurs being the officers who invested 
 the emperors wdth office by religious ceremonies. Yet so scholarly 
 an authority as " The North American Review" says that a cer- 
 tain ship " was only a copy of a model inaugurated by Mr. Collins." 
 Grant White, commenting upon this, suggests that the writer 
 should have added, that " the President of the United States was 
 invented on the 4th of ]\Iarch." 
 
 Incident is improperly confounded with "liable." Says a 
 living writer, " The work was incident to decay." He should have
 
 APPENDIX. 371 
 
 turned it end for end. Decay may be incident to a work : the 
 work is liable to decay. 
 
 Ix SPITE OF is not synonymous with " notwithstanding." It is 
 a surly phrase. Is there no difference in rhetorical effect between 
 saying, "in spite of your argument," and saying, "notwithstanding 
 your argument " ? Does not Shakspeare imply a threat, when he 
 says, " I'll keep mine own in spite of all the world " ? 
 
 Intend. — A very common impropriety of the pulpit is the use 
 of this word as the syncnjrm of "mean." A preacher says, "By 
 this I intend," etc., when all that he wishes to express is his mean- 
 ing. To intend is to purpose, to will. Mr. Trench commits this 
 error in his " Study of Words." 
 
 Irreligionist is another of the barbarous coinages of recent 
 years. 
 
 J. 
 
 Jeopardize is an Americanism, coined with the Greek form of 
 termmation. The English word is " jeopard." 
 
 Lay and Lie. — The preterites of these two verbs are often 
 confounded. Scholarly thoughtfulness is requisite to enable even 
 an educated man always to avoid the error. Says a graduate of 
 Harvard College, " He laid down." He should have said, either 
 " He lay down," or " He laid himself down." I once heard from 
 a theological professor in the pulpit the vulgarism "lien down." 
 
 Learn for Teach was once good English, signifying either to 
 give or receive knowledge. The Book of Common Prayer so em- 
 ploys the word. At present it retains but one of these senses. 
 
 Lengthy for Long is very common in this country, and is used 
 by some English reviews, and commended by some authorities. 
 But " lengthy " certainly contains an idea which " long " does not 
 contain. It includes the idea of tediousuess, and therefore it is 
 not wholly useless. It is employed by Coleridge and Lord Byron. 
 
 Lieve for Lief. — The latter is the English word. Shakspeare 
 is classic in saying, " I had as lief the town-crier spoke my lines." 
 The meaning is "willingly." Spenser, in the "Faerie Queene," 
 employs "lief " as an adjective. That use is obsolete. The word 
 is an old Saxon adverb. 
 
 Like for As is never heard in New England, but is not excluded
 
 872 APPENDIX. 
 
 even from the pulpit of our Western and Southern States. " Do 
 like he does," says a preacher in Tennessee. 
 
 Like for Love. — We detect the difference between these words 
 as soon as attention is called to it. Yet it is one of the frequent 
 evidences of the want of colloquial culture, that they are employed 
 interchangeably. A man should love the truth, not like it: he 
 may like a leg of mutton, not love it. 
 
 Long used as a noun is a very frequent error in the style of 
 Alison the historian. " He was gone for long," says Alison, mean- 
 ing, " for a long time." 
 
 M. 
 
 Magnificent is sometimes used as an unmeaning superlative. 
 It is a noble word, and should be restricted to its real signification. 
 It always involves either the etymological idea of " greatness," or 
 the kindred ideas of " gorgeousness " and "costliness." Thus 
 
 Milton writes, — 
 
 " Man lie made, and for him built 
 Magnificent this world." 
 
 We degrade the word from its legitimate uses, if we speak of a 
 magnificent complexion. As employed loosely in some pulpits, it 
 is in peril of degenerating to the level of the French exclamation 
 Magnijique ! 
 
 Mean for Means. — Till recently the Scottish writers favored 
 the singular form ; the English, the plural. Since the time of 
 Addison, English and American use has adopted the plural. It is 
 now used with either the plural or the singular pronoun. 
 
 Memories for Reminiscences. — "Sunny Memories of Foreign 
 Lands " is the title of a book by Mrs. Stowe. The attractiveness 
 of the title is gained at the expense of pure English. Of the sev- 
 eral significations of the word " memories," " things remembered " 
 is not one. We detect the error by putting the word into the 
 singular. We do not speak of a single reminiscence as a memory. 
 "Why not, if the plurals of the two words are synonyms? 
 
 Methinks for I think was an old Anglo-Saxon form, but it 
 has become obsolete except in poetry. Yet I find two remarkable 
 authorities for it. One is Edward Everett, in his celebrated vision 
 of "The Mayflower:" "Methinks T see it now!" The other is 
 Hawthorne. Both are good authorities. But Mr. Everett wTote it
 
 APPENDIX. 373 
 
 thirty, and Hawthorne at least fifteen, years ago. It is improbable 
 that either would use it if living now. 
 
 Mighty for Very should not find a place here if I had not 
 heard it in sermons by graduates of colleges. "Mighty small," 
 "mighty weak," etc., are among those improprieties which creep 
 into one's written style if indulged in colloquially. It was in 
 reputable use in England two hundred years ago. 
 
 Militate with should be "militate against." We say, " Con- 
 flicts with," obeying the etymology of the verb ; but the other 
 phrase has no such defense. 
 
 MissioxATE, in the sense of "to act as a missionary." — It 
 occurs in "The Missionary Herald," and is occasionally heard in 
 sermons. We have no such word in the language. 
 
 Moment and Minute are not synonyms. The " minute " is the 
 sixtieth part of an hour : the " moment " is the shortest possible 
 measure of time. Says St. Paul, "In a moment, in the twinkling 
 of an eye." The eye does not require a miuute for the act of 
 twinkling. 
 
 Moot, improi3erly employed in the phrase "moot-point." — 
 The word is a technicality of schools of law, in which imaginary 
 courts are held for the disciplinary exercises of students. It has 
 no classic authority. 
 
 Mutual and Common are confounded in the phrase " mutual 
 friend : " it should be a " common friend." In the plural, " mutual 
 friends " would not be inaccurate, meaning that two persons are 
 fx'iends each to the other. " Common friend" means that a third 
 person is a friend to two or more other persons. "Mutual " implies 
 interchange. 
 
 N. 
 
 Nature is a critical word to the pulpit. It is often so employed 
 as to confound certain theological senses of it. Of the variety of 
 meanings attached to the word by scholarly usage, no two are more 
 firmly fixed in the language than these, — " an involuntary constitu- 
 tion " and " a voluntary disposition " of the human mind. These 
 are not creations of theology. Popular speech recognizes them, 
 and has done so from time immemorial. The distinction is so 
 radical in the necessary working of religious ideas, if they are 
 pushed to expression in any language, that every language must 
 contain it in some form. Our language unfortunately expresses it
 
 374 APPENDIX. 
 
 by radically different senses of tlie same word. The Scriptures 
 use the word as variously as popular speech does, loosely in appear- 
 ance, not in fact. Confusion of thought is created in the pulpit if 
 the two senses of tlie word are blended by transferring responsibil- 
 ity for a depraved disposition over upon a degenerate constitution, 
 because both are properly termed "nature." Are we "by nature 
 the children of wrath ".? No : not by involuntary constitution. 
 Are we " by nature the children of w-rath " ? Yes : by voluntary 
 disposition. We abuse language, and confuse the truth, if we 
 make a word the bridge by which we transpose ideas so radically 
 distinct. Many sermons on the natural character of man are con- 
 structed at one end of the bridge, and closed with an application 
 at the other, with a downright contradiction between. 
 
 News. — Is it singular, or plural? Illiterate usage asks, " Wliat 
 are the news ? " Milton says, " 111 news rides fast." 
 
 Nice in the sense of " agreeable " is an Americanism. We 
 speak improperly of a "nice day," a "nice fortune." A common 
 vulgarism in metropolitan society is to designate certain persons as 
 "nice people," meaning that they are agreeable people. The 
 correct meaning of the word is "fastidious." A nice critic is a 
 critic of fastidious taste. 
 
 No. — The phrase " whether or no " in pure English should be 
 "whether or not." 
 
 Notify. — Should we "notify" a meeting, or " notify " an au- 
 dience of a meeting V The English and American usages differ. 
 The English pulpit adopts the first ; and the American, the second. 
 The English follow the original Latin etjTnology, deriving the word 
 from nolifico. The Americans follow the secondary derivation 
 of the word, from the French noiijier. The English form is the 
 better of the two ; that is, it is in closer affinity with the structure 
 of the language. To "notify," by the analogy of other words of 
 similar termination, should signify, "to make a thing known." 
 Therefore we should notify the meeting, not the audience. 
 
 o. 
 
 Obligate for Oblige. — Richardson's Dictionary says that this 
 word "is the more common among the common people." Smart's 
 Dictionary says that it " is never heard among those who conform 
 to the usage of the upper classes." The "British Critic" says, "It
 
 APPENDIX. 375 
 
 is a low, colloqiiial inaccuracy." Dr. Worcester says, "It is much 
 used iu the United States." Webster admits it without objection. 
 The history of tlie word is indicated in this succession of authori- 
 ties. Doubtless it was formerly a barbarism, but has been grow- 
 ing towards, if not into, good use. I should, for the present, mark 
 it as of doubtful authority, but recognizing that the chances are 
 in its favor. Some critics contend that the derivation of it from 
 the unexceptionable word "obligation" should settle the question. 
 But a speaker in the American CongTess once declared, " Mr. 
 Speaker, I hurl the allef/aiion back with scorn upon the head of the 
 allegator." Did the correctness of one word here follow as a neces- 
 sity from the accuracy of the other? English usage has no law 
 for coining as a thing of course one word from another closely 
 resembling it. Every word stands on its own merits ; yet not 
 always on its merits, but on the sheer will, even the caprice, of the 
 national mind. 
 
 Obnoxious and Noxious. — Are they interchangeable ? By 
 no means. " Noxious " means " hurtful ; " " obnoxious," only " un- 
 popular." This word "obnoxious" has a singular theological his- 
 tory. It once involved the idea of just liability to punishment for 
 sin, ob noxam poena. Dr. South says, " AVhat shall we say of the 
 power of God to dispose of men, — little, finite, obnoxious things 
 of his own making?" That is, "things justly deserving pmiish- 
 ment." In present usage that idea is wholly lost from the word. 
 It means " offensive," nothing more. 
 
 Observation and Observance. — Are they synonyms? No. 
 The one means the act of " taking notice of : " the other means the 
 act of "performing some duty." We should not say, " The observa- 
 tion of the sabbath," but " The observance," etc. Astronomers 
 have recently taken observations of the transit of Venus. Faithful 
 Christians practice the observance of the Lord's Day. 
 
 Onto is a vulgarism. The two prepositions "on" and "to" 
 may occur consecutively, but the combination is often used where 
 the second preposition is useless. "He fell onto the rocks." 
 "Upon " would be the better form. 
 
 Open up is a phrase recognized as idiomatic English by lexicog- 
 raphers, but meaningless in its structure, and not used by the best 
 authors. AMiy "up," rather than "down" or "out"? A good 
 general rule in composition is to check one's pen in the writing of 
 any phrase which seems to be redundant, or without obvious sense.
 
 376 APPENDIX. 
 
 Ought. — It should not be, but it is, necessary to caution even 
 graduates of American colleges against the use of vulgar inflections 
 of this word ; such as, "hadn't ought," etc. 
 
 Paternal and Fatherly. —Which? Both are goodvpords; 
 one Latin, the other Saxon. The Latin is the more stately, the 
 Saxon the more cordial, in its associations. The Latin might be 
 the more becoming in a diplomatic paper ; the Saxon, vastly the 
 more effective in a sermon. 
 
 Pitiful, Piteous and Compassionate. — Are these words 
 synonyms? By the authority of dictionaries, and to some extent 
 by usage, we may answer both Yes and No. That is to say, contra- 
 dictory meanings are attached to them. Thus, " pitiful " is used to 
 express " feeling pity, exciting pity," and " exciting contempt." The 
 same is true of "piteous." There are cases in which it is expedient 
 that a preacher should be a law unto himself as to the senses in 
 which he will employ language in the pulpit. As far as the struc- 
 ture of the language will permit, it is not desirable to employ the 
 same word in senses diametrically opposite, even if iisage does allow 
 it. For example, it seems inexpedient in a sermon to express the 
 compassionateness of God by the same word by which, in the next 
 sermon, we express the contemptibleuess of man. Yet this we may 
 find ourselves doing if we follow all possible usage in the use of 
 the word "pitiful." Usage will uphold us in saying that God is a 
 pitiful, that is, a compassionate being ; and that a certain man is 
 a pitiful, that is, a contemptible being. Usage sometimes gives a 
 liberty which good taste condemns as license. As a general rule, 
 we may meet all the necessities of the pulpit by employing the 
 word " compassionate " to express the idea of " exercising pity," 
 "piteous " to express the idea of "exciting pity," and "pitiful" to 
 express the idea of "exciting contempt." Thus, the good Samari- 
 tan was a compassionate man ; the man who fell among thieves 
 was in a piteous condition ; the thieves were pitiful fellows. 
 
 Plead, used as a preterite form for "pleaded," is a corruption 
 of long standing in the language ; is found in Spenser's " Faerie 
 Queeue," but is almost universally avoided by scholars. 
 
 Plenty, used as an adjective for "plentiful." — Dr. Webster, I 
 think, is almost alone among lexicographers in admitting this.
 
 APPENDIX. 377 
 
 Shakspeare, however, employs it : " If reasons were plenty as 
 blackberries, I would give no man a reason on compulsion." But 
 good use is generally adverse to it at present. 
 
 Power. — Note the confusion of its literal and its figurative uses 
 in certain theological connections. The pulpit gains nothing for 
 any theological interest by attempting to change or to ignore either 
 of the two uses of this word and its synonyms, in preaching on 
 human dependence and divine sovereignty. The " can " and the 
 " can not," the " power " and the " want of power," the " ability " 
 and the " inability," of man in his relations to God, are perfectly 
 well rooted in the language. Popular usage does not surrender 
 either of them, if schoolmen do. Usage has fixed one sense as 
 literal, and the other as figurative. So far as the popular mind 
 is concerned, that is the end of the whole matter. In the attempts 
 sometimes made to distinguish between "power" and "ability," 
 to suit theological theories, the popular mind does not follow the 
 pulpit at all. Usage acknowledges flatly the contradiction in ap- 
 pearance, when we say that man can and that he can not repent, 
 yet feels none in fact, any more than in any other cases of contrar- 
 diction between the letter and the figure. 
 
 Predicate in the sense of " found " is an Americanism, confined 
 chiefly to the usage of the bar, as when an advocate says, "I 
 predicate my client's claims upon admitted facts ; " meaning, " I 
 found," etc. This is entirely opposed to the classic English use. 
 " Predicate " means " to assert," nothing else. 
 
 Prepositions — I note this word, only for the sake of commend- 
 ing a very valuable catalogue of verbs with the prepositions which 
 good use attaches to them, in the Preface to Worcester's Un- 
 abridged Dictionary. With not more than one or two exceptions, 
 it is very accurate. 
 
 Pride and Vanity. — The pulpit is misled by the popular error 
 in interchanging these words. The sin of pride is denounced 
 when the connection indicates that the thing denounced is not that, 
 but vanity ; not the self-contained vice which despises other men, 
 but the superficial vice which depends for its indulgence on the 
 opinion of other men. The Scriptures are keen in their analysis 
 of human natm-e, when they condemn pride as the most concen- 
 trated of mental vices and the most corrosive to upright character. 
 Satan is pride personified. We do not know that he was ever 
 weak enough to be vain.
 
 878 APPENDIX. 
 
 Profanity and Profanenkss. — Which ? Usage is not uni- 
 form. The hitter form is in closer analog)^ than the former with the 
 structure of the English language. Professor Park says, that, if 
 one says "profanity," one may he supported by good usage, but 
 that, if one says " profaneness," one is sure to be thus supported; 
 that is, the first of these forms is of doubtful authority. 
 
 Professor, used as the synonym of " communicant " in the 
 church, is an impropriety limited to the dialect of the pulpit and to 
 that of those who take their habits of speech from it. It is never 
 used by secular authors of any rank. A sermon was once read for 
 criticism in my lecture-room, the preacher standing at the right 
 band of the presiding officer, the subject of which was, " The In- 
 consistencies of Professors." The terra was one of the improper 
 titles used in homiletic applications by the Rev. Dr. Payson. 
 
 Progress, employed as a verb intransitive, should be marked as 
 doubtful. Dr. Worcester says that the majority of authors of the 
 first class avoid it. Critics commonly condemn it as an Ameri- 
 canism, but it is not such. It is found in the elder English 
 authors, and probably was in good repute two centuries ago. 
 Shakspeare, in King Lear, says, " Let me wipe off this honorable 
 dew, tliat silverly doth progress on thy cheeks." The jironuncia- 
 tion of the word in Shakspeare's time probably accented the first 
 syllable. If so, the word was one of those forms in which the 
 verb and the noun are distinguished by difference of accent ; as in 
 the words "conduct" and '■^ conduct." 
 
 Punishment for Chastisement is frequent in the pulpit, an 
 very harmful in its implications. The popular mind is quite ready 
 always to confound alHictiou with retribution. The natural the- 
 ology of Job's friends is deeply rooted in human nature. We cau 
 not be too careful to sharpen the popular thought of sin by accu- 
 rate use of words expressive of its penalties. " Punishment " 
 should not be applied to any suffering which is corrective. Such a 
 use of it tends to confuse the popular idea of the atonement. If 
 disciplinary suffering is punishment, the suffering of Christ may 
 be such. It can not be proved that any individual suffering in this 
 world is retributive. I do not say that it is never so, but that it 
 can not in any individual case be proved. We need, for the con- 
 struction of a self-consistent theology, to draw a sharp line of dis- 
 tinction between retributive and corrective suffering. A truthful 
 faith respecting the retribution of eternity depends on this.
 
 APPENDIX. 379 
 
 Q. 
 
 Quite in the sense of " very " is not good English ; as in the ex- 
 pression "quite recently," or "the discourse was quite long." The 
 true meaning of "quite" is "entirely." 
 
 R. 
 
 Raise is improperly employed in two American provincialisms, 
 one used in the Southern States, and the other in the Northern. 
 Southern usage says, "He was raised in Alabama;" "raise" being 
 used in the sense of " to bring up." Northern usage says, " They 
 raised a committee ; " " raise " being used in the sense of " to ap- 
 point." Classic English admits neither. 
 
 Rather, in the phrase " I had rather," should be preceded by 
 "would" instead of "had." "Rather" expresses a preference. 
 " Had rather " is probably a corruption of the phrase "had better," 
 which is a pure English idiom. The translators of the Old Testa- 
 ment into English committed the error in making the Psalmist 
 say, "I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God." 
 
 Rational and Reasonable are not interchangeable. " Ration- 
 al " refers to the existence of reason ; " reasonable," to its exercise. 
 To say that an opinion is irrational is to say that it implies the loss 
 or susi^ension of reason : to pronounce an opinion unreasonable 
 is only to say that the arguments in support of it are not suffi- 
 cient. I may hold unreasonable opinions which are not irrational : 
 my deficiency may be in a perverted use of reason, not in the loss 
 of it. 
 
 Realize in the sense of " appreciate " or " feel." — Secular critics 
 condemn the religious use of this word ; as, in the phrase " realize 
 the magnitude of eternity." They are supported by the most 
 reputable usage among secular authors. I would not, therefore, 
 employ the word in this sense in any secular composition. But, 
 in the representation of religious experience, this meaning of the 
 word is a necessity. We have no other which is adequate. I 
 would not, therefore, exclude it from the pulpit. Let it be toler- 
 ated, as other religious or scientific technicalities are. The techni- 
 cal dialect of the clerical profession, so far as it is necessary to the 
 business of the profession, has the same right to existence in the 
 language which the dialect of other professions has, and no more.
 
 380 APPENDIX. 
 
 Reason and Understanding. — Shall wo admit the distinction 
 between these words for which Coleridge coiit(inds? Philosophically 
 the distinction may be true : that is one thing. If true, we must 
 admit it, at least, as having a place among the technicalities of 
 philosophy. ^V'huther usage has adopted the distinction into na- 
 tional English is another question, and must be answered in the 
 negative. A preacher would seem to his audience to talk nonsense, 
 who should preach a sermon founded, as even a practical sermon 
 might be, upon that distinction. The popular mind know.s nothing 
 of it. 
 
 Reluct and Reluctate are both barbarisms, though some dic- 
 tionaries admit them on the authority of authors of inferior rank. 
 
 Remouse should not be employed to express only the sense of 
 sin. This suggestion is of great significance to the pulpit. Re- 
 member always, in the use of this word, its etymological meaning, 
 '■'■ rcmordeo" "to bite back." This idea the word has never lost. 
 Remorse is retaliatory, not salutary. It tends to no good. Shak- 
 speare says, " Xero will be tainted with remorse." Never exhort a 
 sinner to cherish remorse. Penitence and hope should accompany 
 a sense of sin ; then remorse ceases. The sense of sin then be- 
 comes remedial, as distinct from retributive. Yet the ancient 
 usage of the pulpit was so loose on this point, that, to this day, the 
 conviction of sin and remorse are often confounded in the popular 
 mind. I doubt whether John Randolph, when on his death-bed he 
 could not speak, but wrote on a cai'd the word " remorse," meant 
 any thing more than that he felt himself to be a great sinner. 
 
 Remove, in the phrase "an infinite remove," is erroneous. Usage 
 limits the use of the word in such connections to a small distance. 
 Addison says, " A freeholder is but one remove from a legislator." 
 
 Retuospect used as a verb. — It is admitted by some lexicogra- 
 phers, but rarely acknowledged by good writers. 
 
 Ride and Drive. — English usage makes a distinction between 
 these words which is not commonly recognized in this country, 
 but is a valuable one, and it augments the precision of the lan- 
 guage. A " ride " is in the saddle : a " drive " is in a carriage. 
 
 Rugged and Hardy are not synonyms. " Rugged " is " rough." 
 We should not speak of " rugged health."
 
 APPENDIX. 381 
 
 S. 
 
 Saxg, Spake, Sprang, have, for the most part, yielded to the 
 more modern forms, "sung," "spoke," "sprung." These double 
 forms originally expressed different numbers of the tense. " Sang " 
 was the singular ; and " sung," the plural. The disappearance of 
 this distinction leaves no occasion for the retention of both forms, 
 and the old singular forms are obsolescent. 
 
 Save for Except is obsolete, except in poetry and in biblical 
 quotation. 
 
 Script URALiTY is not used by authors of the first class. Yet 
 ■we have no one word to take its place. 
 
 Security and Safety are often interchanged, yet are not syno- 
 nyms ; and the distinction between them is one which it is desira- 
 ble to retain. " Security " retains somewhat of its etymological 
 meaning of "freedom from care." Preachers speak classically of 
 a sinner's "false security," not of his " false safety." 
 
 Self-love and Selfishness have a very marked distinction, 
 often overlooked, which is fundamental in theology. Ever since 
 Bishop Butler's day, the distinction has been established. lie says, 
 " Men would be much better than they are if they had more self- 
 love." Self-love is a legitimate and unavoidable exercise of intel- 
 ligent beings: selfishness is not such. The one is innocent; the 
 other, a sin. The popular query of the last generation in New 
 England " Must a man be willing to be damned in order to be 
 saved? " would never have been asked if the pulpit had never con- 
 founded these words. 
 
 Selfsame is obsolescent, and was never in classic use. " Same " 
 expresses the whole idea. 
 
 Sens.ual and Sensuous are liable to confusion in the usage of 
 the pulpit. The former always involves moral wrong : the latter is 
 only a philosophical term. All men are sensuous beings : only bad 
 men are sensual beings. Our Saviour in human form was sensu- 
 ous, but not sensual. 
 
 Shall and Will are improperly interchanged. In Ireland, 
 " will " is frequently employed for " shall ; " and in Scotland the 
 reverse is common. In the Southern and some of the Western States 
 of this country, the Irish error is frequent. " I will need the means 
 of going," says a native of Virginia. The structure of our language 
 tempts one to this error. In declension we are taught to say, "I
 
 882 APPENDIX. 
 
 ■will, you shall, ho shall;" hut we reverse the forms, and say, "I 
 shall, you will, he will." It is out of this irregularity of declen- 
 sion, prohahly, that the error lias arisen. 
 
 Shew for Siikwkd, and pronounced as if it were "shue," is a 
 singular corruption, often heard in the city of Boston among some 
 who call themselves people of culture. " He shew me how to do 
 it." I have never encountered this vulgarism elsewhere. 
 
 Shortcomings is authorized by the dictionaries, but is one of 
 the cant phrases of an uneducated pulpit. It is almost hopelessly 
 rooted in a barbarous dialect of prayer. When you are tempted 
 to use it, remember that " Cumraings " is a not uncommon family 
 name in New England, and that those who bear it dljf'er in stature. 
 De (iuincey condemns the word as a Scotticism. He says that 
 it is "horridly tabcrnacular," that "no gentleman would touch it 
 without gloves; " and, with his usual respect for the clergy, he ad- 
 vises that "it be resigned henceforth to the use of preachers." 
 
 SiDEHiLL should give place to the more classic form "hillside." 
 
 Some is improperly used for "somewhat." "Is the patient 
 better ? " — " Some better." " Does it rain ? " — " Yes, some." 
 
 Solemnize, in the sense of " to make solemn." — "Solemnize our 
 minds " is often heard in extemporaneous prayer. This and the 
 word " shortcomings " are potent arguments for a Liturgy. " Sol- 
 emnize," however, is not a barbarism : it is a good and ancient 
 English word. It means "to celebrate a religious ceremony." 
 We properly speak of " solemnizing " a marriage. In Shakspeare's 
 time, even the word " solemn " was employed in similar connec- 
 tions, but without any necessary idea of seriousness. It was em- 
 ployed in reference to any important ceremony. Macbeth, on the 
 occasion of his coronation, says, " To-night we hold a solemn sup- 
 per;" that is, "a festival of inauguration." From such a history 
 the word " solemnize " has grown. 
 
 Soul. — I note this word for the sake of a criticism upon its 
 very numerous compounds. I tind in Webster's Dictionary no less 
 than thirty-five such compounds, of which not more than three can 
 be said to be in classic use. All the rest are a burden of barba- 
 rism upon the forces of the language. 
 
 Spiriti'al-mindedness is another of the long-waisted cant 
 ■words of the pulpit. " A spiritual mind" expresses the whole idea, 
 and is a form which would not repel a scholarly taste. 
 
 St.\tion f,<. Depot. — AVhich ? By authority of usage, both ;
 
 APPENDIX. 383 
 
 but by that of good taste, " station " is the purer English. It 
 is English in its structure, and is generally used in England. 
 " Depot " is of French origin ; and, in the American use of it, it is 
 diverted from its French signification, which is " a depository for 
 freight." If we follow the French, why not do so in pi-onun elation 
 of the word ? Our language would be improved by the adoption 
 of both words, retaining severally the English and the French 
 significations. Let passengers be deposited at a "station," and 
 freight at a "depot." For the present, however, we must defer 
 to usage, but with a protest. 
 
 Stkickex for Struck is an impropriety, except in the usage of 
 legislative bodies. A clause is spoken of as " stricken " fi-om a 
 legislative bill. In other connections the word is the synonym of 
 "aflaicted." 
 
 Sundown should give way to the more classic form "sunset." 
 Even the common people of England prefer the latter form. 
 
 Sympathy and Pity are not exact synonyms. " Sympathy" has 
 never lost entirely its etymological sense of feeling with another. 
 It is a finer exercise of benevolence than " pity." We may pity 
 one whom we despise : we can not sympathize with such a one. 
 
 Systemize. — One of the few cases in which usage has tri- 
 umphed over the Saxon love of brevity in the growth of our 
 language is, that we must say, not " systemize," but " systematize." 
 
 T. 
 
 Talent vs. Talents. — Which ? Both, but not as synonyms. 
 " Talent " should not be employed collectively. We may not say, 
 "a man of talent," but "of talents." 
 
 Temper for Anger. — The proper Englisli sense of the word 
 " temper " is just the opposite of anger. It contains the same idea 
 which is in its derivative " temperate." It means moderation or 
 self-possession. Pope writes, " Teach me ... to fall with dig- 
 nity, with temper rise." 
 
 Thanks! for the phrase / thank you, is an exclamation in col- 
 loquial use, of very I'ecent origin. It is criticised by a respectable 
 class of conservators of good English. Yet it is a cuiious fact 
 that the innovation is practiced chiefly by those who profess to be 
 men and women of culture. Itarely do we hear it from the lips 
 of the common people. It is an affectation originated by some-
 
 884 APPENDIX. 
 
 body who mistook eccentricity for smartness. In my judgment 
 it is sure to be ephemeral. It is one of those affectations of urban 
 Boeitly wliich the sturdy good sense of the people will reject. 
 Already protests against it begin to be heard. 1 have been re- 
 cently informed that one of the most eminent groups of literary 
 men in this country have agreed to avoid it in the interest of Saxon 
 purity of colloquial English. Tennyson, if report speaks truly, 
 has recently reproved it in one of his own guests by responding to 
 it, " Thanks, yes, or Thanks, no? — which is it ? " 
 
 It is a safe general rule, never to adopt the colloquial novelties 
 ■which the society of cities originates, on such authority alone. 
 ]\Ietropolitan taste, as such, nowhere represents either the most 
 accomiilished scholarship or the soundest good sense in the use of 
 language. If the backwoods and the lowgrounds of society corrupt 
 the language in their speech, the ruling classes of great cities do the 
 same, with less excuse for their error. The impure English origi- 
 nated by them would make a small dictionary by itself. The mul- 
 titude of the great middle classes in the social scale, as a rule, 
 speak purer English than either extreme. 
 
 TiiK. — I note this article for the sake of observing the error of 
 omitting it from a variety of words for which precision requires it. 
 We have observed its omission from the word "community." 
 Other words are subjected to the same decapitation. " Opposi- 
 tion," "ministi-y," "presbytery," "council," "congress," are exam- 
 ples. We say, " The Senate, the House of Representatives : " why 
 not " the Congress " as well ? This icas the usage of the most 
 scholarly men among the statesmen of the first age of the repub- 
 lic. It is said to have been revived by President Arthur. The 
 most unscholarly omission of the article, in which the error is open 
 to the charge of irreverence, is in the use, without the article, of 
 the titles of the divine Trinity in the formula of baptism and the 
 closing ascription in prayer : " In the name of Father, Son, and 
 Holy CJhost! " Is not the use of the article before each title more 
 reverent ? By the more deliberate utterance which it compels, the 
 sentiment of reverence gains time to express itself. My attention 
 was first called to this by a hearer who said that a certain preach- 
 er's rapid utterance of the trinitarian formula without the article 
 reminded him of the title of a mercantile firm, like " Smith, Jones, 
 & Robinson." 
 
 Then should not be used adjectively. Edmund Burke, who does
 
 APPENDIX. 385 
 
 not often fall into errors of style, speaks of himself as being " un- 
 known to the then ministry." Had he said "the then existing 
 ministry," he would have used good English. 
 
 This or That for Thus. — "This much," "that much," are 
 modern corruptions. I have no notion of their origin, unless they 
 are perversions of the phrase "thus much." They have no hold 
 upon good authority. 
 
 Transpire. — What is its meaning? To "happen," or to "be- 
 come known " ? The latter surely : it has no other signification in 
 good English use, the dictionaries to the contrary notwithstanding. 
 This is one of the cases in which the liberty allowed by lexicog- 
 raphers degenerates into license. The idea of this word is very 
 accurately given by the phrase "to leak out." "Transpire" and 
 " perspire " are etyniologically nearly identical. They both imjily 
 the passing-out of something imperceptibly. Usage, therefore, has 
 taken the word " transpire " to express the coming of a secret thing 
 to publicity. If you associate these two words in your minds, the 
 one may assist you to remember the true meaning of the other. 
 A New- York journal spoke of the Mexican War as " transpiring 
 in 1847." Grant White, commenting on the style, observes, that, 
 considering the latitude in which the war occurred, the writer 
 might as properly have said that "the war perspired in 1847." 
 
 u. 
 
 Ugly, in the sense of " ill-natured," is, for the most part, found 
 only in this country. The English sense of the word is " disagree- 
 able in personal appearance." In pure English we speak of an 
 ugly countenance, not of an ugly disposition. 
 
 Unbeknown is a vulgarism. We have no such word in the lan- 
 guage. 
 
 Un. — Let this prefix be noted for the sake of observing that 
 one of our standard dictionaries admits nearly three hundred words 
 of compound structure of which this is the initial syllable ; yet 
 scarcely more than one-half of these are probably extant in the 
 writings of eminent English authors, unless they are emploj'ed, 
 as so many compounds were in the Greek literature, for comic 
 purposes. 
 
 Unwisdom and Unreason are examples of compounds, not 
 good English, to the use of which the pulj^it is specially prone.
 
 386 APPENDIX. 
 
 The style of some preachers seems to be constructed on the theory 
 tliat any word wliich is pure English may give birth to its oppo- 
 site by prefixing the negative prefix " un." 
 
 V. 
 
 Variatr is corrupt English for "vary." In Xew England may 
 be sonjetimes heard in prayer the petition, " Do thou variate thy 
 mercies," etc. 
 
 w. 
 
 Was for Were. — Many cultivated men and women have not 
 learned the simple law of grammar which forbids the phrase " You 
 was," and the interrogative, " ^Vas you V " I have heard a college- 
 graduate say that he was a senior in college before he was taught 
 tlie correct process. 
 
 Were for Was is a still more inexcusable corruption, because it 
 is commonly an affectation. People whose aspirations after the 
 name of culture exceed their acquisitions, often have a hazy idea 
 tiiat something is wi'ong in certain uses of the word " was," and 
 that " were " is at any rate more literary. Therefore one says 
 " When I were in New York ; " and another responds, " I were in 
 Europe then." Probably the erior has grown out of a confusion of 
 the indicative with the subjunctive mood. Because it is often 
 wrong to say, " If I was," some adopt '• T were " for the indicative, 
 when they strain to he very accurate. When they think nothing 
 about their style, they probably talk good English, and say, " I was." 
 
 By the directions of the older grammarians we were required to 
 say, "If I were, if he were," etc., wherever the subjunctive was 
 used; that is, the "past tense" of the subjunctive was not recog- 
 nized. Usage broke over that rule long before the grammarians 
 saw the necessity for doing so. The first authority for it which 
 attracted my attention was Lord iMacaulay. No grammar which 
 had then come to my notice contained it. 
 
 WuoLE for All is a very frequent corruption in the writings of 
 Alison the historian. He speaks of "the whole citizens of the 
 State." How many fragments of citizens were there ? Alison's 
 History is a splendid thesaurus of illustrations of bad English. 
 
 WoRLDLY-MiXDEDNESs is another of the long-eared barbarisms 
 of the pulpit. Is not " a worldly mind " expressive of the whole
 
 APPENDIX. 387 
 
 idea ? Yet Walter Scott would not have been offended by it, as 
 he says he was by the style of the Methodist pulpit. 
 
 Would Seem and Should Seem. — For what reason I do not 
 know, usage prescrilies the second of these phrases, and not the 
 first. Yet it admits the phrase " would appear." Whether a dis- 
 tinction apparently so causeless can hold its place in the language 
 remains to be seen. 
 
 In closing this catalogue, let me add a note in answer to 
 the inquiry, "What are the best English grammars for a 
 preacher's table ? " Brown's " Grammar of English Gram- 
 mars " is a compendium of a variety of grammatical authori- 
 ties, and is valualile for a comparison of them. But, for 
 ordinary use upon one's study-table, the best grammars are 
 the most elementar3\ For years after my own ministry 
 began, I found none superior to Lindley Murray, who taught 
 our fathers to speak and write their mother-tongue. Of late 
 years smaller and better works have appeared, among which 
 those of Wells and Greene and Swinton hold high rank. 
 
 You will find that the practical queries which 3"ou need a 
 grammar to answer are, the major part of them, elementary 
 queries. Nobody learns to talk good English from the study 
 of grammars alone. We learn it from prolonged association 
 with people of culture. Many have not had that in early 
 life : therefore errors have crept into their colloquial style, 
 and from that into their written style, which now they must 
 appeal to their grammars to correct ; and the majority of 
 them are elementar}'. They are such as any standard gram- 
 mar will correct. Therefore I advise every young preacher, 
 first to keep for consultation the English grammar which be 
 studied in his youth. His familiarity with that makes it 
 more valualtle to him than a better one to which he is a 
 stranger. No other Greek or Latin grannnar is so valuable 
 to you as those in which you first learned the Greek or Latin 
 language. The same is true of our vernacular grammars. 
 Then add to the grammar of your youth one or more of the
 
 388 APPENDIX. 
 
 hiler school text-books ; and, of these, auy one of a half- 
 dozen is as good as another for the purpose you have in 
 view. 
 
 For tlic more elal)orate study of grammar as a science, 
 and historically, Latham's and Mffitzner's works are the 
 best. Latham's is the original of Fowler's, and of several 
 others of more recent date. Mnetzner's is a German work, 
 not, so far as I know, translated. But, for practical refer- 
 ence in your professional labors, neither is as good as a good 
 high-school text-book. 
 
 I venture to recommend, especially to those of you who 
 are to labor in foreign missions, the continuance of this class 
 of philological and rhetorical studies in which we have been 
 engaged. No other study, in my judgment, so easily keeps 
 alive, and keeps in healthy growth, the spirit of scholarly 
 culture. One of the chief perils which foreign missionaries 
 encounter, as they inform me, is that of a decline in their 
 mental culture. They are surrounded often by a mass of 
 stagnant mind. Generally they live among minds inferior to 
 their own in culture. Their professional work is largely ele- 
 mentary. In that, therefore, the}' do not find intellectual 
 pressure. Even their teaching is chiefly of that character. 
 A theological professor in a missionary seininary can not 
 teach theology as it is taught in American schools. He 
 would not be understood if he did. He must simplify and 
 popularize ; and many topics he can not discuss at all. 
 They are above the mental level of his hearers. 
 
 Unless, therefore, a missionary is surrounded by a culti- 
 vated English society, as in Constantinople and in Calcutta, 
 which interests itself sutHeiently in missions to welcome him 
 socially and to literary clubs, he is in peril of subsiding to 
 the mental level of the necessity' which his work laj's upon 
 him. The natural law of all culture is to meet necessities, 
 and no more. "We do in intellectual training and acquisition 
 what we must do. We rise to our work if that is intel- 
 lectually above us : we fall to its plane if it is below us.
 
 APPENDIX. 389 
 
 Such is nature's law. We are superior to it only by early 
 foresight and force of will. 
 
 One of the most eminent and highly educated American 
 missionaries once told me, that the single privation and peril 
 which overtopped all others in his missionary life was not 
 expatriation, nor physical nor social hardship, nor the want 
 of spiritual success, but the constant pressure of intellectual 
 stagnation, crowding down the aspirations of his youth. In- 
 cessant contact with dead and dying intellect was almost 
 fatal to his own intellectual life. He felt nothing else so 
 sadly on his return to this country, after an absence of thirty 
 years, as the difference in that respect between his own ex- 
 perience and that of his collegiate and theological classmates. 
 Yet he had spent his life in one of the most stimulating mis- 
 sions of the East. 
 
 To offset that tendency to mental stagnation, every mis- 
 sionary, in my judgment, needs some one purely intellectual 
 pursuit which shall be above the level, and shall lift him at 
 times above the level, of his missionary labor. Some may 
 find it in the study of philosophy ; others, in that of the an- 
 cient classics ; others, in general P^nglish literature. Every 
 missionary needs some such intellectual life-preserver to i)re- 
 vent his sinking to the plane of the national mind around 
 him. One of the most fascinating and easily prosecuted 
 studies of that kind is that of English literature, pursued 
 with a scholarly eye to the structure and the growth of the 
 Enu'lish lanauase.
 
 The Theory of Preaching, 
 
 OR 
 
 LECTURES ON HOMILETICS. 
 
 By Professor AUSTIN PHELPS, D.D. 
 
 One volume, 8vo, ^ _ « - _ $2. BO 
 
 This work, now offered to the l>uMic, is the growth of 
 more than thirty years' practical experience in teaching. 
 While primarily designed for professional readers, it will be 
 found to contain much that will be of interest to thoughtful 
 laymen. The writings of a master of style of broad and 
 catholic mind are always fascinating ; in the present case the 
 wealth of appropriate and pointed illustration renders this 
 doubly the case. 
 
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 "In the range of Protestant homiletical literature, we venture to affirm that its equal 
 cannot be found for a conscientious, scholarly, and exhaustive treatment of the theory 
 and practice of preaching. * * * To the treatment of his subject Dr. Phelps brings 
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 happily calls sweet reasonableness. * * * Xo this characteristic graciousness of 
 nature Dr. Phelps adds a style which is preeminently adapted to his special work. It is 
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 " Our professional readers will make a great mistake if they suppose this volume is 
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 *** For sale by all booksellers.^ or sent, post-paid.^ upon receipt of 
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 It is, by far, the best and clearest summing up of the present condition of the science of 
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 Men and Books; 
 
 OR, STUDIES IN HOMILETICS. 
 
 Lectures Introductory to the "Theory of Preaching." 
 By Professor AUSTIN PHELPS, D.D. 
 
 One Volume. Cro^?vn 8vo. - - $2.00 
 
 Professor Phelps' second volume of lectures is more popular and gen- 
 eral in its application than " The Theory of Preaching." It is devoted to 
 a discussion of the sources of culture and power in the profession of the 
 pulpit, its power to absorb and appropriate to its own uses the world of 
 real life in the present, and the world of the past, as it lives in books. 
 
 There is but little in the volume that is not just as valuable to all 
 students looking forward to a learned profession as to theological students, 
 and the charm of the style and the lofty tone of the book make it difficult 
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 " It is a book obviously free from all padding. It is a live book, animated as well 
 as sound and instructive, in which conventionalities are brushed aside, and the author 
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 up to a higher conception of the possibilities of his calling." 
 
 — Professor George P. Fisher. 
 
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 A COLLECTION OF ESSAYS 
 
 By AUSTIN PHELPS, D.D., 
 
 LATE PROFESSOR iN ANDOVER THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY; AUTHOR OF "tHE THEORY OF 
 PREACHING," " MEN AND BOOKS," ETC. 
 
 One volume, 12mo $1.50 
 
 From their union of mature thought and felicitous illustration, 
 with an extremely readable style, these essays are adapted to 
 the same usefulness among Christian laymen as are Professor 
 Phelps's other works among the clergy. 
 
 The subjects of the essays cover a wide range. Some are bio- 
 graphical ; as, " A Pastor of the Last Generation," "The Preach- 
 ing of Albert Barnes," and "A Vacation with Dr. Bushnell." 
 Others relate to questions of ethics; as, "The Christian Theory 
 of Amusements," '"The Question of Sunday Cars," etc. Still 
 others are upon public or general topics ; as, " Woman Suffrage," 
 " Theology of the ' Marble Faun,' " " The Debt of the Nation 
 to New England," etc. 
 
 " Whatever Phelps writes is worth reading and preserving. Each of the thirty-one 
 essays of this volume bears the unmistakable mark of his thought and style. Nearly every 
 j)ar.ij;raph betrays the touch of a master. In vigor, in richness of thought, as well as in 
 ne.itness and clearness of style, these essays are almost incomparable." — The Lutheran 
 Observer. 
 
 " ' My Portfolio' is the happy title of a miscellaneous collection of sermons, biograph- 
 ical sketches, and newspaper articles. They are of equal value with the priceless volumes, 
 'The Theory of Pre.iching' and ' Men and Books.' " — AV«/-Ki?r^ Christian Advocate. 
 
 "There is not an essay in this book that is not worth reading; while the most of ihein 
 are of positive value, quite as much for what they suggest as for what they say. It is a 
 good thing to commune with such a spirit, pure, truth-loving, and devout." — Cincinnati 
 Christian Stamtard. 
 
 " Few authors of religious literature equal Dr. Phelps in freshness, felicity', and force- 
 fulness of expression. . . . The volume before us contains some of the more important of 
 his late contributions to religious newspapers, and treats of many matters that have been 
 earnestly and generally discussed, and continue to be of vital interest and importance." — 
 United Presbyterian. 
 
 *,»• For sale by all booksellers, or sent, post f aid, upon receipt of price, by 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, Pubushers, 
 
 743 AND 745 Bro.\d\vay, New York.
 
 I ■*- IHJb JLllSKAKY 
 
 /4- 8 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 Santa Barbara 
 
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 THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE 
 STAMPED BELOW. 
 
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 50ml,'63(D1743s8)476
 
 
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