Chapter 4

It is said that the great mastery O'Connell exercised over the people mainly sprang from the passionate earnestness of his conviction. The nation's heart seemed merged into his own. He stood forth her living, breathing symbol. When he spoke it was Ireland spoke. Her passions rocked his soul; her humour flashed from his eye; her scorn gleamed in his glances, and her sobs choked his utterance. Ah! if preachers were as filled with the Spirit of Christ as this man was with the spirit of patriotism, what a revolution we might witness!

You ask--"How then do actors move people since there can be no enthusiasm when men know they simulate unreal people and unreal passions?" I answer, that the first step towards becoming a great actor is to fling aside that knowledge and hand yourself over the willing victim of a delusion. You must not _act_ but _live_ your part: persuade yourself that you are the character you personate: surrender your heart to be torn by real passions and wrung by real sorrows.

The answer is well known which a celebrated actor once gave to a divine:--"How is it that you so move people by fiction and our preachers fail to move them by truth?" "Sir, we speak fiction as if it were fact, and your preachers speak truth as if it were fiction."

Here we leave our preacher facing his audience and filled with but one idea: I have a great message to deliver and I will lay hold of every means to send that message home; voice, passion, style, gesture, these are my arms, and with these I hope to conquer.

[Side note: Parting glance at the preacher's mission]

In parting we take a glance at the preacher's exalted mission, and we may well ask: What in the whole range of human occupations does this world hold worthy of being compared to it?

The battle-field, it is true, has its glories, but it has its horrors also. Who can paint the pride with which Napoleon saw the triumph of his skill crush two Emperors at Austerlitz or the rapture with which he beheld the trophies of great kingdoms at his feet? The fatigues of winter marches were forgotten when in the fiery flashes of his veterans' eyes he read his own renown, while their applauding shouts fell like music on his ears. But blood soils the proudest trophies of war, and across the perspective of victory the spectres of murdered men will stalk.

Human eloquence, too, has its conquests, the purest, the most beautiful in the natural order. How the pride flush heightens on the orator's cheek as he watches the crusts of prejudice melt and hostile hearts surrender; when he marks the bated breath and the hushed silence attesting his victory more eloquently than the stormiest applause! He sees the varied moods of his own soul mirrored in the faces around him, as he summons forth what spirit he lists: tears or laughter, murmurs or applause answer to his call.

What pen can picture the ecstasies that thrilled the soul of Grattan as he gave utterance to the spirit of expiring freedom in those orations that rank among the world's masterpieces? The snows of age melted and the decrepitude of years was flung aside, and his eyes gleamed with strange fires as he beheld sodden corruption struck dumb and hang its guilty head; when he saw the wavering drink fresh courage with each new outburst, and men of commonest clay transformed into heroes by the blaze of his genius. Glorious triumphs indeed; but, alas! human, and as such doomed to die.

But in the sublimity of his purpose and the imperishable nature of his conquests the preacher stands alone. Compared with his the greatest trophies of the battle-field or the forum are feeble trifles.

The preacher, in prayer and study, goes down over the green swards of Calvary, and there gathers the ruby drops of Redemption. He ascends the pulpit and pours them as a purple tide over souls that are parched and perishing. As when the Pentecostal fire rested on the Apostles' heads, a new light filled their minds and a new flame sprung up within their hearts; so when the same spirit breathes through the preacher's lips, the clouds of ignorance dissolve and the light of truth divine glorifies the minds and inflames the souls of his hearers. The ears of faith can hear the applause of angels and the eyes of faith can read Heaven's approval in the flashing glances of the Blest, as with each stroke the preacher widens the empire of the Precious Blood and piles palpitating trophies before the Sacred Heart. Ah! here is a field worthy of the highest ambition that ever burned within a human breast.

Hence, we should toil, toil, toil, and call no labour excessive that we put forth in burnishing into polished efficiency every weapon God has given us for the service of his pulpit.

CHAPTER FIFTH

A SOPHISTRY EXPOSED. ADVICE GIVEN

Theologian and Preacher--The Difference

It is amazing to think how often the offices of theologian and preacher are spoken of as if they were identical. Now, the functions of theologian and preacher stand widely apart. To the reflective mind this sounds like repeating a truism; yet what a world of confused thought and ignorant criticism would be cleared from the subject if this fact were kept well in sight.

When you say that a young priest is becoming a good preacher you are met by "impossible! he never got a prize in theology."

This is supposed to give your poor judgment its final _coup_; argument after that is useless: _causa finita est_.

Now, I do not think our appreciation of an eminent surgeon is lessened by our being told that he is a poor chemist; yet the difference between these respective professions is scarcely more radical than that which separates the office of preacher from that of theologian.

To the ordinary public the theological treatise is a sealed book. It is the preacher's duty to break that seal; to take out the dry truths stored there; to render them palatable and inviting, and bring them within the grasp of the plainest intelligence.

[Side note: Solicitor and barrister]

Few occupations more aptly illustrate this difference than those of solicitor and barrister.

The attorney works up the materials for the case: he groups statutes, discovers principles, tabulates references, supplies dates. While he does not plead himself, a man so armed is invaluable at the elbow of an able advocate; without the barrister, however, especially where the prejudices, interests, and the imagination of a jury have to be worked upon, his load of learned lumber would be of small value. The theologian makes out the brief: the preacher pleads it.

To render this distinction clearer let us take one more illustration. No animal can exist on air and clay and sunlight alone. Though these contain the elements on which it is fed; yet, though surrounded by them in most ample abundance, he must perish if a third power is not brought into play. The vegetable world comes intervening between the raw chemicals and the hungry man. Out of earth and air and light it builds the ripened sheaf, the succulent apple and the savoury potato. So, though bookshelves groan under calf-bound tomes hoarding the hived treasures of the masters of theology, the common minds of the multitude would starve did not the preacher interpose as interpreter of the theologian's message, drawing forth from his storehouse truths and principles out of which he manufactures the daily bread on which the ordinary man must live. Without his aid the richest repository ever clasped between the covers of a book would remain a _fons signatus a hortus conclusus_. The prophet of God saw the dry bones scattered over the valley of desolation till the breath of a new power passed over them, and lo! (I) "the bones came together each one to its joint; (2) the sinews and the flesh came upon them . . . (3) and the skin was stretched out over them . . . and the spirit came into them and they lived."

The attorney and the theologian gather the dry bones, but on the preacher and the barrister lie the fourfold task of mortising the joints into each other, binding them with the sinews of argument, clothing them in living beauty and vitalizing the whole structure with the flame of impassioned earnestness. Only when this has been done will they live.

So thoroughly distinct are the two offices it rarely happens that a professional theologian becomes an efficient preacher. The concentration and exclusive exercise of one faculty unfits him for a task demanding many.

People do not come to church to hear spoken treatises or witness dissecting operations on subtle distinctions. They come to be instructed, pleased and moved.

Again, for the perfect fulfilment of the preacher's task, amongst other gifts he must have imagination; but to the master of an exact science like theology an exuberant fancy might prove a fatal dowry.

A clear statement of this truth holds out hopeful encouragement to the man whose theological attainments could not be described as "brilliant": it teaches, too, the man who has distinguished himself in theology that if he ambitions being a preacher he has an entirely new set of sciences to master, but, best of all, it breaks into small bits an oft-used weapon in the hands of the young preacher's arch-enemy--the critic.

[Side note: The critic at work]

How often do we see this self-constituted oracle rely for his sole support on this sophistry?

You turn from a church door filled with admiration; there is a glow of rapture around your heart; every nerve is tingling; you have been enthralled. A truth, old indeed but now dressed in a new robe, lives before your mind with a meaning and a richness of colour never experienced before. Your will is swept captive on the crest of that subtle tide of unseen fire that seems to fill the air. You are bracing yourself to a heroic resolve. The preacher's voice, like ceaseless music, is still thrilling down through the avenues of your soul. When the critic comes and in pity asks you--"Do you really think that a good sermon?" he compassionates your poor judgment, leads you to the library, takes down a volume of Lehmkuhl or Suarez, and with a triumphant wave of his hand assures you that every idea in that sermon may be found there.

You are now face to face with the most perplexing of sophistries--the half truth.

Your judgment is staggered by two apparently contradictory facts--it was a fine sermon, yet every idea may be found in the theological treatise.

To enable you to extricate yourself from the puzzle, ratify your first opinion and confound the critic; picture another set of circumstances. You stand before St. Peter's, wrapped in admiration at this world's wonder.

"Power, glory, strength and beauty, all are aisled In this eternal ark of worship undefiled."

You are marvelling how did human brains conceive and human hands embody this mighty dream of art. One of the pest tribe yclept "critic" comes pitying your simple heart; he leads you to a quarry, and triumphantly pointing says: "Here every stone of that building was found. Now, what becomes of the glory simple people like you bestow on Bramante and Michael Angelo?" How would you answer him? Easily enough. Make him a present of the quarry, and ask him to produce another St. Peter's. The challenge is conclusive. You have him impaled.

Come back now to the library. Present the preacher's critic with a hundred tomes, give him all this raw material multiplied ten times over out of which that masterpiece of sacred eloquence was built, and ask him to enthral those thousands that hung spellbound on that man's lips, whose thrilled hearts were aflame, who left the church examining their consciences and vowing better lives. Alas! he who was so eloquent in tearing others to rags when he himself essays their task himself--angels well might weep.

No department of life is secure against this sophistry.

You listen till you are dazed with admiration at one of those masterpieces of forensic pleading that have flung a deathless glory around the names of Russell and Whiteside; but the critic, with a superior toss of his head, assures you that this can be found in Magna Charta and the Statute book. Here is the tantalising half truth.

To be sure the principles and groundwork of reasoning are there; but the office of the advocate was to draw them from the dust and darkness, to gather these scattered articles, statutes and precedents into his capacious brain, and from them evolve a framework of argument to fit his purpose. He moulds them into an impregnable bulwark of law and reasoning to shelter his client. So naturally does he bend them to his case that every listener is impressed with the conviction that surely the framers of these statutes and principles must have a case like this before their minds when they committed them to parchment.

Yet in the judgment of the critic the variety of talents brought to this complex task count for nothing.

Here we see what a distinction must be made between the office of theologian and preacher, and what a confusion of thought is saved by keeping this line of demarcation in view.

[Side note: Parting advice]

Now that the subject of pulpit oratory is swept clear from misleading theories and set in its true light before the young preacher's eyes, let us see how further we can assist him to discharge his high office with honour and efficiency.

[Side note: I.--Be natural in development]

"To thine own self be true" is the soundest of advices.

From the beginning the young preacher should aim at developing on his own lines, thinking in his own way and expressing his thoughts in their own native dress. No matter how eminent the paragon you admire, do not become an understudy of him. Remember he is great only because he is himself and not the imitation of another. Try, however, to get at the secret of his greatness. What is it? He discovered his strong points and cultivated them. Go and do likewise.

You see a man with clear sequence of ideas and easy expression, but without those exceptional gifts that go to make the born orator. He could attain even eminence as a lecturer or instructor, but lecture or instruct he will not, for he has read Ventura and become smitten. He tries to imitate the Padre's lofty style, and succeeds in "amazing the unlearned and making the learned smile." "Failure" is written large over all his efforts.

David could not fight with the gorgeous but cumbersome arms of Saul: with his own homely sling and the polished stone from the brook, the weapon to which he was accustomed, he achieved victory.

I knew a priest who had a marvellous charm as a storyteller. He invested the merest trifles of incident with resistless fascination. Hours in his society flew like moments.

He became a distinguished preacher. I went to hear him, and quickly discovered the secret of his success. He knew his strong point, and staked his all on it. He preached his sermons as he told his stories--in graphic, familiar narrative. The congregation felt they were taken into his confidence; they were hypnotised. You forgot that you were sitting in stiff dignity in a church, and imagined yourself one of a group around the winter's log listening to a delightful _raconteur_, and you willingly surrendered to the pleasing delusion.

Every play of fancy, every flash of thought, every clinched conviction passed from him to his hearers till the souls of preacher and listeners became like reflecting mirrors. There was always regret when he finished.

Now, had that man attempted to become Demosthenes instead of himself he would have succeeded in becoming ridiculous.

[Side note: 2.--Be natural in composition]

The natural outpouring of thought has a relish and a resistlessness of force that no art can rival. The scent of a sprig of wild woodbine holds a charm beyond all the perfumes of the chemist's shop.

In order to be natural there is no necessity to ignore the elegancies of style; for what is style? _Le style est l'homme_. The style is the man. A perfect style, then, is attained when the written page is the exact expression of the train of thought as it lies in the writer's head. A style is absolutely perfect when it is absolutely natural.

Artificial embroidery, purple patches, and golden vapour are often the defects and not the perfection of style.

Language can be simple, however, without being vulgar or commonplace.

What book will ever equal the Bible for simplicity, yet what dignity? What preacher ever approached OUR DIVINE LORD; and, humanly speaking, what was the source of His strength?

He accommodated Himself to His hearers. From the open book of nature He made the realms of grace familiar to the minds of children. He pointed to the lilies of the field, to the ravens of the wood, to the ripening bud and the angry cloud. "_Ut ex iis quae animus novit, surgat ad incognita quae non novit_."[1]

[1] Third Nocturn for Non-Virgins.

He used the world around us to lift our thoughts to the world above us.

When He spoke to fishermen His illustrations were taken from seas and nets. When He preached to farmers the word of God was the seed falling on rocky soil or the fertile furrow. When the merchants with caravans and silken tunics surrounded Him it becomes the pearl of great price. When amongst simple villagers it is the lost groat in search of which the housewife sweeps the floor and searches each nook and cranny.

Here is language coming down to the level of every hearer, abounding in familiar pictures, yet never losing dignity.

While composing sermons for factory hands Cardinal Wiseman employed a weaver to teach him the technicalities of the loom that he might reach their hearts through the only channel of thought they understood.

It is wonderful how the natural world around us can be used to bring even the most sublime truths within the grasp of the plainest intellects. Why do we not draw more frequently and more abundantly from this source?

When we hear of a man whose discourses "are too sublime for the ordinary intelligence" it is hard to forbear a smile. Our pity goes out not to "the ordinary intelligence," but to the cloudy dweller in Patmos. Mystic obscurity is used more frequently as a cloak for muddle-headed thinking than as a robe with which to drape sublimity of thought. Hence, if people do not understand the preacher, blame not the people, but let the preacher look to it.

Our nimble-minded imaginative people will rise to and grasp the most elevated ideas if properly presented.

I listened to a sermon in an English church preached before a congregation of Irish poor. The keynote was lofty, but beautifully sustained throughout. The range of thought was high, but the truths clarified by an abundance of happy illustration. That discourse was so classic in its beauty that it might be preached before an Oxford audience, yet not an idea was lost on that breathless congregation, where every female head was covered by a shawl. The speaker possessed in an eminent degree three gifts that must command success:--He could think clearly; he could so express his thoughts that his language became the mirror of his mind; he made a large demand on the familiar scenes of nature with which to illustrate his ideas and send his reasoning home; he possessed a mind at once logical and imaginative and a manner of expression that formed a definition of perfect style--_Le style c'est l'homme_--the style is the man.

[Side note: 3.--Be natural in delivery]

The faintest suspicion of art immediately sets your audience up in arms. Their teeth are on edge; their heart locked against you. "This is acting and not preaching" seals your fate.

Do not imagine for a moment that I advocate the neglect of elocutionary graces. So far from that I hold that every young priest leaving college should be a past master of all rhetorical arts. Gesture, articulation, voice production and inflection should be at his finger tips. No book on the subject should be unread. No year of college life should pass without contributing materially towards the elocutionary equipment of the future preacher. The college that neglects this training and permits young men to go into the ministry without this needful art is guilty of a most serious sin of omission.

What I do mean is _preach_ your sermons and do not _declaim_ them. How is this accomplished?

For the first year bend all your powers to capturing the intellects of your auditors, holding in reserve, for the time being, the elocutionary forces. Then, when you have acquired the habit of convincing the intelligence, let the elegancies of finished declamation insinuate themselves gradually into your delivery. Thus art will so engraft itself on nature, the rhetorical graces so entwining and dovetailing into your convictions and passions that they will appear as growing out of and not added on to them. Here is perfection--

_Ars artium celare artem_.

Reverse this: make declamation your first concern, and let us even suppose the artificiality is not detected, which is supposing a great deal. What is the result? Your sermon is declamation and nothing else. This means failure, for no matter how the passions are aroused, if they are not upheld by the pillars of conviction, your finest effort is a fire of chips: a blaze for a moment, then ashes.

Though elocutionary powers are of so much importance as to be almost indispensable, yet they are subordinate to the sermon: they are the aids and auxiliaries to drive it home. A graceful gesture or musical inflection of voice will not convince the intellect or move the passions: they are not the arrows: they lend wings of fire, however, to send the arrows to the mark.

I know no more fatal blunder, or one that militates more strongly against a speaker, than the adoption of an artificial accent.

[Side note: The Irish gift of oratory]

God has not only given our race a special mission--the apostolate of the English-speaking world--but he has singularly endowed us with those gifts that go to make successful preachers of His Word--logical minds, imagination and sensibility.

[Side note: Logical minds]

That we possess this in an eminent degree is evident from a striking fact. There are three avocations to which the faculty of close reasoning is a first essential--law, politics and theology--and in each of these our countrymen excel.

[Side note: Law]

We are as essentially a race of lawyers as the Jews are a race of moneylenders.

For eleven years I watched the sons of Irish parents going from an Australian college to professional careers. Ninety-eight per cent., following the natural bent of their minds, turned to the lawyer's office.

From the year 1858 to the present hour the robes of Victoria's Chief Justice have been uninterruptedly worn by Irishmen. From 1873 the Chief Justiceship of New South Wales has been exclusively held by sons of the green isle. But, above all, turn to the lawyers' streets in the new worlds of America and Australia and see the amazing number of brass plates adorned with O's and Mac's.

[Side note: Politics]

The political organisations in the labour world of England to-day are mainly captained by Irishmen. Two of them have been sent to Parliament, and two more will probably join them in the next Parliament.

The rapidity with which the Irish emigrant, following the law of natural selection, plunges into politics has passed into a proverb in America and furnished a humorous parody on a well-known stanza:--

"There came to the beach a poor exile of Erin, The dew on his thin robe was heavy and chill, The ship that had brought him scarce from harbour was steerin', When Senator Mike was presenting a Bill."

[Side note: Theology]