The Young Priest's Keepsake Part 8

When a man varies his tone of voice he breaks up the arrangement in the group of muscles that till then bore the stress of effort: a new combination is formed, and the work transferred to fresh muscles. This brings instant relief. A similar sense of refreshment comes to his hearers.

In speaking, as in singing, we must have melody, but there is no melody without variety. People would rush even from a Melba if she sang every note in the same key. Inflection not only const.i.tutes the melody of speech, but imparts to it rhetorical significance and logical force.

The want of success in many a speaker who has both a good voice and good matter may be found in the fact that his voice, instead of being as flexible as a piece of whalebone, is as unbending as a bar of iron; or, worse still, perhaps he adopts the dreary monotony of the sing-song tone: the two unvarying notes so suggestive of the up and down movements of a pump-handle. This "cuckoo" tone would blight the best written sermon.

[Side note: Two impediments to good preaching]

Nothing now remains except to warn the young preacher against the two most common defects--affectation of voice and word-dropping at the end of the sentences.

[Side note: An artificial tone of voice]

"Preach," says Dr. Ireland, "in a manner that the people will understand, and that goes straight to their hearts, and not in the stilted phraseology of the seventeenth century sermon." Sage advice! The comic stage has set the world laughing at the grotesque inflections of the parson preacher; but is his counterpart never found amongst ourselves. Is the Catholic pulpit free from speakers whose ridiculous cadences at once cla.s.s them amongst the disciples of the Rev. Mr. Spalding?

[Side note: Artificiality means failure]

We have met priests, typical of a considerably large cla.s.s, who, in ordinary conversation, could speak in a manner both natural and pleasing; who, when roused, could be even eloquently convincing; who, at the dinner-table and even on the platform, are listened to with pleasure, yet let one of them go into a pulpit, and fifteen minutes exhausts the patience of the most charitable congregation. Should he exceed this limit there are suppressed sighs and ominous consulting of watches. Why? Because in the pulpit he adopts an artificial tone of voice. In some instances it takes the shape of a pious whine, in others of a drone. But in whatever shape it finds expression the hollow ring of the unreal is there to d.a.m.n it.

[Side note: How he came to acquire it]

A h.o.a.ry tradition made it venerable in his eyes. As a boy he heard it from a pastor to whom he was accustomed to look with reverence.

He came to persuade himself that, like a "judge's gravity" or a "soldier's step," a priest too should bear a professional hallmark, and this should be a "preacher's voice," so he acquired it. Fatal acquisition!

The peculiarity of it is that this tone is reserved exclusively for the pulpit. Not a whisper of it heard during the week. It is his "preaching voice," and like his "preaching stole" or "preaching surplice" it is laid aside till Sunday brings him again before the congregation.

[Side note: The result of the artificial tone]

What madness! Adopting this tone is like drawing the lead from the pistol or putting a foil on the rapier: it defeats his purpose, it renders his weapon ineffective. So far from setting his congregation on fire he sets them asleep; instead of sending them away with clenched convictions they leave the church t.i.ttering, or perhaps in bad temper.

[Side note: Priests never use in moments of serious issues]

I would like to ask such a man--If you were pleading in a court for your character or before an angry mob for your life is it on this antiquated weapon you would rely? Would not nature's unerring instinct tell you to fling it to the winds and stake your fortunes on the untrammeled outpouring of head and heart?

Every tone would ring with earnestness: every sentence thrill with pa.s.sion.

The thoughts, how clear! How convincing the arguments! Nature's unfettered strength would then, like a tidal wave, sweep you triumphantly onward to the goal.

Yet when you stand in the pulpit to plead a brief for Christ the simple, unaffected earnestness that everywhere else carries conviction is abandoned for such a musty instrument as an unctuous whine or a holy drone. The young priest should avoid it: it spells ruin.

[Side note: Voice dropping]

It is wonderful how few the speakers are who sustain the same pitch and energy of voice from the beginning of a sentence to its closing syllable.

[Side note: Cause of the defect]

The temptation to exhaust the air in the lungs, and therefore permit the final words to drop, is so strong that unless a student watch it and a.s.siduously guard against it he will discover that he has fallen victim to this weak point before he is twelve months a priest.

[Side note: It destroys a sermon]

Whenever you hear the last words of each sentence of a sermon growing faint, like Marathon runners staggering feebly towards the goal, and the final word dropping completely under, that sermon, no matter how beautiful its conception or eloquent its composition, is doomed to failure.

The entire meaning of many a sentence is completely lost if the last words fail to reach the listeners' ears. Very often the last word is the important member of a sentence, the others being merely ancillary to it. In oratory, especially, many a sentence has to depend for its driving force on the energy with which the final words are sent home.

Now, when people give a preacher attentive interest, the least they are ent.i.tled to expect is that he should let them hear every word. But finding themselves invariably baffled by the last word becoming inaudible, it is small wonder if, tantalised and disgusted, they abandon all effort to follow him.

[Side note: The cure]

It is therefore of great importance that this defect, so fatal yet so common, should be provided against in time. But how?

Since it comes from exhaustion, consequent on the mismanagement of the voice, the remedy is obvious.

Let the student daily practise reading aloud in the open air, preferably sermons or speeches by the best authors.

Let him nervously guard against allowing his voice to show the slightest trace of fatigue in the final words of each sentence.

This can be accomplished by inhaling fully, going slowly, and not only giving full value to the punctuation stops, but resting at the rhetorical and logical pauses.

[Side note: Advantages of the remedy]

By this excellent practice he strengthens his lungs and vocal organs, cultivates his ear, and acquires a control over his voice so perfect that he can husband his reserve fund of breath and strength to impart at will freshness to the final syllable.

This practice should be continued till it becomes a rooted habit, till it has grown to be his normal method of speaking.

When he goes into the pulpit I would give him an advice, the value of which time and experience can alone enable him to appreciate.

Direct your voice not to the end of the church, but to the side wall about three-quarters way down from the pulpit to the door.

Fix your eye on some person there; to him address your sermon, but pitch your voice against the wall about two feet above his head.

By this plan you not only secure your voice against unnecessary fatigue, but you take the surest method of sending it into every ear, and the reverberations of your own voice will act electrically on you.

As ring after ring of your sentences comes back from the sounding spot against which you have discharged them you are filled with courageous confidence and an a.s.surance that every word has found its mark.

A recent writer in the _Quarterly Review_ discloses in one luminous sentence the qualities that go to make an orator, and every priest should struggle with all his might to be an orator in the best sense of the word.

He says: "Nor is any man a great orator who has not many of the gifts of a great actor--his command of gesture, his variety and grace of elocution, his mobility of features, his instant sympathy with the ethical tone of this or that situation, his power of evoking that sympathy in every member of his audience; and this is surely what Demosthenes meant by making acting not action the secret of all oratory."

What a vista these words open up! What a variety of accomplishments demanded that can only be acquired, even by the most gifted, by long study and patient practice! And since learning to speak in public is like learning to swim, or to skate, or to ride a bicycle, in this sense at least, that no amount of previous theoretical instruction will enable one to realise the initial difficulties or find out how to overcome them without actual experiment, it would be arrant folly on the part of the future priest to neglect this subject during his student years.

These questions--Culture, English, and Preaching--should occupy a foremost place in the curricula of our colleges. It is only by training the student from the start, by fostering literary, dramatic and debating societies where not alone the practical art of speaking is developed, but the social amenities of good society are practised, that the young priest can be equipped to efficiently discharge the high office awaiting him, and so reflect a lasting credit on the Church of G.o.d at home and abroad.

CHAPTER SEVENTH

THE DANGER OF THE HOUR. HOW TO MEET IT

[Side note: Statement of the case]

The printing press is one of the greatest forces of the modern world. The mult.i.tude of publications sent forth on its wings each morning are messengers of light or darkness. Their influence for good or evil is more powerful than that of armies or parliaments: that influence we can no more escape than we can escape the sunlight or the air that surrounds us. It penetrates our homes; it colours our thoughts; it furnishes motives for our actions.

The Press is indeed the lever that moves the world of our day, and we are but the puppets of its will.