sympathy with the corporeal forms and spiritual beings around him.

But the will, like all other faculties, is the creature of habit, and begets a certain condition of a permanent nature, from which neither conviction nor ordinary appeals to the feelings will drive it. This fact constitutes an important reason why we should cultivate and render permanent, good habits of the will, and avoid all evil courses which would serve to render it callous, stern, and immovable.

These unbending wills are not addressed by simple conviction, because there is not a lively connection. maintained between the will and the intellect; nor are they moved by the purest pathos, because they have cut loose from all the finer ties of feeling.

(78.) Of Exhortation.

By Exhortation is meant the attempt to excite men's minds to adopt the means proposed, by showing that the end to be attained is desirable and good. It may be best understood by considering the use made of it in religious discourses.

For, in the subject of religion, every one who is convinced of its truth, must acknowledge that it is important so to live as to secure eternal life; and so it would seem sufficient for the preacher to prove and convince, but such is the tenacity of man's will, and

so difficult is it to make him do what he acknowledges to be right, that we know the chief necessity in a sermon is to exhort and persuade men in beseeching tones; in the words of the apostle, the minister makes his appeal, "As though Christ did beseech you by us, we pray you, in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God." And as there are more who believe the doctrine, than live in accordance with its precepts, exhortation must always be a chief part of the preacher's duty. Among the means of exciting the mind used by exhortation, the first to be mentioned is the appeal to the passions.

(79.) Of Appeals to the Passions.

In this general division of persuasion, it must be noticed that there are two distinct kinds of appeal, as to their moral character :

I. An appeal to human benevolence or love; the expression of some fond relation, filial, conjugal, fraternal, which awakens a kindred emotion in our hearts; the operation upon the sympathy of our hearers, causing them to rejoice with us when we rejoice, and to weep with our mourning, are just and proper kinds of appeal to human passion.

II. But when our envy is excited, or our vanity pandered to, the appeal is manifestly improper : great injury is done to us, whatever results may

accrue to others. Suppose, for example, some one tells me of the munificent charity of another person, whom I rival in social position, in order to cause my envy of his new distinction, and thus to lead me to give more munificently still,-whatever physical good may come to the poor, moral evil is done to me. All charity systems, which are thus based upon a knowledge of human nature, or, as it is unjustly called, knowing our weak side, deserve to fail entirely of success. So, again, if a person, taking advantage of my weakness, appeals to my feeling of revenge, he does me a great wrong, and does violence to the right.

Appeals to the feelings are often used in a fallacious manner; to this class of fallacies belong the argumentum ad hominem, ad verecundiam, and ad populum; in which the feelings of vanity, shame, and intemperate excitement are appealed to in place of just proof.

It has already been hinted, that there are many minds which have calmly determined to resist all appeals to the passions, because such appeals are so often improperly made. Thus, artful women employ

"The silent Rhetoric of persuading eyes,"

to lure men to evil; falsehood puts on the robes of sentiment to obtain our charity; and oftentimes the orator, who would fail to carry his point in any other

manner, risks all upon the pathetic, and carries the will captive against our honest conviction, or without full conviction.

But we should not, for these reasons, disregard such an important part of discourse as persuasion, when rightly used. And, besides, it has been well said, that if an orator makes sometimes improper appeals to the passions, he does, quite as frequently, use fallacious arguments, by which to deceive us; and if we would give up appeals to the passions for such a reason, we must, for the same reason, resign all argumentation.

To keep the mind in such a healthy and sincere state, that it will not be unduly affected by appeals to the passions; that itself will discriminate the right and wrong of such appeals, is of prime importance; and then to acknowledge all proper drafts upon our finer sensibilities—gratitude, pity, devotion, and charity, the greatest of all, and the inspirer of the rest-such is the culture of heart which is potent to raise a mortal to the skies."

Let it be observed, that, although the feelings or sensibilities are not controlled by the will, yet there is such a connection between them, as leads to a decided reciprocal influence, and gives each an indirect control over the other. Thus, we cannot, by a simple effort of the will, directly control our love, or fear, or anger; our laughter or tears; but there is a constant effort in well-ordered minds, to make the

will, to some extent, the controller of these; and in many cases, the effort is eminently successful. Conversely, while the will is not controlled directly by these various emotions, it often yields, willingly and gracefully to their suggestions, and is led to obey their mandates. This is the strong ground taken by persuasion, when, in its efforts to influence the will, it subsidizes the feelings and appeals to the passions.

It becomes important to inquire the modes in which the sensibilities are to be reached, if they cannot be reached by an exercise of the will. If you can prove to me that a man suffering is an object of pity; you cannot thereby, perhaps, make me pity him.

The answer is, by leading the mind to candid and secret reflection upon the subject of our persuasive discourse. By an array of all the touching circumstances, of all the tender relations, of all the obligations growing out of these relations, the conscience as well as the judgment is touched and the will is indirectly bent to the mode of thought and feeling. Such is the problem which the orator often undertakes to solve. He tells his story in such a way, he portrays his pictures, and dwells upon the pathetic points so as to enlist the feelings, as it were, in spite of the will, and afterwards, by their aid, to enchain the will and lead it in his train. True, he must have much art, and must carry us along with him through