LETTER XII.

HOW TO MOVE THE PASSIONS OR FEELINGS-SECONDLY, BY DIRECT MEANS.

We have now to consider the direct modes of moving the passions or affections.

The first is to persuade or convince by undeniable arguments, or forcible representations, that a thing is, on the one hand, laudable, useful, safe, pleasant, necessary, possible, practicable; or, on the other hand, base, pernicious, dangerous, painful, needless, impossible, impracticable. If, for instance, you can show the impracticability of serving God and Mammon, the impossibility of escaping God's wrath without repentance, the folly, shame, danger, unprofitableness, enormity of sin; or if you can prove how pleasant are the paths of religion, how desirable the rewards of heaven, how possible, by God's gracious mercy, even for the greatest sinner to turn from his wickedness and save his soul alive; if you can establish in the mind of your hearers a belief of such things as these, you will have made no inconsiderable step towards moving them; at any rate you will have prepared their hearts for favourable impressions.

The next mode of moving the passions is by direct appeal, or address, including exhortation, warning, expostulation, remonstrance, consolation, reproof, encouragement, and

the like; all of which may, for our present purpose, be sufficiently designated under the general name of exhortation.

According to the taste or style of different preachers, or in compliance with the nature of the subject on which they are treating, a sermon may consist almost wholly of exhortation, or contain little or none. When the matter in hand is, of itself, of a moving and spirit-stirring character, the preacher may judge direct exhortation unnecessary; on the contrary, if the subject be one on which the hearers are already convinced, or well informed, then the main part of the sermon may consist in exhortation, and encouragement to act up to their conviction and knowledge.

And here I must not omit to mention an important distinction between those parts of a sermon where the object is to convince the understanding, and those where the intention is to move the heart and feelings; in short, between argument and exhortation. In the first, the object is avowed; in the second, concealed. When I say concealed, I do not mean that there is any thing to be ashamed of; on the contrary, it is the obvious and professed duty of the preacher to do all he can to awaken the feelings and open the heart. But it is a maxim of rhetoric, that, in order to attain this object, the speaker must on no account avow it at the time; for there is in men's hearts a natural pride, and perverse disinclination to yield their feelings to another. Therefore, when you wish to move their heart, you must not say, "Now I am going to exhort you,”- Now I am going to tell you what feelings you ought to have on this occasion,"-"This should call forth your faith, this your gratitude or devotion," —for it is an assumption of superiority which they will not bear. There is a great difference between showing the hearers that they ought to be moved, and actually moving them; avowed and expected exhortation is generally the surest mode of defeating your object. The human heart

fortifies itself against direct attack; so that, to be sure of success, you must come upon it unawares. Make never so earnest an appeal, and, if it is not well timed, it will not succeed. If you begin to speak warmly before your hearers are similarly affected, they will take it as a matter of coursea part of your business; and will not much attend: or you will appear to them something like "a drunken man in the midst of sober."1 Or, if your address be so warm as to command attention,-not being prepared to receive it, they will suppose it is all meant for their neighbours.

I need scarcely remind you of the often quoted maxim of Horace with reference to the effect of an appeal to the passions;

"Si vis me flere, dolendum est

Primùm ipsi tibi."

Whatever passion or feeling you wish to excite, whether it be joy, sorrow, love, hatred, pity, or indignation, you must show by your tone and expression, as well as by your words, that you are yourself affected in the way you wish your hearers to be affected. If you are unmoved and indifferent, they will be the same. A few sentences warm from the heart, and delivered with corresponding earnestness, are often sufficient; indeed, generally speaking, they are better than many; for it is difficult to keep up for long a sustained warmth of expression, and if the fervour subsides, the address instantly becomes frigid, and your hearers will be unmoved. Judicious fanning keeps alive the flame, but too much may chance to extinguish it. Do not, however, check the stream of enthusiasm too soon, for every drop, if genuine, is precious. In this point the extemporaneous preacher has a manifest advantage, for he can say more or less according as his own feelings bear him out, or his hearers are in a fit frame to receive it.

1 See Whately's Rhetoric.

It is obvious that the style and manner of those parts of a sermon which are intended to move the passions should be very different from those which are suitable to argument and instruction. In an address to the passions, the preacher must put forth his whole energy; his address must be more than ordinarily earnest and pathetic, and his language of a bolder and freer character. Whether from constitutional temperament, or habitual reserve, some very good men appear wholly incapable of that fervid and impassioned expression which is so necessary for this purpose. It is highly important for a young clergyman to struggle from the very beginning of his ministerial duties against a coldness of manner, which, if not corrected, will grow, and fix itself upon him.

At the same time he must guard against mere declamation. To attempt to fix any standard, or to draw a line, where right enthusiasm ends, and ranting and bombast begins, would be fruitless. I might write you down a sentence, which, when you read it calmly, detached from the rest, would sound more like raving than preaching, and yet it might by no means follow that it should have seemed so to an audience which was worked up into enthusiasm. At such times highly figurative and even hyperbolical language may be rightly used, at least by preachers whose manner will bear them out. "Ubi se animus cogitationis magnitudine levavit, ambitiosus in verba est, altiusque, ut spirare, ita eloqui, gestit, et ad dignitatem rerum exsurgit oratio: oblitus tum legis pressiorisque judicii, sublimis feror et ore jam non meo. "When the mind is occupied by some vast and awful subject of contemplation it is prompted to give utterance to its feelings in a figurative style, for ordinary words will not convey the admiration, nor literal words the reverence which possess it."2

"1

1 Seneca.

2 Newman.

With all due allowance, indeed admiration, for right enthusiasm, I cannot conceive that any congregation could be edified by such passages as the following, which are taken from the published sermons of an admired preacher. The first is an illustration of the text—" Through death Christ Jesus destroyed him that had the power of death.” "Death came against the Mediator: but, in submitting to it, Christ, if we may use such image, seized on the destroyer, and, waving his skeleton form as a sceptre over this creation, broke the spell of a thousand generations, dashing away the chains, and opening the graves of an oppressed and rifled population." The next is from a sermon on the resurrection: "He went down to the grave in the weakness of humanity, but, at the same time, in the might of the Deity. And, designing to pour forth a torrent of lustre on the life, the everlasting life of man, oh! he did not bid the firmament cleave asunder, and the constellations of eternity shine out in their majesties, and dazzle and blind an overawed creation. He rose up, a moral giant, from his grave-clothes, and, proving death vanquished in his strong-hold, left the vacant sepulchre as a centre of light to the dwellers on this planet. He took not the suns and systems which crowd immensity in order to form one brilliant cataract, which, rushing down in its glories, might sweep away darkness. from the benighted race of the apostate. But he came forth from the tomb, masterful and victorious; and the place where he had lain became the focus of the rays of the long hidden truth; and the fragments of his grave-stone were the stars from which flashed the immortality of man." may be well to observe that the author of these astounding passages, these "brilliant cataracts" of words, has of late somewhat reined in the fury of his genius, and, as might have been safely predicted, his descent from the regions of 1 Melville's Sermons, pp. 19, 20. 2 Ib. pp. 146, 7.

It