A TALK TO PREACHERS
The aim of one who would interpret literature to others, by means of the
speaking voice, should be first to assimilate its spirit. There can be
no worthy or adequate rendering of a great poem or prose selection
without a keen appreciation of its inner meaning and content. This is
the principal safeguard against mechanical and meaningless declamation.
The extent of this appreciation and grasp of the inherent spirit of
thought will largely determine the degree of life, reality, and
impressiveness imparted to the spoken word.
The intimate relationship between the voice and the spirit of the
speaker suggests that one is necessary to the fullest development of the
other. The voice can interpret only what has been awakened and realized
within, hence nothing discloses a speaker's grasp of a subject so
accurately and readily as his attempt to give it expression in his own
language. It is this spiritual power, developed principally through the
intuitions and emotions, that gives psychic force to speaking, and which
more than logic, rhetoric, or learning itself enables the speaker to
influence and persuade men.
The minister as an interpreter of the highest spiritual truth should
bring to his work a thoroughly trained emotional nature and a cultivated
speaking voice. It is not sufficient that he state the truth with
clearness and force; he must proclaim it with such passionate enthusiasm
as powerfully to move his hearers. To express adequately the infinite
shades of spiritual truth, he must have the ability to play upon his
voice as upon a great cathedral organ, from "the soft lute of love" to
"the loud trumpet of war.
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