Neglect of Vocal Culture. Our established modes of education, were they adequate to the purpose of a thorough cultivation of the various powers and capacities of man, would furnish ample provision for the development of the organ of voice, as the exponent of heart and mind, the connecting link of man's mental and social being. No exertion would then be spared by which it could be rendered vigorous, pliant, expressive, and, at the same time, agreeable to the ear, by its natural and appropriate music, as a portion and a most effective one, of the great system of universal harmony, which reigns among the works of God. The prevalent neglect of this divine instrument, designed to contribute its share to the symmetry and the grace, as well as to the immediate uses, of life, not only leaves many even of those whose professional duties render an agreeable and skilful use of it indispensable, disqualified for their proper occupation, by inability to exert it aright, but subjects them to pain and suffering and exhaustion, and consequent loss of health, or even, ultimately, of life, from unskilful and inappropriate modes of exerting the voice; and, as not unfrequently happens to speakers of this description, it renders, from the same causes, their whole utterance disagreeable and even painful to others. Elocutionists often have occasion, in their professional capacity, to see instances of the noblest powers of mind rendered unavailing for the purposes of public speaking, by neglected habit, or erroneous cultivation, in early life. A little daily attention to the subject, would have easily secured, in season, a clear, agreeable, melodious tone to many speakers who now habitually exert their organs in such a manner as to thwart the purposes of speaking, and even to produce pain or disgust in the hearer. Persuasion must ever be up-hill work, where a harsh and grating effect of voice is incessantly jarring the nerves, and undoing the harmonious effect of sentiment. The preacher, more than any other speaker, needs all available aids of culture, in the use of the voice. His duties, as was mentioned before,-require that he spend a large part of every day in strictly sedentary and intellectual occupation, —a condition extremely unfavourable to the free and energetic use of the organs of speech. Close study constrains the body, checks the circulation, impedes equally the functions of respiration and digestion, and is necessarily followed by languor and weakness. A strong, full, and smooth voice, must, to one subjected daily to such experience, be the result of a rare original force of constitution and vivacity of function, which unfriendly influences have not had the power to impair. Rigorous application of mind is injurious to the character of the voice; as, by impairing, through impeded and imperfect respiration, the vigour of the larynx, the glottis, and the vocal ligaments, as well as the bronchial tubes and the air-cells of the lungs, it generates what musicians designate as 'impure tone,'-that imperfectly vocalized sound, which bespeaks a mode of forming the voice more or less painful and exhausting, as well as disagreeable to the ear. Frequent access to the open air, an habitually cheerful mood, and the genial influence of social feeling, are all essential to the free and agreeable exercise of the voice. The physiologist can very easily account for the feeble, thin, hollow, dry, unmusical voices which are so often heard in our pulpits. Remedies for Defective Culture. The preacher, more than any other public speaker, requires the physical and mental influences of muscular exercise, recreation, repose, change of scene and occupation, vocal practice in singing, reciting, declaiming, reading, and whatever else tends to exhilarate the spirits, promote health, or impart power to the voice.* He should possess a perfect knowledge of the structure of the human frame, that he may use his vocal organs intelligently and effectively, spare himself fatigue and * The volume entitled Orthophony, or Vocal Culture in Elocution, contains directions, in detail, for the appropriate discipline of the organs of voice. pain and injury, and be able to sustain long and vigorously the exercise of the voice in public speaking. Due practice soon renders an hour's reading or speaking an invigorating and inspiring rather than an exhausting process. The true and skilful use of the voice, in these forms of action, is similar, in effect, to the easy and pleasurable practice of an hour's singing. A well vocalized tone is, in any case, the same thing in its nature and formation, and consequently in its effects, both on the vocal organs of him who produces it, and on the ear of those who hear it: its character is that of a sound pure, easy, and agreeable, even in its utmost energy. The prevalent opinion, that the study and practice of elocution lead to the formation of an artificial style of voice, is founded on one of those false impressions which ignorance and indolence are so prone to foster as pleas for error and defect. The elocutionist would say to the student, Select, for study, the most natural, smooth, and pleasing voice that you hear in others, and observe its peculiar properties ;-select the corresponding tones in your own: cultivate these, and cherish them into habits: watch the sound of the human voice as it is affected by ennobling and bland emotions, by courage, joy, love, admiration, tranquillity;-dwell on such tones till your ear has acquired a relish and a thirst for them: your voice will then become instinctively genial, as a matter of predilection and tendency. No one whose ear is unperverted, utters a joyous emotion in a hollow, sepulchral tone, which habit seems to have fixed irretrievably on some speakers in the pulpit: no one naturally utters the warm and tender notes of love or admiration, in the cold and hard voice which so often falls from the mouth of the preacher: the language of a serene and tranquil spirit cannot be uttered in the harsh and hacking accents of a controversial dispute;-the calm expanse of the ocean or the heavens, and the quiet flow of the stream, suggest a very different lesson to the discerning ear, and prompt the voice to the placid, smooth, and full yet gentle sounds of entire repose. Elocution enjoins on the preacher no false depth or artificial hollowness of voice. It reminds him only of the natural effect of solemnity, awe, and reverence, in at once deepening and enlarging and gently filling every vocal sound, and converting it to a natural and perfect unison with all those tones of majesty and grandeur, which nature is ever breathing into the ear of man, from ocean and river and forest, from the tempest and the thunder; and which flow from the noblest of all the instruments of music. The practice of elocution leads the minister, in his acts of devotion, to attune his utterance to the great laws which the Creator has written on the human ear. It forbids him to belittle and degrade a solemn and sacred act by the high, light, and trivial effect of a pitch appropriate only to what is trite and familiar and insignificant. It enables him to select, from the natural range of his own voice, those notes which even the intuitive perceptions of childhood recognize as intimations of the overshadowing presence of a great thought, or as the swell of a vast emotion, rising from the heart to the lips. Effects of due Cultivation. The cultivation of elocution will enable the preacher to discriminate, with perfect precision, and to execute, with natural freedom, all the varying modes of voice, as they come and go in successive utterance. His expression will be adapted to each, in all its fulness and peculiarity of effect. His whole mode of voice will be inspired with life and truth and power. The native dignity of man, stamped on the noble and eloquent accents which assign him his rank in the creation, will be audible in every word that falls from his lips. It would be impossible for an individual whose ear was once opened to discriminate the quality and character of sound, to give forth those muttering and grumbling effects of voice, those guttural and croaking notes, those snuffling, nasal, and wiry twangings, those barking explosions of unmitigated abruptness, those 'softly sweet,' effeminate mincings, by which the pulpit is so often degraded. To man regarded as an intelligent and gregarious animal merely, there is something attractive and interesting in the very sound of the human voice. The awful desolation of utter solitude is never more impressively felt than when the forlorn being becomes fully conscious of his forsaken condition, by the oppressive weight of unbroken silence. This truth the poet Cowper has imaged most strikingly in his sup posed soliloquy of Selkirk, when he represents him as deploring the doom which condemns him never more to hear the sweet music of speech."' The attainments of distinguished vocalists serve to show what, in corresponding degree, might be effected by the due cultivation of the voice, for the various purposes of reading, recitation, and speaking. Not that a merely artificial culture can ever be desirable, either for the useful purposes of speech, or the tasteful enjoyment of elocution. But let us select, from the private circle, the example of voice which best pleases the ear, and most vividly affects our sympathy, whether in the appropriate and impressive reading of a page of literature, or in the freer and simpler form of intelligent conversation in the social circle, and affectionate communication by the fireside. Let us select the public speaker whose voice perfectly true, easy, natural, chaste, yet vivid and impressive, seems to spring directly from the heart of the man, and to dwell equally on the ear and in the heart of his hearers, as a perfect imbodying of the whole soul whence it sprung. Let the instance be one in which the human organ is felt to be no unworthy channel of the messages of peace and love from on high: let it even be one in which the beauty of perfect excellence seems realized; so that,—as sometimes happens, even in our own day,—'a world lying in wickedness' is induced to listen to the prophet, as to 'one that playeth skilfully on an instrument,' and to sit, for a time, rapt in admiration of the music of his voice. Let the supposed example be carried even so high, it will still be, in most cases, but a specimen of what intuitive observation and undisciplined skill may accomplish.-Suppose, on the other hand, an individual trained under advantages no more than |