Influenced By His Mother

1915

John Bright's Explanation of His Supreme Mastery of the Art of Public Speaking

The famous English orator, John Bright, was asked how he came to be such a master of the art of public speaking. He answered that the only help he ever had in that direction he got by listening to his mother read the Bible.

She was accustomed to read the Bible aloud to the children, and he was so fascinated, he said, by her way of reading that he had tried ever since to imitate it.

John Bright became a great statesman, who carried out the teachings of the Bible in a noble and helpful life. Such was the power of his eloquence that he brought about great and beneficial changes in the laws of England.

His mother's Bible reading during the years of his impressible childhood influenced his whole life; the careful, unhurried, reverent and expressive way in which she read was the chief influence in producing one of England's greatest and noblest orators.

There are many ways in which a mother may influence legislation, even in communities where she may not yet cast a vote. — Youth's Companion.

Three Requisites of an Orator

1902

By Henry M. Dowling

Three great requisites are demanded of everyone who would speak well. He must be clear, he must be forceful, and he must please. Clearness will be secured by translation and composition. How can we speak forcibly and in a manner to excite pleasure? Anyone may avoid egregious blunders; it is the able orator who makes his speech sinewy in its strength, charming in its beauty.

"Bold propositions, boldly and briefly expressed — pithy sentences, nervous common sense, strong phrases, well-compacted periods, sudden and strong masses of light, an apt adage, a keen sarcasm, a merciless personality, a mortal thrust — these are the beauties and deformities that now make a speaker most interesting." Nothing is more artificial than the adornments in a spoken discourse. They do not necessarily arise from the peculiar attractiveness of the subject. Erskine could throw a charm about the most repulsive causes; and there may be speakers who, without strenuous effort, could render sterile and disgusting a subject boundless in suggestiveness and luxuriant in beauty.

In all your compositions, oral and written, first outline the general plan of your matter, and then select portions to be embellished by chaste adornment, not in the spirit of the pulpit orator who annotated his sermon manuscript with stage directions such as, "Here weep!" but with a rational sense of the places where ornament may appropriately be inserted, to clarify the thought, vitalize the argument, or arouse new interest on the part of an audience. At one point, you will decide to use a bit of vivid description of men or scenes; at another, you will mark, as a proper place to thrust forward a pungent antithesis, a picturesque metaphor; at another, you will select, as affording an opportunity, a supposed speech of your adversary or of a third person, or pretend to read from an imaginary document; at a fourth, you will see to it that you express indignation and apologies to the audience for being overborne by your feelings. — Success.

Minister Denounces Secret Marriages

1903

Secret Marriages

Custom Is Denounced by Minister

There seems to be a prevalent and growing custom in some localities for persons who intend to marry to go away from home to a place where they are not known, and, with none of their friends present, to be clandestinely married by some total stranger, who, for a small compensation, is willing to be the instrument of their union, even though he has no assurance that the parties have a right to marry.

Some actually appear to think that they have accomplished a very brilliant maneuver and that they are to be complimented for their smartness in keeping the news from their friends until some time after the event, or until the fact leaks out through the list of marriage licenses granted, which appears in the newspapers.

The time was when a secret marriage was either a direct indication that the consent of the parents had not been obtained, that the parties were under legal age or that there existed some other very good or, we might say, "bad" reason why they should have "loved darkness rather than light."

In the eyes of those who look on such matters in a reverent and sober way, secret marriage is considered to be shameful and improper; yet it is claimed that there are reasons of another and different sort which make secrecy desirable and in some cases almost necessary. It is said that in some communities a "public" marriage, done in a stylish way, is attended by such expense that it is greater than circumstances can afford. Also, that the thoughtless ridicule and horseplay of friends is so unbearable that the only remedy is to escape from them by flight.

The way to correct such a condition is to have the marriage performed in so simple, unobtrusive, modest, and devout a way that the expense is of small consequence and the ignorant lack of consideration and propriety of one's friends is avoided.

As long as the present state of affairs is allowed to continue, when one hears of a secret marriage, while not wishing to be harsh in his judgment, he cannot but feel distrustful of the cause; for, if all was right, the marriage ought to have been done in an open and fearless way. — The Rev. Arthur Gorter in the Living Church.