different as the progress and results of the two revolutions. The French, excitable and imaginative, no sooner seize a theory than they push it to the extremest limit. Enthusiasm and hope guide the movement, while reason and conscience control the passions of the English people. One dreams, the other thinks; hence to the former, eloquence which appeals to the imagination and feelings is the truest and the best. The Tiers-État, now assembled in Berlin, will not move on to freedom as did that of France. The Germans are more sober, reflecting, and cautious. This fact should be kept in mind in reading the speeches of French orators. Those things which would be extravagances to an English or Dutch, are not to a French, parliament. Bursts of sentiment which would draw tears from the latter, would provoke a smile of incredulity or derision in the former. The mathematician and the poet are to be moved by different appeals.

Under the Directory there was but little display of eloquence, and scarcely none at all under the Empire. When Bonaparte mounted to supreme power, he wished to be the only speaker, as he was the only actor, in France. He established the strictest censorship both over the press and the tongue, and men dared not speak, except to echo him. If France was amazed at the disappearance of the throne and aristocracy, and sudden rising of a republic, with all its blinding, dazzling light, in their place, she was no less so at the vast empire that sprung up so rapidly at the touch of Napoleon. Men spoke no more of Greece or of Rome, except to hint at Cæsar and his legions. "Rights of the people,» «freedom of the press and speech," and all those spell-words by which the revolutionary leaders had gained power were forgotten, and the "glory of France » absorbed every other thought. To this boundless enthusiasm Napoleon knew how to address himself, and became at once the greatest military orator of the world. In any other time, and to any other army, his speeches would have been mere declamation, but taking both into consideration they are models of oratory. He could speak with power, for his actions were eloquent, and stirred the heart of France to its core.

The Restoration brought a great change over the parliament of France. From a constitutional monarchy she had passed into a free republic, thence into the rudest anarchy that ever shook the world, thence into a vast and glorious empire, and now, fallen, exhausted, and bewildered, sunk back into the arms of a Bourbon. And when the representatives of the people again assembled, there were delegates from all these great epochs; royalist emigrants, filled more than ever with the idea of the divine right of kings; old soldiers from Napoleon's victorious armies, still dreaming of glory, and ardent republicans, who would not, for all that had passed, abandon their liberal principles.

The new Parliament at length settled down into three political parties,- the Legitimists, who reverenced kingship, and prated constantly of the throne and its prerogatives, and the aristocracy and its privileges,-the Constitutionalists, or those who wished to establish the supremacy of the parliament balanced by royal authority and other powers, as in England,-and the Liberals. These discordant elements brought to the surface a group of statesmen and orators as different in their views and opinions as if they had been men of different ages of the world. The Liberalists constituted the opposition, and numbered among its leaders, Manuel, General Foy, Benjamin Constant, Lafitte Bignon, Casimir-Périer, and others. Under Charles X. it was a struggle of reason against blind devotion to old rules and forms. At length the last gave way; Charles X. was compelled to abdicate, and the Revolution of 1830 introduced a new order of things, which still continues.

It is useless to speak of the present Parliament of France. Like the American Congress, or the British Parliament, it is governed by the spirit of the politician, rather than the elevated views of the statesman, or the devotion of the patriot.

Between the different parties it is a struggle of tactics rather than of intellect; votes are carried, and changes wrought, more by the power of machinery than the power of truth or eloquence. The Chamber of Peers is almost a nullity, while over that of the Deputies the politic Louis Philippe holds a strong and steady hand. Guizot and Thiers have occupied the most prominent place in the public eye, under the present dynasty. But the strategy of parliaments is now of more consequence and interest than their speeches, for management is found to secure votes better than they. This is natural; in unexciting times everything assumes a business form and is conducted on business principles, and commerce, and finance, and tariff, and trade, are not calculated to develop the powers of the orator or call forth the highest kind of eloquence.

From the American edition of Cormenin's

"Orators of France."

HENRY WARD BEECHER

(1813-1887)

ENRY WARD BEECHER, one of the most remarkable pulpit orators of the nineteenth century, was born in Litchfield, Connecticut, June 2d, 1813. After completing his studies at Amherst College and Lane Theological Seminary he began his professional career as pastor of a church at Lawrenceburg, Indiana. From that town he removed successively to Indianapolis (1839) and to Brooklyn (1847). His great reputation as a pulpit orator was made as pastor of Plymouth Congregational Church, in Brooklyn, where he remained until his death, March 8th, 1887. He wrote on many subjects. Among his best books are his "Star Papers" and his "Lectures to Young Men.» On May 29th, 1876, he delivered, before the National School of Elocution and Oratory, at its third annual commencement (Philadelphia) an address on "Oratory," which has been republished and widely circulated. The extract here made is by permission from the copyrighted text of the Penn Publishing Company (Philadelphia, 1893).

HOW TO BECOME AN ORATOR

N REGARD to the training of the orator, it should begin in boyhood, and should be part and parcel of the lessons of the school. Grace; posture; force of manner; the training of the eye, that it may look at men and pierce them, and smile upon them, and bring summer to them, and call down storms and winter upon them; the development of the hand, that it may wield the sceptre, or beckon with sweet persuasion,-these things do not come artificially; they belong to man. Why, men think that nature means that which lies back of culture. Then you ought never to have departed from babyhood; for that is the only nature you had to begin with. But is nature the acorn forever? Is not the oak nature? Is not that which comes from the seed the best representation of the divine conception of the seed? And as men we are seeds. Culture is but planting them and training them according to their several natures; and nowhere is training nobler than in preparing the orator for the great work to which he educates himself, the elevation of his kind, through truth, through earnestness, through beauty, through every divine influence.

But it is said that the times are changing, and that we ought not to attempt to meddle with that which God has provided for. Say men, "The truth is before you; there is your Bible; go preach the word of God." Well, if you are not to meddle with what God has provided for, why was not the Bible sent instead of you? You were sent because the very object of a preacher was to give the truth a living form and not have it lie in the dead letter. As to its simplicity and as to its beauty, I confute you with your own doctrine; for, as I read the sacred text,

it is, "Adorn the doctrine of God our Savior.» We are to make it beautiful. There are times when we cannot do it. There are times for the scalpel, there are times for the sword, and there are times for the battle-ax; but these are exceptional. "Let everyone of us please his neighbor for his good to edification» is a standing command, and we are to take the truth of every kind, and, if possible, bring it in its summer guise to men. How do you

But it is said, "Our greatest orators have not been trained.» know? It may be that Patrick Henry went crying in the wilderness of poor speakers, without any great training; I will admit that now and then there are gifts so eminent and so impetuous that they break through ordinary necessities; but even Patrick Henry was eloquent only under great pressure; and there remain the results of only one or two of his efforts. Daniel Webster is supposed in many respects to have been the greatest American orator of his time; but there never lived a man who was so studious of everything he did, even to the buttons on his coat, as Daniel Webster. Henry Clay was prominent as an orator, but though he was not a man of the schools, he was a man who schooled himself; and by his own thought and taste and sense of that which was fitting and beautiful, he became, through culture, an accomplished orator.

If you go from our land to other lands; if you go to the land which has been irradiated by parliamentary eloquence; if you go to the people of Great Britain; if you go to the great men in ancient times who lived in the intellect; if you go to the illustrious names that every one recalls,- Demosthenes and Cicero-they represent a life of work.

Not until Michael Angelo had been the servant and the slave of matter did he learn to control matter; and not until he had drilled and drilled and drilled himself were his touches free and easy as the breath of summer, and full of color as the summer itself. Not until Raphael had subdued himself by color was he the crowning artist of beauty. You shall not find one great sculptor, nor one great architect, nor one great painter, nor one eminent man in any department of art, nor one great scholar, nor one great statesman, nor one divine of universal gifts, whose greatness, if you inquire, you will not find to be the fruit of study, and of the evolution that comes from study.

I have heard it
This fact reveals

It is said, furthermore, that oratory is one of the lost arts. said that our struggles brought forth not one prominent orator. a law which has been overlooked, namely, that aristocracy diminishes the number of great men, and makes the few so much greater than the average that they stand up like the pyramids in the deserts of Egypt; whereas, democracy distributes the resources of society and brings up the whole mass of the people, so that under a democratic government great men never stand so high above the average as they do when society has a level far below them. Let building go up on building around about the tallest spire in this city and you dwarf the spire, though it stand as high as heaven, because everything by which it is surrounded has risen higher.

Now, throughout our whole land there was more eloquence during our struggles than there was previously; but it was in far more mouths. It was distributed. There was in the mass of men a higher method of speaking, a greater power in addressing their fellow-men; and, though single men were not so prominent as they would have been under other circumstances, the reason is one for which we should be grateful. There were more men at a higher average, though there were fewer men at an extreme altitude.

Then it is said that books, and especially newspapers, are to take the place of the living voice. Never! never! The miracle of modern times, in one respect, is

the press; to it is given a wide field and a wonderful work; and when it shall be clothed with all the moral inspirations, with all the ineffable graces, that come from simplicity and honesty and conviction, it will have a work second almost to none other in the land. Like the light; it carries knowledge every day round the globe. What is done at St. Paul's in the morning is known, or ever half the day has run round, in Wall Street, New York. What is done in New York at the rising of the sun, is, before the noontide hour known in California. By the power of the wire, and of the swift-following engine, the papers spread at large vast quantities of information before myriad readers throughout the country; but the office of the papers is simply to convey information. They cannot plant it. They cannot open the soil and put it into the furrow. They cannot enforce it. It is given only to the living man, standing before men with the seed of knowledge in his hand, to open the furrows in the living souls of men, and sow the seed, and cover the furrows again. Not until human nature is other than it is, will the function of the living voice-the greatest force on earth among men - cease. Not until then will the orator be useless, who brings to his aid all that is fervid in feeling; who incarnates in himself the truth; who is for the hour the living reason, as well as the reasoner; who is for the moment the moral sense; who carries in himself the importunity and the urgency of zeal; who brings his influence to bear upon men in various ways; who adapts himself continually to the changing conditions of the men that are before him; who plies them by softness and by hardness, by light and by darkness, by hope and by fear; who stimulates them or represses them at his will. Nor is there, let me say, on God's footstool, anything so crowned and so regal as the sensation of one who faces an audience in a worthy cause, and with amplitude of means, and defies them, fights them, controls them, conquers them.

Great is the advance of civilization; mighty are the engines of force, but man is greater than that which he produces. Vast is that machine which stands in the dark unconsciously lifting, lifting,-the only humane slave the iron slave- the Corliss engine; but he that made the engine is greater than the engine itself. Wonderful is the skill by which that most exquisite mechanism of modern life, the watch is constructed, but greater is the man that made the watch than the watch that is made. Great is the press, great are the hundred instrumentalities and institutions and customs of society; but above them all is man. The living force is greater than any of its creations,-greater than society, greater than its laws. "The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath,» saith the Lord. Man is greater than his own institutions. And this living force is worthy of all culture,- of all culture in the power of beauty; of all culture in the direction of persuasion; of all culture in the art of reasoning.

To make men patriots, to make men Christians, to make men the sons of God, let all the doors of heaven be opened, and let God drop down charmed gifts,winged imagination, all-perceiving reason, and all-judging reason. Whatever there is that can make men wiser and better-let it descend upon the head of him who has consecrated himself to the work of mankind, and who has made himself an orator for man's sake and for God's sake.

From "Oratory," by Henry Ward Beecher. By permission of the Penn Publishing Company, Philadelphia.