conviction of the House that it is right and well-considered. Hence, too, the determined count-outs by which the advocate of a measure can be forthcast, and the readiness with which the House yields under an agitation cleverly got up by the representative man of some speciality. This introduction of the division of labour into the Parliament has been the means of burdening the nation with a great many ill-conceived and ill-digested statutes; while, inasmuch as it lessens the need for general intelligence and thoughtfulness among the representatives, it is inimical to modern eloquence.

All these drawbacks influence the eloquence of the times by placing the speaker in a position wherein orations are composed, delivered, and heard under the influence of adventitious circumstances. The speaker is hampered by their pressure, the outgo of his mind is restrained by them. Instead of speaking out the forthright truth, policy, temporizing, qualification, finessing are resorted to, and the free, frank, simple, unaffected activity of the mind is made impossible. Every idea, feeling, or influence, except the one prime mind-moving thought which determines to speech, should be kept sedulously out of the mind. Only by keeping that firmly in the centre of vision, by bending all the force of mind towards the comprehension, exposition, and enforcement of that, can we throw it out of ourselves in an overmastering and irresistible fitness for accomplishing its purpose. All these influences, as elements of disturbance to the thoughts, require to be thrown aside or buffeted down before the whole energy of the soul can be poured forth in deliberate address with that consummate art and tact which hits the very aim, produces the very effect, to which the predetermination of the speaker was directed. Success is the real test of oratory. If successful, it is, as oratory, good.

The greater the number of disturbing forces which modify the purpose or practice of the speaker, the more difficult is it to attain success; and those peculiar embarrassments which we have pointed out as affecting parliamentary eloquence, as they close up certain channels of admission into the minds of others, and cut off the flow of thought from these channels, or as they open up new communications and bring in new and varied excitants, increase the difficulty naturally felt in exposing one's thoughts to the public gaze in the very moment of their taking a living form. From some of them we cannot part company; under most of them we must labour; to many of them we must submit; and through all of them we must make way for our thoughts before the fine, racy, elastic force of eloquence can be liberated, and be employed to perform its organic function, persuasion. The elder orators, who required only to make an immediate impression upon an audience who had no opportunity for premeditation upon the subject, or inquiry regarding the speaker, must obviously have been much less embarrassed by the reciprocal equities of their own life, position, &c., and their teachings, than the modern orator is, and hence eloquence is a more difficult activity in our day than in theirs. To prepare the

separate threads of thought which are to form the warp, to arrange those which are to make up the woof; to determine on the pattern, and to go on weaving them all into an instantaneously increasing whole, in the very presence of critical spectators, is a labour of much difficulty in itself: when, however, the thoughts to be chosen for either purpose and part are to be subjected to scrutiny before use, not in reference to their use, but their acceptability; when the pattern requires to be arranged to fit, not the taste and skill of the designer and worker only, but of the onlooker or overlooker also; and when the work in every moment of its course must retain its continuousness and its adaptation to its end in the midst of innumerable elements of disturbance and disarray, and must, in some fashion, change and adapt itself to the sudden exigencies of the moment, the difficulty is incalculably increased. It is easy to see, then, that the influences interfering with modern eloquence are of no despicable sort, and require considerate watchfulness, and a sensitive, * accommodating tact in the speaker to insure success—which, if he is an orator, he must win.

The circumstances under which parliamentary oratory is employed constitute another set of important disturbing influences, from submission to which there is no possible dispensation.

The intra-parliamentary management of the fluent motion of the tongue is sometimes excessively difficult. Reserve is here, in many cases, if not a virtue, a policy or a necessity. While matters are under diplomatic negotiation, it would often precipitate action, sometimes produce great calamity, and not unfrequently interrupt the relations of Governments, if the ready tongue should indiscreetly mouth out the several intents of States, purposes of preparations, and plans of operation or co-operation, of retrenchment or of reinforcement, of change or legislation. So, again, an administration is constantly exposed to danger from the over-glib and unretentive cautionlessness of the ready speaker, who reveals secrets before due preparation has been made, or matters are put in a fit state for being told. The ramifications of influence are so manifold, that secretiveness has become an indispensable portion of the qualifications for holding office in the ministry, and over-volubility of tongue is to be carefully eschewed. Again, party tactics are now so complicated, and the opposing forces are so much on the alert, that the careless utterance of an untimely hint may undo the deep-laid schemes of wisely plotting minds for months together, and give a long delay to the hopes and aspirations of the party.

The aims, whether of individuals or of parties, require sometimes covert, sometimes open action; and as this or that is the case, so will also be the need for circumspect attention to the forms of speech employed to insure their success.

The feelings of members, whether held regarding persons or parties, must largely influence public discourse. Feeling is at the root of all earnestness; but the speaker must either harmonize his own feelings with those of his audience, or bring his audience over

to feel as he does. Feeling, however, in parliamentary assemblies is a difficult matter to get a thermometer for, and is hence a great practical enigma. Personality must be avoided, and personal interests must be held aloof; and yet few or none can avoid personal references, or resist personal interest. The adroit management of the House on these points assumes every day a character of greater impossibility.

The occasion of an oration requires to be carefully weighed. Sometimes the opposition, knowing the imminence of some topic, hurry an orator into rash delivery of his sentiments by affording an occasion on which a speech will be fruitless, and hence may defeat the aim. Or the speaker may misjudge the seasonability of bringing up the question he purposes to discuss, and thereby injures the very heart's wish of his friends or his party, or the espousers of the cause on which he spoke. Either the temper of the House is unfit, or a more important matter lies before it, or the time is inappro priate, or the right men are not in their places, or a muster of the wrong men has been got up, or a side wind from an adverse speaker or a rash friend destroys the opportunity of effectively dealing with the matter proposed. All these elements require nice and cautious management, and call for acute and ready tact and good

sense.

Class interests, again, are very numerous and very urgent, and representatives for most of them are always watchfully active. A polite warfare may be said to be almost continually going on among them; and a keen outlook is kept by each, not only for grievances on their side, but aggressions from others. Here, again, there arise complications difficult of unravelment, and exigencies when skill and savoir-faire are requisite. These matters affect eloquence within the precincts and in the moments of activity in the House. There are, however, extra-parliamentary influences which make themselves felt in the oncarrying of business, and therefore in the expression of opinion on the points involved in the discussions which arise regarding it. To these the parliamentary orator must always be sensitive, and of them he must always be sensible. Popularity and the effectiveness which result from it are easily lost, and the public is usually very unforgiving to a discarded favourite. Its memory of past services is short, unless prompted by the hope of future benefits.

Of these, perhaps, the first and most important is public opinion, --that resistless tide of thought which rises and bellows and swelters about statesmen, and keeps continually sweeping around them,which agitates society and stirs clubs, associations, constituencies, mobs, and sometimes makes them masterful; yet in its flux and reflux is so often lawless, inexplicable, and changeful. By this the statesman's oratory must be in part affected, and to take his position rightly in regard to it is frequently most distracting and painful. In a less degree, but much in the same way, though with closer and more individual intensity, the feeling of a constituency operates.

Sometimes a good deal of finesse, reserve, and discretion-we shall not say cunning-are required to bring the speaker's expressions into right relations with the time and action of the day.

Almost, to some minds, a graver difficulty than either of these is felt in the liability to criticism which affects all public men. Skilled criticism has of late been so sedulously sharpened to its work, so much pains have been expended on the polishing of its scalpels and the poising of its tests, that few can escape the trial to which it calls each aspirant to honour, and the inquisition to which it subjects every fibre of activity exerted in the public service, often probing even the very privacies and the sanctities of home, heart, and lifefamily, fortune, fame, and welfare. To this the orator is of course peculiarly exposed, and, as the record of his utterances can always be referred to, the public expression of opinion is not unmixed with need for care. To this liability to criticism the state of parties outside of Parliament often gives intensity, and forms an enmeshment of the energies exercised in eloquence of most damaging completeness. Only a vigorous genius, a perfect master of the whole science and practice of the electricity of thought, can in such circumstances clear off from himself the impeding environments, and give voice to the purpose of his soul, wings to his words, and give off action and utterance to gain men's souls.

The imminence of an election has often an effect on the quantity and quality of eloquence in the House. Then all the precious elements receive intenser development. Then the pressure both of personal and circumstantial influences makes itself more and more felt, and the hemming in of the faculties coincident with the overstrain of the need for speech, places the legislator in an awkward fix. The noble, dutiful English mind, however, generally rises in force as the difficulties of its task increase, and the dying strains of a closing session are often bolder, and grander, and more massive -in short, more eloquent, than at any other time.

We have attempted to explain the difficulties of parliamentary oratory, not in behalf of the speakers in the legislative assemblies of the nation, but for the information of the public; not as an apology for the decline of eloquence-which many assume, but we deny, but as a praise to those who amongst so many embarrassments can throw forth the might of living thought with energy and effectiveness, and thrill the House, and move the country by their statesmanly utterances. That parliamentary utterances exist at all among us must amaze those who reflect upon the matters we have pointed out; and the people who most thoroughly comprehend the difficulties to be overcome in the achievement of a speech of national interest will more highly prize the fame of those great minds who rule the destinies of men and nations by their efforts in parliamentary eloquence.

S. N.

Religion.

ARE THE PREVALENT FORMS OF WORSHIP IN BRITAIN EFFECTIVE?

AFFIRMATIVE ARTICLE.-IV.

To ask the question, "Are the prevalent forms of worship in Britain effective?" is to ask in plain terms whether the Church of England and its contemporaries are doing their duty, declining, or otherwise? This is a literal rendering of the question which forms our subject, and one to which, in that signification, we give a decided and unhesitating negative; for when viewed in this sense it is nearly impossible, with corroborative proof, to assert anything opposed to their utility and efficiency. To state in what the several evidences on this point consist, would be to consume idly the space allotted to us in these columns; we content ourselves, therefore, with naming one which we think will serve as a sufficiency, viz., the Colenso controversy. The manner in which the partial sceptic was silenced; the multitude of those who were willing to stand up boldly in their Church's behalf; and, above all, the overplus of materials which these possessed, will alone suffice to demonstrate the point clearly. Had the forms of worship been ineffective, would it have been thus? Had not the mind been constantly vivified, and made to kindle with regard to these subjects, would it not have remained torpid, and allowed a thing, in which it possessed little or no interest, to be disturbed and slandered? The answer requires no hesitation,-in such a matter there can be none; an affirmative only is applicable, and it leaves no room for any other.

There are certain subjects in which we cannot steer a medium course, and the one at present under consideration may be justly ranked among the number. To write an article against this question, the author's opinions must be in unison with "the Revising Party;" and if he considers the prevalent forms of worship need revision, he must also think with many that the Bible itself, which is the basis of Christianity, must alike require it.

But we cannot wander from our theme to discuss the fallacies of the "revisers," as that topic has already been debated in these pages. Let us only ask, What can possibly be more sublimated than the general strain of the present version of the Psalms? Who so utterly soulless as to permit their intrinsic poetic value to pass by unappreciated? or who so dull that he cannot discover the matchlessness of their tone, as well as the touching influence upon