THE POMPOUS SPEAKER.

WITH self-satisfied strut, graceful flourish of pocket-handkerchief, and loud blast from his nostrils upon the same, this gentleman takes his position upon the platform. It is Sabbath afternoon-a monthly appointment for laying aside the regular lesson of the day, and hearing speeches about missionary matters. The gentleman has come for the purpose of being one of the speakers. He looks round with patronizing air on the company whom he is to address, clears his throat, says 'h'm' several times, and proceeds:

"My dear young friends, let me observe, as a preliminary, that I must have perfect silence while I address you. You must bestow on me your undivided attention, and not be guilty of disorderly conduct or confusion. If you interrupt me while I am addressing you, or signify by your inattentive deportment that you do not appreciate my remarks, I shall be obliged, though reluctantly, to bring my address to a conclusion."

He has by this time succeeded in getting their eyes and mouths pretty and mouths pretty well open, from curiosity as to what is coming next. He continues:

"My dear children: I am very glad to see you all here this afternoon. I have from my earliest childhood experienced a deep solicitude for the experienced a deep solicitude for the welfare of the young and rising generation. The sight of a little child awakens in my heart a warm interest for the whole family of infantile

→ From "Sunday-school Photographs," by the Rev. Alfred Taylor, Bristol, Pennsylvania. Johnstone, Hunter, & Co., Edinburgh.

I see them with the humanity. world before them; with its hopes and fears, its dangers and its troubles all unknown to them. I gaze upon their future; but Oh, what a gaze! My youthful hearers, the Sundayschool is infused with a spirit of profound conviction in certain fundamental truths. The Sunday-school looks to the indoctrination of the youthful heart in all the divine attributes. It contemplates the entire sanctification of every child of Adam."

Here the superintendent ought to step up to the man, and tell him that the children do not understand a word of what he is telling them; but he is a little afraid of hurting the stately person's feelings, and so suffers him to plunge on. He proceeds, and after talking a great deal about himself, a little about the Sunday-school, Adam's fall, and several other things, presently gets into the thick of his speech. He is more pompous than at first. His flourish of speech and flourish of pocket-handkerchief are both on the increase. He uses words of great length, and very hard to be understood. The most of his hearers do not understand his speech at all; and it would be no loss, except the loss of time consumed in uttering it, if nobody understood it. It is inflated fus

tian. It is ornamental dulness. It is

heavy frothiness. It is not on any subject in particular. The great man was announced to speak on something connected with the object for which lower himself to that. the meeting was held. But he cannot He under

stands that several other persons are to speak, and he will let them attend to that part.

At last, long after the proper time,

he brings his remarks to their promised close. Those of his hearers who are still awake, have been looking forward to this moment with pleasurable expectation. The sleepers care not how long he keeps on. He has settled them. He wipes his massive brow, parades down from the platform, takes his seat on an honourable chair, and looks round on the exhausted victims of his address, as much as to say, " Was'nt that a magnificent speech?"

Truly magnificent. "The pomps and vanity of this wicked world, and all the sinful lusts of the flesh." Very fine stuff to blow the trumpet with, but very poor fare for hungry and starving young souls.

There are some men who do this pompous sort of talking for the sake of making a display; but there are others who do it, because they do not know better. They have heard a great orator or two, and think they ought to speak as the great orator speaks. Mr. Stuff, when addressing a Sunday-school, thinks he is Daniel Webster addressing the Senate, and puts on airs accordingly. He comes as near his model as a poodle dog comes when he attempts to growl like a lion.

If the pompous man ever does any good with his gift of speaking, it will be after he shall have laid aside all the feathers, gold lace, and brass buttons of his style. He must speak with more simplicity, and must be sure that what he utters is sound sense, instead of a long string of empty nothings, covered up with great swelling words of bombastic pedantry.

THE EMPTY MAN.

SOME empty things are empty because they have been exhausted of that which they formerly contained. This is not the case with the speaker to whom we now listen. His infir

mity is that he was not filled. Consequently he has nothing to say.

It would be well for himself, and for his hearers, if he could convince himself, before starting, of his empty condition. But he rises with the air of one who has important truths to communicate. Even if he has an inward conviction that he has not much to say, he thinks the emergency may bring forth something. He has heard about how some great men find words and thoughts coming to them in the pulpit, and upon the platform, and he does not know but that a deluge of speech matter may flow in upon him after he gets in motion. He is introduced to those who are to be his hearers. He looks wise at them. They look at him as if they expect something very fine; but he is as empty as a tin rattle. True, the tin rattle has a few solid substances within it, which can be made to jingle against its sides, and thus produce an entertaining sound for very young persons. So our empty friend may have an idea or two, or some fragmentary remnants of an idea, which will jingle a little when violently agitated. But the music of the rattle is monotonous, and soon becomes tiresome. So with the speech. It is very hard work to listen to it; all the harder if we sympathize with the suffering speaker in his laborious efforts to pump up something from where there is nothing.

For the opening sentences of his speech Mr. Empty selects some wise saws, so old that all their teeth are worn off, or else some allusion to his own emotions on being asked to address such an assembly as that which is before him. If it is an ordinary Sunday-school address, and the day is fair, he opens by saying, "My dear children, I am glad to see you here this bright and beautiful afternoon." Then a pause and a clearing of the throat, waiting for something else to come. When the some

thing does come, it is apt to be a slight paraphrase of the sentence already uttered, or an improvement on it: for instance, "I am very glad indeed, my dear young friends, to behold your pleasant faces here on this sunshiny day." The pleasurable thought which lies at the bottom of this may be ventilated seven or eight times in the course of the speech. If the occasion is a great one-an anniversary or a pic-nic, prominent allusion is made to "this interesting occasion," to the pleasure which it gives the angels in heaven to behold it, and to the Sunday finery with which the children are adorned. If it is at a Sundayschool convention, where five minute speeches are being delivered, these trite remarks consume the whole of the speaker's time, and he costs the convention exactly five minutes of its time whenever he rises, giving nothing in exchange for it.

At an anniversary or other meeting where this gentleman officiates, he asks as a particular favour that he may be the last speaker. This he does in the hope that he may gather a few ideas from the speakers who precede him. He makes the most of his opportunities here, and sometimes succeeds in appropriating some ideas, but without such digestion as to make them his own. When he brings them out, it is as when a turkey would steal peacocks' feathers for purposes of personal adornment; all who see their rich plumage know that they did not grow upon the turkey. He says, "As the previous speaker has just eloquently remarked"-and then he proceeds with a mangled hash of what he thought the speaker said, with variations. If the youthful hearers are asked what he said, they are apt to give such an account as did a little girl who had been listening to one of these empty men. "Why, Ma, he talked, and he talked, and he told us he was glad to see us; and

then he talked, but he didn't say nothing." A man commenced speaking quite eloquently at a meeting where the speeches were but to be five minutes long; but after he had spoken about two minutes, he consumed the remaining three in telling how sorry he was that the time was so short; he would like to have more time. By general consent his time was extended, as we all supposed he had something to say, which being done, he paused, scratched his ear, and said, "Well, really, Mr. Chairman, I dont know that I have anything more to say." The irrepressible smile which followed interfered sadly with the devotional purposes for which the meeting was held. The man was, oratorically viewed, a tin rattle. One jingle finished him.

The Empty Speaker generally talks a great while; always as long as he is allowed to. He keeps on in the hope that he will succeed in saying something, a hope which is shared by his hearers, but which is most generally disappointed. That which he says will not warrant the labour and expense of phonographing or printing. Emptiness arises from want of preparation. It may seem. to some people absurd to talk of preparing to address children. It is a great deal more absurd to address them without preparation. Consider what you have to say. If you have nothing to say, keep your mouth carefully closed. If, on consideration, you find that you have somewhat to say, out with it, weighing every word and every thought, dressing it in its most pleasing garb, and being very particular to stop the moment you get done.

prudently leaving off one thickness of his under garments. Or, he is a sufferer from the aching nerves of a partially-decayed tooth, which he has allowed to remain in his lower jaw longer than it ought to, by reason of not having had time to go to the dentist's for the purpose of having it rooted out; or, he has not fully recovered from the bruise on his knee, which he received when that joint came violently in contact with the brick pavement one night last week, some careless or designing person having placed melon rind in a spot on which he could not avoid treading. Or, the illness of his wife's cousin (on the mother's side) has so engrossed his attention since the fourteenth of last month, that he cannot collect his thoughts. Or, he fears (after promising to speak) that he is not the best man whom the committee could have selected for this interesting occasion; and as he sees around him those who are more eloquent than he, he trusts that his well-known inability to interest an audience, will suffice for a reason why he should give place to some of the learned and gifted gentlemen who are present. Or, the pressure of business during the past few days has been such as never, in all his business experience (and here he stops to hint at what a tremendous experience he has had), crowded on him before. It has completely overwhelmed him. Or he is totally unprepared.

The audience sympathizes with the afflicted person, and unanimously conclude that it is unreasonable to expect a speech from a man labouring under any or all of the abovementioned disabilities. They wonder that his family could have consented to his leaving home under the circumstances; and still greater is their surprise to see that the committee do not, on hearing his apologetic

statements, at once procure a comfortable hack, and hurry him to a place of repose and safety. .

His talk is apt to be a continuous string of nothings, amounting in their total to exceedingly little. It did certainly need some apology, if indeed it ought to have been spoken at all. It would have been better to omit it altogether. His hearers

grow weary, and, while they wish him no particular harm, hope that some of his infirmities will interfere with his appearance in public, should a future invitation be extended to him.

Sometimes it is the case, however, that a speaker who begins with an apology makes a really excellent speech. This, which is a rare occurrence, is only an evidence that good men sometimes do foolish things. No apology ever helps a speech. No speech is as good, with an apology at its beginning, as it is if the speaker plunges at once into what he has to say, and says it earnestly and clearly. The only warrantable apology is in the case of the speaker of feeble voice, who consumes the first five minutes of his speech in building the fire under his boiler to get up sufficient steam to enable his voice to be heard. If we must have an apology, let us have it then, for nobody will lose anything by not hearing it.

THE RIDICULOUS SPEAKER.

The last words of the ponderous address of that able man, the Rev. Dr. Plod, have just fallen upon the wearied cars of the audience. The audience are glad, for Dr. Plod has been speaking for forty minutes. He has been into the depths of metaphysical theology, and has rolled out his weighty sayings with logical accuracy, and even with elegance of diction. But it was not possible for

Mr. Ridiculous has been announced as the next speaker. The children know him, and are looking for some lively refreshment from him, which they feel that they deserve, after listening to the stately utterances of Dr. Plod.

He knows, too, that if that distinguished person were to continue his address much longer, the hearers, great and small, might be snoring. They need waking up, and he will wake them up. He reasons with himself, "Old Plod couldn't come it over these folks; but see me fetch them." And he proceeds to "fetch them."

The

The first thing he does is to make a comical face at the children. children at once set him down as a superior man, for Dr. P.'s cou tenance was as unmoved as a milestone during his speech. Now he is going to interest them. They begin to love him, and wish he were going to talk all the time. He makes another funny face, which makes the youthful congregation laugh. These pleasant smirks are instead of the ordinary "introduction" with which sermons are begun.

The "introduction" being over, he plunges into the heads of his subject (if his subject had any heads, or if he had any subject it would be a good thing); or, at any rate, he plunges into something. It is a string of funny nothings, without head, middle, or tail. One queer story succeeds another, interspersed with pleasant grimaces, which come as naturally and as frequently as do the oaths with which profane men spice their conversation. It is extremely delightful to the children, but miserably unprofitable. It is like the elegant froth puddings which adorn hotel dinner-tables, fine to look at, but poor stuff to feed upon; nearly all froth, and almost no pud

careful calculation to ascertain how long it would take a man to starve on such puddings, so we might easily calculate how soon a Sunday-school would run down, if statedly fed on such foolish nothings as the present orator utters.

Both Mr. Ridiculous and Dr. Plod are in error, although their errors are widely different in their character. Plod is as grave as a sexton, Ridiculous cannot help playing the buffoon. Plod never smiles, while Ridiculous. thinks that the chief excellence of speaking is to keep the children on a broad grin all the time. The Doctor thinks it undignified to be constantly using illustrations, and so entirely avoids them. The funny man uses great loads of them; but they are only jokes, and are not used to illustrate anything in particular. Plod disapproves of froth pudding, but does not hesitate to offer his young friends stale sawdust pie. The one they cannot possibly swallow or digest, the other they gulp down in large spoonfuls, but the more they get of it the poorer and thinner they be

come.

It is very easy to make children laugh, especially very young children. But making them laugh should not be the chief object of the man who addresses them in Sunday-school. If mirth is all that is desired it would be well to omit the speech altogether, and only do funny things. Let a funny person go from bench to bench in a Sunday-school, and tickle the children's noses with a straw, or pleasantly punch them under the ribs with a stick, and he will have the school in a burst of cheerful merriment sooner than by delivering the very funniest address he knows. Perhaps somebody says this would be a ridiculous proceeding. Not much more ridicuÎous than some of the buffoon speeches which are sometimes made.