CONTINUATION CLASSES FOR CLERGYMEN.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19198, 14 June 1924, Page 10

CONTINUATION CLASSES FOR CLERGYMEN.

Whether the Nottingham experiment m chnrch opera is based on a broad understanding cf public taste, or on a realisar tion of pulpit inadequacy, it is lamentably true that the stage is far ahead of tw pulpit in appeal to the human heart. As a sermon taster, I have been amazed at the slipshod and uninspired “ delivery ’ of some of our best preaohers. Most of them profess to have studied elocution at college after a fashion, but some lack the vocal equipment, and more forget to keep up their practice. There is still no power greater than that of live human speech, and there are otherwise great preachers who just miss the mark by failing to cultivate their elocutionary powers. Mannerisms grow on a preacher because, unlike other artists, he hi not subject M open criticism. Actors are always exposed to attack—not always with tho happiest results, for has not an elocutionist declared that Irving was “ the best actor and the worst speaker on the English stage”? Where may one go to-day to be thrilled by the impassioned pleading of a Silvester Horne or the musical magic of a Henry Ward Beecher? A ministerial friend of mine who had travelled much in pre-war Russia told me that the greatest impression he had brought back was the reading of a Russian priest in one of- the great churches ;n Moscow —a Chaliapino in holy orders. Give us fine music in our worship, oy all means, but not at the cost of fine prophetic utterance. Dean Inge’s dictum that the best preachers are not always the most popular, needs the corollary, “ but they might be, and ought to be.”- How? By continuing their elocutionary studies, by submitting—privately—-to expert criticism,’ both of manner and matter; by exercising remorseless vigilance over their mannerisms, and giving as much heed to tautology as to theology. Not long ago I heard a clergyman recite pieces. His art so thrilled me that I went out of my way soon after to hear hiu. preach. His preaching was just passable, so little above mediocrity that if I had heard him preach first, i should not have gone to his recital. Why was it? Is there something in a pulpit that ties a man’s tongue?