BISHOP OF ST. ANDREW'S ON DEMOSTHENES.

Tuapeka Times, Volume XVIII, Issue 1215, 20 January 1886, Page 6

BISHOP OF ST. ANDREW'S ON DEMOSTHENES.

The Bishop of St. Andrews opened a course of lectures in connection with the Edinburgh Diocesan Literary Association by delivering a lecture on •• Demosthenes." The lecturer said that his reason for selecting such a subject as the life of Demosthenes was that he knew of no more striking example to the young of overcoming difficulties. Oratory was one of the accomplishments in which the moderns were surpassed by the ancients. Having alluded to 1 the course of training which Demosthenes pursued in order to overcome his physical impediments, the lecturer said that tbe admiration which he excited arose not so much from tbe new ideas and striking passages which he delivered, of which more than fifty are still extant, as from the skill with which he managed the entire argument, the address with which he won the unanimous confidence of his hearers, and the apparent ease and artlessness with which he produced bis grand effect. There was no lack of orators, or would be orators, among ourselves at the present moment. Indeed, we were actually deluged with the speeches of public men from week to week and day to day — (laughter) — the same honest attempt to warn their hearers against tbe deceitfulness of their own wishes (Applause.) He remembered Mr Gladstone, in an address which he delivered at the opening in London of an industrial exhibition, making use of these words — " Few indeed are those to whom the path of excellence is not open in one direction or another, provided only there be diligence and determination." (Applause.) If Demosthenes and Mr Gladstone were then standing together on that platform each would point to the other as a prominent example of the truth of that remark. (Applause.) Nor could less be said of that other distinguished statesman and rival of Mr Gladstone, the late Lord Beaconsfield. (Applause.)