MUSINGS and MEDITATIONS

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXXIX, Issue 21, 23 November 1907, Page 28

MUSINGS and MEDITATIONS

By

Dog Toby

THE PULPIT AND ELOCUTION.

ELIGIOL'S people have for many H # years past criticised the stage as g \ being a place of sin, and in _g, 'X league with the world, the flesh, V and the devil. Even the “Greek plir, bishops” and clerical editions of Shakespeare were only supposed to take an.interest in the drama from a literary point of view. it is highly probable that our modern censor would have put his peucii through not a few lines in the Greek and Gitin plays so learnedly edited by these erudite divines; but it would seem that Satan only entered into these compositions when they were put on the boards. All men, even the very pious, love theatrical performances in their heart, but the “unco guid” have ha<l to content themselves with acting charades and witnessing the drawingroom performances of amateur actors. We have even had theatrical evangelists, who have described themselves as having been converted from the stage. The churches have certainly had their fling at the theatre, and now the theatre has turned round and had its fling at the churches. An actor, speaking at a church congress is a decided novelty, an actor lecturing the clergy is a radical departure fr >m time honoured custom. Sir Squire Bancroft has been telling the parsons that they can neither read nor preach, and that they should go to the despised theatres and take lessons in elocution. And what he says is undoubtedly true. Not one minister in a hundred can read well, not one in a thousand can deliver a sermon effectively. There are two main reasons for this. The first is that

a great many people imagine that it is rather irreverent to read the Bible as if it meant anything. They read it as a lawyer reads a deed to his client, or a member of Parliament an Act to his constituents, or as most people read Shakespeare or Browning at meetings of literary societies. This is a survival of the time when it was considered unorthodox and dangerous to suppose that the Bible really did mean anything. All the Old Testament characters were supposed to be types of something in the New Testament rather than, real men and women, and Dean Stanley got into serious trouble for comparing Abraham to an Arab Sheikh. When the Revisers by correcting a mistranslation made sense out of what was previously quite unintelligible, Dean Burgon somewhat naively remarked that if they persisted in doing this they would unsettle the faith of millions. The speaker at the Congress said that he had listened to such extracts as tell of the death of Absalom, of Daniel in the lions’ den, of the prodigal’s return, read as if they were so many stale problems in Euclid. Jle especially deplored the artificiality of sing-song utterance, and mournful intonation. Garrick had said long before that "Actors treat fiction as if it were fact, and the clergy treat fact as if it wen lief ion.” Those who believe t hat artificiality betokens reverence would do well to ponder the weighty words of the Bishop of Carlisle. Addressing his Ordinal ion candidates, he said, “Most of all, beware of slipshod reading of the Bible in pul lie worship—lifeless, careless re/d--ing insipid, unintelligent, unspiritual leuli Hiding in a sing-song monotonous artificial voice; the mere mumbling of Ht.lv Scripture not only void of b< ut- <lt conviction, but also void of taste, tone, anti colour; reading which void I bring well deserved punishment on ' fourth standard child at. school. f< .• th -lip-h.«l renting, nay. tar worse t , t t|,:. n.o«t shameful nnd guilty it uli'.. . is plating deadly havoc to-day with • 11- let! r. nce fo the Bible among th lit jlidi people.’’ In the old days the cb'rgx were the only people who could ! id: owa ins it would seem that they are the onh people that can’t.

Sir Squire Bancroft rather pertinently asks why it is that reading and elocution are not taught to young clergymen. The second reason for bad reading and preaching is undoubtedly lack of proper training. Candidates for ordination are examined in Church History and the history of all doctrines and heresies, ancient and modern. They are supposed to know the whole injer meaning of the subtle and hair-splitting disputes that arose over the correct accentuation of the Greek word “theotokos.” But they are seldom taught either how to read or how to preach. To the ordinary layman why this should be so is a greater mystery than the Athanasian Creed itself. The average man is inclined to look on good reading and preaching as one of the most essential qualifications in the clergy. It is devoutly to be hoped that this very able japer by one of our best elocutionists will produce more practical results than most of the papers read at the Church Congress usually do. We eannot train men to be orators. The orator is born, not made. But we can train men to read naturally and with expression, and we can train them to speak with clearness and lucidity. The art of public speaking is not easy to acquire; even the greatest of our pulpit orators have not found any royal road to success. The delightful ease, the ready vocabulary, the perfect modulation of voice, ail the thousand and one things that go to charm and hold an audience, seem so natural and spontaneous when we listen to some great speaker that we are apt to forget they are in reality the result only of the most assiduous practice and cultivation. If our greatest men, with all their genius and natural gift for speaking have had to spend years in perfecting fhemselves in their art, is it not a little absurd to assume that the average man can become a preacher by merely putting on a surplice? The pulpit is still a great power, and the churches will be foolish indeed if they allow' this power to slip from them by any neglect in training their men in the art of elocution and public speaking.