"  It  is  not  meant  that  random  trials  must  be  made
of  all  sorts  of  intonations,  or  that  bursts  of  voice
must  be  uttered  at  hazard.  We  must  sit  dowTi,  re-
flect, comprehend,  feel  and  silently  interrogate  the
mind  and  heart.  It  is  not  till  after  this  inward  labor
that  the  e.s.says  of  the  voice  will  be  useful;  they  will
succeed  in  clearing  and  animating  the  movement  of
mind  which  gave  them  birth.  By  these  means,  one
may  gradually  arrive  at  the  true  tone,  which  once
found,  and  e-specially  found  in  this  way,  will  abide
in  the  soul's  memory,  and  will  return  and  present
itself  at  the  moment  of  necessity.  A  very  useful
method  of  aiding  in  this  research  is  to  translate  the
thought  into  other  terms,  more  familiar  than  those
of  the  discourse;  or,  which  is  still  better,  to  inquire
how  one  would  utter  an  analogous  sentiment  in  the
ordinary  course  of  life.  This  care  in  tracing  the
language  to  the  thought,  and  questioning  the  soul
concerning  the  inflections  of  the  voice,  is  the  more
necessary,  from  the  fact  that  the  same  sentence  or
the  same  word  is  susceptible  of  a  multitude  of  in-
flections, which  the  mind  alone  can  distinguish,  per-
ceiving as  it  does  the  most  delicate  relations,  while
the  diction  and  the  pen  have  but  a  single  expression
for  the  whole.
"Take  a  word — the  most  insignificant  you  can
find — a  proper  name,  for  instance — and  this,  if  you
please,  a  monosyllable,  as  Paul.  For  writing  and
for  language,  there  is  but  this  one  word,  Paul;  but
there  are  ten,  twenty,  an  infinity,  for  the  soul,  and
the  organ  it  inspires.  By  the  mere  way  in  which
an  intelligi;nt  speaker,  or  better  still,  one  who  speaks


DELIVER  r  OF  SERMONS.
