Our nimble-minded imaginative people will rise to and grasp the
most elevated ideas if properly presented.

I listened to a sermon in an English church preached before a
congregation of Irish poor. The keynote was lofty, but
beautifully sustained throughout. The range of thought was high,
but the truths clarified by an abundance of happy illustration.
That discourse was so classic in its beauty that it might be
preached before an Oxford audience, yet not an idea was lost on
that breathless congregation, where every female head was covered
by a shawl. The speaker possessed in an eminent degree three
gifts that must command success:--He could think clearly; he
could so express his thoughts that his language became the mirror
of his mind; he made a large demand on the familiar scenes of
nature with which to illustrate his ideas and send his reasoning
home; he possessed a mind at once logical and imaginative and a
manner of expression that formed a definition of perfect
style--_Le style c'est l'homme_--the style is the man.

[Side note: 3.--Be natural in delivery]

The faintest suspicion of art immediately sets your audience up
in arms. Their teeth are on edge; their heart locked against you.
"This is acting and not preaching" seals your fate.

Do not imagine for a moment that I advocate the neglect of
elocutionary graces. So far from that I hold that every young
priest leaving college should be a past master of all rhetorical
arts. Gesture, articulation, voice production and inflection