and good matter may be found in the fact that his voice, instead
of being as flexible as a piece of whalebone, is as unbending as
a bar of iron; or, worse still, perhaps he adopts the dreary
monotony of the sing-song tone: the two unvarying notes so
suggestive of the up and down movements of a pump-handle. This
"cuckoo" tone would blight the best written sermon.

[Side note: Two impediments to good preaching]

Nothing now remains except to warn the young preacher against the
two most common defects--affectation of voice and word-dropping
at the end of the sentences.

[Side note: An artificial tone of voice]

"Preach," says Dr. Ireland, "in a manner that the people will
understand, and that goes straight to their hearts, and not in
the stilted phraseology of the seventeenth century sermon." Sage
advice! The comic stage has set the world laughing at the
grotesque inflections of the parson preacher; but is his
counterpart never found amongst ourselves. Is the Catholic pulpit
free from speakers whose ridiculous cadences at once class them
amongst the disciples of the Rev. Mr. Spalding?

[Side note: Artificiality means failure]

We have met priests, typical of a considerably large class, who,
in ordinary conversation, could speak in a manner both natural
and pleasing; who, when roused, could be even eloquently
convincing; who, at the dinner-table and even on the platform,