(Scripture Reading Exercise.)

THE GREATNESS AND INFLUENCE OF THE MERIDIAN DISPENSATION.

(A Discourse.)

NOTES.

1. Suggestion to the Teacher: See foot note in Lesson XXII, Note 1.

2. Suggestion to the Speakers: Here is a great theme, and one little dwelt upon in the Church, because the ministry and members have been absorbed in the later dispensation with which they are immediately connected. It affords excellent opportunity for truth-grouping, and infinite variety in treatment. (See notes in Lesson XVI and XXII). Many features of this great dispensation are untouched by the foregoing lessons, because of an enforced brevity necessary from our plan of treatment. The speaker, as far as possible, should develop these omitted features, that more knowledge may be imparted to the classes than that given in the lessons. No speaker should be content merely to repeat the subject matter of the lessons when there is so much left untouched outside of them. The lesson affords a scope for large and deep thinking; for wide research and masterful expression. Do your very best upon the subject; it will be worthy of all the effort you bring to bear upon it.

3. Of Completing a Plan for a Discourse: The student should review what is said on the importance of a plan for a discourse in Lesson XXII. On the work of finishing a plan, Mr. Pittinger remarks: "When we have accumulated our materials, stricken out all that is unfitted or superfluous, and determined the general character of our discourse, the remainder of the work of finishing the plan must be left to individual taste and judgment. No rules can be given that will meet every case. We might direct to put first those statements or arguments which are most easily comprehended, and those which are necessary for understanding other portions of the discourse, and also whatever is least likely to be disputed. Something strong and impressive should be held well in reserve. It will not be according to the principles of that highest art which is the best mirror of nature if we exhaust interest in the opening and then close tamely. Beyond these obvious considerations little help can be given to the speaker in this part of his work. He must form his own ideal and then work up to it. We do not advise any one to borrow other men's outlines for the purpose of filling them up and then speaking from them as if the work was original. [That would be execrable!] This is a most profitless kind of plagiarism. Such sketches may be useful to the very young speaker, merely as indications of the kind of excellence in plans or sketches at which he should aim. And when he hears good discourses he may look beneath the burning words and criticise the merits of the framework upon which they rest. This may render him less satisfied with his own plans, but such dissatisfaction ever affords the best hope for future success. The true mode of improving your plans is to bestow a great deal of time and thought upon them, and to make no disposition of any part for which you cannot give a satisfactory reason. This direction relates only to the beginner. In time the formation of plans will become so natural that any variation from the most effective arrangement will be felt as keenly as a discord in music is felt by a master in that art. From such carefully constructed plans, firm, coherent, and logical discourses will result." (Extempore Speech, Pittinger, pp. 170, 171.)

Essential Elements of a Plan: "There are certain general characteristics that each plan should possess. It must fully indicate the nature of the proposed discourse and mark out each of its successive steps with accuracy. Any want of definiteness in the outline is a fatal defect. You must feel that you can rely absolutely on it for guidance to the end of your discourse, or be always in danger of embarassment and confusion. Each clause should express a distinct idea, and but one. This should be repeated in no other part of the discourse; otherwise we fall into wearisome repetitions, the great vice, as it is often claimed, of extempore speakers. A brief plan is better, other things being equal, than a long one. Often a single word will recall an idea as perfectly as many sentences, and it will burden the memory less. We do not expect the draft of a house to equal the house in size, but only to preserve a proportionate relation to it throughout. The plan cannot supply the thought, but, indicating what is in the mind, it shows how to bring it forth in regular succession. It is a pathway leading to a definite end, and, like all pathways, its crowning merits are directness and smoothness. Without these qualities it will perplex and hinder rather than aid. Each word in the plan should suggest an idea, and be so firmly bound to that idea that the two cannot become separated in any exigency of speech. You will find it sorely perplexing if, in the heat of discourse, some important note should lose the thought for which it previously stood and become an empty word. But with clear conceptions condensed into fitting words, this cannot easily happen. A familiar idea can be expressed very briefly, while a strange or new conception may require more expansion. But all thoughts advanced by the speaker ought to be familiar to himself as the result of long meditation and thorough mastery, no matter how strange or startling they are to his hearers. Most skeletons may be brought within the compass of a hundred words, and every part be clearly indicated to the mind that conceived it, though perhaps not to any other." (Extempore Speech, Pittinger, pp. 171-2-3.)

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Clearness in Speech: We turn again to the consideration of the quality of clearness in speech. In Lesson XXII the fault of ambiguity was dealt with to some extent, and here consideration of the same fault is renewed.

"Ambiguity from the Use of Too Many Pronouns: Ambiguity may be produced by a too free use of pronouns. A student who wishes to tell how Dr. Livesey, of Treasure Island fame, threatened the pirate, Billy Bones, writes:

"The Doctor told him he was a dirty old scamp, and that he was a doctor and a magistrate, so that if he ever caught him doing anything like that again, he would run him out of the district."

It lakes time to discover to which man the various pronouns refer. To remove the obscurity we shall have to make part of the passage a direct quotation:

Dr. Livesey told Bones that he was a dirty scamp, and warned him if he did anything like that again, he would be run out of the district. "For," said the Doctor, "I am not only a physician, but a magistrate, too."

Often when the report of a speech in the third person is ambiguous, we must resort to this device of direct quotation. Usually, however, the question is merely one of finding nouns to take the place of pronouns. By decreasing the number of pronouns, the confused sentence, "Walters and Foster didn't agree with them, but thought as we did, and so they were forced to give up their intention," becomes the clear one, "Walters and Foster didn't agree with their old-time adversaries, but agreed with us, and so the latter were forced to give up their intention." In getting rid of ambiguous pronouns it may be necessary to repeat a word. When clearness demands it, the best writers are never afraid to use a word twice. The repetition may, by serving as a sort of echo of the previous thought, even increase the coherence. So Mr. Bryce writes:

"Yet, after all, it (the influence of the Speaker of the House of Representatives) is power, power which in the hands of a capable and ambitious man becomes so far-reaching that it is no exaggeration to call him the second, if not the first political figure in the United States."—(Bryce: American Commonwealth.)

This device of repetition is used in transforming the incoherent sentence below into a coherent one.

Incoherent: This policy is not the best one; it is false, and we know it, and shun it accordingly, even if it is not to our interest.

Coherent: This policy is not the best policy; it is false, we know it to be false, and though shunning it is not to our interest, shun it we do. (Composition and Rhetoric for Schools. Herrick and Damon, p. 304-5.)