still worse, ungentlemanlike.  He knows, too, that a reputation as a ‘popular preacher’ is not the thing which will conduce much to his preferment in his profession.  The Scotch preacher, on the other hand, throws himself heart and soul into his subject.  Chalmers overcame the notion that vehemence in the pulpit was indicative of either fanaticism or weakness of intellect:  he made ultra-animation respectable:  and earnestness, even in an excessive degree, is all in favour of a young preacher’s popularity; while a man’s chance of the most valuable preferments (in the way of parochial livings) of the Scotch church, is in exact proportion to his popularity as a preacher.  The spell of the greatest preachers is in their capacity of intense feeling.  This is reflected on the congregation.  A congregation will in most cases feel but a very inferior degree of the emotion which the preacher feels.  But intense feeling is contagious.  There is much in common between the tragic actor and the popular preacher; but while the actor’s power is generally the result of a studied elocution, the preacher’s is almost always native.  A teacher of elocution would probably say that the manner of Chalmers, Guthrie, or Caird was a very bad one; but it suits the man, and no other would produce a like impression.  In reading the most effective discourses of the greatest preachers, we are invariably disappointed.  We can see nothing very particular in those quotations from Chalmers which are recorded as having so overwhelmingly impressed those who heard them.  It was manner that did it all.  In short, an accessory which in England is almost entirely neglected, is the secret of Scotch effect.  Nor is it any derogation from an orator’s genius to say that his power lies much less in what he says than in how he says it.  It is but saying that his weapon can be wielded by no other hand than his own.  Manner makes the entire difference between Macready and the poorest stroller that murders Shakspeare.  The matter is the Baine in the case of each.  Each has the same thing to say; the enormous difference lies in the manner in which each says it.  The greatest effects recorded to have been produced by human language, have been produced by things which, in merely reading them, would not have appeared so very remarkable.  Hazlitt tells us that nothing so lingered on his ear as a line from Home’s Douglas, as spoken by young Betty:—­

And happy, in my mind, was he that died.

We have heard it said that Macready never produced a greater effect than by the very simple words ‘Who said that?’ It is perhaps a burlesque of an acknowledged fact, to record that Whitfield could thrill an audience by saying ‘Mesopotamia!’ Hugh Miller tells us that he heard Chahners read a piece which he (Miller) had himself written.  It produced the effect of the most telling acting; and its author never knew how fine it was till then.  We remember well the feeling which ran through us when we heard Caird say, ’As we bend over the