-seated conviction and the enthusiasm that flows
from it, your fire is but painted fire, your thunder the thunder
of the stage. This living earnestness is the spark that illumines
and vitalizes all. Without it the best built sermon is but a
painted corpse; but when the soul gleams forth in the flashing
eye and quivering lip, waves of unseen fire are issuing with
every sentence, and arrows of light silently piercing every
heart. The most stubborn prejudices are forced to melt and the
most depraved wills are swept on the crest of the grand tidal
wave, slowly gathering from the start; but when the preacher
forgets himself and his surroundings, flings self-consciousness
away, goes outside himself, pouring the hot tide from his own
glowing heart, till every flash of his eye and every wave of his
hand becomes a palpitating thought, then his audience surrender;
their hearts are in the hollow of his hand, wax to receive any
impression; their wills can be braced and lifted to the sublimest
heights of heroism--this is triumph.

[Side note: O'Connell]

It is said that the great mastery O'Connell exercised over the
people mainly sprang from the passionate earnestness of his
conviction. The nation's heart seemed merged into his own. He
stood forth her living, breathing symbol. When he spoke it was
Ireland spoke. Her passions rocked his soul; her humour flashed
from his eye; her scorn gleamed in his glances, and her sobs
choked his utterance. Ah! if preachers were as filled with the
Spirit of Christ as this man was with the spirit of patriotism,
what a revolution we might witness!

You ask--"How then do actors move people since there can be no
enthusiasm when men know they simulate unreal people and unreal
passions?" I answer, that the first step towards becoming a great
actor is to fling aside that knowledge and hand yourself over the
willing victim of a delusion. You must not _act_ but _live_ your
part: persuade yourself that you are the character you personate:
surrender your heart to be torn by real passions and wrung by
real sorrows.

The answer is well known which a celebrated actor once gave to a
divine:--"How is it that you so move people by fiction and our
preachers fail to move them by truth?" "Sir, we speak fiction as
if it were fact, and your preachers speak truth as if it were
fiction."

Here we leave our preacher facing his audience and filled with
but one idea: I have a great message to deliver and I will lay