but so to shape their sentences, so to point
their paragraphs, and to give such a turn to their expressions, as to
tickle most effectually the fancy of those who hear them, and to call
down that round of applause which tells them they have made a _hit_. Now
just so far as this is the case, popular lecturing not only seeks to
supply the place of the theatre, but actually becomes theatrical; and
lacking the essential worth and dignity of the drama, assumes its tricks
and shallow vanities.

Nevertheless, the author whom we have quoted sees in this fashion signs
of promise, for it signifies the existence and the struggling toward the
light, of the absolute want of the soul--which will soon rectify the
public taste, and teach men that pleasure lies only in the life-giving
and the true.

"In this," he says, "lives an abiding ground of hope and cheerful
confidence; for it teaches us that every human heart has those depths
and living powers in it, the healthful action of which is the true life
and well-being of the soul--and in none, we hope, are they forever
dormant; and no heart, we hope, is wholly closed. Light, though in rays
feeble and scattered, may shine in upon it, and it shall awake--for it
is not dead, but sleepeth.... The feeling of wants that lie deeper and
farther inward than the sensual appetites, must be supplied or
suppressed; and hence arise a struggle and conflict between the
antagonist principles of our being. Firm peace, and healthful, quiet
energy of soul, are the fruit of victory, and of victory only.
Therefore, though attended with a 'troubled sea of noises, and hoarse
disputes,' the contest, with its hubbub and vain clamor, is the door to
quietness and clear intelligence. Pedantry and pretension, quackery and
imposture, shall, in spite of themselves, conduct to their own exposure
and extinction; for a higher sway than ours guides all affairs, causing
even the wrath of man to praise Him, and making folly itself the guide
to wisdom. Hooker characterized his own times as 'full of tongue, and
weak of brain;' and Luther said to the same effect, of the preachers and
scholars of his day: 'If they were not permitted to prate and clatter
about it, they would burst with the greatness of their art and science,
so hot and eager are they to teach.' But the noise and dust having
subsided, there is left us, of those very times, works which men will
not willingly let die. Noise and smoke causeless do not come. There i