ord required more. At the close of the
meeting a young woman seriously said to a friend: 'I am sure the farmers
do well if they give their hogs and hens to missions. It is more than
most people can afford.'"

It is insufferable effrontery for any man to appear before an audience
who persists in driving the _h_ out of happiness, home and heaven, and,
to paraphrase Waldo Messaros, will not let it rest in hell. He who does
not show enough self-knowledge to see in himself such glaring faults,
nor enough self-mastery to correct them, has no business to instruct
others. If he _can_ do no better, he should be silent. If he _will_ do
no better, he should also be silent.

Barring incurable physical defects--and few are incurable nowadays--the
whole matter is one of will. The catalogue of those who have done the
impossible by faithful work is as inspiring as a roll-call of warriors.
"The less there is of you," says Nathan Sheppard, "the more need for you
to make the most of what there is of you."

_Articulation_

Articulation is the forming and joining of the elementary sounds of
speech. It seems an appalling task to utter articulately the third-of-a
million words that go to make up our English vocabulary, but the way to
make a beginning is really simple: _learn to utter correctly, and with
easy change from one to the other, each of the forty-four elementary
sounds in our language_.

The reasons why articulation is so painfully slurred by a great many
public speakers are four: ignorance of the elemental sounds; failure to
discriminate between sounds nearly alike; a slovenly, lazy use of the
vocal organs; and a torpid will. Anyone who is still master of himself
will know how to handle each of these defects.

The vowel sounds are the most vexing source of errors, especially where
diphthongs are found. Who has not heard such errors as are hit off in
this inimitable verse by Oliver Wendell Holmes:

Learning condemns beyond the reach of hope
The careless lips that speak of s[)o]ap for s[=o]ap;
Her edict exiles from her fair abode
The clownish voice that utters r[)o]ad for r[=o]ad;
Less stern to him who calls his c[=o]at, a c[)o]at
And steers his b[=o]at believing it a b[)o]at.
She pardoned one, our classic city's boast.
Who said at Cambridge, m[)o]st instead of m[=o]st,
But knit her brows and stamped her angry foot
To hear a Teacher call a r[=oo]t a r[)oo]t.

The foregoing examples