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Halleck gives the following excellent description of the ideas best fitted to raise emotion in the minds of one’s hearers: “Feeling cannot be compelled. Even if a person wishes to feel sorry, he cannot merely because some one tells him he should. There must be an adequate cause, just as so much fuel must be consumed to raise the temperature of water a given number of degrees. Many would-be orators rave and gesticulate wildly, but excite no emotion save disgust in their hearers. * * * A large part of the business of life consists in moving the emotions of men so as to get them to act. Those ideas which give vivid pictures of a concrete act of injustice, of the doer of a noble deed, of an actual sufferer, seldom fail to raise emotion. If a man intends to get a contribution for the sick poor, let him not speak in general terms of the inconvenience of sickness, the pains of poverty. One vivid picture of a forlorn room where a feeble mother is watching her sick child, for whom she is unable to procure proper food, will be infinitely more effective. Any idea which suggests gratification of desire, any idea which vividly pictures something affecting the welfare of the self or of others, is apt to be followed by emotion. Probably no one can even imagine a person in a burning car, or lying helpless with broken limbs on a lonely road, without feeing the emotion of pity arise.”

Whitefield, the eminent preacher, possessed this art of painting emotional word pictures to a wonderful degree. This, coupled with his dramatic instinct, was probably the secret of his great power over people. An English writer once said of him: “Wherein lies the secret of Whitefield’s power? What was the spell by which he not only enthralled the multitude, but also men of clear judgments and capacious intellects and cold hearts? When we read Whitefield’s sermons we find nothing in them that explains this mystery. He was not a theologian; he was not a thinker; he had no high poetical imagination; his diction is commonplace; his imagery conventional; his range of illustration limited; and it is remarkable that he has left nothing in literature, not even in devotional literature, by which he deserves to be remembered—not a single treatise, not a hymn, not a page of discourse. Face to face with men he did with them as he chose, but he had no skill to sway them by written words.”

The following, from the pen of Nathan Sheppard, will give you the answer regarding the nature and source of Whitefield’s power:

“Whitefield came nearer to the Demosthenic standard than is possible with many speakers of our western race. He utilized the histrionic art in public speaking beyond any other preacher of his age and tongue. The actors heard him with envy. Garrick was jealous of the skill and grace with which he handled his handkerchief. His manners, it is said, captivated the fastidious Chesterfield, he extorted admiration from the philosophical Bolingbroke, and the elegant skeptic, David Hume, went great distances to hear doctrines that he detested delivered in a style that fascinated him.

“When Whitefield acted an old blind man advancing by slow steps toward the edge of the precipice, Lord Chesterfield started up and cried: ‘Good God, he is gone!’ And when the seaman heard and saw his description of the ship on her beam-ends, they sprang to their feet and shouted: ‘The long-boat—take to the long-boat!’ This scene is worth reproducing. Suddenly assuming a nautical air and manner that were irresistible, he broke in with: ‘Well, my boys, we have a clear sky, and are making fine headway over a smooth sea before a light breeze, and we shall soon lose sight of land. But what means this—this sudden lowering of the heavens, and that dark cloud arising from beneath the western horizon? Hark! Don’t you hear distant thunder! Don’t you see those flashes of lightning! There is a storm gathering! Every man to his duty! How the waves rise and dash against the ship! The air is dark!—the tempest rages!— our masts are gone!—the ship is on her beam-ends! What next!’ This appeal instantly brought the sailors to their feet, with a shout: ‘The long-boat—take to the long-boat!’”

Benjamin Franklin, in his “Autobiography,” tells the following story of Whitefield’s power over the emotions of men: “Returning northward, he preached up this charity and made large collections, for his eloquence had a wonderful power over the hearts and purses of his hearers, of which I, myself, was an instance. I did not approve of the design. * * * but he was resolute in his first project, rejected my counsel, and I refused to contribute. I happened soon after to attend one of his sermons in the course of which I perceived he intended to finish with a collection, and I silently resolved he should get nothing from me. I had in my pocket a handful of copper money, three or four silver dollars, and five pistoles in gold. As he proceeded I began to soften and concluded to give the coppers. Another stroke of his oratory made me ashamed of that and determined me to give the silver; and he finished so admirably that I emptied my pockets wholly into the collector’s dish, gold and all.”

Mr. Sheppard gives the following suggestion regarding the cultivation of the dramatic element in public speaking: “It can be cultivated by the cultivation of the elocutionary instinct, the rhetorical instinct, the dramatic instinct, by the training of the ear for rhetoric and the eye for rhetorical and dramatic effects. Imitation helps, and observation plays its part, but if the art of the actors and the art of the speakers are confounded, and you undertake to acquire one by acquiring the other, you will acquire neither. * * * To repeat, so as to prevent misconception or confusion: First, the self-excitation or physical earnestness of the actor is just as desirable and valuable to the speaker as it is to the actor; second, the dramatic manner, which is inseparable from the drama, is a very useful auxiliary to public speaking; but, third, when and by whom this dramatic manner is to be used is to be left to the judgment of the speaker; and fourth, that judgment may be trained to an indefinite extent.”

And, so say we:

In conclusion, let us consider the words of Cardinal Newman, who said: “Deductions have no power of persuasion. The heart is commonly reached, not through the reason, but through the imagination, by means of direct impressions, by the testimony of facts and events, by history, by description. Persons influence us, voices melt us, looks subdue us, deeds inflame us.”

Table of Content

THE SIXTH step in Argumentative Discourse is that known as the Peroration or Closing , in which the speaker sums up all that has been said, and strives to forcibly impress upon the mind of his hearers a clear, strong idea of his side of the case—the spirit and essence of his argument; in fact, as Hyslop well says: “Just as definition introduces discourse, recapitulation should close it * * * a recapitulation which sums up in outline all the arguments which have been presented.” To many speakers, the opening and the closing steps are the most difficult. As Hill says: “It is in Exordiums and Perorations that a young writer (or speaker) often fails; he does not know how to get at his subject or how to get away from it. He should beware of putting in a word of introduction that is not necessary to prepare the way for his argument, and of adding a word at the end that is not necessary to enforce his conclusion. ‘Is he never going to begin?’ ‘Will he never have done?’ are questions equally fatal.”

In the recapitulation, the subject of the entire argument should be gone over, clearly and briefly, bringing out each important and telling point with emphasis, and passing over the minor points with but a brief mention. Beware of repeating the argument in closing—the time for details of argument has passed. Instead, treat the argument as closed, and assume the tone and manner of one reciting the “accomplished fact” of proof of the various points in dispute. The closing should be a summing up of successful argument—the recapitulation of points scored. It should ever be pitched to the triumphal key— the note of success should be heard throughout it.