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HOW TO GET STRONG
to congratulate you upon the unrivalled and boundless popularity which attended you in the Metropolis.… The attention which your sermons have excited is probably unequalled in modern literature."
In his Oratory and Orators, Professor Mathews says: "What ruler of men ever subjugated them more effectually by his sceptre than Chalmers, who gave law from his pulpit for thirty years? Who drew tears from Dukes and Duchesses, and made the Princes of the blood and bishops start to their feet, and break out into rounds of the wildest applause? It would be hard to name an orator of equal fame who had so few of the usual external helps and ornaments of eloquence; and hence the first feeling of almost every hearer whom his fame had attracted was a shock of disappointment. As he rose to speak, and the hearer contrasted with his ideal of an orator, or with his preconceived notions, the middle-sized and somewhat strange and uncouth figure before him, with its broad but not lofty forehead, its prominent cheek-bones, and its drooping, lack-lustre eyes; as he observed the abrupt and awkward manner, apparently indicating embarrassment or irreverence, or both; and listened to the harsh croaking tones of the broad Fifeshire tongue, while the speaker bent over his manuscript, and following it with his finger, read every word like a school-boy;—it seemed incredible that this could be the man who had stormed the hearts of his countrymen for more than thirty years; and whose published discourses had rivalled in their sale the productions of the great Wizard of the North. All this, however, was but the gathering of the clouds as a prelude to dazzling and flashing outbursts of lightning, and to the reverberating thunder-peals in the heavens. Gradually the great preacher would unveil himself; the ungainly attitude, the constraint and awkwardness, the vacant look and feebleness of voice and manner would be cast aside, or, if in some degree retained, would be overlooked by the hearer in the deepening interest of the theme; the voice, though still harsh and unmusical, would ring out and shrill like a clarion; the eye, which was so dull and half closed, would be lighted up with intelligence; the breast would heave, and the body sway to and fro with the tumult of the thought; voice and face would seem bursting with the fury of excitement; while his person was bathed with perspiration; the words, before so slow, would leap forth with the rapidity and force of a mountain torrent; argument would follow argument, illustration would follow illustration, and332
