A WARNING

When you do pay attention to the voice, take care not to fall into the habitual and common affectations of the present day. Scarcely one man in a dozen in the pulpit talks like a man.

You may go all round, to church and chapel alike, and you will find that by far the larger majority of our preachers have a holy tone for Sundays. They have one voice for the parlour and the bedroom, and quite another tone for the pulpit; so that, if not double-tongued sinfully, they certainly are so literally. The moment some men shut the pulpit door, they leave their own personal manhood behind them, and become as official as the parish beadle. No longer are they carnal and speak as men, but a whine, a broken hum-haw, or some other graceless mode of noise-making, is adopted, to prevent all suspicion of being natural and speaking out of the abundance of the heart.