the whole land of Ethiopia. And the name of the third river is Hiddekel: that is it which goeth toward the east of Assyria. And the fourth river is Euphrates."-Gen. ii., 8–14. Low Pitch.-When feeling is chastened by a solemnizing theme, when vivacity and animation are repressed by depth of feeling, then the low notes increase the expressive means of communication. Weight and gravity of thought, seriousness, and moral effect are conveyed through this medium. If the speaker is to impress by the gravity of his theme, if he is to set the minds of his hearers deliberately and thoughtfully at work, he will find the low notes the leading agent in producing this gravity of effect. The absence of power to make the voice resonant on the lower keys is so much loss of impressive and commanding effect. While the higher notes may inspirit, the lower will chasten and subdue in their influence and feeling. And if the speaker who is conscious of having delivered his voice for several minutes on an undeviating high key will but pause, inhale a full breath, in order to change the action of the muscles, and then deliberately pass to a low note, he will himself experience the relief which will gratify his hearer. The solemnity of the thought of death casts the voice low in pitch; to this should be added the slow movement, with frequent pauses. 1. In Memoriam.-Tennyson. "There sat the Shadow feared of man; "Who broke our fair companionship, And spread his mantle dark and cold; "And bore thee where I could not see Nor follow, though I walk in haste; In the Service for the Burial of the Dead, the solemnity of the event and the sympathetic sorrow which touches. the heart in the presence of death and the bereaved living suppress the voice to the lower notes. The sentences below, to be in harmony with this Service, must, therefore, be on a low key. A high pitch would make the entire Service flippant, unfeeling, or jubilant. 66 2. "I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live and whosoever liveth and believeth in me, shall never die."-St. John, xi., 25, 26. "I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth. And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another."-Job, xix., 25-27. "We brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord."-I. Tim., vi., 7. Job, i., 21. The Committal, in the Burial Service, being an act of the greatest solemnity and significance, requires a still lower key than the foregoing: 66 3. Forasmuch as it hath pleased Almighty God, in his wise providence, to take out of this world the soul of our deceased brother, we therefore commit his body to the ground; earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust; looking for the general Resurrection in the last day, and the life of the world to come, through our Lord Jesus Christ; at whose second coming in glorious majesty to judge the world, the earth and the sea shall give up their dead; and the corruptible bodies of those who sleep in him shall be changed, and made like unto his own glorious body; according to the mighty working whereby he is able to subdue all things unto himself." The description of the Judgment scene, to be portentous and solemn in effect, would keep the descriptive voice low in pitch : 4. "And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood; and the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a figtree casteth her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind. And the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together; and every mountain and island were moved out of their places. And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bond man, and every free man, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains; and said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb: for the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand ?". Rev., vi., 12-17. Higher Pitch.-The enlivening and inspiriting effects of excited feeling are properly conveyed on a key higher than that designated by "middle" or "low" pitch. There is but little use for the upper notes in the reading of the Service. Occasionally in the pulpit the higher notes are heard, indicative of the earnestness and excitability of the emotion which produces them. The animated description in the passage following naturally lifts the voice above the middle key. A just degree of rapidity must accompany the expression, to account for the high key. 1. Human Machinery.—Sewell. "Look at that infant at its mother's breast; and then collect from the streets of London all your great artificers and mechanics, painters and sculptors, architects and engineers; and he will surpass them all. He is performing at this moment every one of their operations with a dexterity and accuracy and perfection which baffle even the conception of the highest intellects. He is building himself a house, in which his soul is to reside―a house, not fixed to one spot, but capable of moving about to any place, and adapting itself to every climate. He not only fits together the masonry of his bones, but he makes the masonry itself; a hard, solid, but light concrete of artificial stone. He spins cordage, to thatch his head. He weaves a most delicate tissue for his skin, at once impervious to wet from without and pervious to it from within: no manufacturer has yet been able to solve this necessary problem. He constructs a telescope to see with; an ear-trumpet to hear with; a carriage to ride on ; a pantechnicon of mechanical instruments in the hand; a self-repairing mill in his teeth; a most curious system of water-works-pipes, pumps, fountains, and drains-by which he distributes the blood to every part of his mansion, on the most corrrct principles of hydraulics. He will make an air-pump to ventilate it in his reservoir of the lungs; a vast kitchen filled with stoves, ovens, bake-houses, to concoct his food, besides larders and presses to receive it. He will defy any chemist to equal the menstruum which he invents and employs for the purpose of analyzing and recombining it. At the same time that helpless infant is creating a series of engines of all kinds for raising weights, pulling cords, propelling bodies; branching out into innumerable springs, pulleys, levers, wheels, and valves-all worked, like Mr. Brunel's blockmachinery, by one motive power, which no one can see. He is constructing drains and cloaca to carry off all that is superfluous or noxious. He is ready, if he breaks a bone, instantly to set to work and make a new concrete, or marmoratum, to consolidate it again. And he is also molding a statue; hiding all this machinery under an exquisite figure of grace, beauty, and proportion, which it is the highest aim of modern art to study and repeat. He will paint himself with the delicacy of a Raphael and the richness of a Titian. He will touch every line of his face with a minute and exquisite feeling, so that his mind may be seen through it as through a transparent veil. He will construct a whole language of signs, in the telegraphic play of the muscles, and the flexibility of the features, with which he will speak to his fellow-men with a most perspicuous and moving and intelligible eloquence. And he will fit up in his throat an orchestra of musical instruments, capable of awakening every pulse of sound, full of life, expression, and feeling, without which all other instruments are cold and insipid. And when all this has been done, he will transmit to others the same wonderful art, the same mysterious powers, and multiply and preserve them through an infinite series of generations. All this he begins to do the moment the breath of life is infused into him.” Quiet humor, of which some of the older divines especially furnish occasional passages, and of which the modern pulpit is not entirely destitute, would, of course, require that flexibility and ready play of voice which harmonize with the quaint play of the conceit, the fitting expression, or the harmless yet expressive play of the imagination. The extract from Walton is introduced as a relief to the ear and voice from more somber passages. 2. Richard Hooker.—Walton. "But the justifying of this doctrine did not prove of so bad consequence, as the kindness of Mrs. Churchman's curing of his late distemper and cold; for that was so gratefully apprehended by Mr. Hooker, that he thought himself bound in conscience to believe all that she said; so that the good man came to be persuaded by her, 'that he was a man of a tender constitution; and that it was best for him to have a wife, that might prove a nurse to him; such a one as might both prolong his life, and make it more comfortable; and such a one she could and would provide for him, if he thought fit to marry.' And he, not considering that |