Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 12, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 April 1884 — The Charm es the Human Voice. [ARTICLE]

The Charm es the Human Voice.

A word spoken has far more power to persuade and to move than the word written. This is especially true if it be well spoken—if it be uttered with the pioper intonations and inflections and be enforced with the right gestures. The propositions which upon a printed page will be examined with a searching criticism, will when falling from the lips of a popular orator carry whole masses into some course of action. The reader will be t able to detect the illconcealed dishonesties of the reasoning. He will discern if there be any undistributed middle or illicit process of the minor premise. The hearer, however, has not time to make any such discriminations, His nervous system becomes electrified by the power which the speaker sends forth from eye and tongue and hand. An undescribable magnetism goes thrilling through him in rapid currents. He becomes charmed, enthralled, enslaved, ready to do or dare whatever the orator may bid. Much of this enchantment is due to the voice alone. Its swells and cadences not only delight the ear, but through that organ excite the imagination and captivate the reason. It is no wonder that when an Athenian audience had listened for an hour to the glowing periods of Demosthenes, they forget their own weakness and the risks of war, and cried out as one man, “Let us fight Philip.” It is no wonder that when the rude soldiers of Hungary listened to the melting accents of their young queen, that with gallant enthusiasm they burst forth with the cry, “We will die for our sovereign.” (The Savior of the world showed His appreciation of the power of speech when He chose the “foolishness of preaching” as the agency by which men were to be brought to an apprehension of his doctrine. The eloquence of the apostles—which was not the finished oratory of the schools, but the strong, earnest eloquence of sincere conviction—won converts by the thousand, and all down the history of Christianity have men been reclaimed from sin and persuaded into righteousness by the voices of their fellow-men. True, indeed, many while under the excitement which preaching has produced have made vows to which they afterward proved recreant. But far more have been induced to “right about face” and to live ever after with new aims and aspirations. The spoken voice is, however, far less potent than the voice expressing itself in the melody of music. The rich gushings cf the throat can call up in intense force all the emotions of the human soul. We have seen large congregations stirred by the most profound excitement as rude, untutored voices swelled into solemn grandeur in a service of song. The words were of the simplest—having in them no magnetism whatever. The whole moving power lay in the vast volume of sound. There is no exaggeration in the old story of Orpheus beguiling the powers of the lower regions by the notes of his lute. There have been singers—there are singers now—who could, perform feats quite as marvelous.— Sunny South.