Almost as offensive to the hearer as a habitually high-pitched voice is the "ministerial tone"—a perpetual pathos, monotonously employed by many speakers from the beginning to the end of the public service, and even carried into private life by some. You know what I mean. It is a. sort of pathetic drawl affected by the preacher, usually unwittingly, in his earnestness to impress the truths of the sacred Word upon his congregation. Some have dubbed it a "holy drawl;" others call it "solemncholy."
Those guilty of this tone usually announce a Sabbath school picnic or a meeting of the Dorcas Society in the same sepulchral tone in which they describe the most touching scenes in the passion of Christ. Recently a minister, in whose congregation I sat, closed his sermon with an impassioned word picture, and then in the same tone of voice, trembling with what now seemed an insincere quaver, went on to say, "Let us turn to Number —," and announced the closing hymn. Such tendencies remind me of the dear old lady who wept whenever she heard that blessed word, Mesopotamia. "It sounds so solemnlike," she said, although she hadn't the slightest idea of its meaning.
Speakers should guard against the "ministerial tone." For every thought and mood there are appropriate means of expression. Life is not always on the same dead level of pathos. Pulpit discussions touch joy and sorrow, satisfaction and yearning, triumphant ecstasy and deep contrition. And for every sincerely felt emotion, there is a specific vocal response.
What is the cause of this extended pseudo-pathos? Perhaps the preacher has a mistaken conception of what constitutes sincere expression. Perhaps he attempts to put on from the outside that which can properly come only from within. Perhaps he is not vitally thinking during delivery, and his voice mechanism does not respond to the play and counterplay of his own thoughts and emotions. Further solution to this problem is included in the discussion which follows on vocal monotony, inasmuch as the two vocal offenses frequently go hand in hand and may be treated by similar means.
Monotony of Tone
Many preachers need also to wrestle with and defeat the habitually monotonous tone.
They drone on, allowing the voice to use only three of four tone levels, whereas they might employ an octave or an octave and a half of range in normal speaking. Their sentences ever fall into similar cadence. Their varied thoughts are poured into identical molds, every sentence sounding like every other sentence, and ending with the same monotonous dropping or rising of the voice, as the habit may be. A foreigner in the audience might conclude that the speaker was merely repeating the same stolid thought over and over again.
Thoughts are not often mere repetitions of themselves. Therefore the expression of thought should not be a succession of monotonies. Truth needs to be presented with all the freshness of a new discovery. Vital thinking, both in preparation and at the moment of delivery, will free us from the thralldom of monotonous voice and insincere expression, and cause us to deliver our message as if touched by a live coal from off the altar. Of the Master, Mrs. White tells us that His "language was pure, refined, and clear as a running stream His voice was as music to those who had listened to the monotonous tones of the rabbis."—"The Desire of Ages," p. 253.
And again in the Review and Herald of January 7, 1890, we read:
"The truth came from His lips clothed in new and interesting representations that gave it the freshness of a new revelation. His voice was never pitched to an unnatural key, and His words came with an earnestness and assurance appropriate to their importance and the momentous consequences involved in their reception or rejection."
Professor Winans, on page 31 of his "Public Speaking," has made two comprehensive suggestions on delivery. In order to have a vital delivery, he says, you must have: (1) Full realization of the content of your words as you utter them, and (2) a lively sense of communication. Obedience to these two mandates overcomes the speaker's tendency merely to say words, and produces utter sincerity of expression.
The first law requires the speaker to visualize every idea presented, at the moment of delivery. Rolling hills told about must be seen with the mind's eye, a cool breeze mentioned must be imaginatively felt, the emotion of love must be recalled, the meaning of faith must be realized. One of the rhetoricians has admirably expressed this need in these quaint words: "When thou readest look steadfastly with the mind at the things which the words symbolize. If there be question of mountains, let them loom before thee; if of the ocean, let its billows roll before thy eyes. This habit will gain to thy voice pliancy and meaning."
The second law requires the preacher to have an eager desire to give his message to his people and to mold his thought according to the immediate audience situation. If he obeys this law, he will talk not at his congregation nor even to them, but he will rather converse with them. His pulpit message will be an enlarged, slightly formalized, dignified conversation, in which his hearers converse with him by their facial expression of interest or apathy, by their quiet or hearty "Amen," and in other ways.
"That makes preaching a hard task," I bear someone say. I agree. For a man of God to stand before his congregation during the worship hour actively realizing the full meaning of every word he utters, preserving from the beginning to the end of his discourse a lively sense of communication with his hearers—such means intense effort, effort to the point of mental and physical weariness. Preaching an acceptable sermon is not easier than physical labor. If anything, it is far more wearing, and demands of the minister a much higher physical, mental, and nervous tax. But results justify the exertion. "Woe is unto me, if I preach not the gospel."
