We must be impressed with a high sense of duty in becoming an orator of any class; we must feel that it is our calling to adhere to the truth always and in all things, to warn our hearers of dangers, and to encourage the good and help those who are struggling to be so. We must have a passion for oratory which shall impel us to vigorous thought and eloquent expression. The greatest oratory is that which is most persuasive. It is not so fully in what an orator says or the vehemence with which he says it that counts, but the practical good that results from it. Many an oration has been elegant enough from its choice diction and labored phraseology, yet it has fallen flat upon the audience. When a man has been worked into natural passion over his theme, his words will strike root and inspire his hearers into similar passion. It is wonderful how true are our instincts in detecting what comes from the heart and that which is mere words. The greatest orators have been those who have not learned "by rote" what they have spoken. When Lincoln broke away in his celebrated Cooper Institute address, and pictured the word freedom written by the Lord across the skies in rainbow hues, the hearts of his audience stopped beating for the instant. It is foolhardy for any one to presume to speak with no preparation, for those who wish to give themselves to oratory should carefully study the great debaters, learn how they expressed themselves, and then accumulate important truths and facts concerning their subject. But we must not forget that too much study as to nicety of expression may lose something of the mountainous effects of what we wish to state. When an orator _feels_ his subject, his soul overflows with a thrill indescribable, which is known only to those who have felt it. Genius is lifted free for the moment to fly at will to the mountain heights, and finds supreme delight therein. Everything that is food for the mind is helpful to the orator, whether it come from school or work. But it is an attainment which can be reached by the every-day plain man employed in any every-day occupation. Demosthenes, the greatest orator the world has yet known, found his School of Oratory along the shore talking to the waves. John B. Gough and Henry Clay and both the elder and the younger Pitt gained all their powers by means as humble. The mere study of grammar has never yet made a correct speaker; the mere study of rhetoric has never yet made a correct and powerful writer; and the study of elocution cannot make an orator. Grammar, rhetoric, and elocution may teach him only the laws which govern speech, writing, oratory, and leave him ignorant of the best methods of execution.