Not only does the drama array its teachings of morality in living forms so much more contagious and powerful than abstract precepts, but it also gives the highest examples of didactic eloquence. It abounds in the most beautiful expressions of poetry and philosophy, the wisest and most charming instances of insight and moralizing experience, verbal descriptions of character and of nature set off with every adjunct of oratoric art and heightening scenery. The preaching on the stage is often richer and sounder as well as more splendid than that heard from the pulpit. Besides, the pleasing excitement of the scene, the persuasive interest of the play, the surrendered and receptive spirits of the crowd blending in quickest sympathy and applause always over the most disinterested and exalted sentiments, predispose every hearer to the most favorable mood for being impressed by what is lovely, good, and great. The actor, inspired by his theme and his audience, makes thousands thrill and weep as he gives burning utterance to burning thoughts or infuses his own high spirit into beautiful and heroic examples of eloquence and virtue. When in Macbeth Forrest said,— “I dare do all that may become a man, Who dares do more is none;”— when in the Peruvian hero he replied to the accusation from Pizarro of having spoken falsely, “Rolla utter falsehood! I would I had thee in a desert with thy troop around thee, and I but with my sword in this unshackled hand!” when in Damon he said, in rebuke of the corrupt and sycophantic office-seeker,— “I told you, boy, I favored not this stealing And winding into place: what he deserves, An honest man dares challenge ’gainst the world,”— it must have been a brutish breast in which his words did not start generous and ennobling echoes. Tell says,— “Ha! behold in air Where a majestic eagle floats above The northern turrets of the citadel, And as the sun breaks through yon rifted cloud His plumage shines, embathed in burning gold, And sets off his regality in heaven!” To have such a picture painted in speech and action so vividly that the hearers are transported out of themselves and tremble with pleasure is an educational influence of a pure and lofty order. The victorious Spartacus soliloquizes,— “A cloud is on my path, but my ambition Sees glory in it. As travellers, who stand On mountains, view upon some neighboring peak Among the mists a figure of themselves Traced in sublimer characters; so I Here see the vapory image of myself Distant and dim, but giant-like.”