How shall we best work upon such hints? Very largely, by the use of the plainest common-sense and every-day observation on our own part. But largely also by trying to find some friend, equally kind and candid, who will help us "to hear ourselves as others hear us." For myself, after twenty-five years, I welcome more and more gratefully every such criticism as the occasion presents itself. Let the Curate ask his Vicar to tell him without mercy if his utterance, his articulation, is clear; if his manner is natural; if his preaching is or is not easy to listen to in these respects. And let friend ask friend; let pastor ask parishioner; let husband ask wife!
There are other directions in which we must cultivate attractiveness. There is English style. Here, again, gifts differ widely in detail, yet there are common secrets open to common use. It is open to every one to avoid, on the one hand, an ambitious, long-worded style; on the other, a style which many young men of our time are in more danger of patronizing--the slovenly, shapeless style, in which the Queen's English is very "freely handled," and into which the broken English of an ever-growing _slang_ not seldom makes its way. These defects have only to be recognized, surely, to be avoided, by keeping our eyes open as we read and our ears as we hear, and by remembering that the sacred message of the King, while it is too great to be tricked out with false rhetoric, is also too great to be slighted, not to say insulted, by a really careless phraseology.