ON THE MANUSCRIPTS OF GOD 



In society's long-accepted canon that no 

 lady or gentleman is ever loud-voiced or 

 boisterous, one discovers again the instinctive 

 human protest against noise a protest that 

 grows stronger the higher one mounts in the 

 scale of civilization. "The loud laugh that 

 speaks the vacant mind" speaks a great 

 many other vacancies as well; and the same 

 is true of the loud, harsh, strident voice or 

 the voice of the alarm-clock variety, whose 

 tones are delivered in a jerky staccato. 



"Don't you think," asks the heroine in 

 "Aylwin," "the poor birds must sometimes 

 feel very much distressed at hearing the 

 voices of men and women, especially when 

 they all talk together? The rooks mayn't 

 mind, but I'm afraid the blackbirds and 

 thrushes can't like it." 



In every department of knowledge and 

 speculation, the loud accent of certainty is 

 giving way to a more mellow tone of 

 modesty. In obedience to this beneficent 

 law of evolution, the modern sane and quiet 

 style of pulpit oratory has taken the place 

 of the old style of ecclesiastical eloquence, in 



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