with scattered sticks. An audience to be converted into a crowd must be made to

appear as a crowd. This cannot be done when they are widely scattered over a

large seating space or when many empty benches separate the speaker from his

hearers. Have your audience seated compactly. How many a preacher has bemoaned

the enormous edifice over which what would normally be a large congregation has

scattered in chilled and chilling solitude Sunday after Sunday! Bishop Brooks

himself could not have inspired a congregation of one thousand souls seated in

the vastness of St. Peter's at Rome. In that colossal sanctuary it is only on

great occasions which bring out the multitudes that the service is before the

high altar--at other times the smaller side-chapels are used.

 

Universal ideas surcharged with feeling help to create the crowd-atmosphere.

Examples: liberty, character, righteousness, courage, fraternity, altruism,

country, and national heroes. George Cohan was making psychology practical and

profitable when he introduced the flag and flag-songs into his musical comedies.

Cromwell's regiments prayed before the battle and went into the fight singing

hymns. The French corps, singing the Marseillaise in 1914, charged the Germans

as one man. Such unifying devices arouse the feelings, make soldiers fanatical

mobs--and, alas, more efficient murderers.

 

FOOTNOTES:

 

[Footnote 28: _Sesame and Lilies_.]

 

CHAPTER XXVI