Voice of the Gospel Worker
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The human voice is a precious gift of God; it is a power for good,
and the Lord wants His servants to preserve its pathos and melody.
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The voice should be cultivated so as to promote its musical quality,
that it may fall pleasantly upon the ear and impress the heart....
The Lord requires the human agent not to move by impulse in
speaking, but to move calmly, speak slowly, and let the Holy Spirit
give efficiency to the truth. Never think that in working yourselves
up to a passion of delivery, speaking by impulse, and suffering your
feelings to raise your voice to an unnaturally high key, that you are
giving evidence of the great power of God upon you....
Your influence is to be far reaching, and your powers of speech
should be under the control of reason. When you strain the organs
of speech, the modulations of the voice are lost. The tendency to
rapid speaking should be decidedly overcome. God claims of the
human instrumentality all the service that man can give. All the talents
entrusted to the human agent are to be cherished and appreciated,
and used as a precious endowment of heaven. The laborers in the
harvest field are God’s appointed agents, channels through which He
can communicate light from heaven. The careless, improvident use
of any of their God-given powers lessens their efficiency so that in an
emergency, when the greatest good might be done, they are so weak
and sickly and crippled that they can accomplish but little.—Special
Testimonies, Series A, No. 7, pp. 9-11. (1874).
Voice Culture Important to Minister—The teachers in our
schools should not tolerate in the students ungainly attitudes and un-
couth gestures, wrong intonations in reading, or incorrect accents or
emphasis. Perfection of speech and voice should be urged upon every
student. Because of carelessness and bad training, habits are often con-
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tracted which are great hindrances in the work of a minister who has
otherwise educated talent. The student must be impressed that he has
it in his power, by combining grace with effort, to make himself a man.
The mental and physical capabilities with which God has adorned him
may by cultivation and painstaking effort become a power to benefit
his fellow men.—
Manuscript 22, 1886
.
Training the Voice—The training of the voice has an important
place in physical culture, since it tends to expand and strengthen the
lungs, and thus to ward off disease. To ensure correct delivery in
reading and speaking, see that the abdominal muscles have full play