06.13. Chapter 13: The Use Of Alliteration

Chapter 13 THE USE OF ALLITERATION THE WORD alliteration means “The successive use or frequent recurrence of the same initial letter or sound at the beginning of two or more words,” according to the Standard Dictionary, which also cites as an example (from Motley, John of Barneveld, vol. i, ch. 1, pg. 34) this illustration, “The Spaniard poured out his wrath—calling his colleague, with neat alliteration, a poltroon, a pantaloon, and a pig.”

Alliteration has played a prominent part in literature, particularly in poetry, and with that school to which Chaucer, Spenser, Swinburne, and others belonged. There are certain phrases, oft recurring in common speech, that have come out of this custom, such as “might and main,” “life and liberty,” “wrath and wickedness,” etc. That such a use of words should also take place in sermonizing is at once natural and desirable.

I do not recall having deliberately decided, at any period in my professional life, to magnify alliteration, but the creation of this series on homiletics has brought vividly to my attention my own personal custom in the matter. This series itself is an illustration of the almost extreme degree to which I have adopted the alliterative method; and in a review of my publications I find that perhaps no feature of my personal book-publishing is more in evidence than the use of alliteration. Referring to this series, we find the following instances:

Chapter One: I. “The Preacher,” II. “His Preaching,” III. “His Preparation.”

Chapter Two: I. “The Modernist Demand,” II. “The Market Demand,” III. “The Master’s Demand.”

Chapter Three: I. “Studious Habits,” II. “Strong Convictions,” III. “Complete Surrender.”

Chapter Four: I. “Sound in Belief,” II. “Saintly in Behaviour,” III. “Seeing that Blessed Hope.”

Chapters Five to Eight are Departures from the custom. But in Chapter Nine again we have: I. “Their Deliberate Employment,” II. “Their Decided Advantages,” III. “Their Definite Requirement.”

While in Chapter Ten: I. “Parts,” II. “Production,” III. “Appeal,” constitute a return to the custom. And now in this Chapter Thirteen we feel led to alliterate:

I.“Its Employment,” and II. “Its Purpose.” ITS EMPLOYMENT Concerning alliteration, notice certain facts!

It was formerly popular!

We have seen it to have been so concerning a distinguished school of poets; but it was also true of distinguished preachers, Dr. Chalmers being an outstanding instance. But he was not at all alone or even lonesome in the custom. Today Dr. Walter Maier, of Lutheran broadcast fame, employs it often and effectively, and my own great associate in teaching and successor in pulpit, Dr. Robert L. Moyer, in his book, The Psalm of Psalms, arranges the chapter headings after the following manner—“The Shepherd and the Supply,” “Restored Souls and Righteous Paths,” “Courage and Companionship,” etc. At a later point in this discussion we shall present its fuller defense, but we turn now to a relevant fact; namely, Of late it has been opposed. In previous chapters I have paid just tribute to two of the most outstanding homileticians of the United States; namely, John A. Broadus and T. Harwood Pattison. The first named was the notable Southern Baptist Theological Seminary professor in the latter half of the nineteenth century; and T. Harwood Pattison, a homiletician at least equally well regarded, and employed by the Rochester Theological Seminary, New York. At the feet of the first of these professors I am proud to have been a student for three years. My admiration for Harwood Pattison was such that as a young pastor in Chicago, I selected Pattison to give a series on homiletics in a Bible Conference I superintended for several summers at Pine Lake, near Laporte, Indiana, and was delighted with the scholarly and attractive presentation.

When, however, I come now to review the books of these two personal favorites, I find, to my painful surprise, that neither of them approved the employment of alliteration. In fact, both spoke rather slightingly of the custom. The indexes to their volumes will show but a single reference to the subject, although I find by careful perusal it was named in other connections. In the Broadus volume we have a somewhat disparaging disposal of the subject. On page 273 of the revised volume On The Preparation and Delivery of Sermons, we read,

Antithesis will frequently contribute to elegance, as well as to energy; but if used too freely, it tends to stiffness or to monotony. Alliteration was a leading peculiarity of Anglo-Saxon poetry and is still somewhat frequently employed in poetry and even in prose. Chalmers was very fond of it. In prose, especially in preaching, it should be used but rarely, and in an easy, unstudied fashion. Sentences are, of course, most elegant when smooth and flowing. But better harsh strength than smooth weakness. ... A constant succession of smooth and graceful sentences will inevitably become monotonous. As if in collaboration of thought, the Pattison volume indexes but a single reference. See page 80, The Making of the Sermon. Here alliteration is discredited again by the statement concerning the choice of words, about which the author appeals to his student orators “not to yield to the dictates of the fancy of accidental alliteration, or of mere prettiness of form.”

Aside, however, from these references, which on their face seem a practical discrediting of the custom, there is no adequate argument against it presented by either. That necessarily leaves us free to pursue the subject with a view to discovering whether alliteration has real worth. As a patron of its employment, I propose its defense by presenting ITS PURPOSE To me there is a three-fold and most effective reason for alliteration in sermonizing.

It can be fitted to sound interpretation.

If we believed as the authors above referred to indicate, that “smooth and graceful sentences eventuate in monotony” or tend to misinterpret the meaning of Scripture, then alliteration would become a weakness indeed; but we have not found it to be so. For instance, in interpreting the text, Acts 1:8, “Ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth,” what better outline can one create than this:

I.The Promise of Power “Ye shall receive power.”

II.The Person of Power “After that the Holy Ghost is come upon you.”

III.    The Purpose of Power

“Ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.” Of the preachers of yesterday who were well known to my earlier ministry, few of them excited my admiration more than did Beecher and Brooks, but you search them in vain to find alliteration in either their main divisions or subdivisions. In fact, it is a rare thing to find that they utilize anything that one can think of, but subdivision. I recall no such outline from Brooks, and I can now think of but one approach to it from Beecher, and that occurs in his sermon, “The True Value of Morality,” where he makes the following divisions:

First, Morality is in this grand sense founded upon external convenience, and not upon the requirements of things relating to a man’s whole nature.

Secondly, It restrains the outplay of evil; but it does not attempt to purify and to cure the sources of evil.

Thirdly, It permits heinous faults which impoverish character, and waste the heart of man.

Fourthly, Morality aims to build up a man outwardly in his condition, but not inwardly in his character.

Lastly, It leaves out, wholly, the world to come, and all the obligations which we owe to God, and all the relations which are established between the soul and the Saviour Jesus Christ. In studying such an outline it becomes inconceivable that alliteration be employed, but its absence from the Beecher sermons in no sense destroys either their popularity or effectiveness, all of which indicates that one faces a real problem when he attempts to find the sine qua non of sermonizing. However, there does exist in favor of alliteration certain indisputable advantages.

Chief among these is aid to the preacher’s memory. This is the point of nervousness with the average preacher, and particularly with the young and inexperienced. If they eschew the manuscript, which custom I strongly favor, and speak freely either extempore or from memory, there is always a fear that the main points and even the subdivisions may not be retained; and in the emotional excitement of delivery they reach the place where the next point in the sermon becomes a mental blank.

It has not been my privilege to hear in person Dr. Walter A. Maier of St. Louis, the representative of the Lutheran Laymen of America and also one of the most eloquent voices now addressing the nation by radio. I do not, therefore, know his custom of delivery, whether he reads or speaks freely, but in “listening in” I am profoundly, and, at the same time, delightfully impressed with his constant and marvelous employment of alliteration. Among the men of the day there is scarcely a more smooth preacher than Dr. Maier, and seldom one so effective; and alliteration plays a conspicuous part in his sermon preparation and delivery; If he speaks from memory, this alliterative custom would greatly aid. When a text is so interpreted that a glance at it would suggest the phraseology afore-determined, such fears are reduced to the minimum; and to refer to the instance already recited in this chapter of Acts 1:8, we find a perfect illustration of what I mean. How could any ordinary mind fail to recall those three phrases: The Promise of Power, the Person of Power, and the Purpose of Power? His glance at the text, together with the alliterative form, would certainly bring instantly the outline pre-determined. To cite another and equally effective use, let me refer to Revelation 22:12-13 and suggest the following main divisions:

I.Christ’s Return “Behold, I come.”

II.Christ’s Reward “My reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be.”

III.Christ’s Reign “I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last.”

It would be a timid memory indeed that feared to tackle an outline like that without notes. The alliteration itself simplifies the whole subject of memorizing outlines; and, as a rule, if the outline comes easily, the component parts of the sermon are strongly suggested. It is on that account that

I have emphasized with my students in homiletics the importance of outline and also have advised alliteration when it fitted easily and effectually into sound interpretation. To be able to stand before an audience and deliver one’s soul for a full half hour, without hint of manuscript or even a scrap of notes, is not only a desirable accomplishment but becomes the most popular element in preaching. However, there are others than the pulpiteer to be considered in connection with every sermonic delivery and here again alliteration has its part to play, its contribution to make. The memory of the audience must be kept in mind.

It is one thing to express well desirable thoughts; it is another and even higher thing to so voice them as to leave an indelible impression. The weakness of preaching is discoverable at this point; namely, in the amount of what was said carried away by the auditors. It is the most common of all occurrences to hear a man praise a sermon to which he has lately listened, and it is the most embarrassing of all questions to ask, “What were the main points in the discourse? What was the line of argument and upon what subjects was the minister speaking?” In nine cases out of ten your hearer is immediately nonplused and begins to apologetically explain that he doesn’t remember exactly the points made or the line of argument followed, but he did feel the inspiring impression of the speech. But when alliteration is used and succinct statements express main points, they stick; and the auditor can answer the questions above referred to, without embarrassment. For instance, on Acts 1:8, “Let me see; oh, yes, I remember now. He spoke first on the Promise of Power, second on the Person of Power, and third on the Purpose of Power.”

If the man who has listened to you cannot rehearse at least some of what you said, he may yet have received profit from the soul-stirring excited by your words, but nothing like the same amount of intellectual and spiritual benefit as comes to one who retains in memory both the subject discussed and the arguments introduced in its development. A former and much prized co-laborer of mine in school work used to have a habit of listening delightedly to the compliments of those who told him how fine his sermon on such an occasion was; then he did what, to me, was almost always a delicate, if not doubtful thing, of saying, “And what was my subject on that occasion? What were the main points that impressed you?”

I was present on several of these occasions when an instant flush covered the face of the questioned, and I always believed that it was as impolitic as that other question, in which certain people so often indulge themselves, “How do you do, Doctor; you know me, don’t you? You remember that I met you twenty-five years ago at the Music Hall in Philadelphia when you had your great Convention there. You can call my name, can’t you?” To answer this question I have done the most of the lying of a lifetime, but in recent years I decided deliberately to say, “No, I do not remember you,” which is always an embarrassment both to the man making the admission, and a still greater reflection upon the important person forgotten.

It is equally so with sermons; consequently, so far as we can, we should produce in them features that will take a real hold upon memory itself, and create impressions that will not be too soon forgotten; and of all peculiarities of speech, there is no one that does this more effectively than the employment of alliteration.

We leave, then, to the student or reader of this chapter the question of profit or loss in the employment of alliteration, but as for ourselves we are convinced that only in its abuse can be found a logical reason for rejection, while in its justifiable use there are advantages of supreme value.

Perhaps a better example or even a more extensive one could not be found than is used in the Thompson New Chain Reference Bible, involving the story of the Prodigal Son in Luke 15:1-32. Thompson gives us seven steps downward and seven steps upward and states them as following, a superb instance of alliteration without straining an interpretation:

Luke 15:22 The Prodigal Son Luke 15:12 Self Will Luke 15:13 Selfishness Luke 15:13 Separation Luke 15:13 Sensuality Luke 15:14 Spiritual Destitution Luke 15:15 Self Abasement Luke 15:16 Starvation Luke 15:23-24 Rejoicing Luke 15:22 Re-clothing Luke 15:20 Reconciliation Luke 15:20 Return Luke 15:19 Repentance Luke 15:18 Resolution Luke 15:17 Realization

BIBLIOGRAPHY Crocker, L. G. Henry Ward Beecher’s Speaking Art (New York: Fleming H. Revell Co., 1937).