226 PSYCHOLOGY AND PREACHING
the person imparting the idea is not only without a personal interest to serve, but is positively devoted to the interest of the one he seeks to influence ; if he can appear to be sacri ficing some personal interest, he can enormously increase the force of his suggestion. He not only disarms criticism and opposition but arouses sympathy and wins affection, which lends a great moral force to his suggestions. This is based upon the well-known fact, which reflects the highest credit on human nature, that disinterested devotion to the welfare of others confers a mighty moral authority. It is not strange that men who are moved by motives less divine should often wear the livery of love, sometimes, perhaps, without fully realizing the ethical significance of what they are doing. The politician magnifies his service to the peo ple. Sometimes the preacher magnifies not his calling, as Paul did, but his sacrifices and hardships, only half con scious, let us hope, that he is thus seeking an influence with the people which will lead them to be more tolerant of his shortcomings and derelictions, more uncritical in the accept ance of his favourite notions and, possibly, disposed to con tribute more freely and less questioningly to his material support But whether the impression of disinterested devo tion be the result of artful design or not, it is an important condition of suggestive power.
A second important method of securing the confidence which gives force to one s suggestion is to make the im pression that one is a recognized authority on the subject of which he speaks. Give one prestige in any walk of life or in any department of thought, and it imparts a strange sug gestive force to what he says. A man achieves a world wide reputation as a chemist, and the masses of men accept unquestioningly his declarations on chemical subjects, how ever improbable they may be. A man who has come to be the acknowledged leader of his political party will find that his words carry in the minds of the people a weight alto gether out of proportion to their reasonableness or his real wisdom. The people often listen with rapt attention to one
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