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SKETCHES 



OF 



ELOQUENT PEEACHERS. 



BY EEV. J. B. WATEKBUKY, D. D. 



"Now then we are ambassadors for Christ." 



'PUBLISHED BY THE 

AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY, 

150 NASSAU-STREET, NEW YORK. 



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Enteeed according to Act of Congress, in the year 1864, by 
the Amebican Tbact Society, in the Clerk's Office of the District 
Conrt of the Southern District of the State of New York. 



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CONTENTS. 



DR. JOHN 1L MASON, 5 

DR. ARCHIBALD ALEXANDER, 14 

REV. JOHN SUMMERFTELD, 33 

REV. SYLVESTER LARNED, 33 

DR AKAHEL NETTLETON, * 43 

DR LYMAN BEECHER, & 

DR HENRY B. BASCOM.— ~ — . 04 

DR EDWARD PAYSON, «... 73 

DR EDWARD DORR GRIFFIN, $3 

DR ROBERT HALL, . 90 

DR THOMAS CHALMERS, 101 

REV. HENRY MELVILL, 113 

RfiV. ROWLAND HILL, -- - 113 

REV. LEGH RICHMOND, 137 

DR TIMOTHY DWIGHT, 133 

REV. JONATHAN EDWARDS, 161 

REV. GEORGE WHTTEFIELD, 163 

REV. RICHARD BAXTER, 173 

REV. JOHN BUNYAN, 183 

REV. JAMES SAURIN, 105 

JOHN BAPTIST MASSILON, 304 

MARTIN LUTHER, -. 314 

THE APOSTLE PAUL, 339 



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SKETCHES 



OP 



ELOQUENT PREACHERS. 



DR. JOHN M. MASON. 

Taken altogether, no American preacher 
has combined more impressive qualities. His 
aspect was on a scale of grandeur correspond- 
ing to thf majesty of mind within. We always 
feel a sort of pleasing approbation where the 
symmetry of form and features tallies with 
a dignified interior. It was emphatically so in 
the case of Dr. Mason. Tall, robust, straight, 
with a head modelled after neither Grecian 
nor Roman standard, yet symmetrical, com- 
bining the dignity of the one and the grace of 
the other ; with an eye that shot fire, especially 
when under the excitement of earnest preach- 
ing, yet tender and tearful when the pathetic 
chord was touched ; with a forehead broad and 
high, running up each side, and slightly parted 

331578 

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6 ELOQUENT PREACHERS. 

in the middle by a graceful pendant of hair ; a 
mouth and chin expressive of firmness and de- 
cision, Dr. Mason stood before you the prince 
of pulpit orators. His voice, for compass and 
flexibility, was scarcely exceeded, one would 
think, by that of the renowned Demosthenes. 
It would fill, without effort, the largest build- 
ing. Its lower utterances were musical, pos- 
sessing the qualities of a rich baritone. His 
ordinary or conversational tone was so clear 
and distinct, that every word reached the most 
distant hearer ; and when he rose under the 
excitement of discourse to the loftier notes, 
his voice rang through the building like the 
clangor of a trumpet. 

Over the whole man there was an air of 
sacred heroism. He would have commanded 
an army, and led them himself into the deadly 
breach. He would have confronted the ma- 
terial universe in a good cause, and maintained 
his position injface of the fiercest opposition. 
Had he been a senator or barrister, how would 
the thunders of his eloquence have awed every 
hearer, and given him the palm of secular ora- 
tory, as by universal consent he bore away that 
of the pulpit. 
. Many were the advantages which this dis- 



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DB. JOHN M. MASON. 7 

tinguished minister enjoyed, all tending to 
that perfection of mind and manner which 
gave him so marked a priority among his con- 
temporaries. The son of an eminent clergy- 
man, he was trained most assiduously by pa- 
rental care and counsel. He was sent to com- 
plete his studies to the highest schools of sacred 
learning in Edinburgh. He had the talent and 
the determination to make the most of these 
advantages. His mind became liberalized, as 
well as stored with varied learning; so that 
when he began his career in New York, it was 
not a slow growth, but an astounding perfec- 
tion. It was like Minerva springing from the 
head of Jupiter, all armed for the contest. 

He created a sensation at the very first, 
and was chosen by acclamation to be the suc- 
cessor of his father. The church being too 
small to accommodate those who wished to 
hear him, another of ampler dimensions was 
erected. What crowds hung upon his lips, as 
meanwhile by courtesy he occupied the Cedar- 
street Presbyterian church. When the Mur- 
ray-street edifice was completed, the imperial 
preacher took the pulpit, and dedicated the 
house to God and to His truth. The pulpit or 
rostrum was a novelty. It was a stage, with 



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8 ELOQUENT PREACHERS. 

an elevated cushion in front; and it inaugu- 
rated a new style, since generally copied. The 
old tub pulpit would never have done for Dr. 
Mason. Thanks to him that for the most part 
it is now numbered with the things that were.' 
It is said that the doctor, upon being rallied 
on preaching from a stage, replied, "Why 
should the devil have all the best advantages 
for public speaking ?" . , 

But he made a mistake in the location of his 
stage pulpit, which proved detrimental to his 
new 'enterprise. He placed it between the 
doors. Hence everybody who entered was 
exposed to the gaze of the whole congregation. 
This was more than a modest man could en- 
dure, to say nothing of the more sensitive sex. 
It brought also all the nearest and most eligi- 
ble seats into requisition first, and who could 
thread his way up under a thousand eyes to 
the back tier? The rear pews, even under 
the attraction of Dr. Mason's oratory, were 
scarcely ever all filled. By this arrangement 
also he was exposed to the noise of those com- 
ing in late, slamming the doors, and striding 
up the aisles with heavy tread. This would 
sometimes occur after the service had com- 
menced, and occasionally even during the in- 



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BEV. JOHN M. MASON. 9 

traduction of the sermon. The doctor was 
greatly annoyed by these interruptions. We 
remember a terrible rebuke administered by 
him to a pert young dandy, who had more brass 
on his heels than sense in his head. This self- 
complacent young man threw open the door 
with an air, and then strutted along directly in 
front of the pulpit, taking the direction of the 
middle aisle. The preacher was just in his 
introduction. He paused. He fixed his keen 
eye on the obtruder, the congregation mean- 
while silent as death, and pitying the victim, 
whose brass heels were the only sound heard 
as he sought refuge in the distant pew. Turn- 
ing, he faced the preacher, when, with a pecul- 
iar expression, the doctor made him a low bow, 
and proceeded with his discourse. If he had 
sBiot an arrow at the youngster, he could not 
have made him feel worse. At. the close of 
the exercises he requested the audience to be 
seated. They knew something was coming. 
He began upon the brazen heels, more becom- 
ing horses or asses than men, and the impu- 
dent interruptions which they caused. He 
told them they must not come with their 
horse-shoe appendages, clattering up the aisles 
on the naked floor ; adding in a low but em- 

l* 



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10 ELOQUENT PBEACHEBS. 

phatic tone, "More shame that they are naked." 
Carpeted aisles had not then come into fash- 
ion. Perhaps the doctor's gentle hint has- 
tened their introduction. Poor young man! 
he was made the text of a terrible peroration. 
We thought he would not soon forget the 
application. 

The mistake of pulpit between the doors 
was however made, and some churches were 
inconsiderate enough to follow the fashion ; but 
all had ultimately to remodel. If the devil 
was spited by the adoption of the stage pulpit, 
he took his revenge in putting it where it could 
do the least harm to his kingdom. 

Dr. Mason was great in familiar exposition. 
He devoted half the Sabbath service to this 
method. He expounded the Scriptures as no 
man of that day could. He was learned, de- 
vout, intensely earnest, with mingled touches 
of pathos ahd caustic satire that kept the mind 
on a stretch, and made one feel that of all the 
books in the world there was none that ap- 
proached the Bible, in its knowledge of men as 
well as of God. His congregation was a great 
Bible-class; and he, their teacher, led them 
through the green fields of spiritual pasturage, 
cropping at every step the nutritious herbage. 



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BEV, JOHN M. MASON. 11 

This method gave opportunity for the foil play 
of his great faculties. Reason, imagination, 
wit, satire, all were by turns brought into requi- 
sition. It was a feast to listen to him. Ever 
and anon, as the occasion offered, he would 
rise to heights of eloquence almost celestial. 
His great command of language, his intense 
emotion, his easy, extemporaneous utterance, 
made it as delightful as it was instructive to 
listen to these sacred homilies. 

He was great also as an occasional preacher. 
Charity sermons were his delight. His big soul 
revelled in the pleas and arguments for a god- 
like benevolence. Woe to the miser who hap- 
pened in on such occasions. Woe to the self- 
ish heart that loved to decorate and gratify 
only itself and its own home circle, while it 
had no bestowments for the less endowed. His 
scathing rebukes left no secret apologies unex- 
plored ; and men were forced in self-defence to 
do violence to their selfish nature, and give 
where they would have gladly withheld. 

When this, pulpit orator succumbed to the 
attacks of disease, brought on by labors too* 
abundant, it was like the forest oak struck by 
a thunderbolt. The outward majesty was still 
visible ; ,but the vital principle had received a 



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12 ELOQUENT PBEAOHEES. 

shock under which the leafy glories were man- 
ifestly withering and dying. The glory of man, 
what is it? "The wind passeth over it, and it 
is gone. Thou makest our beauty to consume 
away as a moth. Surely every man is vanity." 
But this good man was not afraid of evil tidings. 
His life had been one continued application 
for the conservation of truth and the upbuild- 
ing of Zion. He lived long, judging from the 
good accomplished ; and never was the saluta- 
tion, "Well done, good and faithftil servant," 
more appropriate. 

Dr. Mason was not faultless. He himself 
would have been the last man to set up such a 
claim. A deeper penitence, a more self-abas- 
ing confession, never was heard than that which 
flowed from his lips in prayer. Conscious of 
his sins and infirmities, he was far more ready 
to upbraid himself than any of his personal en- 
emies couhfrhave been to condemn him. His 
lofty pride of character; his deep loathing of 
every thing like hypocrisy or sycophancy ; his 
love of coimtry, so intense as. to scorn and 
denounce the mere partisan politician and dem- 
agogue, led some to call in question his piety. 
But they were ignorant of what true piety is. 
They made no allowances for constitutional dif- 



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REV. JOHN M. MASON. 13 

ferences or for human infirmity. ' ' They spake 
evil of those things which they knew not" All 
who know what true piety is, who see its de- 
velopment through varying natural character- 
istics, are prepared to estimate Dr. Mason's 
religion as they would the man's after God's 
own Heart, or any other good man's — carrying 
their investigation through a life not spotless, 
not perfect, yet aiming at it; and so judging, 
by the rule of gospel charity they cannot deny 
to Dr. Mason the claim of a noble Christian 
man, as well as a sublime pulpit orator. 



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14 ELOQUENT PREACHEBS. 



DR. ARCHIBALD ALEXANDER. 

My first sight of Dr. Alexander was in 
1822, at Princeton. Carrying the usual rec- 
ommendations for entering the seminary, He 
received me more in the style of a father than 
a professor. His smile of welcome I shall nev- 
er forget. His ^countenance attracted rather 
than awed me^ I saw goodness rather than 
greatness — the artlessness of childhood pro- 
jected into the gravity of years, and a benev- 
olence that won upon me at first sight. Sub- 
sequent intercourse more than justified these 
first favorable impressions. 

His personal appearance was neither ma- 
jestic nor striking. He would have passed 
perhaps, in a crowd, unnoticed. Below the 
medium height, of slim proportions, he owed 
his distinction almost entirely to his mental 
calibre and high moral qualities. Yet in that / 
countenance dwelt the unmistakable signs of 
genius and the reflected gleams of a soul in 
habitual converse with heaven. His forehead 
was ample, running high over the temples, 



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DR. ARCHIBALD ALEXANDER. 15 

marked with lines of thought ; and when the 
dark iron-gray hair was combed aside, allow- 
ing the full expanse to be seen, there was some- 
thing in it that riveted one's attention. But 
the speaking features were the eye and the 
mouth. The former was small, dark, and very 
bright, almost piercing at times. It was sus- 
ceptible of varied expression. It gave the in- 
ward emotions with telegraphic accuracy and 
quickness. All have heard of laughing eyes. 
Dr. Alexander's had that peculiarity. When 
excited to joy and merriment, his very eyes 
seemed to laugh. His mouth too was full of 
playful expression at times, which, though 
checked by motives of expediency, revealed 
nevertheless a fountain within of unbounded 
humor. A more artless and expressive medi- 
um of sincere and varied emotions no face ever 
presented. We used to sit and study it until, 
sometimes, it seemed to wear a glory such as 
the great masters give to their pictorial saints. 
He was at this time between fifty and sixty 
years old, but had* lost none of his power ; in 
fact, he was just then at the very height of his 
influence. When a young preacher he must 
have been, as indeed we know he was, un- 
boundedly popular. His delicate yet well- 



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16 ELOQUENT PBEACHEBS. 

proportioned frame, his symmetrical and 
speaking features, with his ardent tempera- 
ment and brilliant rush of thought, must have 
chained his audience, and sent a thrill of de- 
light through their bosoms. In a journey which 
he took when a young man, with Eev. Dr. 
Kollock, through the New England states, it is 
said that, although Dr. Kollock was a Cory- 
phaeus among pulpit orators, yet that audiences 
hung upon the lips of the youthful Alexander, 
if not with as much astonishment, yet with 
more and deeper feeling. This power it would 
seem had not diminished with the lapse of time. 
Without losing the ardor of youth, he now car- 
ried into the pulpit the experience of years 
and the resources of learning. 

But before we proceed to characterize his 
preaching, let us take a look at him in the lec- 
ture-room. Here he was at home ; and here 
the students came into direct contact with his 
spirit and his intellect. He was not always 
alike interesting ; nor did he always succeed 
in keeping alive the attention of his pupils. 
He seemed never to try — never to work against 
his own present frame of feeling. He let na- 
ture have her own way. If he was nervous 
and low-spirited, he knew it and felt it. He 



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DR. ARCHIBALD ALEXANDER. ,17 

came in with the nightmare upon him ; he 
looked gloomy; he spoke as one struggling 
with some unseen spectre, and went through 
his task as well as he could. We sympathized 
with him ; we too felt the gloom. But again 
he would enter with eyes sparkling, and as- 
cend the platform with a spring. His face was 
radiant ; the spectre had been exorcised ; he 
was now all sunshine ; he dealt out the stores 
of wisdom, and sprinkled them with the dia- 
mond-dust of beautiful fancies. He would 
illustrate with anecdotes, and play about his 
subject with all the force of a fond affection. 
The lecture-room was luminous at such times. 
Interrupt him !* no matter ; he was not dis- 
pleased; he would take a new excursion in 
reply. Dr. Alexander was great at such times : 
and great was the pleasure we experienced. 
"Haec olim meminisse juvabit." 

His forte lay in a clear statement of truth, 
with a just appreciation of its possible limits. 
His philosophy never carried him beyond these 
limits. Here he would pause, and take refuge 
in the simple verities of God's word. As a 
reader of the Scriptures, and especially as an 
expounder, he was uncommonly forcible. He 
would usually turn to one of the Psalms of Da- 



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18 ELOQUENT PREACHERS. 

vid. With his finger on his temple, resting 
his head on his hand and elbow, he would 
slowly enunciate the sentences, seeming to be 
himself studying into their meaning. A new 
thought would strike him. As he caught it, 
how his eye would sparkle ! That thought was 
ours. It was as if a man had suddenly, in 
digging, turned up a nugget of gold. His soul 
seemed fairly to revel in these inspired lyrics. 
David's harp never sounded sweeter than when 
its chords vibrated through the expressed emo- 
tions of our venerated teacher. His prayers 
too — how simple ; how direct ; as if he saw 
God! How touching, sometimes, were they, 
when the plaintive feelings of his burdened 
heart sought an outlet at the mercy-seat. 

Stepping with him from the more familiar 
professorial chair to the more formal and ele- 
vated pulpit, let us contemplate him as the 
preacher of righteousness. If you looked for 
great sermons, in the common acceptation of 
the term, you would be disappointed. No 
wreaths of flowery eloquence were woven by 
him. No prismatic hues danced on the walls 
of the sanctuary, when he held up the mirror 
"of divine truth. It was the rays of pure white 
light converging to a focus. He carried into 



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DB. ARCHIBALD ALEXANDER. 19 

the pulpit apparently a most oppressive sense 
of his responsibility. The man was lost and 
swallowed up in the preacher. Dr. Alexan- 
der's whole air and aspect in the pulpit was 
such as became God's ambassador. His man- 
ner was characterized by a charming simplic- 
ity. It was all nature. It seemed to say, I 
shall preach to you just as I feel. I am an in- 
strument in God's hands. If he touch the 
chords, they will make music ; if not, all will 
be discordant or lifeless. 

He seldom read his sermons. We have 
known him to do so ; but he seemed to strug- 
gle through like David with Saul's armor upon 
him. Usually, almost invariably, he spoke 
from short notes, flinging himself on the stream 
of thought with channels dug beforehand. His 
sermons were 'discursive, but not rambling. 
They had method, without being very method- 
ical. His text was a thread of gold running 
through the whole fabric of his discourse. He 
was not wont to take a text as a mere motto, 
and then give us a brilliant essay or a pro- 
found disquisition. The sermon grew out of 
the text, just as the flower springs from the 
seed, or fruit from the bud and blossom. He 
expounded the passage ; told us in beautifully 



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20 ELOQUENT PBEAOHEBS. 

simple terms its meaning. This was opening 
the gates which led into the green pastures ; 
and ere long we were following him through" 
almost celestial landscapes. "When the fit 
was on him" — that is, when the nerves were 
in healthful play, and the soul had seen un- 
usual sights of glorious things — then did we sit 
entranced under the utterances of this almost 
inspired preacher. We knew in a moment 
when this was the case. A certain halo seemr 
ed to settle around his head and radiate from 
his features. He spoke at first slowly, seem- 
ing to meditate on what he was saying ; and 
then another striking thought, and again a 
pause. Then thought after thought came more 
rapidly, in words fit and impressive— words 
that in their simplicity and strength seemed to 
press the native Saxon to its utmost power. 
Now the glow was upon him. The spectacles 
were raised or snatched away, and that eye ot 
intense brilliancy shot forth its fires ; while the 
voice, at first so small, was waxing, like the 
Sinaitic trumpet, louder and louder, and pene- 
trating through a phalanx of trembling hearts. 
How beautifully soft were his cadences, as he 
dropped on some sweet spot of Christian expe- 
rience, where joy and sorrow blended, or where 



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DR. ARCHIBALD ALEXANDER. 21 

the pilgrim was wending his way through the 
valley of tears. How it broke into peals of 
triumph as he followed that same pilgrim up 
to the pearly gates, and saw him enter amid 
the salutations of angels ! 

Dr. Alexander, more than any othfer man 
we ever heard, delighted in experimental preach- 
ing. He himself had gone over the weary way, 
explored its perils and pitfalls, and he knew 
how sore were the trials of the journey. He 
knew all the phases of Christian experience, 
and he not only allured us to higher worlds, 
but gloriously led the way. He would startle 
you at times by putting his exploring finger 
on the diseased parts of your soul, of the ex- 
istence of which you were before scarcely con- 
scious. How he loved to bring the heavenly 
balm to those sore spots, and like a gentle 
nurse soothe the moral patient, and show him 
how surely the good Physician would effect a 
cure. We remember hearing him once in 
Philadelphia on the temptations and trials of 
the Christian ; and from the beginning to the 
end of the discourse we could not restrain our 
tears. As he felt himself, so he preached. If 
he was in a plaintive moojd — a not unusual one 
for him — a sweet sadness, like one walking in 



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22 ELOQUENT PBEACHEBS. 

the twilight, would attend his words. If he 
was on the mount, thither he bore his audience 
in a sustained and glorious flight. A man of 
strong impulses, of deep feeling, his preaching 
was marked by inequalities such as usually 
attend men of this cast of character. We have 
known him fail. He himself knew it; and 
after a few struggles would close the services 
prematurely, as if to say to his audience, It is 
of no use for me to detain you here when I am 
not in a frame to interest and edify you. But 
these were exceptions. The usual style was 
one of great power and pathos ; and then the 
fear seemed to be that he was coming too soon 
to a close. Great was the privilege to sit at 
the feet of such a man and such a preacher. 



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REV. JOHN SUMMEBFIELD. 23 



REV. JOHN SUMMERFIELD. 

Summerfield was in connection with the 
Methodist church, and began his career as a 
preacher in England and Ireland. He was 
very young to commence preaching, but his 
eminent piety and fine oratory justified it. 
His training for the sacred calling was not as 
thorough as it should have been ; though sub- 
sequently, by diligent study, he supplied in 
some measure the deficiency. From boyhood 
he had a love for elocution, and was wont to 
resort to the courts and other places of forensic 
debate, and mark the peculiarities of the best 
speakers. Nature had given him an exquisite 
taste, which instinctively appropriated all the 
fine passages which he read or heard, and* fixed 
them in his memory. He at length in a hum- 
ble way began to try his own powers, and as- 
tonished his hearers by the variety and force 
of his eloquence. Ere long the circle of influ- 
ence extended, and the youthful preacher be- 
came the centre of admiring crowds. He was 
especially popular in Ireland, where the church 



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24 ELOQUENT PBEAOHERS. 

was thronged whenever it was known he was 
to preach. 

In person Summerfield was small — scarcely 
of medium height, and yet every way well 
proportioned. He had a finely shaped head; 
a forehead not high, but broad, and of the 
purest white, over which usually lay aslant a 
dark lock of hair. His eyes were peculiar — 
large, and deep blue, curtained somewhat by 
the upper lids, giving a pensive expression, 
with a slight, almost imperceptible cast in one 
of them, which rather augmented than dimin- 
ished their { expression. His mouth was the 
perfection of shape, indicating the exquisite 
taste and poetical tendencies which character- 
ized him. Some perhaps would have called 
him feminine in his aspect. And it must be 
admitted that the whole contour and air were 
so peaceful as io suggest the idea. He might 
have been called feminine in the loveliness 
and beauty of his exterior, but certainly he 
was not effeminate. He had a masculine dig- 
nity of character that shone through that fine 
physical organism, commanding the respect 
and admiration of all who knew him. 

He came to this country with no anterior 
fame. Few had heard of him, or of the im- 



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REV. JOHN SUMMERFIELD. 25 

pression which he had made in England. He 
was judged entirely upon his own merits. It 
seems that his relatives had made prepara- 
tions to emigrate to this country; and from 
this circumstance, as well as for the sake of 
recruiting his energies, which had been over- 
tasked by too much preaching, young Sum- 
merfield determined to visit America, and 
make it also, if circumstances were favorable, 
his adopted home. 

It so happened that his arrival took place 
in the spring, at the time when the May anni- 
versaries occur ; and the rumor of his celebri- 
ty getting abroad, he was invited to speak 
before the American Bible Society. The 
young stranger being introduced to the plat- 
form, sat, a mere stripling in appearance, 
among grey heads, learned doctors, and emi- 
nent civilians. His rosy -cheek, and almost 
beardless chin and pensive eye attracted at- 
tention, and many inquiries passed through 
the audience concerning him. Who that young 
and beautiful stranger was, everybody was de- * 
sirous of ascertaining. 

The venerable Boudinot presided. He 
came in late, wearing his black velvet cap, 
and being assisted to the chair, proceeded at 

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26 ELOQUENT PREACHEBS. 

once to the business of the meeting. The 
speeches were eloquent, and the audience was 
sensibly moved. Still many an eye was fixed 
on the young stranger, whose calm demeanor 
would hardly have led one to expect that he 
was to be called up. But Summerfield was 
never nervously excited; he had great self- 
possession. It was this that gave him power, 
making his best efforts seem like the natural 
flow of ordinary discourse. The time now 
came for the President to announce the pres- 
ence of a stranger from England, a member of 
the Methodist church, just arrived, from whom 
they would be glad to hear. With character- 
istic modesty, but perfect self-possession, he 
rose and commenced his speech. There was 
the slightest possible lisp in his utterance, not 
damaging — we rather thought aiding — the 
effect ; while his voice was as clear and melo- 
dious as the notes of a well-played flute. 

He began by a reference to the President, 
whose aspect and age reminded him of one of 
the patriarchs ; and uttering a compliment, not 
fulsome, but delicate, such as the character of 
Boudinot justified, he passed on to the great 
theme, and took the audience with him to the 
celestial heights. It seemed as if some angel 



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REV. JOHN SUMMERFIELD. 27 

had been suddenly dropped in human form in 
the midst of us. Yet he was flesh and blood, 
having all the sympathies of our common na- 
ture, which he brought into requisition as he 
dilated now on the bright, and now on the 
sombre aspects of the cause which he advocat- 
ed. There was every variety in this speech. 
It flowed sweet and gentle as the stream that 
steals along the green sward, and then broke 
into the torrent, whose dashing spray was illu- 
minated by the prismatic hues of a brilliant 
fancy. He drew iiis* pictures from nature and 
from the Bible, never coloring too deep, nor 
dwelling too long, but keeping the panorama 
in pleasing progress. It was a poetical speech, 
yet it drew its inspiration from Siloa's fount. 
It was music such as one would imagine flowed 
from the vibrations of some angel harp. We 
could have listened all day to those fine ca- 
dences, and gazed on those beautiful images of 
thought and feeling. When Summerfield sat 
down, we took a long breath, and the congrat- 
ulatory looks that succeeded were an ill omen 
to any speaker who might follow. This speech 
stamped the reputation of young Summerfield 
with the American churches. Everybody was 
inquiring where he could next be heard. 



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28 ELOQUENT PREACHERS. 

The Methodists of course took him to them- 
selves at first. But the crowds that flocked 
to John-street made it very inconvenient to 
the regular worshippers in that church, as they 
could scarcely find their way to their own 
pews. Invitations from other denominations 
began to flow in, and soon the young preacher 
was found in Presbyterian and other churches, 
always thronged almost to suffocation. 

Some men can make a good speech who 
cannot preach a good sermon; and the ques- 
tion which naturally suggested itself, after -his 
splendid debut at the Bible Society, was, Will 
he be equally impressive in the pulpit ? But 
that doubt was speedily removed when Sum- 
merfield exchanged the platform for the pulpit. 
In fact the pulpit was his true position. No- 
where else did his eloquence reach to so sub- 
lime a height. He will be remembered by 
the sermon, not the platform speech. Every 
quality of mind and body, of soul and spirit, 
fitted him for the pulpit. 

His first sermon which the writer had the 
pleasure of hearing was addressed to the young. 
He delighted in preaching to children. He 
inaugurated almost an entirely new style of 
preaching to them, that of question and answer, 



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BEV. JOHN SUMMEBFIELD. 29 

giving him scope and keeping up the attention 
of his little auditors. He himself so youthful, 
with a manner so winning and a smile so play- 
ful, gave him the hearts of the children at 
once. Then his simplicity of diction, his fine 
imagination, drawing from the storehouse of 
God's word its beautiful pictures, amplifying 
them, and turning them in every light upon 
their admiring eyes, made him the medium of 
delight as well as of instruction. 

Taking our chance with the crowd, we 
were carried in by the surging mass, and found 
a standing place in the gallery. Punctual, 
Summerfield arrived, and ascending the pulpit, 
he knelt a moment in prayer, and then cast an 
interested look over his audience. He seemed 
to be in a heavenly frame. He read the hymn 
with those sweet intonations and that nice ap- 
preciation of the sentiment which touches the 
heart. But his prayer! Who can describe 
the pathos, the simplicity, the unction, the 
almost agonizing earnestness that melted every 
soul into sympathy, and filled the house with 
an awful sense of the divine presence? Sum- 
merfield's prayers were worth as much as his 
preaching. They seemed to carry us on the 
wings of devotion to the third heaven, or to 



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30 ELOQUENT PREACHERS. 

melt us in penitential sorrow at the foot of the 
cross. 

The text was, "They that seek me early 
shall find me." He made them promise to 
look it up and think upon it when they should 
return to their homes. He repeated it with 
new and beautiful variations, turning it in this 
light and that. He spoke of Solomon as a 
youth, with a choice of earthly and spiritual 
good set before him. He nobly chose the lat- 
ter ; and then God added to him the former. 
Now said he, leaning over the desk, and in 
the most winning manner, "Now tell me what 
text in the New Testament corresponds with 
this decision." None could give it. "Have 
you forgotten that our Lord said, 'Seek ye 
first the kingdom of God,, and all these things 
shall be added unto you?'" His quotations 
were always pertinent, and gave great power 
to his discourse. 

On a certain Sabbath he preached in a 
small church in the eastern part of the city. 
Even here the crowd followed him. His text 
was, " He that goeth forth and weepeth," etc. ; 
from which he said he should consider the 
weeping and the rejoicing seasons of the Chris- 
tian. This opened a fine field for his sympa- 



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i REV. JOHN SUMMEBFIELD. 31 

thetic soul. As with a master's hand he 
sketched the weeping seasons, the whole place 
became speedily a Bochim. But erelong the 
gleams of brightness began to be flung around 
the Christian's pathway. The tears were dried 
and a heavenly serenity succeeded. He took 
us to the mount, gave us the undimmed eye of 
Moses, and pictured to us the outspread glories 
of Paradise. 

Many, will remember the sermon in behalf 
of the orphans. We obtained a seat in the 
recess of a window in the gallery. The or- 
phans were seated on a temporary stage direct- 
ly in front of the pulpit. The discourse was 
highly appropriate, and bore his audience along 
on a stream of flowing and sometimes impas- 
sioned eloquence. Towards the close, and 
when the excitement was intense, the speaker 
dropping his handkerchief as a signal, the or- 
phans rose and stood silent before the audience. 
Pointing to them, "Look," said he in his own 
inimitable manner; "let their silence plead." 
There was scarce an eye in that vast assembly 
unmoistened. The collection was the largest 
that had ever been taken. 

But wherein lay Summerfield's power ? It 
lay principally in his deep unaffected piety. 



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32 ELOQUENT PEEACHEBS. 

He seemed to belong more to heaven than to 
earth. He was as one apart from the crowd. 
Under that calm, meek, beautiful exterior there 
was an almost angelic spirit. He lived and 
moved in an atmosphere of love. How often 
have we heard, him exclaim, 

"If all the world my Jesus knew, 
Then all the world would love him too." 

This heavenly spirit was poured out upon his 
audience in language chaste and beautiful — in 
a fervor that warmed and touched the hearts 
of his hearers. 

But this seraphic man ran his race speed- 
ily, and as one has said, like the torch-bearer 
in the Grecian games, reaching the terminus 
with it still blazing. His delicate framework 
could not bear the pressure of incessant pul- 
pit labor; and the disease which had been 
latent for years, suddenly ripened into fatal 
strength. He died in New York, where he 
had labored most and was best appreciated, at 
the age of twenty-eight; and thousands, the 
writer included, went and dropped their tears 
upon his early grave. 



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SYLVESTER LARNED. 



SYLVESTER LARNED. 

In person, Larned was a model man. Not 
tall, but strong built, with an easy, graceful 
carriage, and a head that the far-famed Apollo 
might have envied. His dark waving hair 
was thrown carelessly back from a forehead 
broad and expressive, while his large grey eye 
was bright even in repose. His nose was of 
the Roman cast, and his mouth and chin were 
expressive of the finest emotions. If Mercury, 
the imagined god of eloquence, had gone in 
search of a fine medium to sound forth in rap- 
turous tones the thoughts and emotions of the 
human soul, he would have seized with delight 
such an instrument as this. His very look, 
before he uttered a sentence, was eloquent. 

The first time the writer saw Larned was 
when he presented himself before the Presby- 
tery of New York to be examined for licen- 
sure. Another young man was examined at 
the same time. This candidate was as poorly . 
as Larned was well prepared. Hence the lat- 
ter seemed even better, and the former worse, 
than if this contrast had not existed. But Lar- 

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34: ELOQUENT PEEACHEBS. 

ned gave his answers with great self-posses- 
sion, in language exact, clear, and critically 
nice, proving himself at home on all the con- 
tested points; so that when the question of 
licensure came up, there was but one feeling, that 
of unqualified approbation. Some of the min- 
isters dissented from certain opinions express- 
ed by the candidate, but allowed not this differ- 
ence to hinder their cordial votes for his licen- 
sure. He stood up and received from his 
seniors, in a calm and serious manner, author- 
ity to preach the gospel. 

The youthful and accomplished orator made 
his debut in the city of New York. The audi- 
ence, who knew not the stranger, saw passing 
up the aisle a youth of manly proportions and 
striking countenance, and were at once pre- 
possessed in his favor. He rises in the pulpit, 
and all is hush. The invocation is uttered in 
a low, distinct, solemn manner. Every word 
is appropriate, and the very tones, so subdued 
and devotional, fall grateful on the ear. He 
reads the hymn, a familiar one ; yet somehow 
the audience have discovered new beauties in 
that hymn. Some nice shades of thought had 
escaped them until now. They had never 
heard it so read. What was the magic ? It 



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SYLVESTER LARNED. 35 

was not simply the deep melody of that voice, 
but an undefinable apprehension of the latent 
meaning, a soul sympathy in the very senti- 
ment of the hymn, which told at once on their 
Christian sensibilities. He had gained his au- 
dience. A death-like stillness thenceforward 
prevailed. He read the Scriptures as he read 
the hymn, with a certain freshness of feeling 
that seemed to set the great truths in new and 
unobserved lights. His reading was a com- 
mentary. People glanced at each other to 
see if all had experienced the same agreeable 
surprise; and all had. Every eye turned 
fixedly on that pulpit. They adjusted them- 
selves anew in their seats, and so made prep- 
aration for an enjoyment which they knew was 
at hand. Nor were they disappointed. He 
named his text from Acts: " And as he rea- 
soned of righteousness, temperance, and judg- 
ment to come, Felix trembled, and answered, 
Go thy way for this time ; when I have a con- 
venient season I will call for thee." His first 
sentence struck a key-note in the souls of his 
listening audience, so that every heart felt it,» 
and felt it alike. There was no sleeping in 
that audience. The most stupid and indiffer- 
ent roused up and bent forward to catch the 



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36 ELOQUENT PEEACHEBS. 

utterances of the youthful orator. As he pro<- 
ceeded the feeling deepened, and became at 
length almost painfully exciting. He used no 
notes. For Larned to have bent over a man- 
uscript would have embarrassed his free, en- 
ergetic movements as much as for a racehorse 
to be encased in harness. 

He pictured in this discourse the unright- 
eous Felix, the intemperate or sensual Felix, 
and Felix standing with all his accumulated 
guilt upon him at the judgment bar. He then 
turned the picture so as to reflect it into the 
bosoms of his hearers. If Felix trembled under 
Paul, we trembled under Larned. If Felix 
begged Paul to stop, some of us, I fear, would 
almost have arrested the orator as he tore his 
way into the secret heart, and by strokes of 
terrible rebuke made us feel that we were lit- 
tle less guilty than the notorious Roman. 
Whether any were converted under the ser- 
mon, we know not; sure we are that many 
were convicted. Possibly, like the great pro- 
totype of procrastination, we may have said 
secretly, "Go thy way for this time; when I 
have a convenient season I will call for thee." 
The eloquent preacher closed, as was hig wont, 
by some startling question, which rang like 



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SYLVESTER LARNED. 37 

the archangel's trump through the audience. 
We held our breath, and actually felt a relief 
when the echo died away in the silent corridor 
of the building. At the close of the service, 
as might have been expected, every one was 
anxious to know who the stranger was and 
where he was to preach in the afternoon. 

It was ascertained that he would occupy 
the pulpit of the Garden-street church. Thith- 
er of course the crowd flocked, for it is incred- 
ible how such news will fly ; and long ere the 
service commenced the pews and aisles were 
densely packed. His subject on this occasion 
was repentance; text, " Repent ye, and believe 
the gospel." He dwelt on its nature and obli- 
gations. As in the morning, so now every 
thing was in keeping-; the manner dignified, 
earnest, solemn: the voice full, deep, melodi- 
ous; the look majestic, heavenly. The whole 
soul beamed from every feature of that speak- 
ing face. How quick was the electric influ- 
ence felt between the pulpit and the pew! 
Every heart was in the speaker's hand. How 
sublime are the triumphs of true eloquence ! 

In the course of this sermon he had occa- 
sion to refer, as a motive to repentance, to the 
sufferings and death of Christ. The writer can 



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38 ELOQUENT PBEACHEBS. 

never forget the scene. He was a mere youth 
at the time ; but his heart had been touched 
by the love of the Saviour, and he knew how 
to appreciate a picture such as the preacher 
drew. The audience had been, carried along 
on the torrent of eloquence, which at length 
flowed in the direction of Calvary. The preach- 
er, as he led them towards that sacramental 
spot, began to dilate in tones pathetic on the 
awful guilt which necessitated such sufferings 
on the part of the Son of God. His own voice 
trembled, his eye grew moist, his utterance 
choked; but he kept on amid the tears and 
sighs of his audience. Still he kept on ; and 
turning to the wall behind him, he drew on it 
an imaginary cross, with its nails and its crown 
of thorns, and its pale, uplifted victim. It 
started out on the cold blank as if we saw the 
actual scene, and scarce an eye in that assem- 
bly but wept in sympathy, if not in penitence. 
We all know how difficult it is to describe 
or picture forth such a scene, to do any justice 
to it. It may be overdone, and so lose its im- 
pressiveness ; or it may be done in cold detail, 
and so cease to reach the fountains of feeling. 
The painter cannot paint it, the poet cannot 
put it into numbers, and the orator makes a 



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SYLVESTER LARNED. 39 

daring attempt who presumes to sketch it be- 
fore a listening audience. But Larned ven- 
tured upon it. He knew his own power. He 
had a proper appreciation of just how much 
and how littl$ should be said. He knew too 
that he himself must enter with all his heart's 
sensibility into the scene; and he did. He 
said not one word too much, nor dwelt one 
moment too long. He took us where he himself 
went, to the very foot of the cross. He made 
us feel as if we stood in sight of it — within 
hearing of the sad death utterances. Raising 
his great tearful eyes towards it, he asked us 
how we could refuse to repent. The effect 
was overwhelming. It was a bold attempt for 
any preacher, especially for one so young. 
J5ut it was no failure, as every one who recol- 
lects the occasion will bear me witness. 

The triumph of sacred eloquence was nev- 
er more marked. Many of our most worthy 
and influential citizens were present, and gave 
unmistakable proofs, in their fixed attention 
and uncontrollable emotions, of the power 
which the young preacher wielded. Near me 
stood — for he could not obtain a sitting — the 
late George Griffin, then among the most brill- 
iant advocates of the New York bar. The tall 



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40 ELOQUENT PREACHERS. 

figure, with grey hair and green goggles, scarce 
altering his posture during the whole of the 
discourse, rapt in mute attention, showed now 
and then by the quivering of the facial mus- 
cles, how the orator was exploring the depths 
of feeling within. Casting a glance at this dis- 
tinguished lawyer, and observing his emotions, 
me thought that with a theme such as the min- 
ister of the gospel possesses, and a heart alive 
to its magnitude, and oratorical powers of the 
highest order, there could not be a more sub- 
lime scene than the one here presented. 

In conversation subsequently with John 
Quincy Adams, the subject of Larned's elo- 
quence coming up, he remarked that he had 
never heard his equal in the pulpit. 

Wherever Larned went, the same rush to 
hear him and enthusiastic admiration prevail- 
ed. He was solicited to take the first stations 
with the largest salaries. But he refused all 
these tempting offers. He had set his heart 
on a great self-denying enterprise. Looking 
over the wide extent of the land, he thought 
he heard the Macedonian cry from a city where 
mammon and pleasure reigned. Bent only on 
duty, and regarding not the peril, he threw 
himself with his characteristic energy into this 



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SYLVESTEB LAENED. 41 

new field. New Orleans was destitute in a 
great measure of evangelical influence. This 
determined Larned to make it the field of his 
future labors. The decision gave great satis- 
faction to the pious, who rallied around him ; 
and by their efforts a beautiful church edifice 
was soon reared, and filled with a respectable 
congregation. But alas, "the arrow that flieth 
by day" had been prepared; and on the sec- 
ond summer of his residence there, determin- 
ing to confront the dangerous fever for the sake 
of his flock, that arrow reached his vitals, and 
he fell a victim to his self-sacrificing and heroic 
devotion. The news sped through the land, 
and all Christian hearts gave him the tribute 
of a sincere lamentation. 

If asked in what Larned's power consisted 
as a pulpit orator, we should answer, in a 
combination of qualities. His person, so beau- 
tiful and dignified ; his voice, so full of melody, 
adapting itself with the nicest inflections to the 
sentiment ; his just appreciation of the subject ; 
his soul of high and generous mould, commun- 
ing habitually with great themes ; his Christian 
enthusiasm, enveloping the whole man with a 
glowing atmosphere: all these qualities com- 
bined to make Larned the peerless pulpit orator. 



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42 ELOQUENT PREACHERS. 



DR. ASAHEL NETTLETON. 

Some may express surprise at seeing the 
name of Nettleton on the list of eloquent 
preachers. He is remembered as a successful 
revivalist, as having published the " Village 
Hymns," and as occupying late in life a com- 
paratively obscure position in a Theological 
seminary. What claim then has he to the dis- 
tinction of a pulpit orator ? We will explain. 
We do not place his claim on the same grounds 
as that of Mason, Alexander, or Griffin. He 
possessed neither their learning nor their gen- 
ius ; but he had no superior in his day in self- 
sacrificing zeal. No preacher better under- 
stood the human heart ; none had greater pen- 
etration into the phases of that " deceitfulness 
of sin" which beguiles the human understand- 
ing and corrupts the motives. If he had stud- 
ied the didactics of religion less than some 
others, he had clear apprehensions of religion 
itself. If the graces of oratory were not con- 
spicuous in his preaching, that which is said to 
be the aim or end of eloquence, namely, con- 
viction and persuasion, was never more signally 



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DB. ASAHEL NETTLETON. 43 

illustrated. The writer knew him well, and 
was oft refreshed under his ministry in the 
great revivals of 1820-21, while a student in 
Yale college. The whole city was overshad- 
owed with the cloud of mercy, and the reno- 
vating influences kept falling, more or less, for 
the space of two years. 

Originally Dr. Nettleton's intention was to 
embark on some foreign mission; but by the 
force of circumstances this intention was de- 
feated, and he found himself in the work of 
home evangelization, to which thenceforward 
his life and labors were consecrated. He put 
himself on the current of events, and was borne 
along as by a divine impulse. He went no- 
where without having, as he supposed, a call " 
of Providence. He left when the same myste- 
rious index finger pointed him away. From 
every quarter invitations flowed in upon him ; 
but only those were responded to which 
seemed to him to contain in them the voice of 
God. If the cry, "Come over and help us," 
came from a church which was paralyzed by 
inaction or corrupted by worldliness, he gave 
it usually no heed. The supposition was that 
they were looking less to the Almighty than 
to an arm of flesh. Nothing grieved him more 



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44 ELOQUENT PREACHEBS. 

than the idea, implied or expressed, that he 
could breathe life into dry bones. He regard- 
ed it both as an insult to heaven and to his 
own understanding. He! Why, there was 
never a more consciously impotent human in- 
strument. Never was there a preacher more 
oblivious of self, nor one that entered more 
into the spirit of the sentiment, " Our suffi- 
ciency is of God." On one occasion, having 
arrived in a town with a view to labor for the 
upbuilding of Zion, he overheard certain prom- 
inent members of the church saying in an ex- 
ultant strain, "Mr. Nettleton has come, and 
we shall have a revival of religion." The words 
pierced him to the heart. He went to his closet 
and wept. He ordered his horse at once, say- 
ing as he took leave, "I can't stay here any 
longer. The people are in a wrong state of 
mind." His absence created inquiry. Chris- 
tians began to study into the matter. They 
saw their error in looking to man instead of 
God. They repented and put their faces in 
the dust ; and soon the indications of the Spir- 
it's presence were manifest. Hearing of this, 
Mr. Nettleton returned and preached to them 
with great zeal and success. ; 

There was at first view nothing in his ap- 



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DR. ASAHEL NETTLETON. 45 

pearance that was striking or calculated to 
arrest the attention. Of medium height, with 
a somewhat haggard look, large blue eyes, 
prominent Roman nose, high oval forehead, 
with light and slightly, grey hair brought up 
from each side to cover its baldness, and an air 
of abstraction, as if conversing either with his 
own thoughts of with the great Invisible, he 
seemed always bent on some object, near or 
remote, connected with the salvation of men. 
His whole energies appeared to be working in 
this direction. His prayers all breathed of 
this. If he was seen conversing with an indi- 
vidual, you might be sure that he was trying 
to get into the sympathies of that heart, so as 
to reach it with the truth of God. This he 
did, not by direct and blunt assailment, but 
gradually and gently, as the sunbeam steals 
into the crevice. His knowledge of men went 
deeper than any minister's I have known ; and 
it was the more marvellous, as he was never 
known to have mingled much in promiscuous 
society. There was a sweet and attractive 
gentleness in his manners. He seemed to 
have conquered all the proud, sensual, or irri- 
table feelings. An air of vestal purity sur- 
rounded him. You felt as if in presence of 



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46 ELOQUENT PBEACHEES. # 

not only an amiable, but a holy man. These 
traits, by disarming prejudice, made his minis- 
try potent for good. In many respects he re- 
sembled the apostle Paul. The self-denial, the 
absolute self-renunciation, the absorption of his 
whole soul in his work, the heavenly minded- 
ness, the simplicity and singleness of his aim, 
all reminded one of that apostle. What was 
said of Paul by the Corinthians, that his pres- 
ence was weak and his speech contemptible, 
might in some degree be applied, especially by 
those who judge of eloquence by shining qual- 
ities, to Mr. Nettleton. He lacked the grandeur 
of person and of intellect which some of the 
great pulpit orators have possessed. His voice 
was sharp rather than full or melodious, and 
his gestures, though emphatic, were ordinarily 
not graceful. His power as a preacher lay in 
intense earnestness. His whole being was 
concentrated in efforts to save the soul from 
death. Out of the pulpit as well as in it, this 
was evident. No man ever dreamed of attrib- 
uting to him any selfish ends. It was manifest 
that the highest motives only swayed him. To 
this noble, disinterested spirit, more than to 
any graces of oratory, did he owe his influence 
and his success. 



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DR. ASAHEL NETTLETON. 47 

There was, however, at times an eloquence 
that rose above all rhetorical rules, and though 
it dazzled not the fancy, stormed and carried 
the conscience and the heart. True, the Spirit 
of God was present to evoke it and give it 
power ; so that every word told with terrible 
emphasis, and every sentence fell like the hail- 
stones in Revelation, each one weighing a tal- 
ent, causing men to cry out in audible accents, 
What shall we do? Still, none who listened 
on such occasions could deny that for clear- 
ness, force, and pungency, his sermons were 
unequalled. It was the highest style of pulpit 
eloquence, for it carried souls on its pure, 
impetuous current into the divinely appointed 
ark of safety. There was in it a spiritual ele- 
vation, as if Grod himself was speaking — as if 
the lips were all aglow with a coal from heav- 
en's altar.. 

The preaching of this distinguished evange- 
list, to be appreciated, had to be heard contin- 
uously, and under circumstances of more than 
ordinary interest. His first efforts were mod- 
est, his manner calm but clear, and his aim 
was rather to awaken interest than to excite 
the passions. Usually he began with the 
church, hoping to bring them to a higher tone 



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48 ELOQUENT PREACHERS. 

of consecration. If successful in this, he turned 
his thoughts upon the careless and the impen- 
itent, believing that a very intimate relation 
subsisted between a revival in the church and 
a resurrection of the dead in sin. His preach- 
ing had a strict adaptation to these varying 
circumstances. It rose as the current of feel- 
ing rose. It kept on, growing deeper and 
more impetuous as the revival influence aug- 
mented. It was like an electrical atmosphere, 
showing on the distant clouds some faint cor- 
ruscations. But as they rolled up and came 
nearer, sharp flashes might be seen. By and 
by the whole concave was trembling with aw- 
ful detonations. Such was Nettleton's preach- 
ing as the revival atmosphere deepened in 
breadth and volume. We have known him- 
preach in one of the largest churches in New 
Haven, every foot of the floor and gjsles filled 
with dense masses, all wearing such a look as 
can be depicted only by the Spirit of God. 
Hundreds under conviction turned their tear- 
ful eyes in the direction of the pulpit, their 
sighs almost audible, repressed only by the 
proprieties of the place. How still — how in- 
tensely, awfully still ! Truly, this is the house 
of God; yes, to many the gate of heaven. 



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DR. ASAHEL NETTLETON. 49 

The preacher is himself oppressed, sustained 
only by the thought that God can and will do 
his own work. He has gone on and up with 
the advancing tide of feeling, until now his 
whole soul is elevated to its utmost power and 
energy. Talk of eloquence! Never before 
had I a just impression of what pulpit oratory 
is. Here is a humble preacher, uttering words 
so simple that a child can comprehend their 
meaning, with a manner earnest and solemn, 
and a heart deeply touched with emotion ; and 
as he goes on, by illustrations so striking, rea- 
soning so convincing, and appeals so tender, 
the -audience can scarce refrain from an out- 
burst of agony. Tears rained silently in those 
pews, and convictions went deeper and deeper, 
while many an eye was turned anxiously tow- 
ards the cross, the only hope set before them. 
To appreciate Mr. Nettleton, one should have 
heard him as the writer heard him, under the 
culminating power of a great revival. Never 
shall I forget the sermon on " Dives and Laz- 
arus," delivered in the very height of the relig- 
ious excitement. Rich men were there. It 
seemed as if everybody was there, so great was 
the crowd. The preacher was in his best 
frame. He gave full scope to his ardent soul. 

Boqoant Preacher*. 3 



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50 ELOQUENT PREACHERS. 

He had great power of description. It was not 
imagination so much as vivid conception. He 
could set religious truth in strong lights. On 
this occasion he carried us forward to the aw- 
ful and glorious future. He took us into heav- 
en, and even into hell. He gave us a glimpse 
of the glorified Lazarus, and startled us by a 
vision of the rich sensualist wrapped in sheet- 
ed flame. Towards the close the excitement 
became almost unbearable. He summoned 
the lost Dives back to this world. He bade 
the audience make way for him, pointing along 
the central aisle. The preacher gazed fearful- 
ly in the same direction. The audience in- 
stinctively half turned their heads. Now the 
flame-tormeflted soul ascends the pulpit. Start- 
ing aside, the preacher says, " Listen to one 
risen from the dead — risen even from hell ;" 
when in deep despairing tones the imagined 
Dives begins to address them. He warns them 
as only a returned emissary from hell could 
warn men. It was a scene of intense interest. 
Never could it have been carried through but 
for the wave of feeling which had been gather- 
ing for weeks, and was now at its flood. This 
sanctioned it, saved it, made it a success. Many 
were awakened by it to a sense of their sins. 



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BR. ASAHEL NETTLETON. 51 

The sermons of Dr. Nettleton were usually 
constructed in a clear, methodical manner. 
The language was of the simplest kind. The 
point soon began to appear, and grew sharper 
and more prominent as he proceeded. Tow- 
ards the conclusion he would make somfc sen- 
tences cut as with a two-edged sword. He 
used much repetition. A strong, pungent truth 
would be echoed once, and twice, and even 
thrice, each reverberation louder and more 
solemn, as if he hoped by repeated blows to 
drive it through the most obdurate conscience. 
I never knew a preacher who could repeat a 
sentence so often without diminishing its pow- 
er. He aimed at direct impression; and no 
minister perhaps in this country has been more 
successful in turning many to righteousness, 
nor will any, as we think, shine more illustri- 
ously among the stars of the celestial firma- 
ment. 



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62 ELOQUENT PREACHERS. 



DR. LYMAN BEECHER. 

Dr. Beecher's power as a pulpit orator 
culminated about the period of his removal 
from Litchfield, Conn., to the Hanover-street 
church, Boston. He was then not much be- 
yond fifty years of age, and his reputation as 
a divine was established on a firm basis. The 
physical man, of medium height and breadth, 
was in its perfection; characterized by strong 
muscles, a well-set frame, a countenance with 
the lines of strength predominating over those 
of age, and more remarkable for vigor of ex- 
pression than for the beauty of its lineaments. 
His forehead was not high nor broad, but ex- 
pressive of intellect, and was surmounted by 
a heavy mass of iron gray hair. The contour 
of his face was decidedly Eoman. His eye 
was perhaps the most speaking feature, kin- 
dling with geniality in social life, and full of 
fire when the great themes of religion were 
under discussion. His mouth was the very 
symbol of decision; and even when his lips 
were closed, would give one the idea of indom- 
itable purpose. As age advanced, the iron , 



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DR. LYMAN BEEOHER. 53 

gray hair changed to snowy whiteness, and the 
more genial expression remained long after the 
high intellectual force had abated. 

His ministry began at East Hampton on 
the east end of Long Island, where the ocean's 
thunder and the scream of the eagle gave wild- 
ness and sublimity to the scene. Here the 
young giant cradled his genius and nursed it 
into strength. He was at home amid these 
wild scenes, and never manifested more natu- 
ral delight — amounting sometimes almost to 
rapture — than when he was buffeting the 
waves in some light craft, or drawing from the 
deep its finny treasures. 

Yet this great mind was at work, perhaps, 
at the very moment that he was indulging this 
joyous pastime. Who can say but in those 
hours of relaxation by the deep sea he was 
elaborating those trains of thought which were 
afterwards to be hurled with startling empha- 
sis upon the astonished audience. 

He had another mode of recreation which 
it may not be improper here to mention; 
namely, the use of the violin. He was fond of 
the instrument, and employed it to rest the 
wearied faculties. Having occasion to call 
upon him, the writer inquired at the door if 



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54 ELOQUENT PREACHERS. 

he was in. The answer was, "Yes; and by 
following the sound of the violin which yon 
hear, he may be found on the second floor." 
So, led by the strain of music, the door was 
reached and opened. There sat the venerable 
divine still drawing the bow, and so absorbed, 
that for an instant the intruder was' not no- 
ticed. When he looked up, he gave one of 
those genial smiles so expressive of his benev- 
olent heart, and said, "Do not be surprised at 
my occupation ; this is my pipes and tobacco." 
It was while Dr. B'eecher was at East 
Hampton that he composed his sermon on 
"the Sovereignty of God." It was delivered 
in Newark before the Synod of New York and 
New Jersey, and so great was the impression, 
that it brought the author at once into the 
foreground of distinguished preachers. There 
was depth of reasoning, force of illustration, 
and uncommon Saxon vigor in the style. It 
met the popular objections, and swept them 
away as with the force of a whirlwind. It 
revealed the immovable foundations on which 
the doctrine rested; and none who heard it, 
or who, after it was in print, read it, could 
fail to see that it bore the stamp of an hercu- 
lean intellect. 



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DR. LYMAN BEECHER. 55 

From this date the hitherto obscure pastor 
of East Hampton drew upon him the eyes of 
the religious public, and his services were fre- 
quently required on conspicuous occasions. 

From East Hampton he removed to Litch- 
field, Conn. Into this new field of labor he 
brought with him the resources of thought and 
culture which he had been accumulating in his 
earlier ministry on Long Island. It was a 
more interesting as well as wider sphere, inas- v 
much as it furnished not only more minds to 
act upon, but minds of a high order. Here 
was the celebrated law school to which the 
young aspirants for legal and political distinc- 
tion resorted, and where the ablest teachers of 
the science of jurisprudence dwelt These, for 
the most part, were attendants upon his minis- 
try. It was just the stimulus which such a 
mind as his needed. 

Every Sabbath brought under his eye 
judges and lawyers and law students — minds 
of great acumen thoroughly trained to discus- 
sion on subjects of profound interest, and able 
to appreciate the highest intellectual efforts in 
the departments of law and of divinity. Dr. 
Beecher was the man for them, and they were 
the audience for him. 



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56 ELOQUENT PREACHERS. 

Accordingly all his energies were tasked 
to bring forth divine truth in its varied aspects, 
and to assert its claims upon the intellect and 
the heart. Here were elaborated some of his 
discourses which have taken rank among the 
ablest productions of American divines. "The 
Bible a Code of Laws" was one of them, in 
which, after a concise array of principles and 
statements, supported by reasoning brief but 
convincing, he proceeds to draw numerous in- 
ferences, that come along in succession, like 
platoons of artillery, growing heavier in their 
tread, until the foundations of seductive and 
fatal error seem to tremble under the march 
of this " army with banners." When this dis- 
course was delivered in Park-street church, 
Boston, it was regarded as one of the most 
eloquent that had ever been listened to. 

This celebrated sermon, with others of the 
same type, was the product of long continued 
thought. It had been delivered to his people 
at Litchfield in parts, running along over sev- 
eral Sabbaths, until it was completed. These 
separate links, seemingly of massive iron, were 
then forged into one strong chain ; and so, by 
a power of condensation which its author pos- 
sessed more than almost any preacher we have 



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DR. LYMAN BEECHEB. 67 

ever known, this grand product of a great in- 
tellect was given at a single delivery. 

In a ministers' meeting, where the doctor 
made a report of one of his discourses, giving 
the heads and many of the illustrations, so 
original and powerful was the train of thought, 
that a younger member of the association, 
struck with its great force, inquired how long 
it took him to make that sermon. "A life- 
time," was his laconic reply. To this power 
of condensation is to be attributed much of the 
influence exerted by this strong, nervous wriU 
er. There are no platitudes, no long-drawn 
array of words or figures. The sentences seem 
to have been subjected to an hydraulic pres- 
sure, until not a word can be spared nor an 
argument omitted without manifest loss to the 
effect of the discourse. 

His Sermons on Intemperance, coming out 
as they did at the very commencement of the 
moral crusade, are a wonderful series. By 
their power of logic, by their force of illustra- 
tion, by all the pictorial horrors of the vice 
assailed, including warnings the most startling 
and appeals the most touching, clothed in lan- 
guage as remarkable for its strength as for its 
classic beauty? they bring out the genius and 

3* 



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68 ^ELOQUENT PREACHERS. 

power of the man, and constitute a claim to 
the admiration as well as the gratitude of the 
public. A heavier blow at the gigantic vice 
of the age has not been given. 

As an eloquent minister, Dr. Beecher, to 
be fully appreciated, must be regarded in the 
practical and experimental, as well as the con- 
troversial field. True, he was in polemic dis- 
cussions almost unrivalled. He could con- 
struct an argument on the spur of the mo- 
ment. His mind acted with electrical rapidi- 
ty, and only needed an atmosphere to start the 
current and send oflf the fiery explosions. Ra- 
tionalism never met a more formidable antag- 
onist, and bald infidelity could not stand for a 
moment before the thunder-peals of his elo- 
quence. Still we must look at him in the lec- 
ture-room, or follow him into revival scenes, 
where his whole soul was drawn out in analyz- 
ing Christian experience, and in the deep 
heart-rending emotions which a sight of con- 
victed sinners produced. We must listen to 
his unpremeditated and tender appeals, in 
order lo know more thoroughly the power of 
the preacher. Here his piety flamed up by its 
own kindling emotions. The great mind here 
dropped at once into the spirit of the child; 



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DR. LYMAN BEECHER. 59 

and uniting the grandeur of a strong intellect 
with the tenderness of a sympathetic heart, he 
gave out lessons of love such as filled the whole 
place with a heavenly atmosphere. No man 
was more at home in revival scenes than he, 
and few on such occasions have been more hon- 
ored as instruments in the conversion of souls. 

His introduction into Boston was under 
propitious circumstances. Evangelical relig- 
ion had received a new impulse. The revival 
spirit had begun to manifest itself in several of 
the churches ; and the new one, to which he 
was called, was already aglow with the heav- 
enly fire. Looking about for a leader, they 
saw one in the eloquent pastor at Litchfield; 
He came at their call ; and at once the city of 
the pilgrims rang with his cry. His church 
was thronged not so much from curiosity as to 
hear one who, with overpowering eloquence, 
preached God's sovereignty and God's mercy; 
who held up the cross as the only palladium 
of a sinner's safety ; who knew nothing among 
men but " Jesus Christ and him crucified." 

When, by an inscrutable providence, the 
Hanover-street church was burned down, a 
new one arose quickly from its ashes. Crowds 
pressed into it; and such was the power of 



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60 ELOQUENT PREACHERS. 

God upon his preaching, that many who " went 
to mock remained to pray." Conversions 
were numerous; and the church at length, 
overflowing as to its membership, began to col- 
onize into other new churches, until the evan- 
gelical faith took root in every part of the 
city. 

At this period we suppose Dr. Beecher's 
power as to eloquence reached its highest 
point. He was never more eloquent — never 
had greater weight of influence — never struck 
heavier blows at the kingdom of darkness. 

A conscientious, sense of duty led him to 
the West, where he assumed the responsibili- 
ties of both a pastor and a theological teacher. 
This twofold burden was too heavy even for 
his herculean shoulders to bear. His iron 
frame began to give way. It became neces- 
sary first to cast off some of the burden, and 
after a while the whole. He retired from the 
more onerous and active duties of the ministry ; 
and reappearing, with a weight of threescore 
years upon him, among his old friends at the 
East, he was received with open arms and 
warm, grateful hearts. Gradually he suc- 
cumbed to the pressure of advancing years, 
but still retaining all the warmth of a piety 



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DR. LYMAN BEEOHER. 61 

the sincerity and earnestness of which none 
that knew him ever questioned. 

Dr. Beecher's eloquence was unlike that of 
any other preacher whom we have known. It 
was not marked by studied action, or previous 
drill, or the usual rules of elocution. {There 
was no majesty of person, no liquid rotundity 
of voice, no gracefulness of manner. He dealt 
sparingly in figures of speech, using them only 
when they gave greater force to the sentiment/ 
His manner in the pulpit some would call awk- 
ward, others blunt, and others perhaps even 
harsh. Yet amid all this, who that ever lis- 
tened to him when his great mind was roused, 
and the course was clear, and the whole moral 
and mental man was strained for. the race, can 
fail to concede a power of eloquence which car- 
ried all before it ? 

His great power lay in the thought, and 
such thought as seldom takes verbal life. It 
was such thought as came from a mind^of deep 
original conceptions. It was less like gold- 
dust than gold nuggets. It impressed one not 
only with the richness of the specimens, but 
with the untold richness of the mine from 
which they were dug. 

But was there nothing impressive inAis 



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62 ELOQUENT PBEAOHEBS. 

manner? There was. Earnestness was one 
feature. Never was a preacher more earnest. 
There was animation. Every nerve quivered 
under it. Though not musical, the voice was 
strong, accumulating power as he proceeded, 
and driving home the grand logic of the dis- 
course. There was at times emotion. This 
was especially discernible in his sermons on 
practical religion. But the grand secret of his 
eloquence after all lay, as we have said, in the 
strong original thought, set in a frame of logic 
£o bold and clear that the most common intel- 
lect could understand him. Conviction with 
him seemed to be the great thing. To use a 
military figure, he stormed the moral affections 
by approaches through the intellect. He first 
gained the assent of the reason, or rather forced 
it, and then directed his blows upon. the con- 
science and the heart. 

His power in the pulpit was also augmented 
by his» peculiar use of the Saxon tongue. 
Never have we listened to a man who could 
express a theological idea in clearer or more 
forcible terms, such as one of the commonest 
of his hearers could understand and recognize 
as appropriate. He had Carlisle's strength, 
without his verbal eccentricity. 



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DR. LYMAN BEEOHER. 6S 

Nor was Dr. Beecher wanting in pictorial 
power. Listening to him on one occasion 
when describing the penitent woman who 
kneeled at our Lord's feet, and washed them 
with her tears, the whole scene in concise but 
graphic language was placed vividly before 
the imagination. Every part of the descrip- 
tion had life. It was the power of a moral 
painter using words as the artist uses colors, 
to bring out and give force to the preconceived 
picture. 

That Dr. Beecher's style was perfect not 
his .warmest admirer would assert ; that he 
lackefl the graces usually desired and expected 
in a pulpit orator every one who knew him 
must admit; that his. manner was sometimes 
so abrupt as to grate on the ears of his more 
sensitive hearers, even this we are obliged to 
concede. But after all, his noble range of 
thought, his entire cohsecration to his work, 
his intense love of Christ, and his exultant 
faith in the certain triumphs of truth and 
righteousness, his simplicity and sincerity 
seen in every act and word, his unselfish and 
unworldly spirit, all combined to render him 
one of the most powerful and influential 
preachers our country has produced. 



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64: ELOQUENT PBEACHEBS. 



DR. HENRY B. BASCOM. 

Many years ago, passing down the North 
river, I fell in company with several Metho- 
dist ministers. They were on their way to 
the New York Conference. Said one of them 
to me, "Have you ever heard Dr. Bascom?" 
I had not. "Well, then," he added, "yon 
have not heard the most eloquent preacher in 
the United States." I could not of cojirse 
deny it, and my politeness forbade me to ex- 
press the doubt which I entertained. But I 
determined to judge for myself, should the op- 
portunity occur. Soon it did. The announce- 
ment that the great pulpit orator was to preach 
drew an immense audience to the Murray-street 
church. Every seat and standing-place was 
occupied lojig ere the service commenced. 
From a glance, it was evident that our most 
intelligent citizens were there. Ministers, law- 
yers, editors — in fact all professions were nu- 
merously represented. No man could wish 
for a finer or more appreciating audience. 
There was a preliminary rustle — usual on such 



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DR. HENRY B. BASOOM. 66 

occasions — when the preacher entered and 
took the central chair on the platform pulpit. 

Dr. Bascom's appearance and manner were 
not ministeriaL Had we not known him to be 
a preacher, we % should have taken him for a 
spruce politician. He had a jaunty look, and 
his shining black stock* and well- trimmed 
whiskers and fashionable costume seemed not 
in keeping with the usually staid and very 
plain exterior of the clergy of his own denom- 
ination. This peculiarity had given umbrage 
to the leaders of Methodism, and had caused 
no small personal vexation to their not very 
acquiescent brother. The Methodism of these 
days looks more to the inner and less to the 
outer man ; and a minister's costume, unless it 
were in the extreme of the fashion, would 
hardly be noticed. The truth is, Dr. Bas- 
com's fine person and free, easy manner made 
any garb look well on him ; so that on one 
occasion, when a scrupulous father made him 
a present of a round-cut coat on the condition 
that he would wear it, it was found, on don- 
ning it, that he looked more genteel than be- 
fore. He had what might be called a dashing 
air, the growth, apparently, of that bold and 
self-reliant feeling which rough western life 



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66 ELOQUENT PBEACHEBS. 

almost necessarily produces. For long years 
in early manhood he had struggled with pov- 
erty ; had been exposed to perils in the wil- 
derness ; had forded rivers and swamps ; slept 
in log huts ; lived on poor and scanty fare ; 
studied his sermons by the light of pine knots ; 
rode thousands of miles to preach to here and 
there a scattered remnant of humanity — his 
audiences amounting to a hundred at most, 
and reduced sometimes to four or five, and 
they of the rudest kind. 

Such was Baseom's training, such the school 
in which he learned to think, to act, to suflfer ; 
to trust. . But now, when we saw him, he had 
graduated to a higher sphere. He had come 
up out of the wilderness. Still that wilderness 
had cast about him the mantle of a sublime 
freedom, which, though he had exchanged the 
camel's hair and leathern girdle for the broad- 
cloth, was discernible in every movement of 
mind and muscle. His people did not for a 
long time understand him, misinterpreted his 
manners, and criticized needlessly his exterior. 
But the sublime, self-reliant man kept on, leav- 
ing to time and truth the charge of his reputa- 
tion. That sacred trust they kept, and when 
we heard him in Murray-street, the mists of 



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DR. HENRY B. BASCOM. 67 

prejudice had been exhaled, and his reputa- 
tion shone out upon a cloudless sky. His per- 
son was prepossessing, dignified ; his eye, dark 
and piercing, glanced nervously over the vast 
assembly. In^every countenance he saw high 
expectation, and though well prepared to meet 
it, he evidently suffered under a secret tremor. 
Others led the devotions. Bascom, it was said, 
seldom prayed in public — never when the oc- 
casion was conspicuous and he the preacher. 
Why? Some said "he had not the gift." But 
another reason maybe suggested. Very prob- 
ably he was so absorbed in his subject, and so 
excited by the presence of a vast crowd, that 
he felt unfit to perform a service requiring a 
calm and reverential frame of spirit. He seems 
not to have entered into the spirit of the old 
divine when asked by a young preacher to 
offer prayer : "No," said he; "whet your own 
sword." Bascom was accustomed to whet his, 
we hope, before he came to the sanctuary. 

What shall we say of the discourse on this 
occasion? That it equalled expectation? High 
as that was, he soared far above it. He was 
then in the zenith of his power. His voice 
was flexible, but well controlled. It had com- 
pass and clearness both. His emphasis was 



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68 ELOQUENT PREACHERS. 

admirably laid ; his utterance rapid, yet every 
word distinct. His gestures were forced from 
him, and therefore graceful and impressive. 
His reserved power — if we may so call it, 
which always distinguishes the true orator — was 
felt to be immense. High as his flights were, 
it seemed as if he could with ease have gone 
far higher. Wide as his range was, it was felt 
that he was putting a check on his impetuous 
and discursive intellect. His eye grew brighter 
and brighter, until the gleams of the soul, dart- 
ing through it, were like heat lightning play- 
ing and flashing incessantly from out the lurid 
cloud. He gained his audience at first, and 
held them to' the close in rapt attention. It 
was like the mystic symbol of Ezekiel — a fiery 
car, with wheels rolling on clouds — taking us 
up and putting us down at pleasure. We were 
entirely in his hands. Our judgment was taken 
away from us. There was no power to criti- 
cize. Our imagination was excited, and the 
whole concave of thought seemed lit up as with 
a brilliant aurora. 

He had a great theme — Africa and her ill- 
fated sons ; colonization, the bright star of hope 
to a depressed race. It was a subject on which 
he had thought long and felt deeply, until his 



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DB. HENRY B. BASCOM. 69 

emotions had become like the pent-up fires of 
a volcano. Both his intellect and his sympa- 
thies were intensely excited. His genius asked 
no sublimer theme. He pictured Africa, her 
past and her present ; her grandeur of old, and 
her degradation now. He dwelt upon her 
wrongs ; he predicted the future civilization 
that was to overspread her shores ; he recog- 
nized Providence in bringing Africa here, bap- 
tizing her in suffering, to prepare her for her 
mission and to elevate her to glory. It was a 
discourse of overwhelming power. The critics 
might say that it was too picturesque, too exu- 
berant in metaphor; in fact, oratorically too 
splendid. But this was the preacher's forte. 
He lacked not logical power, but his preemi- 
nence rested mainly on a brilliant fancy, which 
hovered over his logic and shed her rainbow 
beauties upon it. Yet every thing was natural. 
There was no straining after images. They 
came robed in imperial beauty. There was 
no artificial tone, no swell and cadence, no 
studied attitudes. He spoke as a natural ora- 
tor; in a style conversational, but intensely 
earnest, as one would speak whose whole aim 
was to carry conviction by the combined power 
of intellect and passion. 



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70 ELOQUENT PBEACHERS. 

This discourse was* over two hours long, 
but seemed not longer than an ordinary ser- 
mon. Listening to such eloquence, "we take 
no note of time." Hours seem minutes, and 
we dread the coming of the last sentence. So 
deep was the impression, that, as the vast au- 
dience broke up, the commonplace exclama- 
tions of eulogy were scarcely heard. It seemed 
superfluous to ask anybody how they liked it. 
The deep current of feeling was depicted in 
every man's countenance. 

"His style," says one, "combined the 
beauty of Young, the strength of Wesley, the 
eloquence of Chalmers, and the sublimity of 
Hall." But this is extravagant. He had not 
the classical purity of Hall, neither had he the 
gorgeous drapery of Chalmers. And had he 
the nervous simplicity of Wesley ? Let Wes- 
ley's followers answer. Still, his splendid 
fancy threw over his composition such brilliant 
lights as dazzled the eye, and made it incapa- 
ble, in a measure, of detecting the manifest 
faults of his style. He lacked precision, con- 
densation. He was too lavish of words. They 
were piled up in massive grandeur, so as some- 
times almost to conceal the thought. Meta- 
phor followed metaphor, until we seemed like 



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DB. HENBY B. BASCOM. 71 

travellers among the tropics, assailed and over- 
powered by aromatic sweets, entranced by- 
floral beauties, and amazed at the deep peren- 
nial verdure. But such is the very style that 
attracts and enraptures a listening audience. 
To alter it for one more correct, would have 
been like clipping the wings of an eagle, and 
then bidding him soar towards the sun. Bas- 
com's genius would have died under such rigid 
discipline. He must be himself. Vain would 
have been the attempt to bind around such a 
mind the restraints of artificial rules. He 
would have cast them off with the same ease 
and proud disdain as Samson cast off the green 
withes or the flaxen cords. Whatever viola- 
tion of rhetorical rules may be chargeable on 
this great pulpit orator, certain it is that no 
preacher in this country has made a deeper 
impression on the popular mind. " And," 
says the eloquent Abbe Maury, "the people 
are the beet and only proper judges of our 
eloquence." 

Dr. Bascom, some have affirmed, was a 
memoriter preacher. But this his biographer 
denies. J2e says that his custom was to draw 
out his plan on a piece of paper, and then 
walking to and fro, for hours sometimes, 1^ 



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72 ELOQUENT PREA0HEB8. 

studied the arguments and shaped out the 
illustrations. This done, he threw it aside 
until the time for its. delivery. "From this 
habit," he goes on to say, "young orators 
might learn a useful lesson. Nothing is more 
common perhaps, with public speakers, than 
to study intensely their subjects up to the mo- 
ment of appearing in public ; the natural effect 
of which is to weaken, if not prostrate, the 
mental energies before coming to the point 
where these must be called fully into action or 
the speaker fail. Bascom understood the phi- 
losophy of the mind too well to expend in the 
drill the strength essential to success in the 
battle." 

His piety; what shall we say of that? 
To enter largely into it would lead us away 
from our main intent. Suffice it to say, it was 
deep, without being ostentatious. His zeal 
was intense, without being fanatical ; his self- 
denial for Christ's sake, seldom, in modern 
times, equalled. As to his creed, it may be 
learned from the closing scene. Among the 
last words which he uttered were these : "All 
my trust and confidence is in almighty good- 
ness, as revealed in the cross of Christ." 



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DB. EDWABD PATSON. „ 73 



DR. EDWARD PAYSON. 

The name of Payson is embalmed in the 
memory of evangelical Christians. He was 
in some respects the- model minister. His 
deeply sympathetic nature led him to rejoice 
with them that rejoiced, and to weep with them 
that wept. He was the father as well as the 
pastor of his flock. So thoroughly did he iden- 
tify himself with them, that even their earthly 
trials became a bond of mutual sympathy. 

He is a fit representative of the emotional 
class of preachers. His mental was much 
influenced by his nervous constitution. The 
latter was a fine-stringed instrument, keyed 
up to its utmost tension. The intellect, like 
the invisible wind acting on an iEoliail harp, 
would touch now a plaintive and now an in- 
spiring chord. As he felt, so he spoke. 

He was not a man of remarkable bodily pres- 
ence. To use the language of one who knew 
him intimately, "He was of medium height, 
good proportions, a little stooping in posture ; 
hair black, face angular, and features strongly 
marked with expressions of quiet benevolence 

■hwwnt Enactor*. 4 



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74 « ELOQUENT PBEACHEBS. 

and decision; eyes dark and foil, slightly re- 
tired under a brow somewhat raised, placid 
and a little downcast in their ordinary expres- 
sion, but keen and scrutinizing when raised 
and fastened on an object. In silence his coun- 
tenance was marked with care and thoughtfal- 
ness, which were awakened in conversation 
into the most vivid expressions of mental activ- 
ity and emotion." 

The religious was the modifying and all- 
controlling element in Payson's character. 
Every other feature took its shape and color- 
ing from this. As the coin in passing through 
the mint, whether it be gold or copper, receives 
the same external stamp, so his words and 
thoughts, his ordinary discourse as well as his 
highest intellectual efforts, bore the imprint of 
his heavenly spirit. In the pulpit or out, the 
minister w^s never lost in the man. His offi- 
cial robe was not put on and off, but worn 
ever. Hence no man in conversation with 
him would think of indulging in levity, or even 
ordinary familiarity. Some may object to this 
as forming a barrier to social freedom, and 
tending to drive away those who, by a more 
free and familiar style of manners, might have 
been won to piety and virtue. But we say, 



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DE. EDWARD PAYSON. 75 

let every, one act in character. If a minister's 
soul is taken up with heavenly things, as was 
Dr. Payson's, it would be folly to sacrifice the 
religious' to the social spirit. It would in fact 
be hypocrisy. The man whose temperament 
and tendencies, on the other hand, are more 
social than religious, would only play a part 
by foisting into his conversation, from a sense 
of duty, sentiments the force of which he did 
not really feel. Still it must be regretted that 
in Dr. Payson's manner the sombre frequently 
prevailed over the genial. He often lacked that 
sacred hilarity, if we may so term it, which 
graced the character of Legh Richmond and 
John Angel James, and which, while it would 
not have lessened his influence as a minister, 
would have made him more generally attrac- 
tive as a man. 

Much of the apparent gloom which tinged 
his countenance and manner was the result of 
a disordered state of the physical system. 
"The harp of a thousand strings" was only 
occasionally in tune. When it was, it spoke 
heavenly music. Did he mistake this for the 
ecstacy of devotion ? It may have had some 
influence on his religious emotions. His heav- 
en of joy may have had something to do with 



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76 ELOQUENT PKEAOHERS. 

recuperated nerves under a clear atmosphere, 
and his valley and shadow of death may in 
part be attributable to floating icebergs and 
easterly fogs acting on the most sensitive of 
beings. On one page of his diary are written 
mourning, lamentation, and woe; and on the 
next he breaks out in songs of rapture, in the 
full belief that God is both his refuge and his 
portion. In this respect, one is reminded of 
David's experience, as given in the Psalms. 
The same alternations of hope and despondency 
appear in many of the sacred lyrics. The most 
plaintive beginning ends often in the most tri- 
umphant shouts of praise. Payson's heart 
seems to have been set to the same key-note, 
and to have reverberated the same alternately 
mournful and exultant strains. The tempera- 
ments of the two were not perhaps very dis- 
similar. But though Payson's religious expe- 
rience was somewhat modified by physical 
causes, we would by no means deny that spir- 
itual influences were at work in these deep and 
diversified agitations of his soul: The emo- 
tional part of religion is a subtle and mysteri- 
ous subject, shaping itself somewhat according 
to the peculiar temperament of the individual. 
Men of strong emotiojis and deep passions are 



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DE. EDWAED PAYSON. 77 

exercised very differently from those who are 
naturally cold and phlegmatic. Payson was 
of the former class. His soul was a sea of 
emotion, stirred or tranquillized by the breath 
of the Spirit, dark and tempestuous at times, 
and anon reflecting from its calm surface the 
image of heaven. 

This emotional nature was drawn out in the 
closet under great wrestlings. It appeared in 
the social meeting, where tears were mingled 
with entreaties. It went with him into the 
pulpit. He looked over his audience as our 
Lord looked down upon Jerusalem, and his 
soul was stirred to its very depths in view of 
the impenitent and their hastening doom. He 
seized hold of the sinner as the deputed angel 
did of Lot, and would fain have dragged him 
from the fiery ruin. Hence in his sermons 
there were overwhelming appeals and deep- 
toned warnings. So great at times were his 
emotions, that it seemed to one listening as if 
he had gathered his impressions of eternal ret- 
ribution from actual vision. 

The impression which Payson's preaching 
made upon his hearers was that of one who 
had no thought of any thing but the salvation 
of souls. Nobody could say that he was mere- 



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78 * ELOQUENT PEEACHEES. 

ly discharging an official duty, much less would 
any be disposed to attribute to him a desire 
for popularity. The very aspect of the man 
suggested .the idea of sincerity. Every word 
tended to deepen that impression. Imme- 
diately, even at the first utterances, there was 
established a' sympathy between the preacher 
and his auditors. It was not his commanding 
appearance, nor any studied elocution, nor a 
remarkably fine voice: it was rather the spirit 
of the man — an undercurrent of deep, heart- 
felt emotion which he was struggling to repress, 
but which would overflow in tremulous tones, 
in pathetic exclamations, in earnest appeals. 
Hence language which might have been es- 
teemed harsh and even dreadful, if uttered by 
another, was tolerated in him, because it was 
spoken with such evident love and tenderness. 
"His severest expressions," says one, "were 
uttered with the moving tenderness of a heart 
that yearned over the guilt and impending 
misery of his fellow-men. The wounds he in- 
flicted were the wounds of a friend. Those on 
whom his strokes fell with deadliest effect could 
not but feel that benevolence aimed the blow." 
In reading Payson's printed sermons, one 
would not discover the secret of his power. 



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DR. EDWARD PAYSON. 79 

They are evangelical, clear, pungent, and well 
written ; but there is not condensation of 
thought; there are no very sharp, pointed 
sentences, nothing that gives the impression of 
extraordinary talent. It must have been the 
spirit of the man which animated and gave 
electrical power to these discourses. "The 
thunder-storm could not be printed." The 
deep, holy fervor evaporated when the attempt 
was made to put it in type. Such is the tes- 
timony of those who sat under his teachings. 
" You must not judge of him," say they, " by 
his printed sermons. You should have felt the 
gush of high spiritual emotion with' which they 
were delivered, and which touched and inter- 
ested every heart." 

All allow that no minister of modern times 
had greater unction and appropriateness in 
prayer. Public, extemporaneous prayer it is 
difficult to offer so as to enlist the sympathies 
of an accompanying audience. Few excel in 
it. But Payson did. It was because he lived in 
the atmosphere of devotion. His soul was half 
on wing always. It was no forced effort for 
him to rise. He walked with God. Grod was 
with him as he entered the pulpit. How easy 
and how natural for such a man, gifted too with 



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80 ELOQUENT PEEACHEBS. 

great command of language, to throw his whole 
soul into the devotional exercises. People 
were amazed and awe-struck at the power and 
pathos of his prayers. He seemed as if talk- 
ing with God face to face ; yet so reverently, 
with such importunity, with such self-abase- 
ment, such naturalness, such childlike confi- 
dence, that the listener could not help saying 
to himself, " Surely God is in this place." Was 
not his success as a preacher intimately con- 
nected with this power of prayer? 

There was one characteristic of this good 
man which tended to interest the minds of his 
people and to awaken the attention of the care- 
less. It was his ingenuity in devising ways of 
usefulness, and in carrying them out. His 
whole aim was to keep things moving in the 
right direction. The least flagging of zeal on 
the part of his church was painful to him. He 
was cast down also if souls were not converted. 
Every expedient which his generous heart 
could devise, not inconsistent with Scripture, 
was brought to bear, for the quickening of his 
people in duty, and for arousing the attention 
of the slumber-bound sinner. Some would 
call him indiscreet. Perhaps he was. To pre- 
dict a revival in the midst of coldness seemed 



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DB. EDWAED PATSON# 81 

so. The moral risk was great. Yet the revi- 
val came. Possibly in his own soul there may 
have been something to justify the announce- 
ment. But who, in looking back on the ca- 
reer of this glorious man, would be disposed to 
criticize his doings? Such a life and such 
labors ended as we might have expected. Few 
death scenes have been so bright — have had 
in and around them so much of heaven. He 
died exclaiming with his last breath, " Peace, 
peace! victory, victory!" 



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82 ELOQUENT PEEAOHEBS. 



DR, EDWARD DORR GRIFFIN. 

In regard to the distinguished preachers of 
a past generation who are often referred to in 
conversation or quoted in discourse, there is 
naturally excited among later men and minis- 
ters a desire to know something of their per- 
sonal appearance, their peculiarities, and "the 
hiding of their power." Dr. Griffin is one of 
this class.. Imagine then a man six feet three 
inches in height, well-proportioned, without 
being corpulent; with a head covered thickly 
with hair white as snow ; a forehead low, yet 
firmly set; a large rubicund face; nose dis- 
proportionately small ; eyes dark, small, and 
piercing ; mouth indicative of refinement; and 
a countenance, ta&en altogether, wearing* such 
an expression, as great talent and high culture 
usually develope. His step was slow and 
measured. Every motion- was dignified and in 
keeping with his lofty stature. Standing in 
the ecclesiastical assembly, like Saul among 
his brethren, he was head and shoulders above 
them alL As he slowly paced up the aisle, 



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DB, EDWARD DORR GRIFFIN. 83 

every eye was fixed upon him ; and the feel- 
ing was, if his preaching corresponds with his 
height, what a Boanerges he must be ! No 
pulpit was adapted to him. Bibles, cushions, 
and sometimes even benches, had to be piled 
up in front for the convenience of the gigantic 
preacher. 

He was a very genial man. His warm, 
affectionate heart entered sympatliizingly into 
the joys or griefs of others ; and never was he 
more in his element than when, surrounded by 
his ministerial brethren, and discoursing with 
them on the interests of Zion, he became the 
radiant centre of the social circle. Hi§ collo- 
quial powers were almost unrivalled, yet he 
had little of that egotism and lecturing style 
which characterize certain distinguished di- 
vines, and which, while it may display their 
talents, is sometimes tedious and repulsive. 

Dr. Grriffinjs mind wasjgraded to a high 
scale, and partook both of the reasoning and 
the imaginative qualities. Without being a 
poet, he was at times poetical; and without 
being a professed dialectician, no man under- 
stood better the province and practice of logic. 
His earlier sermons were marked by the pre- 
ponderance of the poetical quality. They 



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84 ELOQUENT PBEAOHEBS. 

might be called flowery. The style was am- 
bitious, and the rhetoric was more conspicuous 
than the reasoning. But as age and experi- 
ence gave solemnity to his thoughts, and the 
revival atmosphere gave intensity to his emo- 
tions, his style gradually changed into one of 
greater simplicity and point, until he became 
one of the most forcible and pungent preachers 
in the land.* In later life his diction was se- 
verely simple, and his sentences full of nervous 
energy. 

He was one who required an occasion to 
call forth his great powers, and ample time for 
preparation. He was not a man to be sum- 
moned suddenly — not "an off-hand man," so 
to speak. He might indeed succeed, but was 
more likely, in such an emergency, to fail. 
He was not accustomed always to task his 
powers. His ordinary discourses were said to 
be sometimes commonplace, and by no means 
up to the expectations. But give him time 
and give him an occasion, and all the slum- 
bering genius would rise and overwhelm with 
astonishment the listening audience. No man 
who heard his "plea for Africa," delivered in 
the Wall-street church, can ever forget the 
sublime thoughts and deep emotion of that 



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DB. EDWABD DOBB GBIFFIN. 85 

memopable occasion. Nor less powerful was 
the impression when he preached his cele- 
brated sermon on the missionary enterprise. 
In these discourses are blended the glow of 
fancy, a deep current of reasoning, and the 
most tender, touching appeals. They are 
classics in our pulpit lore. 

As might be supposed, Dr. Griffin's man- 
ner in the desk was of that chastened, digni- 
fied style which propitiates the hearer, and 
prepares him to listen attentively and seriously 
to what is said. There was nothing done for 
effect; no assumed devotion, no measuring 
with his eye the number or intellectual grade 
of his audience. He took the pulpit simply to 
preach Christ, and him crucified. Gravity and 
seriousness marked every word and gesture. 
His voice was not deep nor heavy, as, from 
his great stature, one might have expected. It 
was smooth, clear, and far-reaching. Every 
word, uttered with distinctness, fell gratefully 
and intelligibly on the ear. No matter how 
large the edifice, the farthest pew had equal 
advantages with the nearest. It seemed, to 
one listening, as if that voice had never been 
tested as to its volume and far-reaching power. 
It was under the most complete control. The 



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86 ELOQUENT PB^ACHEES. 

lowest note was audible, and it swelled with 
graceful augmentation, until, in its highest 
pitch, it called forth startling echoes from 
every wall of the building. 

He was an emotional preacher. Though 
using notes, or rather, a full-written manu- 
script, "his heart" — to quote one of his own 
strong expressions — "palpitated on the paper." 
Nobody seemed to be aware that he was read- 
ing. Though the manuscript was before him, 
yet his whole soul was absorbed in the great 
thoughts he was uttering, and his eye intent 
on fixing the full and true impress on the 
hearts of his hearers. There were certain 
hymns which he was accustomed to give out, 
the reading of which, in his peculiar style and 
intonation, went directly to the heart. His 
elocution, so far as we could judge, w.as per- 
fect. Every word and sentiment had its fiill 
and natural force. It was a treat to any man 
of taste and devotional feeling to listen to him 
as he read the hymn beginning, "Ere the blue 
heavens were stretched abroad." When he 
struck upon the fourth verse, his voice, trem- 
ulous with emotion, fell into a sweet minor, 
and carried every heart with it as he con- 
tinued, 



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DE. EDWARD DOBR GRIFFIN. 87 

" But lo, He leaves those heavenly forms ; 
The Word descends and dwells with clay, 
That He may converse hold with worms, 
Dressed in such feeble flesh as they." 

Whatever he undertook, he threw his whole 
soul into the work. As a professor at Ando- 
ver, he was the enthusiastic and successfal 
teacher of sacred elocution. His 'removal to 
Boston was under circumstances of deep inter- 
est. The fby barriers of rationalism were to 
be assailed. Some giant arm was needed to 
do the work. The demand was for powerful 
mind and muscle. An orthodox fortress, rear- 
ed in the very centre of lapsed Puritanism, 
was to be manned and officered ; and Dr. Grif- 
fin was solicited to lead "the forlorn hope. ,; 
He accepted. His fame as a pulpit orator 
drew many to hear the gospel ; and Park- 
street church became celebrated under the 
sobriquet of " Brimstone -corner." At first 
Unitarians, drawn by his graceful and power- 
ful delivery, endured his scathing rebukes and 
pungent appeals, tolerating the doctrines for 
the sake of the eloquent manner in which they 
were presented. But curiositv once satisfied, 
they fell back on their preconceived notions, 
and voted orthodoxy a greater absurdity than 



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88 ELOQUENT PEEAOHEES. 

ever. The " Park-street lectures" are a pow- 
erful defence of the evangelical doctrine. If 
they did not convince Unitarians, they at least 
confirmed the orthodox and strengthened some 
who had been wavering. 

But he was not at home, after all, in the 
Puritan city. He found that so intense and 
long-continued a hatred of the doctrines of 
grace, on the part of the rich and influential, 
had created a popular aversion to* these doc- 
trines which all his powerful efforts could not 
overcome. Still, to this day his faithfulness is 
spoken of with warm approval, and his elo- 
quence has left a sweet savor that hangs around 
the Park-street corner, like the scent of flow- 
ers around the vase in which they were dis- 
played. 

We cannot close our sketch without ad- 
verting to a peculiar charm of his preaching, 
as characterized by the revival spirit. He was 
greatly blessed in his pastorate at Newark 
and elsewhere with powerful effusions of the 
Holy Spirit. No minister entered more warm- 
ly into these harvest seasons. He knew how 
to bring the great truths of the gospelwith 
overwhelming yet tender force on the unawak- 
ened and awakened conscience. He loved to 



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DR. EDWARD DORR GRIFFIN. 89 

lead the burdened sinner to the foot of the , 
cross, and there weep with him and pray with 
him until the tears of penitence were succeeded 
by the smiles of hope and joy. At length this 
gOQd man and great preacher succumbed to 
the power of disease, and went to heaven as 
calmly as the sun sets in a clear autumnal 
evening. 



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90 ELOQUENT PBEACHEBS. 



REV. ROBERT HALL. 

By the death of this great preacher in Feb- 
ruary, 1831, one of the brightest lights of the 
British pulpit was extinguished. His elo- 
quence, partaking the qualities of the two 
great masters and exemplars of the Grecian 
and Roman school, had no superior then, and 
is not likely to have any hereafter. In his 
peculiarities as a pulpit orator he was alone, 

•and stood out in strong relief. Others may 
have made a greater impression on promiscu- 
ous audiences, but none have gone down deep-* 
er in the reflective and cultivated British mind. 
Gifllid with an intellect of innate strength and 
precocious development — reading and relish- 
ing " Edwards on the Will" at eleven years of 
age — with an imagination soaring to the utmost 
heights and diving to the utmost depths, this 
incomparable man chose to exert his powers 
in the noblest of callings and to disport his 

* imagination on the sublimest of themes. In his 
early training he was favored with ample lit- 
erary advantages, first at the British Academy, 
and afterwards at King's college, Aberdeen. 



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REV. ROBEBT HALL. 91 

While at the former, though a mere stripling, 
he was urged prematurely into the pulpit, in 
order to try his gifts. The trial came near 
depriving the world of his brilliant services. 
Proceeding in his discourse for a few moments, 
he suddenly covered his face with his hands, 
and exclaimed, "All my ideas are fled." Still 
more mortified was he at a second failure; 
when, hastening from the pulpit to his closet, 
he said, "If this don't humble me, the devil 
must have me." Doubtless it did humble 
him; and after a more thorough mental disci- 
pline at Aberdeen, he entered the pulpit under 
better auspices — "a workman that needed not 
to be ashamed." At King's college he moved 
through the course of study with all the ease 
and, enthusiasm of a practised competitor. 
There it was he became intimate with Sir 
James Mcintosh, and the two — -par nobile fra- 
trum — in their walks and talks discussed all 
the profoundest philosophers from Locke to 
Browne, each acquiring* by this intellectual 
gladiatorship a power that subserved him in 
after-life — the one as a lawyer and statesman, 
the other as the peerless pulpit orator and de- 
fender of the orthodox faith. 

Mr. Hall's appearance was striking. He 



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92 ELOQUENT PREACHERS. 

possessed an athletic and well-proportioned 
figure, eyes of uncommon lustre, expressive of 
sharp wit and lofty intellect, unassuming mod- 
esty, winning frankness of manner, and an en- 
thusiasm that readily kindled and communi- 
cated its fire to others. As he grew older, the 
forehead— a calm, majestic pile — was denuded 
towards the crown, giving additional force and 
dignity to the whole countenance. He had an 
unconquerable aversion to having his likeness 
taken ; but it was secured clandestinely while 
preaching. His friends hung it in his study 
over night, and watched the effect. In the 
morning he discovered it. Scrutinizing the 
picture for a while, he placed his hand midway 
over the face, and said to himself — such is the 
story — "The upper part, forehead and eyes, an- 
gelic ; the lower, mouth and chin, Satanic." Dr. 
Gregory says it was the most speaking counte- 
nance he ever contemplated, animated by eyes 
radiating with the brilliancy imparted to them 
by benevolence, wit, and intellectual energy. 

His lnanner in the pulpit was affected some- 
what by the life-long malady which he endured. 
Extreme pain in the back, diverging from the 
spine over the nervous texture of the whole 
body, made it necessary for him to use narcot- 



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REV. ROBERT HALL. 93 

ics, and to study for the most part in a recum- 
bent posture. Yet this very malady may have 
roused his intellectual energies to the highest 
pitch, and given impulse to a mind which, under 
ordinary circumstances, might not have reached 
such a height of unequalled grandeur. Many 
times he rose from the couch of pain to perform 
the required duties of the pulpit, and his friends 
could discern the suppressed agony as he strug- 
gled on in the service. Hence at the begin- 
ning he seemed to lack power. His voice was 
feeble, requiring the utmost stillness in order 
to catch the opening sentences. These were 
generally simple, and interrupted by a spas- 
modic cough, which to strangers augured dis- 
appointment; but like- the mettlesome steed 
that prances a while and then rushes forward 
with a bound, so the orator began soon to show 
signs of a strong onward movement. His voice 
gathered strength, lost its huskiness, rolled out 
in augmented volume-, while the "thoughts that 
breathe and words that burn" came glowing 
brighter and brighter, until every auditor was 
chained and led captive by an almost super- 
human eloquence. 

"He could at pleasure," says his friend 
and biographer, "adopt the unadorned, the 



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94 ELOQUENT PREACHERS. 

ornamental, or the energetic, and indeed com- 
bine them in every diversity of modulation. 
In his higher flights, what he said of Burke 
might, with the slightest deduction, be applied 
to himself, that 'his imperial fancy laid all 
nature under tribute, and collected riches from 
every scene of the creation and every walk of 
art ;' and at the same time that could be affirm- 
ed of Mr. Hall which could not be affirmed of 
Burke, that he never fatigued and oppressed 
by gaudy and superfluous imagery. As he 
advanced to his practical applications, all his 
mental powers were shown in the most palpa- 
ble but finely balanced exercise. His mind 
would, if I may so speak, collect itself and 
com^ forth with a luminous activity, proving 
as he advanced how vast, and in some impor- 
tant senses, how next to irresistible those pow- 
ers were. In such seasons his preaching com- 
municated universal animation. • His congre- 
gation would seem to partake of his spirit, to 
think and feel as he did, to be fully influenced 
by the presence of the objects which he set be- 
fore them, fully actuated by the motives which 
he had enforced with such energy and pathos. 
"From the commencement of his discourse 
an almost breathless silence prevailed, deeply 



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REV. ROBERT HALL. 95 

impressive and solemnizing from its singular 
intenseness. Not a 4 sound was heard but that 
of the preacher's voice, scarcely an eye but 
was fixed upon him, not a countenance that he 
did not watch and read and interpret, as he 
surveyed them again and again with his rapid, 
ever-excursive glance. As he advanced and 
increased in animation, five or six of the audi- 
tors would be seen to rise and lean forward 
over the front of their pews, still keeping their 
eyes upon him. Some new or striking senti- 
ment or expression would cause others to rise 
in like manner ; shortly afterwards, still more ; 
and so on, until, before the close of the ser- 
mon, it often happened that a considerable 
portion of the congregation were seen stand- 
ing, every eye directed to the preacher, yet 
now and then for a moment glancing from one 
to another, thus transmitting and reciprocating 
thought and feeling. Mr. Hall himself, con- 
scious of the whole, received new animation, 
reflecting it back upon those who were already 
alive to the inspiration, until all that were sus- 
ceptible of thought and emotion seemed wound 
up to the utmost limit of elevation on earth, 
when he would close and they reluctantly and 
slowly resume their seats." 



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96 ELOQUENT PBEACHERS. 

Preaching on the text, " Dead in trespasses 
and sins," so powerful were the concluding 
appeals of the preacher, that Dr. Kyland, in 
whose church he was officiating, rushed up the 
pulpit stairs, and with tears trickling down his 
cheeks, cried out, "Let all that are alive in 
Jerusalem pray for the dead, that they may 
liver" His manner of preparing his sermons 
was peculiar. He seldom wrote them out. At 
first, or in the early part of his ministry, about 
a third was written, and the rest, under the 
impulse of the occasion, flowed out extempora- 
neously. Subsequently his notes were more 
brief, and his sermons were distinguished by 
greater simplicity and pathos. But he had the 
rare talent of putting down in his memory 
trains of thought and illustrations of varied 
beauty and sublimity, so that what seemed to 
be impromptu was the result of careful study 
and meditation. He could think out the very 
sentences and all the appropriate words, and 
reproduce them at the given jaoment, so that 
their correctness suggested previous writing, 
and their natural and easy enunciation implied 
the perfection of extemporaneous address. He 
used to say that generally he premeditated the 
order and the train of thought, which he called 



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BEV. BOBEBT HALL. 97 

cutting channels for the onflowing current, and 
then trusted to the occasion for the appropri- 
ate language. 

It was with difficulty he could be induced 
to give any of his sermons to the press. He 
disliked the necessary revision. He had form- 
ed to himself also so high a standard of style, 
that his actual attainments, as compared with 
his beau ideal, disgusted him. Through dint of 
effort, those noble discourses which we have 
were wrung out of him. That on practical 
atheism — one of the sublimest compositions of 
modern times — was kept on the tapis for weeks, 
the author lying on his back and dictating a 
few sentences at a time, altering and recon- 
structing them, adding this and taking back 
that, until, after the patience of publisher and 
printer was well-nigh worn out, it reached the 
long-desired finis. But it is worth a thousand 
times more pains than were taken to obtain it 
"It places HalPs reputation," says Gregory, 
"upon an eminence which it will probably 
retain as long as purity and elevation of style, 
deeply philosophical views of the springs and 
motives of action, and correct theological senti- 
ments, are duly appreciated in the world." 

The sermon entitled, "Sentiments Proper 

BoQMnt FtMch«n. 5 



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98 ELOQUENT PBEACHERS. 

to the Present Crisis/' preached to the Bristol 
Guards during the threatened invasion of Na- 
poleon, is regarded as unequalled for the elo- 
quent peroration. The last ten pages were 
thought by many, and by Mr. Pitt among the 
number, to be fully equal, in genuine eloquence, 
to any passage of the same length that can be 
selected from either ancient or modern orators. 
The discourse also on the death of the Princess 
Charlotte is a beautiful tissue of philosophy 
interwoven with religious sentiment, express- 
ing in the most tender and touching style the 
vanity impressed on the highest earthly sta- 
tion, and the deep sympathy one feels in see- 
ing " youth and beauty and regal expectations 
all suddenly eclipsed in the darkness of death." 
" In felicity of diction, in delicacy and pathos, 
in the rich variety of the most instructive trains 
of thought, in the masterly combination of what 
in eloquence, philosophy, and religion was best 
calculated to make a permanent and salutary 
impression, this sermon probably stands un- 
rivalled." 

John Foster has considered Mr. Hall's 
character as a preacher in a long article, writ- 
ten with candor and with that critical acumen 
for which the essayist was distinguished. While 



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BEV. BOBEBT HALL. 99 

conceding his unparalleled powers as a pulpit 
orator, he thinks nevertheless that Mr. Hall's 
greatness lay in a complete and thorough in- 
tellectuality, which, without regard to imme- 
diate impression, seised the great points of his 
subject, illustrated them in the most impressive 
manner, and rising by gradations, closed in an 
explosion of great and overwhelming thoughts. 
Foster's objection was, that the orator, absorb- 
ed in his subject, lost sight in some measure of 
his hearers ; that the idea of direct conviction 
was not as prominent as it should have been. 
He admits, however, that at times Hall carried 
the moral artillery into the business and bosoms 
of his hearers, and that when he did so, no 
preacher whom he ever heard had greater 
power. He allows also that no man seemed 
less to court admiration. His whole air and 
manner suggested the oblivion of self. "The 
preacher appeared wholly absorbed in his sub- 
ject — given up to its possession as the single 
actuating principle and impulse. WhSt a con- 
trast to divers showy and admired orators ! 
For who has not witnessed a pulpit exhibition, 
which unwittingly told that the speaker was to 
be himself as prominent at the least as his 
sacred theme? Who has not observed the 



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100 ELOQUENT PREACHEBS. 

glimmer of a self-complacent smile partly re- 
flected, as it were, on his visage from the plau- 
sive visages confronting him, and partly lighted 
from within by the blandishment of a still warm- 
er admirer ?" Mr. Hall's example was the re- 1 
verse of all this. There was no studied adjust- 
ment — nothing which seemed intended to at- 
tract applause. "His most splendid passages 
glistened or lasted for a moment, and were gone." 
His death made a vacuum which it can 
scarcely be expected will be filled. "The re- 
moval," says Foster, " of any worthy minister, 
while in full possession and activity of his pow- 
ers, is a mournful occurrence ; but there is the 
consideration that many such remain, and that 
perhaps an equal may follow, where the es- 
teemed instructor is withdrawn. But the feel- 
ing in the present instance is of a loss alto- 
gether irreparable. The cultivated portion of 
the hearers have a sense of privation partaking 
of desolateness. While ready to give due 
honor to all valuable preachers, and knowing 
that the lights of religious instruction will still 
shine with useful lustre and new ones continu- 
ally arise, they involuntarily and pensively 
turn to look at the last fading colors in the 
distance where the great luminary has set." 



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DR. THOMAS CHALMERS. 101 



DR. THOMAS CHALMERS. 

While Kobert Hall was lighting up the 
ecclesiastical. firmament in England by the 
blaze of his eloquence, another genius— differ- 
ent, but not less illustrious— was scattering his 
auroral illuminationa upon the northern sky*. 
Thomas Chalmers had scarcely a peer among 
Scotland's illustrious divines. He was in his 
day the man of mark, exerting more influence 
in the pulpit and in the professional chair than 
any other individual. To have heard Chal- 
mers preach was a thing to be talked of and 
remembered. Strangers visiting •Edinburgh 
regarded this privilege as the culminating 
point of interest. When he preached in Lon- 
don there was no edifice large enough to ac- 
commodate the multitudes, including dignita- 
ries of the church, peers of the realm, and 
every class and description of the populace. 
Yet he himself was one of the most simple- 
minded and modest of men. True greatness is 
set off by these contrasts. The truth is, such 
men as Chalmers and Hall seem to have in 



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102 ELOQUENT PBEACHERS. 

their mental vision so vast a boundary of possi- 
ble attainments, that, like Newton, they regard 
their acquisitions but as pebbles on the ocean- 
strand of knowledge. 

At first, Chalmers attempted to unite the 
philosopher with the minister. He was as 
much concerned in his botanical excursions as 
he was in developing the moral virtues of his 
parishioners. But the grace of God touching 
and transforming the inuer man, the botany 
and the philosophy were laid on the altar of 
sacrifice, and henceforth he knew nothing 
among men but the higher sphere of evangel- 
ical truth. 

The fame of such a man could not be re- 
stricted to the little parish of Kilmany, which 
was his firSt field of labor when a young. man. 
A delegation from Glasgow having caught the 
rumor of his celebrity, and being in pursuit of 
a candidate for the Tron church, went to Kil- 
many to hear him.* He preached that Sunday 
from a plank extended out of the church win- 
dow at Bendochy, as the crowd was too great 
to be accommodated within the building. It 
was a funeral sermon in behalf of his brave 
comrade Rev. John Hovey, who had sacrificed 
his own life in desperate efforts to save a ship- 



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DR. THOMAS CHALMERS. 103 

wrecked company*. Chalmers' whole soul was 
drawn out on the occasion, and the delegation 
returned in raptures and reported accordingly. 
Kilmany lost and Glasgow gained the greatest 
of Scotland's pulpit orators. But Chalmers, 
like many* others who have been seduced from 
the sweet retirement of rural life, was never 
so happy amid the throng and pressure of ad- 
miring crowds as when ministering to his hum- 
ble Kilmany flock. Many backward glances 
cast he on that dearly loved field of his early 
labors. 

His popularity in Glasgow was so great as 
to become not only exhausting, but at times 
almost intolerable. It insulated him, in a great 
measure, from his ministerial brethren. It 
made exchange of pulpits next to impossible, 
while at the same time it subjected him to con- 
stant and vexatious interruptions. To use his 
own simile, he was " like a man with his head 
in the clouds and his feet on the shifting sands." 
But such are the penalties of genius, and such 
the trials of excessive popularity. 

When Dr. Chalmers went to Glasgow he 
was in the fall vigor of his physical and intel- 
lectual manhood. His appearance was strik- 
ing, but unique. Strong built and very mus- 



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104 ELOQUENT PBEAOHERS. 

cular, his forehead was broad and high, with 
black hair carelessly overshadowing it. His 
eyes were set far apart, with drooping upper 
lids, and that portion of the nose which divided 
them was unusually full. His eyebrows were 
thick, and beneath them lay those indescriba- 
ble orbs, which in repose possessed a slum- 
brous intelligence, but which, in the heated 
march of mind, when the latent fires began to 
glow, put on an overpowering brilliancy. ' ' The 
eyes themselves," says one taking a verbal 
daguerreotype of him, "are light in color, and 
have a strange, dreamy heaviness, which con- 
veys any idea rather than that of dulness, but 
which contrasts in a wonderful manner with 
the dazzling watery glare they exhibit when 
expanded in their sockets and illuminated into 
all their flame and fervor in some moment of 
high entranced enthusiasm. The upper lip, 
from the nose downward, is separated by a 
very deep line, which gives a sort of leonine 
firmness of expression to all the lower part of 
the face. The cheeks are square and strong; 
in texture, like pieces of marble." All this 
strong, rugged aspect, however, grew softened 
with age; and the portrait which the writer 
. secured in Glasgow, taken after he was sixty, 



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DR, THOMAS CHALMERS. 105 

has a sweet and touching pensiveness, com- 
bined with a certain intellectual majesty, illus- 
trative both of the greatness and goodness of 
the original. His daughter, whom I visited at 
" Morning Side," pronounced it an admirable 
likeness. 

In regard to Dr. Chalmers' manner of de- 
livery, all unite in asserting that it would not 
stand the test of oratorical criticism. If it was 
forcible, it certainly was not graceful. It set 
at defiance all the rules of the rhetorician. In 
the beginning of his discourse the auditor was 
disappointed. Indeed there was a feeling as 
if the speaker would actually break down at 
the outset. "His voice," says one, " is neither 
strong nor melodious ; his gestures are neither 
easy nor v graceful ; his pronunciation is not 
only broadly national, but broadly provincial. 
But of a truth, these are things which no lis- 
tener can attend to while this great preacher 
stands before him armed with all the weapons 
of the most commanding eloquence, and sway- 
ing all around him with its imperial rule. At 
first, indeed, there is nothing to make one sus- 
pect what riches are in store. There is an 
appearance of constraint about him that affects 
and distresses you. You are afraid that his 

5* 



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106 ELOQUENT PBEAOHERS. 

breast is weak,* and that even the slight exer- 
tion he makes may* be too much for it. But 
then with what tenfold richness does this dim 
preliminary curtain make the glories of his 
eloquence shine forth when the heated spirit 
at length shakes from its chill, confining fet- 
ters, and bursts out, elate and rejoicing, in the 
full splendor of its disimprisoned wings." - 

His visit to London in 1817 created an 
excitement deeper and more general than had 
been witnessed since the days of Whitefield. 
His principal discourse on that occasion was 
in behalf of the London Missionary Society, 
delivered in Surry chapel. The audience was 
immense and of the most intelligent class. 
Expectations were high. ♦ The fame of this 
great pulpit orator had preceded him. Old 
Rowland Hill stood up before the pulpit, with 
his hands resting on the top of the pew, and 
his eye fixed on the preacher. As usual, the 
first efforts were awkward, the voice feeble, 
the accent broadly Scotch, and the whole 
aspect of things disheartening. The cold sweat 
stood on Hill's face. " It is a failure," said he 
to himself. But in a few moments the pon- 
derous machinery began to move with more 
regularity and greater speed. Sentence after 



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DB. THOMAS CHALMEBS. 107 

sentence rolled forth in that majestic strain 
peculiar to Chalmers. Old Rowland's eyes 
began to glisten. The anxiety passed from 
his brow. Soon: his whole soul was collected 

. in his face as he watched the onward march 
of that gigantic intellect. By and by one of 
those corruscations of genius, so peculiar to 
the speaker, was thrown, off, which set the 
whole audience in a blaze, and Hill, no lon- 
ger able to contain himself, brought his two 
hands down upon the rail, exclaiming in audi- 
ble tones, " Well done, Chalmers !" 

"I write, 77 says one describing the scene, 
"under the nervousness of having heard and 
Witnessed the most astonishing display of hu- 
man talent that perhaps ever commanded sight 
or hearing. Dr. Chalmers has just finished his 

- discourse before the Missionary Society. All 
my expectations were overwhelmed in the tri- 
umph of it." " All the world," writes Wilber- 
force, " is wild about Chalmers. Vast crowds 
of the nobility attend. I was surprised to see 
how greatly Canning was affected. At times 
he was quite melted into tears. He is report- 
ed to have said, that although at first he felt 
uneasy in consequence of Dr. Chalmers 7 man- 
ner and accent, yet that he had never been so 



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108 ELOQUENT PREACHERS. 

arrested by any oratory. 'The Tartan/ said 
he, ' beats ns all.' " 

How are we to account for such an over- 
whelming effect in view of the impediments 
alluded to ? There must have been an inde- 
scribable charm somewhere — a magnetic influ- 
ence in the spirit of the man, that impregnated 
those lofty and long-drawn sentences with a 
life and power that swayed all hearts and led 
captive all intellects. There was a correspond- 
ence between his peculiar style of writing and 
the fervid oratory through which it flowed 
out upon the audience. The writing was not 
less unique than the delivery. Who would 
undertake to read Chalmers' sermons from the 
pulpit? Who has chest enough and breath 
enough to give full force to thoughts that roll 
out by dependent sentences until they. stretch, 
ere they reach a period, over an entire printed 
page ? He struck out a new path for his great 
genius to travel in. All classical models are 
set at defiance. His ideas, -which were grand 
and glowing, could not be cramped by ordi- 
nary rhetorical rules. So he took that style 
which gave scope to them. The majestic march 
of his periods is truly wonderful. There is a 
sort of poetical rhythm about them. One is 



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DR. THOMAS CHALMERS. ,109 

fascinated and allured on, as if traversing' a 
flowery and fragrant road that leads to some 
high castellated tower or luminous mountain 
summit, where the prospect is both varied and 
boundless. We give ourselves up to the mag- 
ical power of his eloquent diction. We take 
hold of the golden chain which he offers us, 
and which develops link after link, until it 
binds the intellect and the imagination in a 
willing bondage. There is no writer who 
seizes you with a firmer hand, or holds you 
more spell-bound, until he fixes in your mind 
the ideas which he is illustrating. Generally 
there is unity in the thought, but endless vari- 
ety in the illustrations. He carries out the 
principle that a sermon should have one grand 
culminating point; and that every thing said, 
every process of reasoning employed, every 
figure' used, should tend to develop , and give 
force to this ruling idea. He has been found 
fault with for ringing so many changes upon 
one thought. Some have compared it to a 
door swinging on its hinges, complaining that 
there was not enough onward movement. Oth- 
ers have compared his sermons to a kaleido- 
scope, where the same materials, J)y a turn of 
the instrument, exhibit new and beautiful com- 



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110 ELOQUENT PBEACHEBS. 

binations. But it is useless to criticize, when 
it is known and conceded that no pulpit orator 
had greater sway over intelligent minds than 
Thomas Chalmers. In regard to style and 
oratory, he called no man master. Both his 
thoughts and the mode of giving them utter- 
ance are his own. They are simply Chal- 
merian. 

His sermons and discourses, as merely 
read, carry one along in a feeling of ecstatic 
pleasure, prompting the expression occasion- 
ally, "How splendid!" What then must it 
have been to sit and listen to the author, when, 
under a fall appreciation of the sentiments, he 
poured forth in glowing periods the high and 
holy thoughts, until the whole audience-cham- 
ber was lighted up as with a sort of intellect- 
ual, conflagration. "Of all human composi- 
tions," says one, "there is none surely that 
loses so much as a sermon does when it is 
made to address itself to the eye of a solitary 
student in his closet, and not to the thrilling 
ears of a mighty mingled congregation through 
the very voice which nature has enriched with 
notes more expressive than words can ever 
be, of the meanings and feelings of its author. 
Neither perhaps did the world ever possess 



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DR. THOMAS CHALMERS. Ill 

any orator whose minutest peculiarities of ges- 
ture and voice have more power in increasing 
the effect of what he says, than do those of Dr. 
Chalmers. Most unquestionably I have never 
heard either in England or Scotland, or in any 
other country, any preacher whose eloquence 
is capable of producing an effect so strong and 
irresistible as his." 

As this sketch is designed to present Dr. 
Chalmers simply as an eloquent preacher, we 
refrain from the consideration of his practical 
philanthropy. . His heart was as fall of good- 
ness as was his intellect of greatness ; and 
Scotland might with as much propriety erect 
a monument for him as for the great novelist. 
But Chalmers needs "no storied urn nor ani- 
mated bust" to perpetuate his memory. He 
will live in the hearts of the good and great so 
long as time shall last ; and when time shall be 
no more, his name will be found emblazoned 
on the records of immortality. 



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112 ELOQUENT PREACHERS. 



REV. HENRY MELVILL, LONDON. 

Melvill, without doubt, stands preeminent 
as an evangelical preacher. His celebrity has 
a firm basis, not likely to be undermined by 
the shifting opinions and prejudices of the 
populace. The physical man may and must 
succumb to the increasing infirmities of age, 
but as yet, though apparently near seventy, 
he seems to possess all the animation and 
vigor of his earlier ministry. His fame has 
gone forth on the four winds, and everywhere, 
even in distant countries, he is spoken of as a 
noble representative of the evangelical portion 
of the English national church. Those who 
have not heard him have access to his pub- 
lished sermons, and we in America owe a debt 
of gratitude to Bishop Mcllvaine for the reprint 
of a most interesting collection of his discourses 
on the various topics of Christian duty and 
doctrine. In the printed page he appears 
great, and the . impress of sanctified genius 
glows in every sentence, and makes his writ- 
ings the delight of all whose hearts are in sym- 
pathy with God's truth. But there is nothing 



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REV. HENRY MELVILL. 113 

like the oral annunciation — the truth as it falls 
from lips touched with hallowed fire. To feel 
the full force of his sentiments, one must seat 
himself under this. great master of eloquent 
utterances, and allow him unresisted sway 
over the imagination, the intellect, and the 
heart. 

When I came to sit under Melvill, all my 
preconceived notions of the truly eloquent 
preacher found a realization in his simple, for- 
cible, and natural mode of writing and speaking. 
His style is admirably adapted to convey, 
clearly and forcibly, gospel truth. It has not 
the magnificent drapery of Chalmers, nor the 
measured march of Massillon's periods. It 
partakes of the virtues of both, without the 
faults of either. It is pure Saxon baptized in 
a classical font, having the strength of the 
Greek and the beauty of the Roman. 

As a lecturer in St. Margaret's, an oppor- 
tunity was enjoyed almost every week of 
hearing him on Tuesday at eleven o'clock. 
Availing myself of this information, I proceed- 
ed at the appointed hoyr to the place of wor- 
ship. This lecture is an institution of long 
standing, and is accompanied with lucrative 
perquisites. The position of the church, in the 



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114 ELOQUENT PREACHERS. 

very focus of commercial life, under almost 
the shadow of the Bank of England, and sur- 
i*ounded by merchants and money-changers, 
offers to the sons of traffic an opportunity to 
let the treasure from heaven break in upon 
their visions of earthly gain. And many of 
them avail themselves of the privilege. Leav- 
ing for an hour their offices and accounts cur- 
rent, they hasten, at the tolling of the bell, to 
recreate their higher nature under the elo- 
quent droppings of the sanctuary. 

Passing on with the crowd, I found a seat 
in the old-fashioned church, and cast my eyes 
about to see the audience, and to search for 
him especially whose presence was the* attrac- 
tive centre. The congregation was highly 
respectable, composed more of men than of 
women, and having a very serious as well as 
intelligent look. In the desk was stationed a 
gowned official, who promptly began the ser- 
vice. Was this Melvill? It could not be. 
He was too young. His reading was bad. 
His whole air was that of a very common 
man. Was I to be ctfsappointed ? It could 
hardly be, methought, as I saw this crowd 
evidently under the excitement of high expec- 
tation. In the chancel, as it is called, I ob- 



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REV. HENRY MELVILL. 115 

served a fine, venerable figure, with prayer- 
book in hand, uttering loudly but solemnly 
the responses. That man, thought I, person- 
ates my previous idea of the great preacher. 
He seemed about sixty-five. His hair was 
quite gray, almost white. His features might 
be called coarse. But this was more in the 
shape than in the expression, which was that 
of a man of high culture and disciplined pas- 
sions. If nature had given his countenance a 
somewhat coarse mould, grace had softened 
every feature into a subdued and attractive 
gentleness. His eyes were not bright not 
very expressive in repose, and the lids droop- 
ing over them gave a pensive expression, which 
rather interested you. 

When the reader had concluded, and the 
hymn had been sung, this venerable man 
ascended the sacred desk, and assumed the 
attitude of devotion. I knew then that I was 
not to be disappointed. Melvill it was whom 
I had heard uttering flie responses. Stillness 
reigned, .deep, unbroken, with every eye turn- 
ed to one spot. Speaker and auditor felt the 
heart beat more quickly, and that silence was 
premonitory of the thunder peals that were 
soon to break upon us. 



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Uff ELOQUENT PREACHERS. 

He began by saying that as this was the 
last public service which he should render for 
several weeks to come, and that in the myste- 
rious movements of Providence, it was possible 
that neither he nor they might meet again in 
the relation of preacher and hearer, he had 
been casting about for a text which should be 
the foundation of a pertinent valedictory, and 
which should embrace some one of the great 
truths on which our salvation depends. He 
had selected the following: "So then they 
that are in the flesh cannot please God." 

After a brief introduction, striking but 
simple, he went on to illustrate the great prin- 
ciple contained in the passage — that without 
regeneration, wrought in the heart by the 
Holy Ghost, nothing, in the way of professed 
obedience, could be acceptable to God. This 
he did, first by conceding to the unrenewed 
man all the amiable, patriotic and philan- 
thropic traits which were claimed for him. 
It was done in a masterly manner, developing 
a deep knowledge of human nature. .Then as 
he proceeded to bring up this assumed excel- 
lence and measure it by the requirements of 
the law and the gospel, how keen and search- 
ing was his analysis. Not <mly was every eye 



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REV. HENRY MELVILL. .117 

fixed, but every heart began to palpitate. We 
felt as if he were marching us up to the judg- 
ment bar. Those covered orbs began to show 
themselves: the curtains began to lift, and a 
fire to flash out upon us, while the deep tones 
of his voice rang, trumpet-like, throughout the 
house. His sentences were sometimes short 
and terribly sharp. There was a great con- 
densation. It came like quick claps of thun- 
der. We were more than awe-struck. In 
some- parts, we were ready to exclaim, Hold — 
enough. But as he drew towards the close, 
the storm seemed to subside, and the bow of 
mercy spanned the dark, retiring cloud. Lift- 
ing those eyes and hands towards heaven, in 
a tender and tremulous voice, he cried, " Oh, 
holy and blessed Spirit, come from thy throne 
of light and love, and soften and subdue and 
transform these souls of ours, taking away the 
heart of stone, and giving us the heart of 
flesh." 

From this specimen I was satisfied that the 
reputation of Melvill had not been overstated. 
He must take rank with the foremost of his 
profession. His delivery is rapid, yet distinct. 
He makes few or no gestures. He just puts 
his soul into the discourse, and goes on with a 



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118. ELOQUENT PREACHEBS. 

progressive earnestness and animation that 
electrifies the whole assembly. What a bless- 
ing it is to the Established church to have 
prominent among her ministry a man of so 
much taste, intellect, and piety — a man who 
unites apparently much of the zeal of Paul, 
with the eloquence of an Apollos. 

The discourse which I heard w^, I have 
no doubt, one of his best, and was delivered 
in his best manner. The circumstance of its 
being the last of the season, the apparent care 
with which it had been composed, the deep 
feeling under which he gave it utterance, all 
conspired to render it such. But it is said 
that all these lectures are prepared with great 
labor, and as they are immediately given to 
the general public through the press, the 
author takes care that they shall be as perfect 
as it is in his power to make them. No min- 
ister in Great Britain exerts, through the pul- 
pit and the press, a wider and more evangeli- 
cal influence than the lecturer of St. Margaret's. 
Wer shall hold in grateful remembrance the 
occasion above alluded to, and the opportunity 
of listening to this unsurpassed pulpit orator. 



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BEV. ROWLAND HILL. 119 



REV. ROWLAND HILL. 

The name of Rowland Hill is almost as 
well known and as wide spread as that of 
George Whitefield. The latter, like the Apoc- 
alyptic angel, flew on strong wing from conti- 
nent to continent, while Hill confined his labors 
to the land of his birth. Within that sphere, 
however, no minister acquired and maintained 
a greater sway over the popular mind. He 
was heard by the common people gladly. And 
yet it was not an unusual sight to see the star 
and the ribbon , glittering among the plainly 
clad auditors of Surrey Chapel. 

Had Rowland Hill sprung from the ple- 
beian ranks, instead of being connected with 
aristocratic circles, it may be questionable * 
whether his fame would have stood out in such 
bold relief. It was owing in part to the fact 
that his father was a baronet of high standing, 
while several of his relations occupied honora- 
ble positions in civil and military life, that he, 
the clerical member of the family, took a higher 
and more conspicuous stand than if no such 
collateral advantages had existed. He poe- 



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120 ELOQUENT PREACHEBS. 

sessed too an ample fortune, which raised 
him to an independent position, and enabled 
him to enjoy the blessedness of giving more 
than he received. But aside from all this, 
Rowland Hill was a man of genius, a minister, 
of the apostolical stamp, and an orator who 
could sway an audience almost as the wind 
sways the bending reed. 

He entered the ministry in early life ; and 
his first efforts at preaching, made in the neigh- 
borhood of his own home, gave such promise 
as led his father to acquiesce in the decision 
which young Hill had made, to devole his life 
to the great work of preaching the gospel. 

He was a tall, straight, noble-looking young 
man. His features were Wellingtonian, so to 
speak, having a prominent Roman nose, and a 
small but speaking eye. "His countenance," 
says one, "was expressive of the complexion 
of his mind ; and the play upon his lips and the 
piercing look of his small gray eyes denoted 
both intelligence and humor. When between 
fifty and sixty years of age, his fine, upright 
figure, combined with a high-bred, gentleman- 
like deportment, caused him to be the subject 
of general admiration." 
• His voice had great compass, and he could 



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BEV. BOWLAND HILL. 121 

vary its volume or expression to suit the sen- 
timent. He was a man of strong, but well- 
regulated passions, easily and deeply excited; 
and when the topic justified # their develop- 
ment, as when he delivered the terrors of the 
law, it seemed almost as if he was bran- 
dishing the thunderbolts of heaven. Yet no 
man had less severity in his heart, whatever 
apparent severity there might occasionally 
have been in his manner. His sensibilities 
were almost as tender as those of woman, and 
his eyes more frequently wept than flashed, 
and his tones were oftener subduing than start- 
ling. In fact, the love of Christ was the theme 
upon which he loved most and longest to dwell. 
He led his auditors oftener to Calvary than to 
Sinai ; and the pictures of softest and tenderest 
beauty which he drew, were those in which 
the cross was the central figure. 

Rowland Hill was a connecting link between 
the era of Whitefield's power and that of Hall 
and Chalmers, having in his younger years sat 
at the feet of the former, and in his old age 
looked with admiring wonder on the two great 
pulpit orators of England and of Scotland; 
but his own style and manner were modelled 
after Whitefield's. The mantle of Whitefield 

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122 ELOQUENT PREACHERS. 

seemed in fact to have fallen more upon Hill 
than upon any other man. To him Whitefield 
was the imaginative type of all ministerial ex- 
cellence, and he strained every nerve to get 
as near to his eloquent standard as possible. 
Some traits he had which reminded the hear- 
ers of Whitefield. His voice, so strong and 

« 

varied ; the power of illustration, so pertinent 
and striking; the apt manner of seizing on 
passing events and circumstances, and weav- 
ing them at once into his discourse ; his entire 
consecration, together with his intense love of 
souls, and his almost superhuman labors for 
their conversion ; his deep feeling, choking his 
utterance and filling his eyes with tears; his 
bursts of sublime eloquence, carrying the audi- 
ence away as with a tempest: all these fea- 
tures of the man and of the orator justified the 
popular decision that he, more than any minis- 
ter, had a right to the mantle of the departed 
Whitefield. 

Rowland Hill has been censured for indulg- 
ing in the pulpit his propensity for humor. 
Nature had endowed him with this faculty in 
a high degree. It was almost impossible not 
to allow it some influence ; and it may be ques- 
tionable whether, under a reasonable restraint, 



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EEV. BOWLAND HILL. 123 

it be not an important element in pulpit elo- 
quence. Certain it is that it tends to awaken 
an interest in a class of hearers who might oth- 
erwise remain listless, and to catch the atten- 
tion when, under the constant pressure of sol- 
emn truths, it might seek for relief from other 
and worldly associations. Says one, "He had 
naturally a keen sense of the ludicrous, which 
seemed at timeij to spread its influence over 
the entire surface of his mind. Like a vapory 
cloud floating across the face of a luminary of 
the heavens, some comic idea would dim for an % 
instant the lustre of his higher conceptions; 
but on its passing away suddenly, his imagina- 
tion shone forth in all its splendor, and gener- 
ally led him into the opposite expressions of 
pathos and sublimity." 

Kowland Hill's sermons were almost en- 
tirely extemporaneous. Having chosen his 
text with a view to set in a forcible light some 
great doctrinal pr practical truth, he had the 
faculty of arranging with wonderful rapidity 
the divisions and illustrations of the discourse. 
This he could, do at a moment's warning. In 
fact, some of his happiest efforts and his most 
powerful discourses were from texts selected 
in the pulpit or suggested by some unexpected 



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124 ELOQUENT PREACHERS. 

circumstance. On such occasions his arrange- 
ment of thought was as quick as his utterance 
was ready. He depended on the presence of 
an audience to fire up his own soul, and to cre- 
ate that electrical sympathy which is so essen- 
tial to the power and success of an orator. He 
held that men wanted rousing and exciting to 
the performance of duties which they aeknow-, 
ledged obligatory — that ther^ was more need 
of earnest appeal than of calm instruction ; and 
so he filled his quiver with shafts, whose burn- 
ing tips he sent with a strong arm against the 
panoplied bosoms of the impenitent. 

Another feature of his eloquence was, that 
it was all natural — the warm outpourings of 
unsophisticated feeling. Says his biographer, 
"The great secret perhaps of the amazing effect 
of his preaching was its being all nature. He 
generally chose the subject which impressed 
and affected his own mind, and discoursed on 
it as he /eft, not as he had previously thought; 
and thus, on every occasion, whether joyous or 
grievous, he found his way to hearts whose 
strings vibrated in unison with those of his 
own. Sheridan used to say of him, ' I go to 
hear Rowland Hill, because his ideas come 
red-hot from the heart. 7 " 



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EEV. ROWLAND HILL. 125 

But there was, still another trait as promi- 
nent as his naturalness — his boldness. Every 
listener was struck with it. He neither courted 
the favor nor feared t% Opposition of men. 
He could preach with calm composure under 
the threatenings of bigoted ecclesiastics or the 
terrible mutterings of mob violence. If roy- 
alty itself had mingled among his hearers, he 
would not have deviated from the strict line 
of evangelical truth. Describing the different 
styles of preachers, among others he speaks 
•of the bold manner; that is, "the man who 
preaches what he feels, without fear or diffi- 
dence." To no minister would this more em- 
phatically apply than to himself. 

True it is, Mr. Hill's social position and 
his large forjune raising him above the temp- 
tation to secure by conciliation the favor of any 
class of hearers, made the exercise of this vir- 
tue perhaps less self-denying than if he had 
drawn his support from titled patrons or from 
voluntary contributions. Still, we must admire 
the heroic stand which he took and maintained 
when, to preach the great truths of the gospel, 
as he habitually did, in open fields and in 
unsteepled chapels, rendered him the object 
of sneers in high life, and sometimes of per- 



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126 ELOQUENT PREACHERS. 

sonal abuse by the mob. But he outlived all 
this ; and the clouds which gathered portentous 
over his early ministry, and which settled so 
black occasionally bnjiis mid-day career, after 
having discharged their harmless thunders, 
passed away, leaving his evening days all 
luminous with a full-orbed reputation. After 
a long and eventful life, nearly the whole of 
which was devoted to preaching Christ and 
winning souls to his cross, he sunk gradually 
under the weight of almost fivescore years, 
leaving behind him a character as remarkable « 
for unsullied purity as it was for matchless 
eloquence and for practical benevolence. 



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BEV. LEGH BIOHMOND. 127 



REV. LEGH RICHMOND. 

Legh Richmond's name and fame are as- 
sociated with a precious volume entitled, " An- 
nals of the Poor." "The Dairyman's Daugh- 
ter " and " The Young Cottager " are portraits 
of such moral beauty as to attract all Chris- 
tian hearts, and place them under obligations 
to the celebrated limner. He has combined 
in these sketches both the skill and enthusiasm 
of the true artist. Every thing is so simple, 
so fresh, so beautiful. Elizabeth Wallbridge 
calls out the young pastor of Brading, and 
from her lonely cot, teaches him how to min- 
ister to the poor of Christ's flock. She asks 
him to accompany her on her brightening path, 
and bids him an affectionate farewell at the 
gate of death. Little Jane, "the Young Cot- 
tager,^ with the sweetest modesty sits at his 
feet, learns the way to heaven, and then walks 
on to its golden gates, which she soon reaches ; 
when, throwing her arms about Mr. Richmond's 
neck, she bids him farewell, and expires on 
his bosom. 

Here he took his first lesson in the divine 



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128 ELOQUENT PREACHERS. 

and holy work of feeding the lambs of Christ's 
flock, watching their heavenward progress, and 
smoothing the rough pathway, until they were 
safe in the arms of " the good Shepherd." 

These scenes transpired in the Isle of 
Wight, that gem in the diadem of England's 
landscape beauties. Richmond's young genius 
nestled and was nurtured in this island, where 
the ocean lay all around in its magnificence, 
and the hills and valleys, by nature beautiful, 
were by the hand of skill and culture convert- 
ed into an almost earthly paradise. As the 
writer has traversed this ground, and stood in 
its sacred places, he is prepared to endorse the 
faithful transcript of natural beauties so vividly 
described by the pastor of Brading. 

When Legh Richmond's genius was fully 
fledged, it took a wider sphere and soared to 
a loftier height. As the minister of Turvey, 
where for a quarter of a century he labored, 
he achieved an influence which was felt for 
good, not only in his own parochial sphere, 
but throughout the kingdom, and even far and 
wide over all Christendom. We propose to 
look at him on the more general field, where 
his peculiar talents as a popular preacher were 
called into requisition. 



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BEV. LEGH RICHMOND. 129 

It was something new in his day to find a 
minister of the Established church breaking 
away from the rigid custom of a cool and care- 
ful reading of sermons to the free and fervid 
extemporaneous style of preaching. Rich- 
mond began to try his wings in this way in 
the little church of Yaverland, «of which he 
had the oversight. His first effort was a fail- 
ure ; but trying again, he succeeded, and ever 
after he gave free scope to his noble faculties, 
unfettered by even paper bonds. 

His talents were well adapted to this mode 
of preaching. He had an easy fluency, a fine, 
voice, and a vivid fancy. He seized upon 
truth with a strong grasp, and held it up in a 
clear, convincing light. After his soul had 
really tasted of the water of life, which, ac- 
cording to his own account, took place subse- 
quent to his ordination, he seemed to live and 
move in an atmosphere almost as bright and 
beaming as that in which angels dwell. 

His preaching was in a high degree scrip- 
tural. It found its impulse and its aliment in 
the living word ; and so familiar had he be- 
come with the truths of the gospel, that every 
sermon seemed to combine the essentials of 
salvation. Still his sermons were not a mo- 

6* 



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130 ELOQUENT PBEAOHEBS. 

notorious chain of texts, but were more like 
the tissue of a regal robe, through which run, 
in graceful patterns, the threads of silver and 
of gold. 

His rich fancy gave a coloring of beauty to 
his style, and made it as attractive as it was 
instructive. 'This faculty, apart from a deep 
religious sensibility, is of doubtful utility when 
employed in the illustration of gospel truth. 
It may run into mere word pictures, and the 
pictures so drawn, while they enhance the 
reputation of the preacher, may not convey 
much real benefit to the hearer ; but when, as 
in this case, the fancy is under the control of 
deep religious feeling — when this feeling so 
blends itself with the picture as to impart a 
natural warmth, it may become a most power- 
ful means of awakening the attention and mov- 
ing the heart. 

That Mr. Richmond possessed both fancy 
and deep religious sensibility, all those who 
were privileged to hear him readily admit. 
Said one, and he a minister, "As a public 
speaker he possessed a felicity of idea and ex- 
pression peculiar to himself. His thoughts 
were natural and simple. They seemed to 
flow without effort, and to be the spontaneous 



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REV. LEGH RICHMOND. 131 

production of his mind ; but his rich imagina- 
tion clothed them in a form that resembled the 
varied tints, the brilliant glow, and the har- 
monious coloring of the rainbow. His images 
were frequently borrowed from the scenes of 
nature, which were made to illustrate some 
instructive and spiritual truth. The lofty 
mountain and the verdant vale, the tranquil 
rivulet, or the broad expanse of the ocean, 
all became tributary, and supplied materials 
to his creative fancy. He could affect the 
heart by touches the most natural and by ap- 
peals the most pathetic." 

Speaking of his death, this writer remarks, 
"Thousands and tens of thousands who have 
hung with admiration, affection, and interest 
on his eloquent addresses from the pulpit and 
the platform will unite in the sentiment that a 
great man has fallen. The sermons of Legh 
Richmond were characterized not only by a 
depth of piety and a sound orthodoxy, but 
'likewise by the most pathetic and affectionate 
appeals to his auditors on the subject of per- 
sonal religion. His addresses iu behalf of re-, 
ligious societies were marked by extraordi- 
nary powers of description, by a pathos which 
deeply interested and affected his audience, 



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132 ELOQUENT PBEAOHEBS. 

and by an eloquence peculiar to himself, which 
must have been witnessed to be duly appreci- 
ated." 

It was Mr. Kichmond's custom to make 
excursions over the kingdom, preaching and 
collecting for the benevolent associations then 
just springing into existence, whose origin and 
influence were closely connected with the 
Christian genius of this good man. The Brit- 
ish and Foreign Bible Society, the Religious 
Tract Society, the Society for Evangelizing the 
Jews, the Church Missionary Society, and 
other kindred institutions were organized in 
his day, and with his most cordial and efficient 
cooperation, while his powerful and persuasive 
eloquence did much to give them impulse, and 
to establish them firmly in the hearts of his 
countrymen. 

As the advocate of these mighty engines 
of moral good, he went forth to almost every 
city in the kingdom ; by his impassioned elo- 
quence not only attracting thousands to listen, 
but inducing them to become coworkers in the 
good cause. 

Previous to entering upon these discursive 
labors he always procured a faithful curate to 
attend to the parish duties at Turvey, in the 



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BEY. LEGH RICHMOND. 1§3 

same manner as he himself had done, thus 
securing to his flock their accustomed "privi- 
leges while he was gathering materials for 
building the temple of salvation on a world- 
wide basis. 

These journies led him into scenes of the 
sublime and beautiful, where his deep love of 
nature and his intensely poetical imagination 
found free scope and gathered rich stores for 
the future use of the preacher. He was like 
a merchantman seeking goodly pearls — filling 
his cabinet with Jthem ; and when the occasion 
occurred, he would give them a setting in some 
beautiful argument or some pathetic appeal. 

Writing from the English lakes, and speak- 
ing of the effect of the scenery upon his imag- 
ination and feelings, he remarks, "The ex- 
quisite beauty and sublimity of this country 
almost makes a pen move of itself. Never 
did I pass so beautiful a day as this at the 
lakes. I shall sing the praises of October as 
the loveliest of months. This morning at six 
o'clock I was walking on the banks of Winder- 
mere to catch a sunrise. I had every thing I 
could wish, and observed the progress of the 
day with delight. The mysterious rolling of 
the clouds across the hills announced the first 



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134 ELOQUENT PBEAOHEES. 

influence of the sun. Tints the most beauteous 
skirted the eastern clouds. Those on the west 
caught them as by sympathy. Various patches 
of mountains soon gleamed with the reflection 
of the yet unseen luminary; and such innu- 
merable vicissitudes of light and shade and 
close obscurity filled the scene as no tongue 
can describe. The lake in all its length of 
thirteen miles lay beneath me, with its thirty 
islands. I heard the early lowing of the cows, 
the bleating of the sheep, the neighing of the 
horse, the twittering of the birds, the rustling 
of the breeze, the rippling of the water, and 
dashing of the oar in a gentle kind of har- 
mony. The sun advanced and threw a blaze 
of magnificent lustre over this paradisiacal 
landscape." 

Again, still among the lakes, he writes, 
"This morning as I stood on an eminence 
looking down on the exquisitely lovely lake of 
Grasmere, environed by its amphitheatre of 
mountains, a momentary shower produced a 
rainbow. It extended from hill to hill over 
the valley, and seemed like a bridge for angels 
to pass over from one district of paradise to 
another. 



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BEV. LEGH BICHMOND. 135 

" ' And as they pass let angels sing 
The wonders of creation's King ; 
And while they tune their harps to praise, 
1 11 gladly catch their solemn lays ; 
Unite with them my feeble tongue, 
And give to gratitude my song.' " . 

From these extracts we gain some slight 
impression of the spirit of the man. His heart 
was alive to every thing fair and beautiful. 
Music, especially sacred, was his delight. He 
cultivated it as a science, and enjoyed it with 
the ardor of an enthusiast. But his greatest 
pleasure, next to direct communion with God 
and his word, was communion with God's glo- 
rious works. He viewed them not merely with 
the eye of a poet, but with the gratitude of a 
Christian. The poetical idea was intensified 
by the devotional ; and so, when he came to 
speak on the great themes of redemption, the 
sanctified imagery, gathered from the varied 
beauties of external nature, came gracefully 
forward to give force and attractiveness to his 
discourses. They glowed with the twofold 
light of a blended harmony between what 
nature imparts and what the Scriptures reveal. 

He was ever in search of some new and 
rare prospect, and would be found sometimes 



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136 • ELOQUENT PBEACHEBS. •;*« 

by the deep sea, gazing on its expanse, or on 
the mountain fop, looking, over the intervening 
landscape, or climbing some high tower, and 
with glass in hand, gathering in his eye the 
boundless amphitheatre of beauties. 

An interesting incident occurred to Mr. 
Richmond on one of these occasions. He had 
ascended a lofty tower in the dockyard at 
Portsmouth, and from its summit was viewing 
through a telescope the surrounding objects, 
when his imperial majesty the Emperor Alex- 
ander of Russia and suite unexpectedly enter- 
ed. Mr. Richmond offered to withdraw, but 
the emperor would not consent, saying, " Per- 
haps, sir, you are acquainted with the points of 
view before us." Mr. Richmond assured him 
he well knew every spot in the neighborhood, 
and drawing out his telescope, directed the 
eye of the emperor to the different objects 
worthy of notice. After a long and interest- 
ing conversation with his majesty, Mr. Rich- 
mond took occasion to thank him for the inter- 
est he had taken in the Bible cause in Russia, 
when the emperor obligingly remarked, "Sir, 
my thanks are rather due to your country, 
and the friends of the cause ; for had it not 
been for your example, we should have had no 



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BEV. LEGH RICHMOND. 137 

Bible Society in Russia." Mr. Richmond, 
having subsequently sent a copy of his " An- 
nals of the Poor " to the emperor, received a 
very kind note of recognition, accompanied by 
the present of a diamond ring. 

Like most extemporaneous preachers, Legh 
Richmond has left behind him but few speci- 
mens — only three, it is said — of his eloquence 
in the form of printed sermons ; and the prin- 
cipal one of these, preached in 1809 before the 
Church Missionary Society, though excellent 
in spirit, and forcible in its closing appeals, 
can, we think, scsycely represent his power' as 
a pulpit orator. 

It was when inspired by his great theme 
in presence of a large and attentive audience 
that his genius as a preacher broke forth upon 
his admiring listeners. Then the eye kindled 
and the voice became an expressive vehicle of 
thought. The soul on fire sent its burning 
fervor into the intellect, setting the imagina- 
tion in a glow, and thence into the very words ; 
and so kindling from speaker to hearer, the 
whole audience-chamber became radiant with 
the excitement. 

A sermon delivered under such circum- 
stances cannot be copied out in the retirement 



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138 ELOQUENT PREACHERS. 

of the closet, nor can it be caught and convey- 
ed to the public eye by the efforts of the ste- 
nographer. True eloquence can no more be 
thus rendered than can the lightning flash be 
caught, or the thunder peals reverberated. 
The truth is, the power of «, truly eloquent 
preacher, such as Legh Richmond was, lies in 
many accompanying circumstances, and de- 
pends much more than we are apt to suppose 
on a sort of inspiration in the speaker, and a 
favoring sympathy of the audience. Still there 
were more than these in the subject of our 
sketch. His learning, his (}l ear conceptions, 
his popular style of reasoning, his fine imagi- 
nation, his easy and flueitf speech, his affection- 
ate manner, his conceded purity of motives, 
all conspired to place him among the most 
eloquent and efficient clergymen of the church 
of England. 



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DR. TIMOTHY DWIGHT. 139 



REV, TIMOTHY DWIGHT, D.D. 

Among the" luminaries of a past genera- 
tion, Dr. Dwight shines as a star of the first 
magnitude. Like most of our distinguished 
divines, his early ministry was passed in com- 
parative obscurity. Fitted by nature and by 
intellectual culture for any position however 
exalted, he awaited the indications of Provi- 
dence, content in the lesser, until summoned 
to the greater circle of influence. But such a 
man can never be hid. Even when occupying 
the small parish of Greenfield hill, and obliged 
to supplement a meagre salary by teaching an 
academy, he was a centre of attraction to hun- 
dreds who sought his acquaintance and en- 
joyed his hospitality. 

When the presidency of Yale college be- 
came vacant in 1795, he was chosen to fill the 
responsible station. Here he preached and 
toiled and taught, until his influence, con- 
stantly augmenting, was felt to the very ex- 
tremities of the body politic. Yale college 
owes a renewed life to Dr. Dwight, who found 
her in "the spirit of heaviness," and left her 
clothed in " the garments of praise." 



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140 ELOQUENT PREACHERS. 

Such an institution, gathering its pupils 
from every state and territory, and then pour- 
ing back upon the several communities whence 
they came a host of young men, moulded and 
modelled principally under his powerful intel- 
lect, was, in that day especially, a most impor- 
tant fountain of blessings both in church and 
state. It would hardly be deemed an exag- 
gerated statement, were we to affirm that no 
man in the country then living exerted a wider 
or more salutary influence than the president 
of this institution. 

Dr. Dwight was a scion from a noble stock, 
being grandson of the celebrated President 
Edwards. In person he was a most impressive 
figure. A stalwart form, with that rounded 
perfection which is suggestive neither of gross- 
ness nor of austerity ; with a head that might, 
without flattery, be termed majestic ; a face 
expressive of calm dignity, under which could 
be discerned an imprisoned humor and poetic 
fervor, and these traits being kept under re- 
straint by the control of the higher faculties ; 
with manners graceful and attractive : such is 
a not overdrawn likeness of the outward and 
visible man. His portrait is one on which the 
eye rests with almost perfect satisfaction. Ev- 



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DR. TIMOTHY DWIGHT. 141 

ery thing is in harmony. The expression is 
that of one not only of high mental culture, but 
of great m&ral worth. There is dignity with- 
out haughtiness, and condescension without 
servility. 

We have heard it said, that when Bf. Ma- 
son, Dr. Stanhope Smith, and Dr. Dwight met 
in a social circle at Princeton, New Jersey, the 
company fell into a side discussion on the com- 
parative merits of these worthy men. Dr. 
Smith was acknowledged superior in soiuq 
traits, Dr. Mason in others ; but it was the 
unanimous verdict that a combination of all 
the great and attractive qualities met pecul- 
iarly in Dr. Dwight. 

He usually dressed in a plain style. His 
coat, of the finest black cloth, was cut after the 
•Franklinian or Quaker pattern ; and this style, 
so suited to his person and his profession, he 
never altered, whatever might be the fashion 
of the day. What was said of Burke, might 
with equal truth be said of him : that any 
stranger, stopping with him under a shed in a 
rain-storm, would at once have recognized his 
greatness of character. 

But we are less interested in the outer than 
the inner man. The temple is not so attract- 



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142 ELOQUENT PREACHEBS. 

ive as the glory which illuminates it. We 
have to admit, however, that when there is a 
correspondence between the two, we are none 
the less impressed with the "tout ensemble." 

As a philosopher, using the term to cover 
a wicfe scope of research, he had few equals, 
and in this country perhaps no superior. The 
book of nature he explored, and the word of 
Grod was his habitual study. To him each of 
these great volumes was a divine revelation, 
and by their conjoined effulgence they threw 
light on the mysteries of our being. 

Dr. Dwight was a most eloquent lecturer 
on the subtle influences of nature, going into 
all the finer tracery of God's handiwork. Com- 
bining scientific skill with a sanctified imagi- 
nation, he would, it is said, out of a mere leaf 
or flower raise a sublime discourse on the di-» 
vine wisdom and goodness. His mind could 
grasp the vast relations of science to the phys- 
ical and the moral world, while it was equally 
at home in the minuter and more common ex- 
igencies of practical life. 

In the lecture-room, where perhaps more 
than anywhere else he gave full scope to his 
genius, the students, who had looked forward 
with almost impatient longings to the time 



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DR. TIMOTHY DWIGHT. 143 

when they should come under his teachings, 
sat in mute astonishment at the depth of his 
learning, the flights of his imagination, the 
strength of his language, and the clear beam- 
ing conclusions of his reasoning. Hours seem- 
ed but moments. The driest subjects took life 
under his inspiring eloquence, and the tolling 
bell too soon announced the necessity for a 
pause. 

What he was in the lecture-room he was 
also in the pulpit. His printed discourses are 
a treasure in any clergyman's library. They 
are read and admired as specimens of clear 
reasoning, sound doctrine, and an elevated 
style. They are, in general, not too deep for 
the comprehension of the unlearned, while 
some of them task the powers of the most 
erudite. They are doctrinal and practical. 
In the former, a truth is stated, then analyzed, 
then illustrated, then brought home to the con- 
victions. In the latter, every department of 
moral responsibility is explored, every Chris- 
tian duty inculcated, and every incentive to 
holy obedience urged. The divine law is dis- 
cussed in its bearings on practical life, or with 
a view to convict the conscience, or to lead, 
by a sort of scholastic discipline, to the cross 



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144 ELOQUENT PREACHEBS. 

of Christ. But when the great themes of re- 
demption are under consideration, Oh how his 
soul rises and soars in an exultant, eagle flight! 
Majesty of thought is combined with simplicity 
of diction, and the fervor of the Christian i3 
mingled with the reasonings of the philosopher. 

These discourses have become classic 
among the circle of studious minds. The style 
is characterized by great force in the use of 
language, and great beauty in the pertinency 
and variety of illustration. It has a harmo- 
nious ring — the result, not so much of skill in 
the arrangement of words, as in the glowing 
impetuosity of the thought itself, which swells 
out in appropriate euphony like the clear peals 
of an organ. 

We give an example, cited at random from 
his first volume. It is a few closing sentences 
from a sermon on the temptation of Satan: "In 
the first temptation we see the doctrine strong- 
ly illustrated. Here no prayer ascended for 
aid. Here therefore no aid was given; and 
here, left to themselves, the miserable victims 
were of course destroyed. Let us then learn 
wisdom from-their example and their end. Let 
us avoid the one, that we may escape the other. 
For protection from tempters and temptations, 



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DR. TIMOTHY DWIGHT. 145 

both within us and without us, let our prayers 
unceasingly rise with fervent repetition : espe- 
cially when the serpent approaches, when the 
charm is about to begin, and when his mouth 
is ready to open and swallow us up, let our 
cries for help ascend to heaven that He who is 
swift to hear, and always prepared to pity and 
relieve, may mercifully extend his arm and 
snatch us from the jaws of destruction." 

It was not until the latter part of his min- 
istry that Dr. Dwight wrote out his sermons. 
From his early manhood he had been compel- 
led by impaired vision to preach extempora- 
neously. His rapid concentration of thought — 
the result of rigid intellectual discipline — gave 
him such power over his subject, that the ser- 
mon had all the exactness of a studied effort, 
and all the ardor of an impromptu discourse. 

"When unconfined by notes," says one, 
" the whole field of thought was before him. 
Into that field he entered, conscious where the 
subject lay and by what metes and bounds it 
was limited. Within these limits his powers 
had full scope, his imagination left to range at 
will, his feelings were kindled, and his mind 
became in the highest degree creative. Its 
conceptions were instantaneous, its thoughts 

BeqiMnt Pnactter*. 7 



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146 ELOQUENT PBEACHEBS. 

were new and striking, its deductions clear 
and irresistible, and its images exact repre- 
sentations of what his eye saw, living, speak- 
ing, and acting. When we add that these 
were accompanied by the utmost fluency and 
force of language, a piercing eye, a counte- 
nance deeply marked with intellect, a strong 
emphasis, a voice singular for its compass and 
melody, an enunciation remarkably clear and 
distinct, a person dignified and commanding, 
and gestures graceful and happy, we need not 
inform the reader that his pulpit efforts at this 
period possessed every characteristic of ani- 
mated and powerful eloquence." 

To some his life-long calamity — weakness 
of eyes — ujight seem a very serious obstruc- 
tion to the acquisition, if not the impartation 
of knowledge. But where there exists genius 
such as he possessed, an impediment like this 
only serves to stimulate the mind to higher 
efforts, and render the triumph ,not only cer- 
tain but signal. Evidently in his case it ap- 
peared to operate as a stimulus to the intel- 
lectual faculties ; so that what others obtained 
by their own reading, he acquired more thor- 
oughly perhaps through the eyes of an aman- 
uensis. By long habit and continued efforts, 



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DB. TIMOTHY DWIGHT. 147 

his power to dictate also became astonishing 
and almost incomprehensible. He could keep 
his amanuensis hard at work while he carried 
on at the same time a conversation with friends 
or with his family. Without embarrassment 
or disturbance on his part, as the copyist end- 
ed one sentence, he was supplied with another 
as pertinent and connected as if his own pen 
had been at work in the solitude of his closet. 
It was in this way that his sermons, constitut- 
ing his body of divinity now so extensively 
read and admired, were composed. 

One feature in the pulpit efforts of this 
great and good man ought not to be omitted, 
which, considering his position and his high 
literary standing, might not have been expect- 
ed ; namely, his intense desire to save the souls 
of his hearers. In all his preaching there was 
the utter absence of any thing like self-com- 
placency or self-seeking. He seems to have 
framed every sermon with the desire to con- 
vince the errorist, to comfort the Christian, or 
to rouse the impenitent to a sense of his guilt 
and danger. This is the impression made upon 
those who heard, and the same may be said 
of those who read his sermons. There is no 
straining after popular effect, no bait thrown 



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148 ELOQUENT PEEACHERS. 

out for popular applause. His great soul 
would have disdained to use lus high position 
as a pedestal for personal vanity. 

"A characteristic of his preaching," says 
his biographer, "was a constant regard to 
practical effect. Even the sermons which com- 
pose these volumes, will be found in their ap- 
plication to have this discriminating charac- 
ter. It was impossible for him to enter the 
desk but as the herald of reconciliation. He 
could not fail to discover his affecting sense of 
the greatness of the Being who sent him, or of 
the infinite importance of the message which 
he brought. And his most obvious purpose 
was to accomplish the salvation of those to 
whom it was delivered." A single sermon 
from the text, "The harvest is passed, the 
summer is ended, and* we are not saved," was 
accompanied by the special and powerful influ- 
ence of the Holy Spirit, resulting in a revival 
among the students, and the ingathering of 
nearly half of them to the college church. 

"In the performance of the other exercises 
of public worship," says one who knew him, 
" he greatly excelled. His manner of reading 
the Scriptures was peculiarly happy and im- 
pressive. In prayer, as it regarded subjects, 



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DB. TIMOTHY DWIGHT. 149 

sentiment, and language, all was "appropriate. 
Free from form, from tiresome repetition, and 
from lukewarmness, and under the influence of 
the deepest abasement and prostration of soul, 
his heart appeared to be melted and his lips to 
be touched as with a live coal from off the altar." 
It would be a task not more agreeable to 
the writer than gratifying to the reader, to 
follow this noble scholar and divine into the 
various walks of social and literary life, and 
exhibit those attractive features which shone 
out so gracefully under all these circumstances. 
He was not one of those great men who loom 
up in the distance, but are of diminished pro- 
portions when near. Whatever might have 
been the respect felt for him as viewed through 
his public services or his high position, that 
reverence would not have disappeared, but 
would have been deepened by a more intimate 
personal communion. "Like Johnson," quot- 
ing the words of another, "he shone in no 
place with more distinguished splendor than 
in the circle of the friends he loved, when the 
glow of animation lighted up his countenance, 
and a perpetual stream of knowledge and wis- 
dom flowed from his lips. Interesting narra- 
tion, vivid description, and sallies of humor, 



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150 ELOQUENT PREACHEBS. 

anecdotes of the just, the good, the generous, 
and the brave, these all were blended in fine 
proportions to form the bright and varied tis- 
sue of his discourse." 

But as the object of this sketch is to bring 
into view more particularly his preaching qual- 
ities, and to show in what respect he excelled 
as a pulpit orator, we would leave to others 
the grateful task of delineating more fully the 
scholar, the gentleman, and the friend. 

New England boasts of many great names 
both in church and state. She has been well 
represented at the bar, in the senate, and in 
the pulpit; but we doubt if the emblazoned 
list contains any one name that should stand 
higher in the catalogue. Fisher Ames may 
have rivalled him in burning eloquence, Dan- 
iel Webster in the heavy calibre of his mental 
armament, and the younger Adams in the 
memory of historical events ; but in Dr. 
Dwight there was a combination of great qual- 
ities, with no personal weaknesses to obscure 
their beauty. He was, in one sense — and 
that the best that we are allowed to attribute 
to fttljen hnmanity — a perfect man. We say 
it to the honor of that Being who made him 
what he was. To God be all the glory. • 



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152 ELOQUENT # PBEACHEBS. 

His tendency was to abstract studies : when 
he investigated, he went to the bottom; and 
when he published his views, he had exhausted 
the subject, and left nothing to be said in reply. 
While others busied themselves about the su- 
perstructure, he was examining and strength- 
ening the foundations. The church of God 
owes him a debt of gratitude for the impreg- 
nable fortress which he has built around her 
most precious doctrines, defying the assaults of 
both her open and her more subtle adversaries. 

As a pulpit orator, Edwards perhaps could 
not with truth be placed in the front rank. 
And yet this depends very much on what is 
understood by sacred eloquence. If it mean 
full, powerful, and varied intonation of voice ; 
if it include necessarily a great deal of action 
and of graceful gesture ; if it require a soaring 
fancy and an impetuous utterance, then we are 
obliged to deny his claim to the character of 
an eloquent divine. He had neither of these, 
characteristics. 

His constitution was so delicate, that it was 
by much care as to diet and exercise that he 
pursued his studies or performed the public 
services of the sanctuary. His voice, as to 
volume and force, was feeble. He made few 



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BEV. JONATHAN EDWARDS. 153 

gestures, and sometimes scarcely raised hi$ 
eyes from the manuscript. 

But notwithstanding these drawbacks, he 
was a powerful preacher, so far as power is 
illustrated by efficiency. In his day, the idea 
of a sermon was very different from what it is 
in ours. The audiences were more generally 
trained to severe thought; and ordinary con- 
gregations listened to the discourse less as a 
matter of temporary excitement and more as 
a lesson of permanent instruction. If the ser- 
mon was a discussion of some doctrinal point, 
with close logical reasoning, they braced them- 
selves up with greater intensity of thought,* 
in order to understand it. Accordingly the 
preacher, adapting his style and manner to the 
taste and character of his audience, often gave 
them "strong meat" -as they were "able .to 
bear it" He gave them a view of the massive 
foundations of their faith. He took them be- 
hind the veil, where the simple stern attri- 
butes of truth had sway. He preached of 
God— his sovereignty, his justice, his holiness, 
as revealed in his law and illustrated in his 
providence. He spoke of these great truths, 
not in the tinselled rhetoric of our times, but in 
the strong, majestic, unpolished Saxon. 

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154 ELOQUENT PBEACHEBS. 

% His only care as to style was, to give a 
clear conception of the thought, and to express 
it in the most forcible terms. His writings 
are not read with a view to the smoothness of 
his diction, but rather to the acquisition of his 
ideas. Who would be so presumptuous as to 
' undertake to modernize Edwards' style, or to 
attempt to polish the rough granite walls of 
truth which he has erected ? 

And yet it must not be supposed that no 
beauties are to be found in his writings save 
those of simple truth and solid reasoning. 
Was Edwards destitute of the imaginative fac- 
ulty? Were there no- folded wings about this 
strong angel capable of soaring ? Was there 
no eagle eye looking wistfully towards the sun? 
Eead his sermon on " the Excellency of Christ," 
or that on "the Sinner in the Hands of an 
angry God," and then say if the pen that por- 
trays the glory of Immanuel, or, dipped in the 
days colors of retribution, describes the doom 
of the wicked, be hot as powerful for vivid 
description as before it had been for logical 
exactness. 

His descriptive sermons partake, however, 
more of the grand than of the beautiful. He 
is more like Ezekiel amid the stormy symbols 



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REV. JONATHAN EDWARDS. 155 

of wrath, than like Isaiah tuning his harp to 
evangelical strains. With Edwards, mount 
Sinai is altogether in smoke and fire, and the 
footsteps of Jehovah are heard in the tramp 
of its thunders. He seems calculated, by the 
peculiar attributes of his genius, to echo in ad- 
vance "the voice of the archangel and the 
trump ef God." How terrible must have been 
that sermon on the doom of sinners, delivered 
in a revival at Enfield, when from solemnity 
the feelings of the audience deepened at length 
into an insupportable agony, and the cry burst 
forth, "What must we do to be saved?" * 

It will not do to deny to such'a man a 
claim to sacred eloquence. He may not pos- 
sess the charm of a graceful delivery, nor the 
music of a well-modulated voice, nor the skill 
of a practical rhetorician ; but he has power — 
a power that somehow arrests the attention, 
holds it, deepens it, until the very gates of 
heaven seem opening, and the caverns of hell 
yawning before the eyes of his hearers. 

Wherein lay this power ? We must search 
for it beyond the style, beyond the manner, for 
in neither does it seem to lie. We must trace it 
in the spirit of the preacher ; in the soul that, 
like Moses, had been face to face with God. . 



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166 ELOQUENT PEEAOHERS. 

We all know from actual experience the 
difference between words spoken from real and 
deep feeling, and those which are formal or 
merely professional. The latter may be more 
in accordance with the rules of the rhetorician, 
and we may not be able to discover a flaw in 
language or in elocution ; but the well-spoken 
sentences fail to touch the heart, to disturb the 
conscience, or to- rouse to energetic action. It 
is all artificial work. It is a palace of ice glit- 
tering in the sun. Such sermons may be called 
great, but they, lack the very soul of eloquence. 
On the other hand, where the preacher has his 
own heart imbued with the .sentiments which 
he aims to transfuse into the souls of otters, 
and when, coming from secret communion with 
God — where, like the prophets of old, he has 
been led into visions of the awful future — he 
speaks in God's name the great and solemn 
message entrusted to him, though the art of 
the orator may be absent, the great end of 
sacred eloquence, conviction, is accomplished. 

Inr saying this, as illustrative of all the 
effect of Edwards' preaching, we would not be 
understood as attributing to man what prop- 
erly belongs to the Spirit of God. God gave 
to Edwards not only a great mind, but a great 



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EEV. JONATHAN EDWABDS. 157 

soul ; not only intellect, but deep feeling ; not 
only the power to investigate divine truth, but 
a perception of its solemn bearings on the des- 
tiny of man. It was a baptism from heaven, 
by waters taken from the river of life, bathing 
all his faculties in a renovating and refreshing 
influence. 

Herein lay the power of the preacher. It 
was a power not of itself able to reach the 
great end of preaching, but a power more com- 
monly sanctified to its attainment. It was this 
heaven-inspired feeling which, vitalizing the 
truths of God's word as enunciated on the occa- 
sion alluded to at Enfield, sent the message 
home to the hearts and consciences of his hear- 
ers, while the Spirit of God made those truths 
"sharper than a two-edged sword." 

Edwards lived in an age of stirring events. 
The great revival, beginning in England and 
lighting up at length this Western hemisphere, 
spread like an atmosphere over the churches, 
waking and warming into life the long slum- 
bering energies of God's people. In the midst 
of it all was seen Whitefield, standing like an_ 
angel in the sun. 

Who that reads the history of those times, 
but must be impressed with the newly com- 



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158 ELOQUENT PBEACHEBS. • 

municated power of God? The churches were 
visited as with pentecostal fire. It filled the 
whole land. Edwards caught the flame. Such 
a soul as his could not fail to sympathize in 
this work of the Spirit. His sermons became 
like the trumpet-tongued angel, waxing louder 
and louder. Truth fell with startling emphasis 
upon ears hitherto dull of hearing, and upon 
hearts hard as adamant. Thousands felt the 
quickening power, 

After a time the spirit of true piety be- 
gan to be less distinguishable, and a spirit 
of fanaticism began to develop itself. Every 
good thing is liable to perversion. Nay, the 
very best thing that God ever gave or man 
received may be so perverted or abused as to 
produce a moral monstrosity. This is not the 
product of true piety, but of its counterfeit. , 
It is evidence that humanity is weak as well 
as wicked; and so religion has to suffer for 
errors traceable only to the absence of her 
enlightening power. 

Edwards saw the coming storm, and pre- 
pared for it. He saw excitable men and min- 
isters embracing views derogatory to truth l 
and calculated fatally to mislead the soul. 
Not only did he aim by his preaching to coun- 

•oigil 



BEV. JONATHAN EDWARDS. 159 

teract it, but he prepared and published a 
treatise on the Religious Affections, which he 
intended should serve as a test of true piety, 
and so unveil, and if possible arrest the growth 
of fanaticism. 

A more discriminating work on the inward 
experience of piety has never been produced. 
It would seem as if every man who reads it 
must decide without further proof his position 
and his destiny. 

It would be aside from the object of this 
sketch to enter upon a discussion as to the 
merits of his controversial writings. They are 
numerous, and they take in subjects of vital 
importance. He is fair in his statements, clear 
in his reasoning, and carries his readers to 
conclusions which some of them might not per- 
haps relish, but wlich it would be very diffi- 
cult to refute. His controversial and meta- 
physical- works are * considered by the best 
judges as among the most gigantic efforts of 
the human mind. His fame in this department 
is as great in Europe as it is in America. 

Dr. Chalmers, writing to a friend in this 
country, says of Edwards, "I have long es- 
teemed him as the greatest of theologians; 
combining, in a degree that is Quite unexam- 



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160 ELOQUENT PREACHERS. 

pled, the profoundly intellectual with the devot- 
edly spiritual and sacred, and realizing in his 
own person a most rare yet most beautiful 
harmony between the simplicity of the Chris- 
tian pastor on the one hand, and on the other 
all the strength and prowess of a giant in phi- 
losophy ; so as at once to minister from Sab- 
bath to Sabbath, and with the most blessed 
effect to the hearers of his plain congregation, 
and yet in the high field of authorship to have 
traversed in a way that none had ever done 
before him the most inaccessible places, and 
achieved such a mastery as had never till his 
time been realized over the most arduous diffi- 
culties of our science." 

It must be confessed that, considering the 
space which President Edwards occupied as a 
Christian philosopher and Ifcinent divine, there 
has come down to us a comparative meagre 
amount of reliable matter illustrative of his 
peculiarities as a preacher. From his printed 
sermons we cannot, in this respect, gather a 
very satisfactory impression. They are full 
of thought, with flashes of eloquence, and clos- 
ing generally with a solemn and searching ap- 
plication. They gleam with pertinent quota- 
tions from the Scriptures, and show a deep 



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REV. JONATHAN EDWARDS. 161 

and thorough knowledge of the springs of hu- 
man action. Yet after all we long to know 
more of the speaker — his expression of face, 
his whole air and manner, coombining in the 
secret charm which so held his audience spell- 
bound. We are almost impatient with his 
contemporaries, that they should not have 
transmitted a fuller and more satisfactory por- 
trait of this great divine. 

The nearest approach to the gratification 
of this so natural a longing, may be found in a 
paragraph of the short biographical sketch in 
his first volume : ".Viewing Mr. Edwards as a 
writer of sermons, we cannot give him the epi- 
thet eloquent, in the common acceptation of the 
term. We see in him nothing of the great 
masters of eloquence, except good sense, con- 
clusive reasoning, and the power of moving the 
passions. Oratorical pomp, a cryptic method, 
luxurious descriptions presented io the imagi- 
nation, and a rich variety of rhetorical figures, 
enter not into his plan. But his thoughts are 
well digested, and his reasoning conclusive. 
He produces considerations which not only 
force the assent, but also touch the conscience. 
He urges divine authority by quoting and ex- 
plaining Scripture in a form calculated to rouse 



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162 ELOQUENT PREACHERS. 

the soul. He moves the passions not by little 
artifices, like the professed rhetorician, but by 
saying what is much to the purpose in a plain, 
serious, and interesting way ; and thus making 
reason, conscience, fear, and love to be decid- 
edly in his favor. And thus the passions are 
moved in the most profitable manner; the 
more generous ones take the lead, and they 
are directed in the way of practical utility." 



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BEV. GEOBGKE WHITEFIELD. 163 



REV. GEORGE WHITEFIELD, 

"THE SEBAPHIO MAN." 

The name of Whitefield is stereotyped on 
the popular mind as the representative of that 
highest of arts, pulpit eloquence; so that to 
say that a preacher is as eloquent as White- 
field, would be regarded as extravagant as to 
say that a senator was as eloquent as Demosthe- 
nes. And yet strange is it, that no biographer 
or writer, in his day or ours, has given a just 
and true portraiture of this unequalled preach- 
er. We read his printed sermons, and they 
disappoint -us. We say to ourselves, These 
are not great sermons, nor apparently eloquent 
ones. We wonder how it was that their utter- 
ance, even by his fire-touched lips, could so 
have entranced listening thousands. But the 
truth is, Whitefield wrote these sermons on 
his voyages across the Atlantic, amid the dis- 
comforts of sea -life, and in the absence of 
those stirring sympathies which were kindled 
in the crowded audiences of Tottenham Court. 
They cannot give one, therefore, a just idea 
of the preacher. It would be about as ab- 



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164 ELOQUENT PREACHERS. 

surd to judge of his eloquence by these speci- 
mens, as it would to judge of the spirit and 
fire of a war-horse on the battle-field by 
seeing him leisurely walked over the parade- 
ground. 

Of all men, Whitefield was the last to 
transmit the fire of his sermons through* the 
press. So much did he owe to physical tem- 
perament, to the volume and varied intona- 
tions of his voice, to the irrepressible fires of 
a soul all alive to the grand and overpowering 
visions of divine truth, to a sort of inspiration 
kindled by the sight of thousands whose eyes 
were ready to weep and whose hearts were 
ready to break the moment his clarion voice 
rang on their expectant ears — so much did he 
owe to these circumstances, that his eloquence 
cannot be appreciated by any account of it 
which can be given verbally, or which can be 
delineated on paper. Yain is it, therefore, to 
look into his printed sermons to find his power. 
Equally hopeless is it, at this distant day, to 
write his life with the idea of conveying to the 
reader a just estimate of him as a pulpit ora- 
tor. \ Philip seems to labor under this con- 
* sciousness when he admits that his life is yet 
to be written. But we can scarcely conceive 



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BEV. GEOBGE WHITEFIELB. 165 

how it could be done satisfactorily, even were 
Southey, the accomplished biographer of Wes- 
ley, alive, and willing to undertake it. 

Whitefield's eloquence grew out of many 
circumstances, all of which cannot be explored, 
any more than we can trace the mysterious 
sourfces of the rapid, full-flowing, and fertiliz- 
ing Nile. There was a histrionic vein in his 
very boyhood. The play of his passions even 
then was wonderful. As he grew to manhood, 
these qualities ripened unconsciously into 
strength; and so gifted was he at the very 
outset of his public life, that had he chosen the 
stage instead of the pulpit, Garrick might have 
found a competitor whose genius would have 
eclipsed, if not utterly extinguished, his own. 
Such is said to have been the admission of that 
celebrated tragedian after listening to one of 
Whitefield's sermons. 

Without being handsome, Whitefield's face 
was a speaking one. It was a luminous medi- 
um of the passions. The bright or the dark, 
the lurid cloud and the calm sunshine, made 
themselves known not only in the voice and 
the gesture, but especially in the ever-vaiying 
expressions of the eloquent countenance. The 
writer, who has sought to obtain from every 

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166 ELOQUENT PBEAOHERS. 

possible source traditionary facts concerning 
this matchless preacher, once heard a very old 
man say that when he was listening to White- 
field he was spell-bound, and could scarcely 
tell by what means the magic power was so 
potent over him. After some questioning, the 
old man said he believed it was owing to his 
voice in part, but more to his expressive face. 
That face was like a canvas, and the preacher 
painted on it every passion that stirs in the 
human breast. -> It was at one moment terrific, 
as if all the furies were enthroned on that dark 
brow, and the n$xt, as by a dissolving view, 
there would come forth an angelic sweetness 
that savored of heaven itself. His eyes, up- 
turned, seemed to the beholder to penetrate to 
the very throne of God. He saw, so it would 
seem, the celestial host. He addressed Ga- 
briel as if familiar with that bright archangel. 
He bade him suspend his flight and receive 
the news and bear it upward that one more 
sinner had repented. Who but Whitefield 
would have dared the almost impossible rhe- 
torical experiment? Who would have ven- 
ture to cry out, "Stop, Gabriel, stop?" But 
it was done by him, and as naturally as if the 
vision were real, and as if Gabriel furled his 



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BBV. GEOBGE WHITEEIELD. 167 

wing at the preacher's call, and received the 
joyful message. And when too he took the 
sinner to the judgment-seat, tried him by God's 
unerring law, brought him in guilty, and then, 
with moistened eyes and a heart burning with 
pity, he put on the cap of condemnation, and 
proceeded, with choking utterance, to pro- 
nounce sentence, while the audience were 
melted to tears ; when all this was done, not 
as an actor would do it, but in the faith of a 
reaKprospective scene, and with unutterable 
sorrow of soul, as speaking under God's high 
sanction, how intensely moved and excited 
mustahe audience have been ! 

It was no affectation when his tears fell 
like rain. It was for no rhetorical effect that 
he threw himself into these impassioned expos- 
tulations with his careless and impenitent hear- 
ers. Whitefield never played a part. His 
boldest and most original pulpit efforts were 
the natural efflux of a soul which knew no 
selfish impulse, but which beat with sincere 
love to lost men. It was not Whitefield, but 
Christ that he was thinking of. It was not to 
attract admiration upon himself, but to draw 
all men to the Saviour, that he thus spoke. 
His eloquence was kindled at the cross, and 



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168 ELOQUENT PREACHERS. 

displayed its grandest features when redemp- 
tion by that cross was its mighty theme. 

His personal appearance — judging from 
what is considered the best engraved like- 
ness — is not calculated to impress us either 
with great intellectual force or a graceful exte- 
rior. That wig of huge dimensions, covering 
and concealing the higher and more striking 
lineaments of the forehead ; the upraised 
hands, an undesirable thing in a picture, 
though a most impressive one to witness; his 
eyes, so small< with a decided cast in one of 
them, render this likeness any thing but con- 
sonant with our preconceived notions 6f the 
" seraphic man." But while in person he was 
not among the most majestic or the most at- 
tractive, all defects were lost sight of the mo- 
ment that eloquent voice began to peal out its 
unrivalled music. The term "seraphic" was 
not given to him for his exterior grace or his 
symmetrical features. It was the spirit within 
him shining through and illuminating those fea- 
tures, until the audience, hushed or excited, 
were ready to doubt if the speaker were a man 
or an angel. His burning eloquence seemed to 
the listener as properly symbolizing the respon- 
sive cry one to another of the glowing seraphim. 



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REV. GEORGE WHITEFIELD. 169 

The eloquence of Whitefield, by the con- 
current testimony of those with whom the 
writer in younger days conversed, including 
one venerable divine, was owing, as in most 
other- similar cases, to a combination of quali- 
ties, rather than to any single excellence. 
The great foundation of it all lay in a soul of 
intense emotions stirred to its very depths by 
the power of religion. He was a consecrated 
man from the first. It was a full, joyful, and 
cordial surrender of all his powers and affec- 
tions to Christ, and to the love of souls for 
Christ's sake. He counted every thing but 
loss for Him. His love was the grand impul- 
sive power in all hfs journeys, his labors, his 
self-denials, and his aims. In this respect he 
came nearer than any modern preacher we 
know of to "the great apostle of the Gen- 
tiles." 

This burning zeal for Christ found expres- 
sion in the gesture, the countenance, and the 
voice. These were the electric wires through 
which the fiery current within flowed down in 
startling shocks or melting influences upon lis- 
tening thousands. In gesture, no man ever 
excelled, perhaps none ever equalled him. 
These gestures were unstudied, and so gave 

■oqatnt PrMCfacr*. 8 



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170 ELOQUENT PBEACHEBS. 

the greater emphasis to his utterances. A sin* 
gle movement- of his finger, with the accompa- 
nying expression of his face, would thrill an 
audience or dissolve them in tears. His face,* 
radiant with the light from heaven, which he 
had caught on the Mount of Communion, begat 
an immediate sympathy, as all eyes were riv- 
eted upon it. A countenance will thus affect 
us, as we all know. How often have we felt 
its power ere a word was spoken. But Oh, 
when that face began to throw off from its lus* 
trous # surface the rays of divine intelligence, 
and when tears and smiles alternated, as the 
subject was pensive or joyful, how did the 
audience with responsive sympathy weep or 
rejoice under the eloquent preacher ! But the 
voice, what shall we say of that? It was such 
as man is seldom gifted with. It could be 
heard distinctly, on a clear, still evening, for 
a mile. It was smooth, variable, and could 
express the gentlest emotions. It was capa- 
ble also of swelling into thunder-peals, and 
then every ear tingled and every heart trem- 
bled. If the organ of some grand cathedral 
had the power to speak, and could express the 
finest and most tender sentiments from its del- 
icate pipes, and roll forth majestic thoughts on 



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REV. GEORGE WHITEFIELD. 171 

its largest ones, it would give some idea of 
Whitefield's variable and powerful tones. 

Whitefield's power as a pulpit orator can- 
not be separated from his pious emotions nor 
from his religious views. Had he embraced a 
theory of religion less emotional, more after 
the pattern of rationalists or ritualists, his 
eloquence would have been lost to the world. 
Never would his soul so have taken fire, nor 
his lips glowed with the burning coal of enthu- 
siastic passion. But he believed in man's ruin 
by sin ; in the certain interminable woe that 
awaits the impenitent; in the mercy of God 
through Jesus Christ, and the free offer of sal- 
vation through faith in the cross. Such were 
his views, and under this conviction he looked 
upon his audiences. He saw but one hope set 
before them, and with his whole soul moved 
and melted by the love of Christ on the one 
hand, and the love of souls on the other, he 
pressed every hearer, with all the energy of a 
dying man speaking to dying men, to accept 
the great salvation. Nor do we think that 
the pulpit can reach its appropriate power, 
nor for any length of time retain it, unless 
these grand cardinal doctrines of grace are the 
inspiring themes. 



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172 ELOQUENT PREACHEBS. 

The eloquence of Whitefield never waned. 
It was greater, if possible, at fifty than at 
thirty. It was never more impressive or pow- 
erful than when the silence of death^suddenly 
settled upon his lips ; and his last efforts in the 
pulpit partook so much of a heavenly inspira- 
tion, that some regarded them as the prepara- 
tory vibrations of that golden harp upon which 
he was to swell for ever the high notes of re- 
demption. 



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BEV. RICHARD BAXTER. 173 



REV. RICHARD BAXTER. 

Among the names of the past which need 
no monumental pile to perpetuate their mem- 
ory is that of Richard Baxter. More than a 
century and a half has rolled away since he 
fell asleep, and yet the amaranth upon his 
brow is* now greener and emits a sweeter 
fragrance than when it was first wreathed 
around it. 

Baxter lived in stirring times. His heroic 
bearing when the church was in peril, his 
clarion voice, sounding loud and clear amid 
the din and strife, made him a rallying point 
for the persecuted, and a terror to the oppres- 
sor. He was a man of true courage, fearing 
only God, and acting only under the high con- 
sideration of duty. When the church de- 
manded what his conscience could- not con- 
cede, he broke away from her thraldom ; and 
when Cromwell succeeded to power, he enter- 
ed his protest against what he considered a 
usurpation. And after the restoration, when 
a wily government sought to close his mouth 
by the offer of a bishopric, he, like Owen, re- 



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174 ELOQUENT PBEACHERS. 

fused to accept it. These noble men thought 
less of their own elevation than of the inter- 
ests of Zion, and cared more for freedom of 
speech and freedom of conscience than for the 
emoluments and honors of a bishopric. 

As an eloquent preacher, Baxter's claim 
admits not of a doubt. There was no minister 
of his day superior to him — arid it was a day 
too when stars of the first magnitude revolved 
in the ecclesiastical sphere. Dr. John Owen, 
the man of immense learning, vice-chancellor 
of the University, yet in spirit humble as a 
child ; John Flavel, of burning zeal, aaad with 
prayers that seemed to storm the citadel of 
heaven ; Matthew Henry, so pithy and pointed 
in his interpretations of Scripture, were his 
contemporaries, and among these Baxter moved 
as a sort of spiritual Agamemnon. With the 
learning of Owen he combined the earnest- 
ness of Flavel, and far in advance of both was 
he in the/orce and even classic purity of his 
style. But Baxter regarded style only as a 
vehicle of thought, and adopted words and 
sentences best adapted to bring out that 
thought in the strongest light, just as the artil- 
lerist regards that piece of ordnance as the best 
which carries the ball furthest and sends it the 



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REV. RICHARD BAXTER. 175 

most surely to its mark. He seems never to 
have studied how he should write, but what. 
The thought was the great point, and the mode 
of expressing it was intended first to make it 
clear, and next to give it point and power. 

Read any of his writings and you will see 
at once that his grand design, was to get the 
truth vividly before the reader — to make him 
not only see and acknowledge it, but better 
still, to feel it. He wrote at men. Knowing 
that the heart had more influence for or against 
religion than the intellect, all his arguments 
and appeals addressed to the reason were 
simply with a view of reaching at length the 
selfish and sin-loving heart.- He is in this 
respect a model for all succeeding ministers. 
Preach at men as he did, use language simply 
to give force to thoughts, assail the reason only 
that you may get deeper down where lies the 
demon of selfishness and unbelief, point your 
artillery in the direction of the mail-coated 
conscience and heart as Baxter did, and see if 
the pastor of Kidderminster will be the only 
one to witness nearly a whole town converted 
to the faith of Jesus. 

Baxter was a pulpit orator without any 
idea of being one. He had no such end in 



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176 ELOQUENT PREACHERS. 

view. He was filled with the love of God 
and the love of souls, and his only aim was to 
bring sinners to God and to educate them for 
the kingdom of heaven. Every thing that he 
did, said, or wrote has this aim only. 

He was by nature a man of might in body 
as well as in mind. Tall, muscular, and of 
gigantic strength, he was a match for any 
bravo. Some who feared not his moral power 
stood in dread of his strong arm. An anec- 
dote illustrative of this is told of him. A 
swaggering bully hearing of Baxter's great 
strength, was disposed to put it to the test. 
So, leading his horse into the garden where 
the pastor was at work, he began in no very 
respectful way to banter him. The patience 
of the good man was at length exhausted, and 
dropping his spade, he seized the intruder and 
pitched him over the fence. The astonished 
man, picking himself up, simply said, "Sir, I 
will thank you if you will throw my horse 
over after me." This anecdote, I think, was 
related to the class by our venerated Jnstruct- 
or, the late Rev. Dr. Miller of Princeton. 

Judging from his writings, Baxter must 
have had great power in the pulpit. It is im- 
possible that such burning words as gleam in 



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BEV. RICHARD BAXTER. 177 

every line of the "Call to the Unconverted" 
could have been uttered in any other tones 
than those of the deepest feeling. He seems 
fairly to clutch the soul in a sort of agony, as 
if, so far as man's ability could prevent, the 
sinner must not take another step in the 
broad road to hell. He expostulates, he 
weeps, he pleads. Rushing between the prec- 
ipice and the infatuated sinner who would dare 
its brink, he cries, in God's name, "Why will 
ye die?" 

His "Saints' Rest" was written with the 
heavenly inheritance almost in sight. He was 
himself just about, as he supposed, to enter 
upon it. The dividing line seemed to him but 
a breath. He lay panting on the brink of the 
cold river, directing his eyes towards the ce- 
lestial landscape which his faith descried, and 
for which his heart so ardently longed. For- 
getting the things which were behind — the 
dreahy way over which his feet had toiled, 
and the sharp conflicts which had left their 
scars on his bruised soul — he now concen- 
trates all his interest on the glory that was to 
be revealed. In a strain seemingly almost 
inspired, he paints in glowing but truthful col- 
ors the celestial paradise. He makes us see as 

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178 ELOQUENT PBEACHERS. 

it were into heaven. He asks us to accom- 
pany him where the echo of the angel harps 
may be heard, and the white robes of the re- 
deemed are seen to glimmer. So far as lan- 
guage can express, or the imagination picture 
the glorified state, he has embodied its most 
striking features, while yet every line and 
lineament is in accordance with the simple 
revelations of the Bible. By his luminous 
and penetrating genius, however, he has placed 
in new and attractive lights truths which had 
been familiar; and the scenes which to our 
weaker faith had been but dimly discerned, 
are rendered more vivid and more distinct 
through the medium of his superior spiritual 
vision. As no man, after Bunyan, can venture 
to write another Pilgrim's Progress, and no 
poet, after Milton, can hope to sing of Para- 
dise Lost, so no author can expect to treat of 
the saints' everlasting rest, since this ecstatic 
divine has written out the impressions tfhich 
his dying vision caught of its attractions and 
its glories. In truth, so far as language can 
go in defining and a sanctified imagination in 
conceiving "the rest that remaineth," Baxter 
may be said to have exhausted the subject. 
He has left nothing more to be said. All that 



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REV. RICHARD BAXTER. 179 

remains is to see and to realize, and that can 
be done only when language has ceased to be 
a medium of thought and the visions of eter- 
nity are brought into direct contact with the 
conscious soul. But let us thank Baxter for 
strewing our path to heaven with flowers so 
fragrant, and for gilding "the valley of the 
shadow of death" with so much of the ra- 
diance of "the bright and morning star." 
Long familiar with this world, and experimen- 
tally ignorant of the dark future, few can look 
upon death without some dread. But how 
much more fearful would be the recoil if no 
Such compensations and hopes and prospects 
had been suggested and promised. Praised 
be God for revealing the antidote to death; 
and thanks to Richard Baxter, under God, for 
makitig its gateway ring with the notes of an- 
ticipated triumph. 

Baxter was not only a champion of moral 
truth — a sort of Cceur de Lion in the field of 
theological warfare, wielding the battle-axe of 
argument with an irresistible arm — but he was 
equally distinguished in the home field of- 
peaceful culture. He was the model pastor as 
well as the model preacher. He took a field, 
the most hopeless, and made it as the garden 



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180 ELOQUENT PREACHERS. • 

of God. What our engineers and landscape 
gardeners have done for our Central Park, 
converting barren rocks and unhealthy ra- 
vines into a paradise of beauty, Baxter did 
for Kidderminster. If Augustus Caesar made 
it his boast that, having found Rome brick, he 
had left it marble, Baxter, we think, might 
have spoken of a far more noble achievement, 
when, ■ by heaven's blessing on his spiritual 
labors, he had transformed Kidderminster 
from a heap of rubbish and ruins to a living 
temple, radiant with the indwelling presence 
of God. " Before his coming thither," says 
one, "the place was overrun with ignorance 
and profaneness; but. by the divine blessing 
on his wise and faithful cultivation, the fruits 
of righteousness sprang up in rich abundance. 
He at first found but a single instance or two 
of daity family prayer in a whole street ; and 
at his going away, but one family or two could 
be found in some' streets that continued to 
neglect it. And on Lord's days, instead of 
the open profanation to which they had been 
so long accustomed, a person, in passing 
through the town in the intervals of public 
worship, might even hear hundreds of families 
engaged in singing psalms, reading the Scrip- 



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BEV. RICHARD BAXTER. 181 

tares, and other good books, or such sermons 
as they had written down while they heard 
them from the pulpit. His care of the souls 
committed to his charge and the success of his 
labors among them were truly remarkable, for 
the number of his stated communicants rose to 
six hundred, of whom he himself declared there 
were not twelve concerning whose sincere piety 
he had not reason to entertain good hopes." 

Such a man was authorized to speak to 
ministers of their duty, and to the saints of 
their everlasting rest. The reformed pastor is 
after all but the real pastor, going up and 
down the streets of Kidderminster warning 
every man and teaching every man, that he 
might present every man perfect in Christ 
Jesus. He who for thirty years lay almost 
on the borders of eternity, expecting every 
day to receive his summons to depart — who 
went each Sabbath into the pulpit and preach- 
ed as though it were his last sermon, might 
well expatiate on the mansions of eternal rest, 
and invoke the lagging disciples to rouse up 
and renew the race for immortality. Every 
thing about Baxter wore the aspect of a heav- 
enly nobility. Great by nature, he was great- 
er still by grace. The masculine strength of 



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182 ELOQUENT PREACHERS. 

character which he originally possessed was 
softened almost into angelic sweetness by the 
sanctifying power of religion. Among the 
great lights of the Eeformation, or rather vin- 
dication — for he contended for principles which 
Luther had inaugurated and Calvin defended — 
he may, in the language of another, "be re- 
garded as a standard-bearer. He labored 
much, as well in preaching as in writing, and 
with an abundant blessing on both. He had 
all the high mental qualities of his class in 
perfection. His mind is inexhaustible and 
vigorous and vivacious to an extraordinary 
degree. He seizes irresistibly on the atten- 
tion, and carries it along with him, and we 
assuredly do not know any author who can be 
compared with him for the power with which 
he brings his reader directly face to face with 
death, judgment, and eternity, and compels 
him to look upon them and converse with 
them. He is himself most deeply serious, and 
the holy solemnity of his own soul seems to 
envelope the reader as with the air of a tem- 
ple." 



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EEV. JOHN BUNYAN. 183 



REV. JOHN BUNYAN. 

The name of Bunyan is familiar to every 
Christian household. His Pilgrim's Progress 
has a high place in their affections, and in 
many of their libraries it is placed next to the 
Bible itself. Few however have thought of 
Bunyan as an eloquent expositor of those doc- 
trines so beautifully illustrated in his immortal 
allegory. Whereas, if they will read his Life 
and Times, they will discover that his claim to 
their admiration is founded not only on what 
he has written, but on what he did and suffered 
in the cause of evangelical truth. A noble 
witness was he for God, when priestly power 
dominated over liberty of conscience. He pre- 
ferred twelve years' imprisonment in Bedford 
jail to a freedom which, if enjoyed, must needs 
have been purchased at the sacrifice of princi- 
ple. But what intolerance did against Bunyan, 
Providence overruled for the benefit of man- 
kind. His incarceration suggested his Pil- 
grim's Progress, and gave him the time to 
work it out in all its graphic and picturesque 
beauty. "Out of the eater thus came forth 



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184 ELOQUENT PREACHEBS. 

meat, and out of the strong came forth sweet- 
ness." Thanks to God, who caused the rod of 
the oppressor to blossom into fragrance and to 
bear such refreshing fruit. 

But we have to do with Bunyan not as the 
epic poet of Christian heroism, but as a preach- 
er of the gospel. Long time was he in prep- 
aration for this great work. His theology was 
not learned in the schools of the prophets, but 
altogether in the school of Christ. His text- 
book was the simple word of God, and his 
teacher was the Holy Spirit. Drawing his 
knowledge thus from the fountain-head, it was 
fresh and pure; and taught by the Spirit, it 
was viewed in those lights and relations which 
reflected lustre on each particular doctrine, 
and gave impressiveness to the whole. 

No man perhaps ever passed through a 
severer ordeal of inward trials and tempta- 
tions. The old man of sin had such power, 
and held it so long, that when the struggle of 
the new man began it was almost like the giv- 
ing up of the ghost. But the demon was at 
length cast out ; and then such peace, such set- 
tled purpose of obedience, such simple trust in 
Christ took possession of his soul, that thence- 
forward Bunyan ran the race like a victorious 



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REV. JOHN BUNYAN. 185 

competitor of the Olympic games. Such was 
the training of this obscure and humble man 
for the work of the ministry, which, with great 
diffidence and after many misgivings, he en- 
tered upon in the year 1656. "Wherefore," 
says he, "though of myself of all the saints the 
most unworthy, yet I, with great fear and 
trembling at the sight of my own weakness, 
did set upon the work, and did, according to 
my gifts and the proportion of my faith, preach 
that blessed gospel that God had showed me 
_ t in the holy word of truth." 

Who can doubt that Bunyan's genius would 
have been cramped, if not fettered, by the 
learning of the schools? or that a three years ; 
drill in a theological seminary would have rob- 
bed his style of much of its Saxon strength and 
his spirit of much of its ethereal fire? Philip, 
in his Life of Bunyan, says, speaking of Bishop 
Burton's criticisms, "I can now see Burton's 
face lighted up with complacency when he de- 
clared, concerning Bunyan's preparation for 
the ministry, 'He hath, through grace, taken 
three heavenly degrees, namely, union with 
Christ, the anointing of the Spirit, and experi- 
ence of temptation, which do more to fit a man 
for the weighty work of preaching the gospel 



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186 ELOQUENT PBEACHEBS. 

than all the university learning and degrees 
that can be had.' " 

Thus fitted, Bunyan began in a very hum- 
ble way to exhibit his gifts, as the phrase then 
was, and forthwith the people were startled 
and astonished by his earnest, scriptural, and 
unctuous style of preaching. Hundreds flocked 
in from all quarters, and the word as dispensed 
by him was quick and powerful, convincing 
men of their sins, and leading them to hope in 
Jesus. "At this therefore I rejoiced; for the 
tears of those whom God did awaken by my 
preaching would be both solace and encourage- 
ment to me. These things therefore were as 
another argument unto me that God had called 
me to and stood by me in this work." 

Bunyan's first efforts at preaching were 
of the experimental style ; that is, he simply 
preached as he felt. At first it was princi- 
pally of the legal type, and aimed at arousing 
the conscience. *This was owing to the fact 
that his own soul was stirred to its very depths 
by awful views of his just condemnation by the 
law. He went through the land fulminating 
against the vices and sins of his hearers, and 
pouring on their ears the terrors of a hastening 
retribution. But as God revealed to him more 



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BEV. JOHN BUNYAN. 187 

of the hopes and joys of salvation, he exchanged 
the trumpet of condemnation for the harp of 
mercy. "I preached what I smartingly did 
feel — even that under which my poor soul did 
groan and tremble to astonishment. I went 
myself in chains to preach to them in chains. 
Thus I went on for the space of two years, 
crying out against men's sins and their fearful 
state because of them. After which the Lord 
came upon my soul with some pure peace and 
comfort through Christ. Wherefore now I al- 
tered my preaching, for still I preached what 
I saw and felt: now therefore I did much labor 
to hold forth Jesus Christ in all his offices, re- 
lations, and benefits to the world." We can- 
not help asking here, What sort of sermons 
would our audiences now have if, following 
Bunyan's example, ministers preached just 
what they felt? 

It must not be supposed that Bunyan's 
lowly origin and humble occupation rendered 
him coarse or vulgar, for a refined manner and 
courteous bearing is sometimes to be found in 
other circles than those of wealth or high so- 
cial position. " Never," said one who had the 
means of knowing, "was a rougher diamond 
polished into the beauty of holiness. He be- 



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188 ELOQUENT PBEACHEBS. 

came a gentleman too, when tie became a Chris- 
tian. I have heard men of fine tact apply to 
him playfully the expression, He not having 
the law — of good breeding— was a law unto 
himself; thus showing the work of that law 
written on his own heart." We discover in 
the engraved likeness of him an elevation and 
purity of soul beaming in the eye and from 
the brow, which exclude all idea of rusticity or 
coarserfess. The very roughness of the orig- 
inal gem only rendered it the more sparkling 
after it had been cut and set by Him who 
"maketh up his jewels." 

Bunyan's remarkable conversion, taken in 
connection with his humble origin and occupa- 
tion, drew no doubt public attention to his 
preaching. But it is a mistake to suppose that 
these were the principal attractions. The 
power to interest all classes — for the high as 
well as the low flocked to hear him — lay in his 
strong common-sense, his vivid fancy, and his 
unquestioned sincerity. His piety, planted in 
the very depths of his soul, welled up like an 
.overflowing fountain whenever he discoursed 
on themes divine. There was also terrible 
point and directness in his appeals. " Those," 
says his biographer, "who have readBunyan's 



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BEV. JOHN BUBTYAN. 189 

sermons, know well how he could particularize. 
There is a personality as well as point in his 
improvements, which makes individuals stand 
out even to the eye of the reader. We almost 
expect the strain of the appeal to take a new 
turn from some pentecostal outcry." 

And here permit me to introduce a single 
specimen illustrative of the point and lively 
vigor of his preaching. It is from his sermon 
to "Jerusalem sinners." Peter is offering sal- 
vation freely to those who, in Bunyan's own 
strong language, "had their hands up to the el- 
bows in his, " Jesus', * ' heart's blood." ' ' Eepent 
every one of you, for the remission of sins." 
Unable to credit at once the sincerity of this 
offer, the. first cries out, "But /was one of 
those that plotted to take away his life. May 
I he saved?" Peter. "Every one of you." 
"But /," says another, "was one of those that 
bore false witness against him. Is there grace 
for me ?" Peter. "For every one of you." 
"But," says a third, "I was of them that cried 
out, ' Crucify him, crucify him.' What will 
become of me, think you?" Peter. "I am to 
preach remission of sins to every one of you." 
"But I was one of them," exclaims a fourth, 
"that did spit in his face — that mocked him 



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190 ELOQUENT PBEACHEBS. 

when, in anguish, he hung bleeding on the 
tree. Is there room for me?" Peter. "For 
eveif one of you." But this is not all. These 
Jerusalem sinners must have this offer again 
and again. Every one of them must be offered 
grace over and over. What a pitch of grace 
is this ! Christ was minded to amaze the world. 

"Keasons for this offer: 1. Because the 
biggest sinners have most need of mercy. 2. 
Because when they receive such mercy, it re- 
dounds most to the fame of Christ. 3. Because 
others, hearing, will be encouraged the more to 
come to him for life. 4. Because, showing 
mercy to the worst first, Christ most weakens 
the kingdom of Satan. 5. Because the biggest 
sinners, when converted, are usually the best 
helps in the church. 6. Because such, when 
converted, are apt to love Christ most. 7. Be- 
cause by that means the impenitent will be left 
without excuse at the day of judgment." 

Such is an outline of a great sermon, whose 
bold and burning words rang like God's trum- 
pet through the assembly, and made the sin- 
ners of that day feel that while those of Jeru- 
salem, not more hardened than themselves, 
had the offer of mercy, they too were required 
to repent and accept the great salvation. 



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REV. JOHN BUNYAN. 191 

One more extract: it is "the fruitless pro- 
fessor." " Come, Death, smite me this barren 
fig-tree! At this, Death comes into the cham- 
ber with grim looks, and hell following him to 
the bedside. Both stare this fruitless professor 
in the face ; yea, begin to lay hands upon him : 
one smiting him with headache, heartache, 
shortness of breath, fainting, qualms, trembling 
joints, stoppage of the chest, and almost all the 
symptoms of one past recovery; the other 
(hell) casting sparks of fire into the mind 
and conscience. Now he begins to cry, 'Lord, 
spare meP 'Nay/ saith God, 'you have been 
a provocation to me these three years. Take 
him, Death!' 'Oh, good Lord/ saith the sin- 
ner, 'spare me this one time, and I will do 
better. 7 'But will you promise to amend?' 
'Yes, indeed, Lord, and vow it too.' 'Well/ 
saith God, 'Death, let this professor alone for 
this time. He hath vowed to amend his wqys, 
and vows are solemn things. It may be he 
will be afraid to break his vows.' An<J now 
God lays down the axe. At this the poor 
creature is very thankful, and calls on others 
to thank God^." After describing a second 
interview, in equally dramatic and powerful 
style, the professor having proved false to his 



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192 ELOQUENT PEEACHEBS. 

vows, God comes to him with axe in hand for 
the last time. "God's fury cometh up in his 
face. He sweareth in his wrath that they shall 
not enter into his rest. 4 Cut it down; why 
cumbereth it the ground ?' " 

These extracts may give some idea of the 
power which the great allegorist exerted in the 
pulpit. The imagination, however, must sup- 
ply the intense fervor, the expression of face 
and gesture, and the varied intonations of the 
voice. There can be no doubt that Bunyan 
was as eloquent in the pulpit as he was attrac- 
tive with the pen; and that his Pilgrim was 
but an impersonation of himself— that the epic 
beauty of his hero was but a just reflection of 
the real mail-clad soldier of the cross, passing 
through sufferings to glory. 

He often visited London, "where," says 
Southey, "his reputation was so great, that if 
a day's notice was given, the meeting-house at 
Southwark, at which he generally preached, 
would not contain half the people. Twelve 
hundred persons would attend his morning 
meeting in dark winter-time, and three thou- 
sand came to attend him at a towns-end meet- 
ing, where he was fain to be pulled through a 
back door almost over the people to get to the 



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EEV. JOHN BUNYAN, 198 

pulpit. The sermons which he preached at 
Sinners' Hall were those which led Dr. Owen 
to say to Charles II. , when the king upbraided 
him for hearing an illiterate tinker prate, 
'Please your majesty, could I possess that 
tinker's abilities for preaching, I would most 
gladly relinquish all my learning.' " 

The secret of Bunyan's power is to be found 
in a combination of deep, intimate, $nd exper- 
imental acquaintance with his own heart, and 
a thorough knowledge of the Scriptures. . Pen-, 
etrating through and illuminating all, was a 
fancy of the most vigorous and lively kind. 
It was an atmosphere on which the sunlight of 
heaven fell and was refracted in a thousand 
forms of prismatic beauty. Dante's hell was 
not more dreadful than was Bunyan's " Valley 
and Shadow of Death," with its pictured gloom 
and "its goblins damned." Nor was Milton's 
Paradise a more vivid type of heaven than 
was Bunyan's land of Beulah, his Delectable 
HilLs, and his dim but glory-tipped pinnacles 
of the Celestial City. 

Here and there, at long intervals, there is 
a mind of instinctive genius which would be 
spoiled by cultivation. Bunyan's, we think, 
was of this kind. The Saxon strength of his 



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194 ELOQUENT PBEACHEBS. 

language could not have found any help from 
either the Greek or the Latin. His rich and 
powerful imagination, which gave birth to the 
Pilgrim's Progress, would not have soared so 
sublimely into the very precincts of heaven, 
had its wings been bathed in the fountains of 
Helicon instead of the purer waters of Siloam. 
But this example of genius without learning, 
and pulpit power without the training of the 
schools, is no reason for undervaluing learning 
•or the schools wherein it is obtained. There 
has been but one Bunyan, as there has been 
but one Shakspeare. Such geniuses are like 
angels' visits. It would not do to wait for 
them — scarcely to wish for them. Differing 
from each other in glory, the stars,, even the 
smallest, are all needed to illuminate the earth 
and beautify the heavens. Viewing Bunyan : s 
origin, his conversion, his conflicts, his provi- 
dential discipline, all conspiring to make him 
so admirable an instrument in God's hand for 
bringing out and establishing on an immovable 
basis the experimental philosophy of Christian- 
ity, we close by saying that the Christian world 
owes a debt of gratitude not only to the author 
of the Pilgrim's Progress, but to Him whose 
inspiration gave him so fine an understanding* 



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BEV. JAMES SAUBIN. 196 



REV. JAMES SAURIN. 

In 1685 Louis XIV., at the instigation oi 
the Jesuits, revoked the edict of Nantes, by 
which act eighty thousand Protestants were 
driven into exile. " A thousand dreadful 
blows," says Mr. Saurin, " were struck at our 
afflicted churches before that which destroyed 
them; for our enemies, if I may use such an 
expression, not content with seeing our ruin, 
endeavored to taste it." 

The Saurin family fled to Geneva, and 
there James, the eloquent preacher at the 
Hague, was educated. After trying military 
life for a while, he returned to Geneva, and 
under the tuition of some of the most celebrat- 
ed masters, among whom were Pictet and Tur- 
retin, he completed his theological studies in 
1700. He then visited Holland and England. 
In the latter kingdom he staid five years, 
preaching, with great acceptance, to his fellow- 
exiles in the city of London. 

It required no small amount of self-denial 
for a young man of genius, of high family' con- 
nection^, driven from his native home by a 



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196 ELOQUENT PREACHEBS. 

most relentless persecution, to enter the minis- 
try, not knowing where to go nor what might 
befall him. But when the love of Christ moves 
the heart all considerations of expediency 
vanish, and the simple and sublime question 
of duty absorbs and governs the soul. In a 
brief notice of his consecration to the sacred 
office, given by the translator of his sermons, 
there is a just tribute to the lofty self-denial 
of the young preacher. "To dedicate one's 
self to the ministry in a wealthy, flourishing 
church, where rich benefices are every day 
becoming vacant, requires very little virtue, 
and sometimes only a strong propensity to 
vice ; but to choose to be a minister in such a 
poor, banished, persecuted church as that of 
the French Protestants, argues a noble con- 
tempt of the world, and a supreme love to 
God and to the souls of men. These are the 
best testimonials, however, of a young minis- 
ter, whose profession is not to enrich, but to 
save himself and them who hear him." 

His preaching in London was characterized 
by great eloquence and power. The general 
population could not of course appreciate it, 
since it was addressed to his own countrymen, 
and in their own language. Remarking on his 



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BEV. JAMES SAURIN. 197 

dress and address, the writer before alluded to 
says, ' * The former was that of the French clergy, 
the gown and cassock ; the latter was perfectly 
genteel, a happy compound of the affable and 
the grave — at an equal distance from rusticity 
and foppery. His voice was strong, clear, and 
harmonious, and he never lost the management 
of it. His style was pure, unaffected, and elo- 
quent — sometimes plain, and sometimes flowery, 
but never improper, as it was always adapted 
to the audience for whose sake he spoke.' 7 

"An Italian acquaintance of mine," says 
the same writer, "who often heard him at the 
Hague, tells me that in the introduction of his 
sermons he used to deliver himself in a tone 
modest and low. In the body of the sermon, 
which was adapted to the understanding, he 
was plain, clear, an<^ argumentative, pausing 
at the close of each period that he might dis- 
cover, by ftie countenance and motions of his 
hearers, whether they were convinced by his 
reasoning. In his addresses to the wicked he 
was often sonorous, but oftener a. weeping sup- 
pliant at their feet. In the one he sustained 
the authoritative dignity of Itfs office, in the 
other he expressed his Master's and his own 
benevolence to bad men, praying them, in 



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198 ELOQUENT PREACHEBS. 

Christ's stead, to be reconciled to God. In 
general his preaching resembled a plentiful 
shower of dew; softly and imperceptibly insin- 
uating itself into the minds of his numerous 
hearers, till the whole church was dissolved 
and all in tears under his sermons." 

In 1705 he returned to Holland, and being 
invited by the French refugees who had set- 
tled at the Hague to become their pastor, ha 
accepted the invitation, and continued his 
labors among them until he died. The Prince 
of Orange, who had here a spacious palace, 
allowed them the use of its chapel as their 
place of worship, where, every Sunday, Sau- 
rin's ministry was attended by a crowded and 
brilliant audience. Not only was he here lis- 
tened to with the utmost attention and plea- 
sure, but the effects of his ministerial labors 
were seen in the holy lives of great numbers of 
his people. * 

His interview with Queen Caroline, then 
Princess of Wales, is worth relating, not so 
much as a matter of condescension on the part 
of royalty as for the noble testimony which 
she bore to an ^ill-governing Providence. In 
a levee, where many of the clergy were paying 
their respects to her royal highness, then on 



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REV. JAMES SAURIN. 19£ 

her way to England, she singled out Mr. Sau- 
rin, and addressed him as follows: "Do not 
imagine that,, being dazzled with the glory 
which this revolution seems .to promise me, I 
have lost sight of that Grod from whom it pro- 
ceeds. He hath been pleased to distinguish it 
with so many extraordinary marks, that I can- 
not mistake his divine hand ; and as I consider 
this long train of favors as immediately com- 
ing from him, to him alone I consecrate them." 
The same royal lady wrote, requesting Saurin 
to prepare a treatise on the Education of Princes, * 
which he did to her entire satisfaction. 

At this distant date all the means we have 
for judging of the pulpit power of this eminent 
divine are the few hints already quoted, to- 
gether with his published sermons. The lat- 
ter extend through twelve volumes, and are 
regarded by ministers as among the sublimest 
discussions and illustrations of inspired truth. 
There is a simple grandeur in Saurin which 
we meet with nowhere else. More brilliant 
flashes of genius may be found in Jeremy 
Taylor, a more majestic march of sentences in 
Chalmers, a more compact and classic style in 
Hall, and bolder personifications in the impas- 
sioned Whitefield ; but for the clear, onflowing 



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200 ELOQUENT PBEAOHERS. 

current of thought that bears down every thing 
before it, none can exceed this master of pul- 
pit eloquence. Like a river that rolls deep 
and impetuous until it loses itself in the vast 
ocean, his train of thought and reasoning, en- 
livened by occasional flashes of eloquence, ever 
tends to one grand issue — namely, the illus- 
tration of the divine majesty and glory in the 
wondrous work of redemption. We give a few 
brief extracts. He is on the insufficiency of 

, earth to satisfy the soul's desires. 

" Nature is too indigent. It may indeed 
afford us a temperate air, an earth enamelled 
with flowers, trees laden with fruits, and cli- 
mates rich with delights; but all its present 
beauties are inadequate to the love of God; 
and there must be another world, another 
economy, a new heaven and a new earth. 
Our faculties are too indigent. They might, 
indeed admit abundant pleasures; for we are 
capable of knowing, and God could gratify pur 
desire of knowledge. We are capable of 
agreeable sensations, and God is able to give 

-us objects proportionable to our sensations; 
but all these gratifications would be too little 
to express the love of God to us. Our facul- 
ties must be renewed, and in some sense new 



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BEY. JAMES SAUBIN. 201 

cast ; the natural body must become a spiritual 
body, so that by means of more delicate or- 
gans we may enjoy more exquisite pleasures. 
Society is too indigent ; although society might 
become an ocean of pleasure to us. There are 
men whose friendships are fall of charms, and 
God is able to place us among such amiable 
characters in this world; but society hath 
nothing great enough to express the love of 
God to us. We must be introduced to the 
society of glorified saints, and to thousands of 
angels and happy spirits, who are capable of 
more magnanimity and delicacy than all that 
we can imagine here. Religion itself is too in- 
digent, although it might open to us a source 
of delight. Yet even religion can afford noth- 
ing here below that can sufficiently express 
the love of God to us. We must be admitted 
into that state in which there is neither temple 
nor sun, because God supplieth the place of 
bQ|h. We are to behold God, not surrounded 
with such a handful of people as this, but with 
thousand thousands and ten thousand times 
ten thousand, who stand continually before 
him. We must see God, not in the display of 
his grace in our churches, but in all the mag- 
nificence of his glory in heaven. From what 

9* 



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202 ELOQUENT PBEAOHEBS. 

sources do those rivers of pleasure flow? It 
is love which lays up all this goodness for us. 

" Let us mediiate on the love of Grod, who, 
being supremely happy himself, communieateth 
perfect happiness to us. Supreme happiness 
doth not make Grod forget us ; shall the miser- 
able comforts of this life make us forget him ? 
Our attachments to this life are so strong, the 
acquaintances we have contracted in this world 
so many, and the relations we bear so tender, 
we are, in a word, so habituated to live, that 
we need not wonder if it cost us a good deal 
to be willing to die. But this attachment to 
life which, when it proceeds only to a certain 
degree, is a sinless infirmity, becomes one of 
the most criminal dispositions when it exceeds 
its just limits. It is not right that the objects 
of divine love should lose sight of their chief 
good in a world where, after their best en- 
deavors, there will be too many obstacles be- 
tween them and Grod. It. is not right that 
rational creatures, who have h^ard of the 
pure, extensive, and munificent love of Grod 
to them, should be destitute of the most ar- 
dent desires of a closer reunion to him than 
any that can be attained in this life. One 
single moment's delay should give us pain; 



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REV. JAMES SAURIN. 208 

and if we wish to live, it should be only to 
prepare to die." 

Such thoughts as the above show that he 
who uttered them must have had his conver- 
sation in heaven, and must have known what 
it is to be " crucified to the world." It is spir- 
itual eloquence. It is the echo of Paul's im- 
patient but triumphant declaration, "I have 
a desire to depart, and to be with Christ." He 
speaks to us as from a higher atmosphere, say- 
ing, l( Come up hither." Like the transfigura- 
tion scene, the glory and brightness are such 
that they ravish, while at the same time they 
confound us. Saurin's eloquence has much of 
the aroma of heaven. It seems laden with the 
balm of the tree of life, and regales the sym- 
pathies of the soul as odoriferous plants do the 
senses of the body. He is more of a Barnabas 
than a Boanerges. Love is the more natural 
atmosphere than terror, and his tears flow more 
frequently over man's misery, than do his 
threateningstover man's guilt. Profound and 
even sublime as are some of his discourses, yet 
the gentle element of love, like a transparent 
veil, is spread over all, giving a softened aspect 
to truths which might otherwise seem harsh or 
repulsive. • 



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204 ELOQUENT PBEACHEBS. 



JOHN BAPTIST MASSILLON- 

If Saurin may be regarded as a fine type 
of the Protestant clergy of France, Massillon, 
with equal justice, may represent the flower of 
the Papal ministry. As pulpit orators, it might 
be difficult to decide which of these eminent 
divines should bear the palm. Differing some- 
what in their mental character, they yet pos- 
sessed some traits in common. They were 
both extremely sensitive in their nervous 
structure. They were wholly absorbed in the 
duties of their profession. Both seemed obliv- 
ious of self, and intent only on the promotion 
of religion and the salvation of souls. They 
rose above the fear of man, and sought only to 
approve themselves in the sight of God. But 
Saurin was an exile, while Massillon was the 
court preacher, and for a time the admired of 
all admirers. Louis XIV. expelled Saurin 
from the kingdom, but sat down at the feet of 
Massillon, declaring, with truth no doubt, that 
"while other preachers made him think highly 
of their characters, Massillon sent him away 
dissatisfied with his own.'± What a pity that 



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JOHN BAPTIST MASSILLON. 205 

his dissatisfaction never ripened into peni- 
tence! The convenient season with him, us 
with another tyrant, never seemed to arrive. 

Massillon was of lowly origin. "The ob- 
scurity of his birth," says D'Alembert, "should 
be the first topic of his praise ; and it may be 
said of him, as of that illustrious Roman who 
owed nothing to his ancestors : He was the 
son of himself alone." He entered, at the age 
of seventeen, into the oratory, to prepare him- 
self for the high and sacred duties of the most 
noble of professions. It was soon evident to 
his teachers that his talents pointed him out as 
a great preacher, and they predicted for him 
a celebrity which his subsequent career not 
only realized, but exceeded. By nature ex- 
cessively modest — by grace more than modest, 
truly and evangelically humble, he shrunk 
frofn the notoriety to which his brilliant tal- 
ents necessarily exposed him. Alarmed at his 
own popularity, and feeling within himself the 
suggestions #f vanity, he determined, as he 
said, "to escape from the demon of pride." 
Accordingly he buried himself in the abbey 
of Sept Fons, taking Ihe habit and following 
out all the rigid austerities of the brethren of 
La Trappe. 



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20fl ELOQUENT PBEACHERS. 

A circumstance, seemingly fortuitous, called 
him out of this monkish solitude, and obliged 
him to return to the great theatre of Parisian 
life. The cardinal of Noailles, who had dis- 
covered this gem buried in the distant abbey, 
determined to bring it out and polish it for 
a higher destiny. He summoned Massillon 
to come to him, and placing him in the Semi- 
nary of St. Magloire at Paris, he exhorted him 
to cultivate pulpit eloquence. Ever obedient 
to his superiors, Massillon took this course. 
Here he perfected himself in the divine art, 
and when he resumed the pulpit, his very first 
sermons electrified the hearers and eclipsed all 
the most popular preachers of that day. 

Massillon struck out for himself anew path. 
He determined not to preach according to the 
then reigning taste of the French pulpit. The 
preachers most popular and of the greatest 
celebrity, such as Bourdaloue and Bossuet'bad 
dealt in sacred logic and profound research, 
giving food to the intellect, rather than feeling 
to the heart. Massillon determined at once to 
storm the citadel. He assumed that men 
needed to have the conscience roused, rather 
than the reason convinced; that their innate 
sense of religious obligation needed stirring to 



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JOHN BAPTIST MASSILLON. 207 

a greater power of self-condemnation. In one 
word, that repentance, true sorrow for sin, was 
the first step in a religious life. He saw in all 
around him, from the monarch to the meanest 
of his subjects, the entire reign of pride and 
sensuality. What men needed was conviction 
of sin, conversion of heart. These emotions 
could be produced, not by appeals to the in- 
tellect, but by carrying the light of God's sim- 
ple truth into the dark and disordered soul. 
He determined therefore to explore and ana- 
lyze the motives, the passions, and the princi- 
ples of human nature, and show how at vari- 
ance they were with the law of God and the 
purity of the gospel. He determined also to 
draw men to the cross, and make them see 
that, while they might well despair of salva- 
tion in view of their own depraved character 
and conduct, yet, by faith in the great Sacri- 
fice, there was hope for even the chief of sin- 
ners. 

Such were the views of this great preacher, 
and in carrying them out, all Paris seemed to 
recognize their truth and their efficiency. 
Such was the plan of Massillon, and he exe- 
cuted it like one who had conceived it ; that 
is, like a master. He excels in that part of 



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208 ELOQUENT PBEAOHERS. 

oratory which may stand instead of all the 
rest — that eloquence which goes right to the 
soul, but which agitates without confounding, 
appalls without crushing, penetrates without 
lacerating it. He goes to the bottom of the 
heart in search of those hidden folds in which 
the passions are enwrapped, those secret soph- 
isms which they so artfully employ to blind, 
and seduce us. 

Dealing thus in the deep principles and 
passions which sway the universal heart, Mas- 
sillon was listened to with interest by all 
classes. The rich and the poor, the nobility 
and the plebeian, all recognized his power, as 
from the sacred desk he showed them their 
corruption of heart and life, the obligation of 
repentance, and pointed out to thfem the cross, 
the only hope which God had set before them. 
It was this kind of preaching which called to- 
gether such crowds, and which, delivered in 
tones of thrilling eloquence, not unmingled 
with tears, drew them at times from their 
seats, and obliged them to ask the great ques- 
tion, What must we do to be saved? 

Preaching on the occasion of the death of 
the Dauphin, the introduction of his discourse 
was said to be the most impressive and affect- 



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JOHN BAPTIST MASSILLON. 209 

ing ever heard on a similar occasion. The 
cathedral was hung in black and lighted dimly 
by tapers. At the foot of the high altar lay, 
enshrouded in ftineral pomp, the smitten hope 
of the empire. The triumph of death could 
not have been more complete. Ascending the 
pulpit with solemn air, and surveying in si- 
lence the mortal remains of the Dauphin, he 
broke the awful stillness with these words: 
" There is none great but God." At the in- 
stant, the whole audience in tears arose and 
bowed towards the altar. . . 

As court preacher, Massillon had a difficult 
and delicate task to perform. He must min- 
gle respect with fidelity. Without flattering 
the vanity, he must rebuke the vices of roy- 
alty. With a due regard to forms, he must 
not withhold the stern mandates of Jehovah. 
Making allowance for human weakness and 
difference of position, he must deliver God's 
/ commands to the high as well as to the low. 
How he discharged this duty may be known 
by what D'Alembert has said of the exordium 
of his first discourse before Louis XIV., who 
was then in the zenith of his power and glory, 
and admired by all Europe, adored by his 
subjects, intoxicated with adulation and sati- 



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210 ELOQUENT PREACHERS. 

ated with homage. Massillon took for his text 
a passage of Scripture apparently least applica- 
ble to such a prince: " Blessed are they that 
mourn." " Sire," said he, " if the world were 
here speaking of your majesty, it would not 
address you with, Blessed are they that mourn. 
Blessed, would it say, the prince who never 
fought but to conquer ; who has filled the uni-. 
verse with his. name; who, in the course of a 
long and flourishing reign, has enjoyed with 
splendor all that men admire — the greatness 
of his conquests, the love of his people, the 
esteem of his enemies, the wisdom of his laws. 
But, sire, the gospel speaks not as the world 
speaks." 

Massillon's manner was comparatively qui- 
et, though intensely earnest and sympathetic. 
He made a few gestures, and usually spoke 
from memory. But his whole soul was deeply 
moved by the lofty sentiments or the faithful ^ 
warnings which he uttered ; and communicat- 
ing his own emotions to his hearers, he wielded 
their passions at his will, awakening terrible 
convictions, or drawing from eyes unaccus- 
tomed to weep the tears of contrition. His 
whole air and manner, it is said, impressed the 
beholder with the idea of great personal holi- 



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JOHN BAPTIST MASSILLON. 211 

ness, and prepared the way for that candid and 
courteous bearing which men never fail to give 
to the upright and the sincere. "His action," 
remarks D'Alembert, "was perfectly suited to 
his species of eloquence. On entering the pul- 
pit, he appeared thoroughly penetrated with 
the truths he was about to utter. With eyes 
declined, a modest and collected air, animat- 
ing the whole discourse with a voice of sensi- 
bility, he diffused over the audience the relig- 
ious emotion which his own exterior proclaim- 
ed, and caused himself to be listened to with 
that profound silence by which eloquence is 
better praised than by the loudest applauses." 
Modest and humble as Massillon was, obliv- 
ious of self, and seemingly almost unconscious 
wherein his great power as an orator consisted, 
yet his popularity drew upon him the usual 
venom of disappointed rivals. Efforts were 
made to cast a shade upon his character, to 
banish* him from the metropolis, and to bury 
him in the obscurity of a distant bishopric. 
Unjust as this treatment was, he was not un- 
willing to retire from the glare and grandeur 
of Parisian life, and he found more real happi- 
ness in feeding his humble flock at Clermont, 
than in listening to the praises of congregated 



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212 ELOQUENT PBEAOHERS. 

thousands at Notre Dame. Never was there 
a parochial charge where greater wisdom and 
beneficence were exhibited on the part of the 
incumbent, or where greater reverence and 
gratitude were felt and manifested on the part 
of the parishioners. "His diocese/' says his 
biographer, "preserves the remfimbrance of 
his deeds after thirty years, and his Memory 
is daily honored with the most eloquent of 
funeral orations— those of the tears of a hun- 
dred thousand distressed objects. During his- 
lifetime Tie had anticipated this testimony. 
When he appeared in the streets of Clermont, 
the people prostrated themselves before him, 
crying, ' Long live our father!' " 

The sermons of this great pulpit orator are 
read even now with great delight; Deeper 
revelations of the human heart, or warmer ex- 
patiations on the love of God, can be found 
nowhere else. . They literally glow with the 
combined radiance of piety and of genius. We 
feel their author's spirit as we read. Though 
transplanted from a warm and genial, because 
natural bed, to a colder and more rigid soil, 
yet do these floral beauties retain much of their 
gracefulness and their perfume. Massillon is 
an example of the power of emotional preach- 



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JOHN BAPTIST MASSILLON. 213 

ing. He dealt, as we have said, with the heart 
His reasonings were less to illustrate the theory 
than to enforce the practice of religion. He as- 
sumed that, while the judgment and conscience 
were on the side of God and duty, the selfish 
and sensual passions stood out against their 
claims. These he aimed to expose and batter 
down. And where is there a pulpit orator who 
had greater power in these respects ? Let his 
example teach others. Instead of slow ap- ' 
proaches to the resisting mind by processes of 
reasoning, let us carry the convictions of the 
understanding by first assailing the conscience 
and the heart. Easier far is it to bring over 
the judgment, after the affections are moved, 
than to move the affections by first convincing 
the understanding. Without carrying this idea 
to an extreme, we do think, if more would 
preach like Massillon, as to aim d!Bd object, 
even though not as eloquently hurling the ar- 
rows of truth directly at the heart, than like 
Barrow or Emmons commending religion by 
the beauty of its theory and the reasonableness 
of its claims, we should soon see a new and 
deeper impulse flowing from the pulpit, and a 
more tender and yielding acquiescence in those 
who sit beneath its teachings. 



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214 ELOQUENT PREACHEBS. 



MARTIN LUTHER. 

If Wickliffe was the morning star of the 
Reformation, Luther was its sun — fall-orbed 
and glorious. No name stands higher on the 
heraldic legends of the past. The whole Prot- 
estant world pronounces it with reverence. 
Even his enemies concede his greatness, while 
they attempt to disparage his virtues. But 
Luther is known as a reformer rather than as 
a preacher; and even in the latter capacity 
we usually imagine him fulminating against 
the dogmas of Rome, rather than feeding the 
flock of Christ. But we do him injustice by 
associating him so entirely with the church 
militant. Never was there a more powerful 
preacher,*hever one more eloquent and per- 
suasive. He was a natural orator. We re- 
member a classical maxim, "Poeta nascitur, 
orator fit;" but we think the elements which 
constitute the true orator are as dependent on 
native genius as is the inspiration of the true 
poet. In both cases education may improve, 
but cannot create the character. There must 
be light and heat, knowledge and sensibility, 



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MARTIN LUTHEB. 216 

or there can be no true oftitory. The soul 
that kindles, the eye that flashes, the mind 
that seizes and grasps' the thought, the speech 
that gives that thought its most forcible ex- 
pression, these are the elements of oratory, 
secular oi> sacred, and these Luther had in an 
eminent degree. 

"His parents," says Melancthon, "took 
especial care in their daily instructions to 
educate their son in the knowledge and fear ot 
Grod, and in a sense of his duty. The youth 
soon displayed great talents, and particularly 
an inclination to eloquence. With great ease 
he surpassed his school-fellows in copiousness 
of language, both in prose and verse ; and if 
he had been so fortunate as to have met with 
suitable teachers, his great capacity would 
have enabled him to go through all the 
sciences." His father intended him for the 
law, but Martin preferred the cloister. His 
deep religious feeling sought the congenial at- 
mosphere of the monastic habit, and he chose 
the order of St. Augustine., as marked by a 
higher devotion and a more rigid self-denial 
than were found in some of the other monas- 
teries. 

Not satisfied with the dialectics of the 



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216 ELOQUENT PREACHERS. 

schools — Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas — Lu- 
ther groped around the musty library at Erfurt 
until his hand fell upon an old Latin Bible. 
God had put it there expressly for Mm. His 
path had been dark, and his feet had stum- 
bled. Here was a light unto his feet and a 
lamp unto his path. He seized the treasure, 
pressed it to his heart, and thenceforward be- 
came the champion of the Reformation. 

But educated as Luther had been to abso- 
lute submission to the hierarchy, his first move- 
ment was simply to raise his own spiritual 
temper to the gospel standard. The instru- 
ment must be fitted for the work. Terrible 
conflicts with his own heart must precede the 
successful attacks upon papal, corruptions. He 
must know in his own soul what was needed. 
The rotten foundation must give way under 
him. He must set his own feet firmly on the 
rock, before he can assail and demolish the 
vain subterfuges of popery. This experience 
he gained by a nearer contact with Rome, 
visiting the headquarters of corruption, and 
seeing with his own eyes the chambers of im- 
agery. Here it was, ascending on his knees 
the "Scala Santa," he heard a voice from his 
Latin Bible saying, "This is not the way of 



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MABTIN LUTHEB. 217 

justification. ' The just shall live by foith. ? w 
He trembled, and turned his eyes upon the 
cross. Saving gained light, he returned to 
his home to diffuse it. He gaw into the delu- 
/ sions by which the popular mind was deceived 
and the souls of the people destroyed. His 
war upon indulgences broke out more from 
hatred of error than from opposition to Eome. 
He was still a sincere Romanist, so far as^)apal 
authority and the decrees of councils were con- 
cerned ; but when Rome undertook to endorse 
the mission of Tetzel, and. by a necessary con- 
sequence to put down all who inveighed against 
the sale of indulgences, his spirit was stirred 
within him, as was Paul's in view of the Athe- 
nian idolatries. Thenceforward he took his 
stand against "the mother of abominations." 

The career of this wonderful man has been 
by many competent and by some very elo- 
quent writers minutely described. Indeed 
few there are who are ignorant of the events 
with which his name is associated. He was 
an acknowledged instrument of God in the 
great work assigned him. Unconscious in the 
preparation, he was so in the inception, the 
progress, and the completion. But the quali- 
ties of the man were essential to the prosecu- 

■eqMBt PrMchtr*. 10 



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218 ELOQUENT PBEACHERS. 

tion of the work. With less iron vigor he 
would have fainted, with less courage he would 
have sucQumbed, with less conscientiousness 
he would have compromised. His frame and 
figure were almost leonine. His piercing eye, 1 
his voice, sweet when low, but when raised to 
high, impassioned utterances, breaking in thun- 
der peals, gave one the idea of a sort of pulpit 
Jupifer. Maimbourg the Jesuit describes him 
as " possessing a quick and penetrating genius, 
remarkably strong and healthy, with a san- 
guine bilious temperament. His eyes were 
piercing and foil of fire, his voice sweet but 
vehement when once fairly raised. He had a 
stern countenance, and though most intrepid 
and high spirited, he could assume the appear- 
ance of modesty and humility whenever he 
pleased, which, however, was not often the 
case." Yarillas, a celebrated French histo- 
rian, speaks of Luther as follows: "This Au- 
gustine monk united in his single person all 
the good and all the bad qualities of the hie- 
rarchy of his time. To robustness, health, and 
industry of a German, nature seems to have 
added the spirit and. vivacity of an Italian. 
Nobody exceeded him in philosophy and scho- 
lastic theology, nobody equalled him in the 



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MABTIN LUTHEfc. 219 

art of speaking. He was a most perfect mas- 
ter of eloquence. He had completely discov- 
ered where lay the strength or the weakness 
of the human mind, and accordingly he knew 
how to render his attacks successful. How- 
ever various and discordant might be the pas- 
sions of his'audience, he could manage them to 
his own purposes, for he presently saw the 
ground on which they stood ; and even if the 
subject was too difficult for much argument, he 
carried his point by popular illustration and 
the use of figures. In ordinary conversations 
he displayed the same power over the affec- 
tions which he had so often demonstrated in 
the professional chair and the pulpit. No 
man, either of his own time or since, spoke or 
wrote the German language, or understood its 
niceties better than Luther. Often, when he 
had made his first impression by bold strokes 
of eloquence, or by a bewitching pleasantry of 
conversation, he completed his triumphs by 
the eloquence of his German style." 

Such is the account of Luther by the ene- 
mies of the Reformation ; and if to these con- 
cessions, there be added the usual aspersions 
on his character, we need not disbelieve the 
former, because we may reasonably suspect 



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220 ELOQUENT PREACHERS. 

the motives of the latter. From all that ap- 
pears then, Luther was mighty in word as well 
a£ in deed. He possessed the elements of 
greatness, whether we regard his character 
simply, or what can hardly be separated from 
his character, his intellectual vigor, and his 
profound learning. In his mind there was an 
adaptation to the very genius of his native 
language. Bold, terse, expressive, simple, it 
needed for its highest development just such 
an intellect, combined with just such a high 
impassioned soul, and it never exhibited its 
gothic grandeur before or since on a more 
massive foundation. 

We entirely mistake if we view Luther in 
the light simply of a great controvertist, as- 
sailing with ponderous logic the ramparts of 
the Romish hierarchy. True, he was from 
necessity pushed into the front rank, and be- 
came the rallying point of the great Protestant 
cause ; but he was, nevertheless, a man of the 
people. He excelled not more in silencing the 
proud advocates of the papacy than in his 
sway over the popular heart. If the one had 
reason to fear him, the other had no less rea- 
son to admire and love him. He was the man 
for the masses. Crowding the cathedrals where 



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MABTIN LUTHEB. 221 

he preached, they hung upon his lips in breath- 
less silence, and received his appeals as the 
soldiers of an army receive the call of their 
fovorite general to arms. Every man stood 
ready to follow Luther to victory or to the 
stake. Since the apostle Paul's day never 
had the cause of truth a more fearless or a 
more eloquent champion. His journey to 
Worms, where awaited him in state grandeur 
the emperor and Rome's haughty nuncio, was 
that of a conqueror rather than of a culprit 
It was paved, every step of it, with popular 
benedictions. The people seemed almost ready 
to kiss the very ground on which he trod. 
And while at Worms, Luther was a sort of 
sovereign. His hotel was thronged with ad- 
miring crowds, and the whole heart of Ger- 
many pulsated with sympathy in his behalf. 
It would be hard to find in history a sublimer 
scene than was witnessed when the Augustine 
monk, with the banner of Frederick the Wise 
floating over his head, appeared in that Diet, 
to vindicate Grod's truth against the most sub- 
tle and powerful imposture that the world has 
ever seen. Thus it was when Paul in chains 
appeared before Agrippa aud Felix, ot when 
Huss stood up for Christ, with the flames of 



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222 ELOQUENT PBEACHEBS. 

martyrdom roaring in his ears. Here was 
the young emperor, canopied in crimson, with 
power to bind or to loose ; and here were the 
representatives of Rome, vieing in grandeur 
with Charles himself, and overawing even him 
with the slumbering thunders of the Vatican. 
Here also were gathered the nobles of the em- 
pire, with sympathies for or against the accus- 
ed, while crowds of the excited populace were 
thronging the avenues of the place, and await- 
ing in breathless anxiety the issue of the con- 
troversy. Luther was calm. God was his 
refuge and strength. He knew the ground on 
which he stood. He knew the weakness of 
his adversaries — weak, not in talents, but in 
the cause which they supported. We cannot 
omit a few sentences of his memorable speech. 
It shows the man. It was delivered first in 
German, afterwards in Latin. "I stand here 
in obedience to the commands of his most 
serene imperial majesty and the most illus- 
trious princes, and I earnestly entreat them 
that they would deign to listen to this cause 
with clemency. It will appear, I trust, to be 
the cause of truth and justice ; and therefore if, 
through ignorance, I should fail to give proper 
titles to each of the dignified personages who 



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• MABTIN LUTHEB. 263 

hear me, or if in any other respect I should 
show myself defective in politeness, they will 
be pleased to accept my apology with candor. 
I have not been accustomed to the refinements 
of the court, but to the cloisters of the monas- 
> tery ; nor of myself have I any thing further 
to say, than that hitherto I have read lectures 
and composed books with that simplicity of 
mind which only regards the glory of God and 
the instruction of mankind." 

Such are the introductory words of an ad- 
dress which consumed about two hours in the 
delivery. It produced an overwhelming im- 
pression. The papal legate turned pale under 
it. The pliant and politic Charles wrote out 
his verdict against it; but all Germany said 
Amen to it. It was the triumph of reason and 
of eloquence. The very foundations of Rome 
shook under it. Had not Frederick secured 
the promise of safe conduct to Luther, he 
would no doubt have been disposed of by the 
vengeful and mortified delegates of the hie- 
rarchy. But God was his refuge, and covered 
his head in the day of battle. 

We have alluded to the scene at Worms 
partly to show Luther's power as an orator 
and his courage as a Chpistian hero. But it 



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224 ELOQUENT PREACHERS. - 

would not be doing justice to this good man if 
we merged his qualities as a preacher in his 
celebrity as a reformer. "His heart," says 
Milner, " was not in these noisy and conten- 
tious scenes. Instruction of youth in divinity 
and preaching the gospel of Christ he consid- < 
ered as his proper business. He used to la- 
ment the peculiar infelicity of the age, by 
which he was obliged to waste in controver- 
sies so many hours that might have been bet- 
ter employed in guiding souls into the way of 
salvation." 

This shows on what his heart was set. He 
loved the pulpit more than the controversial 
platform, and was happier in dispensing the 
word than in defeating his theological oppo- 
nents. How beautifully he commences one of 
his sermons. It was on his return to his flock 
at Wittemburg. "My presence among my 
people is absolutely necessary. I must live 
with them; I must talk to them; I must hear 
them speak ; I must guide them, and do them 
all the good I can. They are my children in 
Christ, and my consciejice will not permit me 
to be absent from them any longer." Having 
made this apology to the Elector for his sudden 
departure from Wartburg, he begins his dis* 



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MARTIN LUTHER. ^6 

• 

course as follows : " I am allowed to sound the 
gospel in your ears once more. By and by 
death will come, and then we can do one an- 
other no good. How necessary therefore is it, 
that every individual should be furnished with 
the principles which are to support him in that 
awful hour. These principles are the great doc- 
trines of Christianity, and by treasuring them 
up in your memories, you will act like wise 
men, and be fortified against the attacks of the 
enemy." He then gives a condensed view of 
the great doctrines of the gospel, and con- 
cludes with these noble sentiments: "This 
same word of God has given such a blow to 
papal despotism as not one of the German 
princes — not even the emperor himself — could 
have done. It is not I; I repeat it, it is the 
divine word which has done every thing. 
Had it been right to aim at a reform by vio- 
lence and tumults, it would have been easy 
for me to deluge Germany with blood. Nay, 
had I been tn the least inclined to promote 
sedition, it was in my power when I was at 
Worms to endanger the safety of even thei 
emperor himself. He devil smiles in secret 
when men pretend to support religion by sedi- 
tious tumults ; but he is cut to the heart when 

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226 ELOQUENT PREACHERS. 

he sees them, in faith and patience, rely on 
the written word." 

How admirable are such sentiments, show- 
ing not only that Luther was the farthest from 
fanaticism, but that he was oblivious of self. 
His whole soul was swallowed up in the pro- 
motion of Christ's kingdom. To this sublime 
end he devoted all his talents, his zeal, and 
his learning. To accomplish it he hazarded 
his reputation and his life —7 confronting the 
imperial will and the indomitable hatred of 
Rome. He gave his days and nights to study, 
translating the whole Bible into German, and 
leaving it as the most precious legacy to his 
countrymen. He was especially the favorite 
of the people. His stormy, stirring, ofttimes 
overwhelming eloquence carried captive every 
heart, and made him the most beloved, as he 
was the most popular preacher in Germany. 
Like Peter in ardor, like Paul in zeal and 
learning, and like John in the overflowing af- 
fection of his Christian heart, he seemed to 
combine in his character the virtues of these 
great leaders of primitive Christianity. But 
we claim not for him the virtues without the 
weaknesses of those sainted men. We admit 
that he was irritable — as men of such strong 



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MARTIN LUTHER. 227 

traits of character are apt to be — also perhaps 
that he indulged too much his propensity to 
humor; yet if no other delinquency can be 
charged upon him, we think that even his 
most virtuous censors can scarcely be justified 
in casting the first stone. For ourselves, we 
admire that sacred hilarity in Luther, lighting 
up the cloister, and shedding a radiance around 
the social conclave. With work such as he 
had to do, carrying in his troubled, anxious 
bosom a mountain weight of care and anxiety, 
it was merciful, as it was needful, that he 
should be endowed with the sunshine of a 
mirthful and buoyant spirit. Irritable ! Who 
could have been composed when Herods were 
mocking and Pharisees were scorning, and 
even professed friends were calling upon him 
to save himself and let the truth go ? We par- 
don his ebullitions, knowing that for the most 
part they were a sort of protest against cow- 
ardice and selfish cunning. But in Luther we 
discover, as the moral battle goes on, more 
faith and less human feeling, more calm confi- 
dence and less perturbation. At length we 
see the stormy passions subsiding into a gen- 
tle, childlike meekness and patience, that char- 
acterized him under the greatest bodily agony, 



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ELOQUENT PBEACHERS. 

mil til death closed the scene and the suffering. 
He had fought the good fight, and finished his 
conrse. Farewell, brave soldier of the cross. 
The victories of truth over error, in which 
thou didst bear so conspicuous a part, are re- 
sounding on our harps still ; and far distant be 
the day when they shall cease to awaken our 
gratitude, or to employ onr songs. 



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THE APOSTLE PAUL. 229 



THE APOSTLE PAUL. 

To close the catalogue of eloquent divines 
with a venerated apostle may seem at first 
view like placing a ladder between earth and 
heaven. But we do not propose to bring down 
the inspired teacher to a level with the unin- 
spired. We only wish to give the character- 
istics of that power as a preacher, which distin- 
guished him even from his inspired colaborers ; 
and which, together with his high moral qual- 
ities, render him for all time the great exem- 
plar of the Christian ministry. In this view, 
we think Saint Paul ought to close and crown 
the honored list. 

Though an inspired apostle, Paul's power 
as a preacher was intimately connected with 
the natural and cultivated qualities of his mind 
and heart. "In a great house, there are ves- 
sels of wood and of stone," which have their 
uses. "There are also vessels of gold and of 
silver," fitted for a higher ministration. Paul 
was one (5f the latter. 

He was born and nursed in one of the most 
polished cities of the empire. Thence, at an 



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280 ELOQUENT PREACHERS. 

early age, he was sent to the metropolis of the 
Jews, where the schools of the prophets offered 
the best advantages for ecclesiastical culture. 
His master was the most renowned of the rab- 
bins. At his feet he became versed in all the 
Hebrew lore which ages had accumulated, and 
in all the traditions which long centuries had 
transmitted. The scholar was worthy of the 
master. His original endowments were of the 
highest order, combining in one mind the va- 
ried attributes which are usually distributed 
among many. 

The conversion of this eminent man was 
one of the great events in the early history of 
Christianity. Such a mind as his, such a tem- 
perament, such relations as he sustained to 
the Roman government and to the Jewish re- 
ligion — his age, his energy, his indomitable 
spirit, all conspire to stamp his conversion as 
the great event of primitive times. Not only 
was that age interested and influenced, but all 
ages; not only the world as it then was, but 
the world now and for ever. Such an example 
lives. Such writings live. Such a spirit lives* 
They can never die — never. 

The persecution which drove the disciples 
out of Jerusalem poured the light of the gospel 



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THE APOSTLE PAUL. 231 

upon the isles of the levant and npon the 
cities of Asia Minor. Antioch became the 
centre of Christian influence ; so that, if Jndea 
was the birthplace of Christianity, Antioch 
may be called its cradle. Here the church 
entrenched itself under the labors of Paul and 
Barnabas. The sacred name of its founder 
was written on it indelibly. The disciples 
were called Christiana first at Antioch. We 
will not stop to inquire by whom this name 
was suggested ; whether by enemies as a term 
of reproach, or by friends as the highest title 
of honor ; but we hold in sweet remembrance 
a city where the banner bearing on it that glo- 
rious name was first unfurled, the sure pledge 
of strength to suffer and strength to conquer. 

From this moral citadel Paul went forth 
on his first great mission as a preacher to the 
Gentiles. He plunged at once into the very 
centre of heathenish corruptions. He struck 
at " wickedness in high places." Cyprus, his 
first field, was famed for its sensuality and de- 
bauchery. Here the world-renowned goddess 
of beauty had her shrines, and living men were 
sacrificed annually to her imaginary charms. 
Hellish arts and incantations also were here 
practised. It was a bold stroke to put the gos- 



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'232 ELOQUENT PREACHEES. 

pel into contact with such a population. But 
the Christian orator hesitated not; and see how 
he triumphed. Under his preaching the gov- 
ernor himself became a convert. 

At Lystra, a city of Lycaonia, an event 
occurred which brought to view Paul's distin- 
guished talents as a sacred orator. The inhab- 
itants, witnessing a remarkable miracle wrought 
by the hands of the apostles, were impressed 
with the idea that the gods had come down to 
them in the shape of men. - They accordingly 
proceeded to tender them divine honors. Bar- 
nabas they called Jupiter; but Paul, being the 
chief speaker, the orator of the occasion, they 
called Mercurius, or the god of eloquence. 
What higher compliment could have been giv- 
en to Paul's oratorical powers? 

His great preacher, after covering with 
his labors the principal cities of Asia, reached 
at length the port of Troas,. and cast an eye 
across theJEgean sea to the shores of Europe, 
He heard from thence a call to come over and 
shed on the classic soil of Greece the l^ht of 
the gospel. Her philosophers had taught her 
lessons of human wisdom. Her sculptors had 
filled her cities with temples and altars and 
statues, until the marble could be moulded into 



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THE APOSTLE PAUL. 233 

lio new forms of grandeur or of beauty. She 
had her poets, her warriors, and her sages. 
The tramp of her legions had made the earth 
to tremble; but she worshipped an "unknown 
God." That "unknown God" Paul longed to 
declare unto them, under the forms and doc- 
trines of the gospel. Philippi and Corinth 
and Athens with all their grandeur lay bur- 
ied in the midnight of superstition. To these 
proud cities, corrupt and licentious as they 
were proud, the humble preacher of the cross 
makes his way. He carries with him only 
'one theme — the cross. All his eloquence is to 
take its inspiration from this. All his hope of 
success is centred here. "The gospel is the 
power of God unto salvation." This grand 
idea filled his soul, and made him fear no op- 
position and feel no solicitude. 

In the cities of Philippi and Corinth, Thes- 
salonica and Berea — indeed everywhere, was 
soon heard the note of gospel triumph rising 
above that of heathenish opposition. Perse- 
cuted the preacher was, but his appeals and 
reasonings found their way into the hearts of 
thousands, and churches sprung up to testify 
to the truth of his doctrine and to the con- 
vincing eloquence with which it was enforced. 



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284 ELOQUENT PREACHERS. 

Without derogating from the divine power 
which made Paul's preaching thus effective in 
the pulling down of these strong-holds of wick- < 
edness, we may assert that that power was not 
the less illustrious because operating through 
so fine a medium. God chooses his own instru- 
ments to do his own work. In this case, there 
vfas between the workman and the work a 
beautiful and admirable consistency. The 
shaft was polished by a divine hand before it 
was sped. Hie philosophy of the heathen 
sages was to be assailed, and it pleased God 
to commit the moral warfare to a well-drilled 
soldier. The popular superstition, enshrining 
itself in a thousand forms of artistic beauty — 
in temples, in altars, in statues — crowning ev- 
ery hill-top, haunting every stream and grove, 
obtruding itself even into the sacredness of 
domestic life: this superstition, having such 
deep foundations, was to be overthrown. The 
iconoclast must have not only a strong arm, 
but a heaven-inspired elocution. He must be 
a man who had studied the origin and the aim 
and the debasing qualities of this idolatry. 
Such was Paul; and in choosing him as the 
agent, under a divine inspiration, to accom- 
plish this mighty work, God exalted his wis- 



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THE APOSTLE PAUL. 236 

dom without the least detriment to the excel- 
lency of his power. 

PAUL AT ATHENS. 

In order to a correct estimate of this great 
evangelist — to understand the qualities of his 
eloquence — it will be necessary to view him 
in certain positions where his speaking talents 
were called into conspicuous action. One of 
these occasions was on his first visit to the 
Grecian metropolis. 

Persecution at Lystra and Berea -obliged 
him to flee to Athens. Solitary and alone he 
enters this proud city. Everywhere the mon- 
uments of the fine arts courted his eye. They 
enfiladed every avenue ; and the streets and 
squares were alive with the marble impersona- 
tions of their divinities. How do these things 
affect the preacher? Does he give himself up 
to the strong historic associations which would 
naturally invade a mind like his ? He is now 
on the very spot where Socrates taught, Plato 
lectured, and Demosthenes thundered. The 
whole city is filled with the memorials of hu- 
man genius. Turn which way he will, there is 
the chaste marble cut into almost living forms, 
or frowning up in fluted columns and porti- 



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236 ELOQUENT PREACHERS. 

cos, the fancied abodes of the gods. Every- 
where the smoke of incense is rising to some 
tutelary deity. How is Paul affected by all 
this ? It touches his heart more than his imag- 
ination. His spirit weeps. "Oh, ye deluded 
men," he seems to say,' "would that I could 
give you my eyes, that you might see the van- 
ity and sin of this soul-debasing worship." 

But how shall he get access to these proud 
pagans ? There is a forum there, where men 
meet to converse and to inquire after any new 
thing. Thither goes the preacher, and pro- 
claims a new religion, wherein is revealed 
"the true God, and Jesus Christ whom he 
hath sent." 

The philosophers who have gathered around 
him know not what to make^of these strange 
doctrines. They would have from him a more 
full* and formal discourse. Paul accedes to 
their wishes, and from the famous Areopagus 
pronounces a sermon as sublime for its senti- 
ments as it is chaste and beautiful in its style. 
Probably the outline only is given us. But 
with this outline before us, who would not 
have coveted a hearing of the whole grand dis- 
cussion? To have seen that eye, with heav- 
en's lustre beaming, the halo of inspiration 



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THE APOSTLE PAUL. 237 

encircling and irradiating the whole man ; to 
have marked the wonder on those sage faces, 
as the great eternal realities were spread out 
before them ; to have seen one of their number 
more than interested, convicted, weeping as 
well as wondering — to have seen all this under 
the brow of the Acropolis, while Christ's blessed 
name was heard sounding along the porches 
and pillars of heathen temples, would have 
been an era in any man's life. It was one of 
the loftiest triumphs of eloquence. He spoke 
of the unity of God, in opposition to their 
11 lords many and gods many;" of the spiritu- 
ality of God, in opposition to their material- 
ism; of the sin of idolatry; of the duty of 
repentance ; of the resurrection and the judg- 
ment — themes as solemn as they were new to 
ears like theirs. No wonder Longinus, the 
great Grecian critic, though a pagan, places 
Paul's name among the most eloquent of that 

age. 

AT EPHESUS. 

Ephesus was a central depCt of idolatry. 
Its magnificent temple, dedicated to "the great 
goddess Diana," was the resort of pilgrims from 
every quarter of the world. This was one of 
the high places where for ages spiritual wick- 



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238 ELOQUENT PREACHERS. 

edness had held control. It was a bold idea 
in a humble preacher of righteousness, to think 
of storming this city of idolatry. But that idea 
took possession of Paul. He opened his mes- 
sage first in the synagogue. Failing there, he 
advances his moral artillery to a more com- 
manding position. For two years he preached 
in the school of one Tyrannus — independent 
ground — where Gentiles as well as Jews re- . 
sorted to hear him. Here his success was 
great. By God's help he struck an effectual 
blow at idolatry. Thousands came forward 
and made confession of their hellish incanta- 
tions. The professors of sorcery, smitten in 
their consciences, collected their books, and 
11 burned them beforet all men" — an expensive 
bonfire, amounting in value, it is estimated, to 
over thirty thousand dollars. 

Religion can never have its triumphs with- 
out its trials. Paul's powerful preaching, under 
God, had left the porches of Diana with but 
few worshippers. The whole city seemed 
about to forsake their idols for the worship of 
the true God. The sale of silver shrines had 
fallen off, and Demetrius the artificer, stung 
with the loss of his patrons, raised a conspir- 
acy against Paul r under an assumed reverence 



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THE APOSTLE PAUL. 239 

for the worship of Diana. This obliged Paul 
to leave Ephesus. But taking the whole cir- 
cumstances into view, who can deny or even 
doubt that an eloquence which could storm 
effectively this strongest entrenchment of idol- 
atry must have been of superhuman power ? 

AT JERUSALEM. 

Paul's coming to Jerusalem had been au- 
ticipated. It was a great event. The fame of 
his eloquence and of his sufferings for Christ 
had preceded him. He enters Jerusalem a 
scarred veteran with the halo of victory around 
him. But the joy of his reception is not unat- 
tended with fear and solicitude. His enemies 
are on his track. The moment his presence is 
recognized, a storm of popular fury bursts upon 
him. He is dragged from the gates of the tem- 
ple and given up to the mob, "Away with 
him," is the terrific cry. 

At this juncture the Eoman official, whose 
duty it was to keep the peace, interposes and 
rescues the victim. Thirsting for his blood, 
they pursue him to the castle. Amid all this 
uproar Paul is calm. He asks the privilege of 
addressing the people. It is granted. Halt- 
ing at the foot of the stone steps, the soldiers 



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240 ELOQUENT PBEACHEBS. 

draw their swords and stand like a wall of ad- 
amant. High up on the terrace by the side of 
the chief captain is seen the preacher, bruised 
and bleeding, preparing to speak. Curiosity 
for the moment triumphs over passion, and 
they keep silence. So soon as that eloquent 
tongue is heard in their own sacred dialect, 
the silence grows still deeper. An admirable 
speech follows. In the first sentence is seen 
the skill of the orator seeking to propitiate an 
excited and prejudiced audience. Having 
gained their ear, he holds them in rapt atten- 
tion. For a moment the eloquent speaker 
triumphed. But having in the course of his 
speech occasion to refer to the Gentiles, that 
hated word renewed the storm of malignant 
passions, and Paul was hurried to a place of 
safety. Was there not evidence here of elo- 
quence of a high order? 

BEFOEE FELIX. 
The outbreak at Jerusalem led to accusa- 
tions which made it necessary to subject Paul 
to a trial before the civil tribunal. He was 
ready for it. Conscious integrity shrinks not 
from even the fiercest ordeal. Under an escort 
he is sent to Cesarea. 



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THE APOSTLE PAUL. 241 

At the third hour of the night, issuing 
out of the gate of Jerusalem with muffled 
tread, were seen two hundred infantry, sev- 
enty horsemen, and two hundred spearmen, 
guarding one lone man of unsoldier-like ap- 
pearance. These, heathen though they be, are 
God's guardian angels. 

The escort delivers over the prisoner to 
Felix, together with an official statement by 
letter as to who he is and why he is sent. The 
reception is courteous, yet with imperial indif- 
ference. Paul is promised a hearing, and is 
then placed under custody. 

He was now in charge of the Eoman gov- 
ernor, and surrounded by legal bulwarks. Vi- 
olence was of no use now. If they conquer 
him now, it must be after a fair encounter in 
open court. Rome had some good things to 
boast of; and one was, as Paul well knew, the 
sacred palladium of citizenship. 

In solemn pomp the high-priest and the 
Sanhedrim, with their legal adviser, at length 
appear and present their charges. The for- 
malities of the tribunal are arranged on a scale 
of grandeur commensurate with the occasion! 
By the command of Felix, the prisoner is 
brought forth. The Jewish barrister artfully 

Etoqvrat Enactor*. XI 



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242 ELOQUENT PREACHEBS. 

attempts to propitiate Felix by compliments 
as disgusting as they are inappropriate, and 
then turns upon the accused the venom-dipped 
tongue of falsehood. He aims at the outset to 
bring the apostle into contempt by calling him 
"a pestilent fellow," an artifice betraying not 
only the weakness of his cause, but the wick- 
edness of his heart. " He is a mover of sedi- 
tion" too. But here the difficulty was, first, 
that there was no proof of it; second, there 
was no truth in it. "He is moreover," adds 
Tertullus, "a ringleader of the sect of the Naz- 
arenes ;" a charge savoring of truth, yet intro- 
duced in a way to imply something like a riot- 
ous and dishonorable leadership, than which 
nothing could be more unjust. But the prin- 
cipal charge, and that on which his enemies 
mostrelied for his condemnation, was*the crime 
of sacrilege, or the profanation of the temple. 
If the charge could have been made out, Paul 
might have been executed. 

When Tertullus had finished his artful ha- 
rangue, there is applause among the Sanhe- 
drim, and with one voice they exclaim, "Ev- 
ery word of it is true." 

Now it is Paul's turn. He waits respect- 
folly until the governor signifies that he may 



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THE APOSTLE PAUL. 243 

speak. He needs no Tertullus to plead for 
him. He can plead his own cause. Truth 
and innocence require no artificial rhetoric. 
He simply states the facts, and challenges his 
accusers to disprove them. It is done in a 
concise but masterly manner. His reply is 
calm, clear, and convincing. 

Felix sees through the plot, and breaks up 
the court by saying that he will postpone the 
decision. Had he been a noble-minded Eo- 
man, a lover of truth and of justice, he would 
have knocked off Paul's chains and set him at 
liberty. But "the oppressor's contumely" 
sometimes subserves a purpose of God. He 
even had decreed that he should go up to 
Eome under the protection of Roman law. 
No thanks to Felix for this. His meanness 
and injustice in detaining an innocent man in 
prison for two whole years admit of no apology. 

Felix was a bad man every way. He had 
a wife who did not lawfully belong to him. 
She was the wife really of another. What- 
ever her influence, being a Jewess, might have 
been in keeping Paul under duress, we know 
that a mean and mercenary motive influenced 
Felix. With such motives he sends for Paul 
to hear him concerning the faith in Christ 



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244 ELOQUENT PREACHERS. 

Such a preacher and such an audience sel- 
dom meet. The pomp and glitter of a throne 
occupied by regal power ; attendants numer- 
ous, and a guard mail-clad and magnificent: 
such an overpowering display would have in- 
timidated any less exalted spirit than that of 
Paul. What was all this to him ? 

As he enters the place of hearing, loaded 
with chains, all eyes are upon him, those espe- 
cially which looked down from the proconsular 
throne. The preacher knew his hearers. He 
had explored their character, and he knew 
what kind of truths they needed. Every sen- 
tence was like a flash of lightning, and every 
word was like one of the hail-stones of Reve- 
lation. It fell with startling emphasis upon 
the ears of the guilty. 

Paul reasoned of " righteousness" to one 
of the most unrighteous men living. He 
preached "temperance" to one addicted to 
beastly sensuality; of "judgment to come" to 
a man whose crimes had already, in his own 
conscience, foreshadowed his doom. 

No wonder Felix trembled. Such a ser- 
mon, by such a preacher to such a sinner, ac- 
counts for it. But it was only the conviction 
of the conscience, not the contrition of the pen- 



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THE APOSTLE PAUL. 245 

itent. What an opportunity was there lost! 
Had Felix but improved it, even he might 
have found salvation. 

BEFORE FESTUS AND AGBIPPA. 

In the same grand halls of state, before the 
same throne, now occupied by the successor of 
Felix, the incarcerated preacher is permitted 
again to vindicate his innocence and to explain 
his doctrine. The two weary years of his cap- 
tivity had rolled away, and there was some 
hope now that he might be set at liberty. But 
that hope died so soon as Paul understood the 
temper of Festus leaning evidently towards his 
accusers. Hence his appeal to Caesar. This 
was his right as a Eoman citizen, and now was 
the critical moment to exercise it. 

For good and sufficient reasons, Paul would 
not consent to have the second trial take place 
at Jerusalem. The governor insisting, Paul 
replies, "If I have been an offender, or have 
committed any thing worthy of death, I re- 
fuse not to die ; but if ther^ be none of these 
things whereof they accuse me, no man may 
deliver me unto them. I appeal unto Caesar." 
In the face of Festus, this was bold. But it 
settled the matter for the present. 



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246 ELOQUENT PREACHERS. 

Meanwhile another regal character comes 
into view — Agrippa. He comes to salute the 
new proconsul. Festus is glad of his arrival, 
for he can consult with him concerning Paul. 
Agrippa hails the opportunity to hear a man 
so noted for his eloquent advocacy of the 
Christian faith. Accordingly great prepara- 
tions are made for the hearing. A mag- 
nificent assembly is convened. The whole 
thing is on a scale of imperial grandeur. 
Agrippa with Bernice gorgeously arrayed 
enter the hall, and seat themselves on the 
judgment-seat beside Festus. All the princi- 
pal men of the city are there, together wi& 
an imposing array of military shining in their 
imperial panoply. 

At the command of Festus, Paul is sent 
for. The assembly is hushed, and every eye 
is turned in one direction as the clank of chains 
is heard in the corridor. A man of moderate 
stature enters, of a wan countenance furrowed 
with care and thought, his hands folded across 
his breast, in orcjpr to support the weight of 
fetters with which they are encumbered. Pre- 
ceded by the centurion, he moves slowly into 
the centre of that vast assembly. His eye is 
not dazzled nor his heart intimidated by this 



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THE APOSTLE PAUL. 247 

imposing spectacle.* One who has had a vision 
of God and angels, whose daily converse is 
with the King of kings, thinks bnt lightly of 
the trappings of royalty. Yet with a respect- 
ful and courteous manner does he bow towards 
the throne. , 

Festus introduces the matter, going over 
the principal facts, and declaring that one ob- 
ject of the present occasion was that, in con- 
nection with the opinion of his royal guests, 
he might have something mare definite to state 
in his letter to Augustus. "Then Agrippa 
said unto Paul, Thou art permitted to speak 
for thyself." 

The speech that followed, so familiar to all, 
is a model of earnest and eloquent address, 
rising as it proceeds, until it thrills every 
hearer, and starts Festus from his throne, ex- 
claiming, "Paul, thou art beside thyself; much 
learning doth make thee mad." 

" I am not mad, most noble Festus," is the 
courteous reply; "but speak forth the words 
of truth and soberness. King Agrippa know- 
eth of these things, before whom I also speak 
freely." Then turning to Agrippa, "King 
Agrippa, believest thou the prophets?" A 
pause. " I know that thou believest." 



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248 ELOQUENT PBEAOHEBS. 

The appeal has touched Agrippa's heart. 
In a voice tremulous with emotion he cries out, 
regardless of the proprieties, "Almost thou 
persuadest me to be a Christian." Seizing 
this concession, the orator, lifting up his hands 
burdened with a weight of chains, and with an 
eye upturned to heaven, and as if addressing 
both God and man in the same breath, ex- 
claims, " I would to God, that not only thou, 
but also all that hear me this day, were both 
almost and altogether such as I am, except 
these bonds." 

It is useless to say what we think of this 
strain of Pauline eloquence. Should we put it 
on a par with that of Demosthenes, we might 
be accused perhaps of official partiality. But 
judging of its power by its effects, we should 
say that few speakers on record can surpass 
this. It brought Festus to his feet, and made 
Agrippa almost a Christian. 

PAUL'S ELOQUENCE JUDGED OF BY HIS 
WK1T1NGS. 

We judge of the eloquence of uninspired 
preachers in part by their published sermons. 
The same rule might not perhaps apply to the 
inspired preacher. His hand is held, as it 



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THE APOSTLE PAUL. 249 

were, by the hand of God. What he writes 
is, in a sense, the eloquence of the overshad- 
owing Spirit. To appreciate the efforts of hu- 
man genius, requires a sympathizing genius in 
the reader. So, to have a right and full im- 
pression of an inspired composition, the eye of 
the reader should have caught some of the 
* radiance that touched the soul of the writer. 
Still we must allow that inspiration destroys 
not the stamp of individuality which marks the 
sacred writers. Each has his own peculiar 
style easily distinguishable ; so that, were 
Paul's name or John's not appended to his 
epistles, it would be no very difficult task to 
identify the respective authors. 

Take the Epistle to this Romans as an 
exponent of the intellectual character of its 
author. It is a great discourse on great 
themes. In it may be found every attribute 
of an admirable if not perfect style ; while as 
a whole it resembles a finished piece of archi- 
tecture, strong, symmetrical, and graceful. 
The oration of Demosthenes on the crown is 
not a more sure index of the* genius of its au- 
thor, than is this sublime epistle of the elo- 
quence of St. Paul. 

Many circumstances conspired to carry up 



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250 ELOQUENT PREACHEKS. 

this composition to so unequalled an elevation. 
His soul was filled with the inspiration of God. 
The place and people wrought mightily upon 
him. It was to go to Rome, that peerless city, 
the centre of power and influence, where sci- 
ence and art had reached a perfection hitherto 
unknown. It was to a church composed in 
part of the elite of Rome's citizens. All these 
things combined to make this epistle a produc- 
tion of great force and eloquence. In it the 
author's power as a logician comes into view. 
He reasons abstractly and also on admitted 
facts. Sometimes the stream of argument 
flows on clear and calm, and then breaking 
into the abruptness of the Socratic mode, 
makes its way with the force of a cataract. His 
aim is to drive the Jew froln forms to faith in 
Christ, and to shut up the Gentile to the same 
faith. He closes up every avenue to heaven 
but one. To that one he points continually, 
saying, There, where the cross is seen, where 
the atoning blood is seen, there only is the road. 
^^As he proceeds, his soul, by its own impefc 
uosity, takes fire, and he actually glows amid 
his own radiance. You see the flashes of feel- 
ing mingling with the forms of logic. When 
his reasoning reaches the cross, that great cen- 



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THE APOSTLE PAUL. 251 

tral point of interest, as it does from whatso- 
ever point he starts, it loses itself in rapturous 
emotion. As his eye catches a view of that 
cross, it kindles, it weeps. Every thing is in- 
stantly in a glow. He forgets to reason. He 
cries out in passionate sorrow at man's dull 
understanding, or breaks forth in seraphic de- 
votion, as if he saw the Son of man in his glory. 
Thus, from beginning to end, we challenge a 
comparison in behalf of this production with 
any writings, ancient or modern, whether they 
be treatises on the worship of God or on the 
virtues of man. 

Paul's character as a preacher is intimately 
connected with his style and manner as a writ- 
er. It is impossible to read his epistles with- 
out forming some idea of him as a preacher. 
We thus approach at least some just impres- 
sion of his sacred oratory. 

And yet Paul himself has, in one of his 
epistles, intimated that the Corinthians object- 
ed to his preaching, while they admired his 
writings. It should be remembered, however, 
that, according to the standard of taste which 
prevailed at Corinth — formed on the most per- 
fect model^f the Grecian schools — where com- 
pass of voice and grace of gesture and the pol- 



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262 ELOQUENT PREACHEKS. 

ish of periods entered largely into their estimate 
of oratory, Paul would not be rated among the 
very first. He went unto them, not " with ex- 
cellency of speech;" that is, not studying to 
reach the high classic finish of the Attic school. 
Nor was he careful' probably to cultivate or 
exhibit much gracefulness of manner. He was 
mainly anxious to find his way to their hearts 
and consciences ; and hence they spoke sneer- 
ingly of his address. But that Paul was not a 
powerful preacher, that he was not eloquent in 
the best sense of the art — meaning by elo- 
quence power to convince the judgment, rouse 
the sensibilities, and touch the heart — that in 
all these respects he was not the eloquent 
preacher, no man can make us believe. The 
power, by a few sentences, to still an infuriate 
mob, to shake a tyrant on his throne, and 
compel another to start from his seat in con- 
vulsive agony, while a third is ready almost to 
give up heathenism for Christianity — such a 
power is indicative not only of inspired ener- 
gy, but of sublime eloquence. 

And now let us ask, Wherein resided this 
power ? Undoubtedly in the divinely wrought 
character of the man. It was on^f unequal- 
led purity. Self was sacrificed to the glory of 



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THE APOSTLE PAUL. 253 

God and the good of man. The Old Testa- 
ment, together with all the collateral history, 
was stereotyped upon his memory. He was 
versed also in Grecian learning. To this must 
be added a keen insight and thorough know- 
ledge of mankind. Thus furnished, and with 
a wisdom that could most effectively bring that 
knowledge to bear, he was on all occasions 
perfect master of his subject. He was calm 
and self-possessed. This arose from his indif- 
ference to the opinions of the world, and his 
entire absorption in the great matter on hand. 
His reputation he had laid down at the foot of 
the cross. Life and death were not with him 
the great questions, but truth and duty. Hence 
there was neither perturbation nor failure. 
Such was this inspired preacher as he went 
forth with that one great idea, "Christ, and 
him crucified," burnt into his very soul. 

The leading trait of his character was ac- 
tion. "Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? 17 
The impulse, the ability, and the will to do, 
were all his. The same unyielding, indomita- 
ble energy characterized him both before and 
after his conversion. But in the latter case it 
was raised to a pitch of grandeur from the na- 
ture of the enterprise to which it was conse- 



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254 ELOQUENT PEEAOHERS. 

crated. The current of his soul's affections 
setting in this new and heaven-directed chan- 
nel, pressed onward with an impetuosity that 
swept every thing before it. His life was "a 
living sacrifice." With this energy was com- 
bined a sublime unity of purpose ; so that, in 
his own expressive words, "To him to live was 
Christ." 

Paul's religious life had depth as well as 
height. The structure that rose so high, so 
near to heaven, could never have stood the 
shocks which it received, had it not been im- 
bedded deep in the soul, resting on "the Rock 
of ages." His religion blended itself with all 
his forms of thought, with all his affections, 
with all his deportment, putting on him a grace 
and polish, a celestial refinement even, which 
is as superior to mere human culture as the 
natural flower, with its beauty and its fra- 
grance, is to the tawdry and inodorous arti- 
ficial one. 

But Paul was one of whom the world was 
not worthy; and so heaven, long waiting for 
his coming, at length claimed him as her own. 
The seat in glory— a high one — was. ready for 
him. And now "Paul the aged," worn put 
with labors and sufferings, scarred from head 



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THE APOSTLE PAUL. 265 

to foot in the battles which he had fought for 
truth and holiness, surrenders himself to the 
tyrant, enters the dungeon, and awaits the sig- 
nal for martyrdom. By that dungeon's dim 
light, within hearing perhaps of the roar of the 
half-starved lions of the amphitheatre, he dic- 
tated his dying message : "I am now ready to 
be offered ; and the time of my departure is at 
hand. I have fought a good fight ; I have fin- 
ished my course ; I have kept the faith. Hence- 
forth there is laid up for me a crown of right- 
eousness which the Lord the righteous Judge 
shall give me in that day." 

Can any thing be added. to this? Can we 
ask for any thing more ? A more glorious life 
and a more glorious close of life have never 
been witnessed among mortals. Here the cur- 
tain drops. The last scene is the dungeon ; the 
last words, the triumphant ones just quoted. 
The rest is left to our imaginations. The road 
from that dungeon to the amphitheatre was 
short. He trod it, we doubt not, with a firm 
step, a fearless, yea, even an exultant heart. 
He was in sight of the goal and of the crown. 
One momentary pang put him in possession. 

But such a man never dies. We do not 
look upon him as dead. He lives in his epis- 



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266 ELOQUENT PBEACHEB6. 

ties, in his example, in his spirit. The death- 
scene seems to have been shrouded from us 
purposely, that we may think less of the mor- 
tal and more of the immortal man. By the 
grace of God he reached his peerless eleva- 
tion. But we can discern his foot-prints and 
see the direction in which they tend. We can 
catch a glimpse of him in the high up and far 
distant flight. Where he fixed his eye, we 
may fix ours. " I press towards the mark." 
That mark was Christ; to win whom and to 
be found in whom was, to St. Paul, worth a 
life-long struggle, and more than compensated 
for all the terrors of martyrdom. 



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