"Earth rolls the rapturous Hosanna round."
He could not check his headway, and repeated the line a second time, louder than before, and then with a tremendous voice that made the walls reverberate, he shouted once more:
"_Earth rolls the rapturous Hosanna round!_"
and sunk back breathless and exhausted into his chair. "Shut up now this Tabernacle," exclaimed Dr. James W. Alexander. "Let no man dare speak here after that."
CHAPTER XIV.
SOME FAMOUS AMERICAN PREACHERS.
_The Alexanders.--Dr. Tyng.--Dr. c.o.x.--Dr. Adams.--Dr. Storrs.--Mr.
Beecher.--Mr. Finney and Dr. B.M. Palmer_.
The necessary limitations of this chapter forbid any reference to many distinguished American preachers whom I have seen or heard, but with whom I had not sufficient personal acquaintance to furnish any material for personal reminiscences. In common with mult.i.tudes of others on both sides of the ocean, I had a hearty admiration for the brilliant genius and masterful sermons of Phillips Brooks, but I only heard two of his rapid and resonant addresses on anniversary occasions, and my acquaintance with him was very slight. I heard only one discourse by that remarkable combination of preacher, poet, patriot and philosopher, Dr. Horace Bushnell, of Hartford,--his discourse on "Barbarism the Chief Danger," delivered before the "Home Missionary Society." His sermon on "Unconscious Influence," was enough to confer immortality on any minister of Jesus Christ. I never was acquainted with him, but after his death, I suggested to the residents of New Preston, that they should name the mountain that rises immediately behind the home of his childhood and youth, _Mount Bushnell_. The villagers a.s.sented to my proposal, and the State Legislature ratified their act by ordering that name to be placed on the maps of Connecticut. In this chapter, as in the previous one, I shall give my recollections only of those who have ended their career of service, and entered into their reward.
During the six years that I spent in Princeton College and in the Seminary (between 1838 and 1846) I came into close acquaintance with, and I heard very often, the two great orators of the Alexander family.
Dr. Archibald Alexander, the father of a famous group of sons, was a native of Virginia--had listened to Patrick Henry in his youth; had married the daughter of the eloquent "Blind Preacher," Rev. James Waddell, and even when as a young minister he had preached in Hanover, New Hampshire. Daniel Webster, then a student in Dartmouth College, predicted his future eminence. The students in the Seminary were wont to call him playfully, "The Pope," for we had unbounded confidence in his sanctified common-sense. I always went to him for counsel. His insight into the human heart was marvelous; and in the line of close experimental preaching, he has not had his equal since the days of President Edwards. He put the impress of his powerful personality on a thousand ministers who graduated from Princeton Seminary.
In his lecture-desk and in the pulpit he was simplicity itself. His sermons were like the waters of Lake George, so pellucid that you could see every bright pebble far down in the depths; a child could comprehend him, yet a sage be instructed by him. His best discourses were extemporaneous, and he had very little gesture, except with his forefinger, which he used to place under his chin, and sometimes against his nose in a very peculiar manner. With a clear piping voice and colloquial style he held his audience in rapt attention, disdaining all the tricks of sensational oratory. Twice I heard him deliver his somewhat celebrated discourse on "The Day of Judgment;" it was a masterpiece of solemn eloquence, in which sublimity and simplicity were combined in a way that I have never seen equaled He used to say that the right course for an old man to keep his mind from senility was to produce some piece of composition every day; and he continued to write his practical articles for the religious press until he was almost four-score. What an impressive funeral was his on that bright October afternoon, in 1851, when two hundred ministers gathered in that Westminster Abbey of Presbyterianism, the Princeton Cemetery! His ashes slumber beside those of Witherspoon, Davies, Hodge, McCosh and Jonathan Edwards.
Among the six sons who stood that day beside that grave, the most brilliant by far was the third son, Joseph Addison Alexander. Dr.
Charles Hodge said of him: "Taking him all in all, he was the most gifted man with whom I have ever been personally acquainted," In childhood, such was his precocity that he knew the Hebrew alphabet at six years of age (I am afraid that some ministers do not know it at sixty); and he could read Latin fluently when he was only eight! Of his wonderful feats of memory I could give many ill.u.s.trations; one was that on the day that I was matriculated in the Seminary with fifty other students, Professor Alexander went over to Dr. Hodge"s study, and repeated to him every one of our names! When using ma.n.u.script in the pulpit, he frequently turned the leaves backward instead of forward, for he knew all the sermon by heart! His commentaries--quite too few--remain as monuments of his profound scholarship, and some of his articles in the _Princeton Review_ sparkled with the keenest wit.
Oh, how his grandest sermons linger still in my memory after three-score years--like the far-off music of an Alpine horn floating from the mountain tops! His physique was remarkable, he had the ruddy cheeks of a boy, and his square intellectual head we students used to say "looked like Napoleon"s." His voice was peculiarly melodious, especially in the pathetic pa.s.sages; his imagination was vivid in fine imagery, and he had an unique habit of ending a long sentence in the words of his text, which chained the text fast to our memories. The announcement of his name always crowded the church in Princeton, and he was flooded with invitations to preach in the most prominent churches of New York, Philadelphia, and other cities. One of his most powerful and popular sermons was on the text, "Remember Lot"s Wife;" and he received so many requests to repeat that sermon that he said to his brother James in a wearied tone, "I am afraid that woman will be the death of me."
There may still be old Philadelphians who can recall the magnificent series of discourses which Professor Alexander delivered during the winter of 1847 in the pulpit of Dr. Henry A. Boardman, while Dr.
Boardman was in Europe. The church was packed every Sabbath evening, clear to the outer door, and many were unable to find room even in the aisles. Dr. Alexander was then in his splendid prime. His musical voice often swelled into a volume that rolled out through the doorway and reached the pa.s.serby on the sidewalk! During that winter he p.r.o.nounced all his most famous sermons--on "The Faithful Saying," on "The City with Foundations," on "Awake, Thou that Sleepest!" and on "The Broken and Contrite Heart." It was after hearing this latter most original and pathetic discourse that an eminent man exclaimed, "No such preaching as that has been heard in this land since the days of Dr. John M. Mason." I enjoy the perusal of the rich, unique, and spiritual sermons of my beloved professor and friend; but no one who reads them can realize what it was to listen to Joseph Addison Alexander in his highest and holiest inspirations.
Was Albert Barnes a great preacher? Yes; if it is a great thing for a man to hold a large audience of thoughtful and intelligent people in solemn attention while he proclaims to them the weightiest and vitalest of truths--then was Mr. Barnes a great amba.s.sador of the Lord Jesus Christ. He combined modesty and majesty to a remarkable degree. He had a commanding figure, keen eye, handsome features, and a clear distinct voice; but so diffident was he that he seldom looked about over his congregation and rarely made a single gesture. His simple rule of homiletics was, have something to say, and then say it. He stood up in his pulpit and delivered his calm, clear, strong, spiritual utterances with scarcely a trace of emotion, and the hushed a.s.sembly listened as if they were listening to one of the oracles of G.o.d. His best sermons were like a great red anthracite coal bed, with no flash, but kindled through and through with the fire of the Holy Spirit Bashful, too, as he was, he denounced popular sins with an intrepidity displayed by but few ministers in our land. In the temperance reform he was an early pioneer.
For Albert Barnes I felt an intense personal attachment; he was my ideal of a fearless, G.o.dly-minded herald of evangelical truth; and he had begun his public ministry in Morristown, N.J., the home of my maternal ancestry, and in the church in which my beloved mother had made her confession of faith. When our Lafayette Avenue Church was dedicated--just forty years ago--I urged him to deliver the discourse; but he hesitated to preach extemporaneously, and his sight was so impaired that he could not use a ma.n.u.script. At the age of seventy-two he was suddenly and sweetly translated to heaven. Over the whole English-speaking world his name was familiar as a plain teacher of G.o.d"s Word in very spiritual commentaries.
A half century ago Dr. William B. Sprague, of Albany, was in the front rank of Presbyterian preachers. His fine presence, his richly melodious voice, his graceful style and fresh, practical evangelical thought made him so popular that he was in demand everywhere for special occasions and services. He was a marvel of industry. While preparing his voluminous "Annals of the American Pulpit," and conducting an enormous correspondence, he never omitted the preparation of new sermons for his own flock. With that flock he lived and labored for forty years, and when he resigned his charge (in 1869) he told me that when removing from Albany, he buried his face and streaming eyes with his hands, for he could not endure the farewell look at the city of his love. When I first heard him in my student days I thought him an almost faultless pulpit orator, and when he and the young and ardent Edward N. Kirk stood side by side in Albany, no town in the land contained two n.o.bler specimens of the earnest, persuasive and eloquent Presbyterian preachers.
When I came to New York as pastor of the Market Street Church, in 1853, the most conspicuous minister in the city was the rector of St. George"s Episcopal Church on Stuyvesant Square. Every Sabbath the superb and s.p.a.cious edifice was thronged. It was quite "the thing" for strangers who came to New York to go and hear Dr. Tyng. Even on Sunday afternoons the house was filled; for at that service he preached what he called "sermons to the children"--but they were not only sprightly, simple and vivacious enough to attract the young, they also contained an abundance of strong meat for persons of older growth. He was an enthusiast in Sunday school work--had 2,500 scholars in his mission schools, and possessed an unsurpa.s.sed power in nailing the ears of the young to his pulpit.
Dr. Tyng was the acknowledged leader of the "Low Church" wing of Episcopacy in this country, both during his ministry in the Epiphany at Philadelphia, and in St. George"s at New York. He edited their weekly paper, and championed their cause on all occasions. He was their candidate for the office of Bishop of Pennsylvania in 1845, and the contest was protracted through a long series of ballotings. It was urged, and not without some reason, that his impetuous temper and strong partisanship might make him a rather domineering overseer of the diocese. He possessed an indomitable will and pushed his way through life with the irresistible rush of a Cunarder under a full head of steam. His temper was naturally very violent. One Sabbath evening he was addressing my Sunday school in Market Street, and describing the various kinds of human nature by resemblances to various animals, the lion, the fox, the sloth, etc.: "Children," he exclaimed, "do you want to know what I am? I am by nature a royal Bengal tiger, and if it had not been for the grace of G.o.d to tame me, I fear that n.o.body could ever have lived with me." There was about as much truth as there was wit in the comparison. His congregation in St. George"s knew his irrepressible temperament so well that they generally let him have his own way. If he wanted money for a church object or a cause of charity, he did not beg for it; he demanded it in the name of the Lord. "When I see Dr. Tyng coming up the steps of my bank," said a rich bank president to me, "I always begin to draw my cheque; I know he will get it, and it saves my time."
His leading position among Low Churchmen was won not only by his intellectual force and moral courage, but by his uncompromising devotion to evangelical doctrine. He belonged to the same school with Baxter, John Newton, Bickersteth, Simeon and Bedell. In England his intimate friends were the Earl of Shaftesbury, Dr. McNeill and others of the most p.r.o.nounced evangelical type. The good old doctrines of redemption by the blood of Christ, and of regeneration by the Holy Spirit were his constant theme, and on these and kindred topics he was a delightful preacher.
Strong as he was in the pulpit, Dr. Tyng was the prince of platform orators. He had every quality necessary for the sway of a popular audience--fine elocution, marvelous fluency, piquancy, the courage of his convictions and a magnetism that swept all before him. His voice was very clear and penetrating, and he hurled forth his clean-cut sentences like javelins. A more fluent speaker I never heard; not Spurgeon or Henry Ward Beecher could surpa.s.s him in readiness of utterance. On one occasion the Broadway Tabernacle was crowded with a great audience that gathered to hear some celebrity; and the expected hero did not arrive.
The impatient crowd called for "Tyng, Tyng;" and the rector of St.
George"s came forward, and on the spur of the moment delivered such a charming speech that the audience would not let him stop. For many years I spoke with him at meetings for city missions, total abstinence, Sunday schools and other benevolent enterprises. He used playfully to call me "one of his boys." At a complimentary reception given to J.B. Gough in Niblo"s Hall, Mr. Beecher and myself delivered our talks, and then retired to the opposite end of the hall. Dr. Tyng took the rostrum with one of his swift magnetic speeches. I leaned over to Beecher and whispered, "That is splendid platforming, isn"t it?" Beecher replied: "Yes, indeed it is. He is the one man that I am afraid of. When he speaks first I do not care to follow him, and if I speak first, then when he gets up I wish I had not spoken at all." Some of Dr. Tyng"s most powerful addresses were in behalf of the temperance reform; he was a most uncompromising foe of both of the dram shop and of the drinking usages in polite society. He also denounced the theatre and the ball-room with the most Puritanic vehemence.
Dr. Stephen H. Tyng"s chief power, like many other great preachers, was when he was on his feet. He should be heard and not read. Some of the discourses and addresses which enchained and thrilled his auditors seemed tame enough when reported for the press. In that respect he resembled Whitfield and Gough and many of our most effective stump speakers. The result was that Dr. Tyng"s fame, to a great degree, perished with him. He published several books, of a most excellent and evangelical character, but they lacked the thunder and the lightning which make his uttered words so powerful, and probably none of his many books are much read to-day. The influence of his splendid and heroic personality was very great during a ministry of over fifty years, and the glorious work which he wrought for his Master will endure to all eternity.
To have heard Dr. William Adams of New York at his best was better than any lecture on "Homiletics"; to have met him at the fireside or in the sick room of one of his parishioners was a prelection in pastoral theology.
The first time that I ever saw him was fully fifty years ago; he was standing in the gallery of the old Broadway Tabernacle at an anniversary of the American Bible Society, and Dr. James W. Alexander pointed him out to me saying--"Yonder stands Dr. William Adams, he is the _hardest student_ of us all." It was this honest incessant brain work that enabled him to sustain himself for forty years in one of the conspicuous pulpits of the largest city in the land. He always drew out of a full cask. Let young ministers lay this fact to heart. It was not by trick or happy luck, or by pyrotechnics of rhetoric that Dr. Adams won and kept his position in the forefront of metropolitan preachers. The "dead line of fifty" was not to be found on his intellectual atlas. One of the last talks with him that I now recall was on an early morning in Congress Park, Saratoga. He had a pocket Testament in his hand, and he said to me, "I find myself reading more and more the old books of my youth; I am enjoying just now Virgil"s Eclogues, but nothing is so dear to me as my Greek Testament."
All of Dr. Adams" finest efforts were thoroughly prepared and committed to memory. He never risked a failure by attempting to shake a sermon or a speech "out of his sleeve." His memory was one of his greatest gifts.
Sometimes when his soul was on fire, and his voice trembled with emotion, he rose into the region of lofty impa.s.sioned eloquence. His master effort on the platform was his address of welcome to the members of the "Evangelical Alliance" in 1873. How the foreign delegates--Doctors Stoughton, Christlieb, Dorner and the rest of them--did open their eyes that evening to the fact that a Yankee-born parson was, in elegant culture and polished oratory, a match for them all. Dr. Adams" speech "struck twelve" for the Alliance at the start; nothing during the whole subsequent sessions surpa.s.sed that opening address, although Beecher and Dr. Joseph Parker were both among the speakers. He closed the meeting of the Alliance in the Academy of Music with a prayer of wonderful fervor, pathos and beauty.
One of his grandest speeches was delivered before the Free Church General a.s.sembly in Edinburgh--in May, 1871. Dr. Guthrie told me that he swept the a.s.sembly away by his stately bearing, sonorous voice and cla.s.sic oratory. The men whom he moved so mightily were such men as Arnot and Guthrie and Rainy and Bonar,--the men who had listened to the grandest efforts of Duff and of Chalmers. I well remember that when I had to address the same a.s.sembly (as the American delegate) the next year I was more disturbed by the apparition of my predecessor, Dr.
Adams, than by all the brilliant audience before me.
Dr. Adams was gifted with what is of more practical value than genius, and that was marvelous _tact_. That was with him an instinct and an inspiration. It led him to always speak the right word, and do the right thing at the right time. Personal politeness helped him also; for he was one of the most perfect gentlemen in America. That practical sagacity made him the leader of the "new school" branch of our church, during the delicate negotiations for reunion in 1867, and on to 1870. He knew human nature well, and never lost either his temper or his faith in the sure result. To-day when that old lamentable rupture of our beloved church is as much a matter of past history as the rupture of the Union during the civil war, let us gratefully remember George W. Musgrave, the pilot of the "old school" and William Adams, the pilot of the "new."
The last sermon that I ever heard Dr. Adams deliver was in my Lafayette Avenue Church pulpit a few years before his death. His text was the closing pa.s.sage of the fourth chapter of Second Corinthians. The whole sermon was delivered with great majesty and tenderness. One ill.u.s.tration in it was sublime. He was comparing the "things which are seen and temporal" with the "things which are not seen and eternal." He described Mont Blanc enveloped in a morning cloud of mist. The vapor was the _seen_ thing which was soon to pa.s.s away;--behind it was the _unseen_ mountain, glorious as the "great white throne" which should stand unmoved when fifty centuries of mist had flown away into nothingness.
This pa.s.sage moved the audience prodigiously. Many sat gazing at the tall pale orator before them through their tears. The portrait of Dr.
Adams hangs on my study wall--alongside of the portrait of Chalmers--and as I look at his majestic countenance now, I still seem to see him as on that Sabbath morning he stood before us, with the light of eternity beaming on his brow!
In the summer of 1845 I was strolling with my friend Littell (the founder of the _Living Age_), through the leafy lanes of Brookline, and we came to a tasteful church. "That," said Mr. Littell, "is the Harvard Congregational meeting house. They have lately called a brilliant young Mr. Storrs, who was once a law student with Rufus Choate; he is a man of bright promise." Two years afterward I saw and heard that brilliant young minister in the pulpit of the newly organized Church of the Pilgrims in Brooklyn. He had already found his place, and his throne. He made that pulpit visible over the continent. That church will be "Dr.
Storrs" church" for many a year to come.
Had that superbly gifted law student of Choate gone to the bar he would inevitably have won a great distinction, and might have charmed the United States Senate by his splendid eloquence. Perhaps he learned from Choate some lessons in rhetoric and how to construct those long melodious sentences that rolled like a "Hallelujah chorus" over his delighted audiences. But young Storrs chose the better part, and no temptation of fame or pelf allured him from the higher work of preaching Jesus Christ to his fellow men. He was--like Chalmers and Bushnell and Spurgeon--a _born preacher_. Great as he was on the platform, or on various ceremonial occasions, he was never so thoroughly "at home" as in his own pulpit; his great heart never so kindled as when unfolding the glorious gospel of redeeming love. The consecration of his splendid powers to the work of the ministry helped to enn.o.ble the ministry in the popular eye, and led young men of brains to feel that they could covet no higher calling.
One of the remarkable things in the career of Dr. Storrs was that by far the grandest portion of that career was after he had pa.s.sed the age of fifty! Instead of that age being, as to many others, a "dead line," it was to him an intellectual _birth line_. He returned from Europe--after a year of entire rest--and then, like "a giant refreshed by sleep,"
began to produce his most masterly discourses and orations. His first striking performance was that wonderful address at the twenty-fifth anniversary of Henry Ward Beecher"s pastorate in Plymouth Church, at the close of which Mr. Beecher gave him a grateful kiss before the applauding audience. Not long after that Dr. Storrs delivered those two wonderful lectures on the "Muscovite and the Ottoman." The Academy of Music was packed to listen to them; and for two hours the great orator poured out a flood of history and gorgeous description without a sc.r.a.p of ma.n.u.script before him! He recalled names and dates without a moment"s hesitation! Like Lord Macaulay, Dr. Storrs had a marvelous memory; and at the close of those two orations I said to myself, "How Macaulay would have enjoyed all this!" His extraordinary memory was an immense source of power to Dr. Storrs; and, although he had a rare gift of fluency, yet I have no doubt that some of his fine efforts, which were supposed to be extemporaneous, were really prepared beforehand and lodged in his tenacious memory.
Dean Stanley, on the day before he returned to England, said to me: "The man who has impressed me most is your Dr. Storrs." When I urged the pastor of the "Pilgrims" to go over to the great International Council of Congregationalists in London and show the English people a specimen of American preaching, his characteristic reply was, "Oh, I am tired of these _show occasions_," But he never grew tired of preaching Jesus Christ and Him crucified. The Bible his old father loved was the book of books that he loved, and no blasts of revolutionary biblical criticism ever ruffled a feather on the strong wing with which he soared heavenward. A more orthodox minister has not maintained the faith once delivered to the saints in our time than he for whom Brooklyn"s flags were all hung at half-mast on the day of his death.
All the world knew that Richard S. Storrs possessed wonderful brain power, culture and scholarship; but only those who were closest to him knew what a big loving heart he had. Some of the sweetest and tenderest private letters that I ever received came from his ready pen. I was looking over some of them lately; they are still as fragrant as if preserved in lavender. His heart was a very pure fountain of n.o.ble thought, and of sweet, unselfish affection.
He died at the right time; his great work was complete; he did not linger on to outlive himself. The beloved wife of his home on earth had gone on before; he felt lonesome without her, and grew homesick for heaven. His loving flock had crowned him with their grateful benedictions; he waited only for the good-night kiss of the Master he served, and he awoke from a transient slumber to behold the ineffable glory. On the previous day his ill.u.s.trious Andover instructor, Professor Edwards A. Park, had departed; it was fitting that Andover"s most ill.u.s.trious graduate should follow him; now they are both in the presence of the infinite light, and they both behold the King in His beauty!
Fifty years ago one of the most famous celebrities in the Presbyterian Church was Dr. Samuel Hanson c.o.x, famous for his linguistic attainments, for his wit and occasional eccentricities, and very famous for his bursts of eloquence on great occasions. He was at that time the pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Brooklyn, and resided in the street where I am now writing (Oxford Street); and the street at the end of the block was named "Hanson Place" in honor of him. His large wooden mansion was then quite out of town, and was accordingly called "Rus Urban," In that house he wrote--for the _New York Observer_--the unique series of articles on New School Theology ent.i.tled "The Hexagon," and there he entertained, with his elegant courtesy and endless flow of wit and learning, many of the most eminent people who visited Brooklyn. The boys used to climb into his garden to steal fruit; and, as a menace, he affixed to his fence a large picture of a watch-dog, and underneath it a dental sign, "Teeth inserted here!" The old mansion was removed years ago.
In 1846 he was the moderator of the "new school" Presbyterian General a.s.sembly. It was during the sessions of that a.s.sembly that the famous debate was waged for several days on the exciting question of negro slavery, and when some compromise resolutions were pa.s.sed (for those were the days of compromise salves and plasters)--Dr. c.o.x rose and exclaimed, "Well, brethren, we have _capped Vesuvius_ for another year,"
But "Vesuvius" would not stay capped, and in a few years one of its violent eruptions sundered the "new school" church in twain.
Dr. c.o.x was a vehement opponent of slavery, and his church in Laight Street was a.s.sailed by a mob, and he was roughly handled. In 1833 he was sent to England as the delegate to the British and Foreign Bible Society, and at their anniversary meeting he delivered one of the most brilliant speeches of his life. He came into the meeting a perfect stranger, while Dr. Hamilton, of Leeds, was uttering a fierce invective against American slavery. This aroused Dr. c.o.x"s indignation, and when he was called on to speak he commenced with exquisite urbanity as follows: "My Lord Bexley, ladies and gentlemen! I have just landed from America. Thirty days ago I came down the bay of New York in the steam tug _Hercules_ and was put on board of the good packet ship _Samson_--thus going on from strength to strength--from mythology to Scripture!" This bold and novel introduction brought down the house with a thunder of applause. After paying some graceful tributes to England and thus winning the hearts of his auditors, he suddenly turned towards Dr. Hamilton, and with the most captivating grace, he said: "I do not yield to my British brother in righteous abhorrence of the inst.i.tution of negro slavery. I abhor it all the more because it was our disastrous inheritance from our English forefathers, and came down to us from the time when we were colonies of Great Britain! And now if my brother Hamilton will enact the part of _Shem_, I will take the place of _j.a.phet_, and we will walk backward and will cover with the mantle of charity _the shame of our common ancestry_," This sudden burst of wit, argument and eloquence carried the audience by storm, and they were obliged to applaud the "Yankee orator" in spite of themselves. I count this retort by Dr. c.o.x one of the finest in the annals of oratory.
Several years afterwards he visited England as a delegate to the first Evangelical Alliance. It was attended by the foremost divines, scholars and religious leaders of both Britain and the continent; and a brief five-minutes" speech made by Dr. c.o.x was unanimously p.r.o.nounced to have been the most splendid display of eloquence heard during the whole convocation.
He owed a great deal to his commanding figure, fine voice, and graceful elocution. His memory also was as marvelous as that of Dr. Storrs or Professor Addison Alexander. One night, for the entertainment of his fellow-pa.s.sengers in a stagecoach, he repeated two cantos of Scott"s poem of "Marmion"! I have heard him quote, in a public address before the New York University, a whole page of Cicero without the slip of a single word! His pa.s.sion for polysyllables was very amusing, and he loved to astonish his hearers by his "sesquipedalian" phraseology. A certain visionary crank once intruded into his study and bored him with a long dissertation. Dr. c.o.x"s patience was exhausted, and pointing to the door, he said: "My friend, do you observe that aperture in this apartment? If you do, I wish that you would describe rectilineals, very speedily."
I could fill several pages with racy anecdotes of the keen wit and the varied erudition of my venerable friend. But let none of my readers think of Dr. c.o.x as a clerical jester, or a pedant. He was a powerful and intensely spiritual preacher of the living Gospel. In his New York congregation were many of the best brains and fervent hearts to be found in that city, and some of the leading laymen revered him as their spiritual father. Sometimes he was betrayed into eccentricities, and his vivid imagination often carried him away into discursive flights; yet he never soared out of sight of Calvary"s cross, and never betrayed the precious Gospel committed to his trust.
The first time that I ever saw Henry Ward Beecher was in 1848. He was then mustering his new congregation in the building once occupied by Dr.
Samuel H. c.o.x. It was a weekly lecture service that I attended, by invitation of a lady who invited me to "go and hear our new-come genius from the West." The room was full, and at the desk stood a brown-cheeked young man with smooth-shaved face, big l.u.s.trous eyes, and luxuriant brown hair--with a broad shirt collar tied with a black ribbon. His text was "Grow in Grace," and he gave us a discourse that Matthew Henry could not have surpa.s.sed in practical pith, or Spurgeon in evangelical fervor.
I used to tell Mr. Beecher that even after making full allowance for the novelty of a first hearing, I never heard him surpa.s.s that Wednesday evening lecture. He was plucking the first ripe grapes of his affluent vintage; his "pomegranates were in full flower, and the spikenard sent forth its fragrance." The very language of that savory sermon lingers in my memory yet.
During my ministry in New York--from 1853 to 1860--I became intimate with Mr. Beecher and spoke beside him on many a platform and heard him in some of his most splendid efforts. He was a fascinating companion, with the rollicking freedom of a schoolboy. I never shall forget an immense meeting--in behalf of a liquor prohibition movement--held in Triplet Hall. Mr. Beecher was at his best. In the midst of his speech, he suddenly discharged a bombsh.e.l.l against negro slavery which dynamited the audience and provoked a thunder of applause. For pure eloquence it was the finest outburst I ever heard from his lips. Like Patrick Henry, Clay, Guthrie, Spurgeon and other great masters of a.s.semblies, he was gifted with a richly melodious voice--which was especially effective on the low and tender keys. This gave him great power in the pathetic portions of his discourses. Of his superabounding humor I need not speak. It bubbled out so naturally and spontaneously that he found it difficult to restrain it even on the most grave occasions. Sometimes he sinned against good taste, and I once heard his sister Catherine say that "Henry rarely delivered a speech or a sermon which did not contain something that grated on her ear." His most frequent offenses were in the direction of flippant handling of sacred themes and Scripture language. This he inherited from his ill.u.s.trious father.
Mr. Beecher is generally regarded as an extemporaneous preacher. This is a mistake. He prepared most of his discourses carefully, and full one-half of many of them were written out. Among these written pa.s.sages he interjected bursts of impromptu thoughts; and these were generally the most effective pa.s.sages in the sermon. While he repeated himself often--especially on his favorite topic of G.o.d"s love--yet it was always in fresh language and with new ill.u.s.trations. Abraham Lincoln said to me, "The most marvelous thing about Mr. Beecher is his inexhaustible fertility."