t,
but run after as a popular preacher.

And yet, to his written style Owen is less indebted for his fame than
almost any of the Puritans. Not to mention that his works have never
been condensed into fresh pith and modern portableness by any congenial
Fawcett, they never did exhibit the pathetic importunity and Demosthenic
fervor of Baxter. In his Platonic loftiness Howe always dwelt apart; and
there have been no glorious dreams since Bunyan woke amidst the beatific
vision. Like a soft valley, where every turn reveals a cascade or a
castle, or at least a picturesque cottage, Flavel lures us along by the
vivid succession of his curious analogies and interesting stories;
whilst all the way the path is green with kind humanity, and bright with
Gospel blessedness. And like some sheltered cove, where the shells are
all so brilliant, and the sea-plants all so curious, that the young
naturalist can never leave off collecting, so profuse are the quaint
sayings and the nice little anecdotes which Thomas Brooks showers from
his "Golden Treasury," from his "Box," and his "Cabinet," that the
reader needs must follow where all the road is so radiant. But Owen has
no adventitious attractions. His books lack the extempore felicities and
the reflected fellow-feeling which lent a charm to his spoken sermons;
and on the table-land of his controversial treatises, sentence follows
sentence like a file of ironsides, in buff and rusty steel, a sturdy
procession, but a dingy uniform; and it is only here and there where a
son of Anak has burst his rags, that you glimpse a thought of uncommon
stature or wonderful proportions. Like candidates for the modern
ministry, in his youth Owen had learned to write Latin, Greek, and
Hebrew; but then, as now, English had no place in the academic
curriculum. And had he been urged in maturer life to study the art of
composition, most likely he would have frowned on his adviser. He would
have urged the "haste" which "the King's business" requires, and might
have reminded us that viands are as wholesome on a wooden trencher as on
a plate of gold. He would have told us that truth needs no tinsel, and
that the road over a bare heath may be more direct than the pretty
windings of the valley. Or, rather, he would have said, as he has
written--"Know that you have to do with a person who, provided his words
but clearly express the sentiments of his mind, entertains a fixed and
absolute disregard of all elegance and