ington. He told me
that after his father became King of France, he would often
hesitate, or refuse to do something or write something which his
ministers desired. The king's answer always was: "When I visited
that greatest man of all the world, General Washington, at his
home, I asked him at one time: 'General, is it not possible that
in your long and wonderful career as a soldier and statesman that
you have made mistakes?' The general answered: 'I have never
done anything which I cared to recall or said anything which I would
not repeat,' and the king would say: 'I cannot do that or sign
that, because if I do I cannot say for myself what General Washington
said of himself.'"

The duke asked me to spend a week-end with him at Chantilly, and
it is one of the regrets of my life that I was unable to accept.

I happened to be in London on two successive Sundays. On the first
I went to Westminster Abbey to hear Canon Farrar preach. The
sermon was worthy of its wonderful setting. Westminster Abbey is
one of the most inspiring edifices in the world. The orator has to
reach a high plane to be worthy of its pulpit. I have heard many
dull discourses there because the surroundings refuse to harmonize
with mediocrity. The sermon of Canon Farrar was classic. It
could easily have taken a place among the gems of English
literature. It seemed to me to meet whatever criticism the eminent
dead, buried in that old mausoleum, might have of these modern
utterances. I left the Abbey spiritually and mentally elated.

The next Sunday I went to hear Charles Spurgeon. It was a wonderful
contrast. Spurgeon's Metropolitan Tabernacle was a very plain
structure of immense proportions but with admirable acoustics.
There was none of the historic enshrining the church, which is
the glory of Westminster Abbey, no church vestments or ceremonials.

Mr. Spurgeon, a plain, stocky-looking man, came out on the platform
dressed in an ordinary garb of black coat, vest, and trousers.
It was a vast audience of what might be called middle-class people.
Mr. Spurgeon's sermon was a plain, direct, and exceedingly forcible
appeal to their judgment and emotions. There was no attempt at
rhetoric, but hard, hammerlike blows. As he rose in his indignation
and denunciation of some current evils, and illustrated his
argument with the Old Testament examples of the punishment of
sinners, the audience became greatly excited. One of the officers
of th