cture two architectural styles. He knew when to use the Norman
strength and solidity, and when the Gothic lightness and grace.

Probably his keen sense of humor would have preserved him from this not
uncommon error. It is said that the secret of humor is the quick
perception of incongruous relations. This would seem to have been the
secret of Mr. Beecher's humor, for he had in an eminent degree what the
phrenologists call the faculty of comparison. This was seen in his
arguments, which were more often analogical than logical; seen not less
in that his humor was not employed with deliberate intent to relieve a
too serious discourse, but was itself the very product of his
seriousness. He was humorous, but rarely witty, as, for the same reason,
he was imaginative but not fanciful. For both his imagination and his
humor were the servants of his moral purpose; and as he did not employ
the one merely as a pleasing ornament, so he never went out of his way
to introduce a joke or a funny story to make a laugh.

Speaking broadly, Mr. Beecher's style as an orator passed through three
epochs. In the first, best illustrated by his 'Sermons to Young Men,'
preached in Indianapolis, his imagination is the predominant faculty.
Those sermons will remain in the history of homiletical literature as
remarkable of their kind, but not as a pulpit classic for all times; for
the critic will truly say that the imagination is too exuberant, the
dramatic element sometimes becoming melodramatic, and the style lacking
in simplicity. In the second epoch, best illustrated by the Harper and
Brothers edition of his selected sermons, preached in the earlier and
middle portion of his Brooklyn ministry, the imagination is still
pervasive, but no longer predominant. The dramatic fire still burns, but
with a steadier heat. Imagination, dramatic instinct, personal sympathy,
evangelical passion, and a growing philosophic thought-structure,
combine to make the sermons of this epoch the best illustration of his
power as a popular preacher. In each sermon he holds up a truth like his
favorite opal, turning it from side to side and flashing its opalescent
light upon his congregation, but so as always to show the secret fire at
the heart of it. In the third epoch, best illustrated by his sermons on
Evolution and Theology, the philosophic quality of his mind
predominates; his imagination is subservient to and the instrument of
clear statement, his dramatic quality