ost able and persuasive preacher; of whom
President Dwight, of Yale, is reported to have said, that there had been
scarcely such a writer of pure English since Addison. With the exception
of some failure of physical powers, towards the close of his life, he
retained these admirable characteristics and accomplishments to the end
of his more than ninety years. He always preached in gown and bands, with
black gloves upon his hands, his nether limbs encased in small-clothes
and silk stockings, until in later life he adopted the prevailing mode.
We always knew when he intended to preach, because through several
intervening yards and gardens we could see from our house the light in
his study, at a distance, of a Saturday night. His morning discourses
were usually admirable expositions of Scripture delivered without notes;
his afternoon sermons were written exercises, and we so depended upon
both, that it was a disappointment when we discovered that he was to
exchange, by the absence of the usual light. He would descend from the
contemplation of the highest themes, which address themselves to human
reason and imagination, and from the relaxation of reading "Tully," or
Horace, or Pope, who was a special favorite with him, to the preparation
of his fire-wood for domestic use, and doubtless this accustomed
saw-horse practice tended very much to the promotion and continuance both
of his bodily and mental health. In my childhood, he taught me and other,
I fear, reluctant pupils all we were capable of learning of the
Westminster Assembly's Shorter Catechism, contained, at that time, in a
small but miscellaneous volume called the Primer. He was a great lover of
the writings of Cowper, which name, in the English manner, he always
pronounced Cooper, and of the Psalms and Hymns and the lyrical
productions, in general, of Dr. Watts; and long after I had grown up, he
pointed out to me a verse in one of those Hymns, remarking upon a point
which I do not remember to have seen noticed elsewhere, that it presented
the finest specimen of alliteration in the language, as follows:--

"How vain are all things here below,
How false and yet how fair!
Each pleasure hath its poison too,
And every sweet a snare."

The eventual condition and standing of our Episcopal Church may be
inferred from the fact, that its Rector, in early times, was chosen
Bishop of the diocese, a digni