s
gestures are even and well balanced; and you are, in fact, surprised to
see how good a natural orator he is. You went to hear him, expecting to
find some justification for the stories which impute to him a low and
egotistic presence, and a delivery that depends upon broadness for its
effects. But he appears unpretending, in spite of the satisfied look
which he casts around the congregation when he first steps to the
railing of the platform. He is evidently conscious that he owns the
building and the audience; but, content with that, he makes no attempt
to put them in his pocket; on the contrary, he almost instantly becomes
seriously engaged in transferring into them his lesson for the day. His
style of extemporaneous speaking is conversational,--the better English
suspect all other styles,--and this of itself shows what improvement has
taken place in the Surrey region. If at first he indulged in rant, he
has now subsided into an even vein; he puts things plumply, and tells
his feelings gravely, and makes his points without quackery. So it is
plain that when he gives notice of a contribution for his college, in
which young men are trained for the ministry, and states simply, in
justification, that one hundred and fifty have already left it, and are
now engaged in preaching the dissenting word, he is to be regarded as
one of the decided influences which are now at work to bring the people
up to self-consciousness, self-respect, and political importance.

It is very characteristic that the National Church is called an
Establishment,--in other words, something that stays where it was put
some time ago. The thing which ought to move first, and move
continually through all the avenues of the public life, to keep them
clear of the obstructions of ignorance and superstition, and prevent the
great travel and intercourse of thought from stagnating, is the thing in
England which is most unwilling to stir. Already a fearful accumulation
of passengers and vehicles, whose patience is nearly exhausted, is
anxious to be let through in time to keep appointment with the world's
grave business. Young thoughts are hurrying to be indorsed; mature paper
dreads to be protested; the hour of the world's liberal exchange is
about to strike. Depend upon it, at the critical moment, when the
pressure in the rear becomes the most emphatic, the people in the
omnibus will have to get out and assist the passengers in drawing it to
one side, where it