broad-chested, big-headed, strong built man,--one of the finest
specimens of a well-made, thoroughly developed Englishman I ever saw.
And he was full of life. There was not a sluggish atom in his whole
body, nor a slow-going faculty in his whole soul. He had eyes like fire;
and his face was the most expressive I ever looked upon. And his voice
was loud as the fall of mighty waters. And it was wonderfully flexible,
and full of music. And he always spoke in natural tones. There was
nothing like cant or monotony in his utterance. Yet he would raise his
voice to such a pitch at times that you could hear him half a mile away.
He was the most perfect actor I ever saw, because he was not an actor at
all, but awful, absolute reality. And he was a man of wonderful
intelligence and good sense. And he was well read. His mind was full to
overflowing of the soundest religious knowledge. And his good sound
sense had no perceptible admixture of nonsense. Every sentence answered
to your best ideas of the right, the true, the holy, the divine. His
grammar, his logic, and his rhetoric were perfect, and all nature seemed
to stand by to supply him with apt, and striking, and touching
illustrations. And his soul was full of feeling. He seemed to sympathize
with every form of humanity, from the helpless babe to tottering age,
and to be one with them in all their joys and sorrows, and in all their
hopes and fears. And now he would cry with the crying child, and then he
would wail with the afflicted mother. All that is great, all that is
tender, all that is terrible,--all nature, with all that is human, and
much that was divine, seemed incarnated in him. He was the most
wonderful embodiment of all that goes to make a great, a mighty, a
complete man, and a good, an able, and an all-powerful preacher, it ever
was my privilege to see. As a matter of course, his prayers, his
sermons, and his public speeches were irresistible. Sinners trembled,
and fell on their knees praying and howling. Saints shouted, and lost
themselves in transports. His congregations were always crowded, and the
dense, mixed masses of men and women, good and evil, old and young, all
were moved by him like the sea by a strong wind. All understood him: all
felt him; and all were awed and bowed as by the power of God. His
sermons were always practical. Whether he spake to the saint or the
sinner, he went directly to the conscience. And all that he said you
saw. Sin stared you full