utterance being intirely obstructed by the force of his feelings, he raised his handkerchief to his eyes, and burst into a loud and irrepressible flood of grief. The effect is inconceivable. The whole house resounded with the mingled groans, and sobs, and shrieks of the congregation.

It was some time before the tumult had subsided, so far as to permit him to proceed. Indeed, judging by the usual, but fallacious standard of my own weakness, I began to

be

very uneasy for the situation of the preacher. For I could not conceive, how he would be able to let his audience down from the height to which he had wound them, without impairing the solemnity and dignity of his subject, or perhaps shocking them by the abruptness of the fall. But-no: the descent was as beautiful and sublime, as the elevation had been rapid and enthusiastick.

The first sentence, with which he broke the awful silence, was a quotation from Rousseau : "Socrates died like a philoso"pher, but Jesus Christ, like a God!"

I despair of giving you any idea of the effect produced by this short sentence, unless you could perfectly conceive the whole manner of the man, as well as the peculiar crisis in the discourse. Never before, did I completely understand what Demosthenes meant by laying such stress on delivery. You are to bring before you the venerable figure of the preacher; his blindness, constantly recalling to your recollection old Homer, Ossian and Milton, and associating with his performance, the melancholy grandeur of their geniuses; you are to imagine that you hear his slow, solemn, well-accented enunciation, and his voice of affecting, trembling melody; you are to remember the pitch of passion and enthusiasm to which the congregation were raised; and

then, the few minutes of portentous, deathlike silence which reigned throughout the house the preacher removing his white handkerchief from his aged face, even (yet wet from the recent torrent of his tears) and slowly stretching forth the palsied hand which holds it, begins the sentence : "Socra "tes died like a philosopher"-then pausing, raising his other hand, pressing them both clasped together, with warmth and energy to his breast, lifting his "sightless balls". to heaven, and pouring his whole soul into his tremulous voice" but Jesus Christ-like a "God!" If he had been indeed and in truth an angel of light, the effect could scarcely have been more divine.

Whatever I had been able to conceive of the sublimity of Massillon, or the force of Bourdaloue, had fallen far short of the pow er which I felt from the delivery of this simple sentence. The blood, which just before

had rushed in a hurricane upon my brain, and, in the violence and agony of my feelings, had held my whole system in suspense, now ran back into my heart, with a sensation which I cannot describe: a kind of shuddering delicious horrour! The paroxysm of blended pity and indignation, to which I had been transported, subsided into the deepest selfabasement, humility and adoration. I had just been lacerated and dissolved by sympathy, for our Saviour as a fellow creature; but now, with fear and trembling, I adored him as "a God!"

If this description give you the impression, that this incomparable minister had any thing of shallow, theatrical trick in his manner, it does him great injustice. I have never seen, in any other orator, such an union of simplicity and majesty. He has not a gesture, an

attitude, or an accent, to which he does not seem forced, by the sentiment which he is ex

pressing. His mind is too serious, too earnest, too solicitous, and, at the same time, too dignified, to stoop to artifice. Although as far removed from ostentation as a man can be, yet it is clear from the train, the style and substance of his thoughts, that he is, not only a very polite scholar, but a man of extensive and profound erudition. I was forcibly struck with a short, yet beautiful character which he drew of our learned and amiable countryman, sir Robert Boyle: he spoke of him, as if "his noble mind had, even before death, "divested herself of all influence from his "frail tabernacle of flesh;" and called him, is his peculiarly emphatick and impressive manner, a pure intelligence the link be

"tween men and angels. '

This man has been before my imagination almost ever since. A thousand times, as I rode along, I dropped the reins of my bridle, stretched forth my hand, and tried to