The Sun.
London, England, 1840-05-18 00:00:00

DR. MANNING.

BY N. P. WILLIS, ESQ., AUTHOR OF " PENCILLING; nr

THE WAY."

Dr. Channing's appearance out of the pulpit is not
prepossessing. He is below the middle stature, and of
the slightest possible frame. Constant illness, of late
years, has reduced even his natural proportions ; and
when seen in the street, wrapped With a shrinking
closeness from the air, and pursuing his way with the
irresolute step and the subdued countenance of an in-
valid, it is difficult to reconcile his appearance with the
prodigious energy of his writings. In the pulpit he
is another man. The cloud of anxiety passes from his
face as he rises. The contracted expression ordinarily
visible about his mouth gives place to a dilated and se-
rene calmness. His fine eye expands and brightens,
and the whole character of his face is one of the mod
pure and elevated humanity. A hearer wbo saw him
for the first time there, if indeed he remembered any-
thing but the eloquent beauty of his thoughts, would go
away impressed with his noble dignity, and the air of
calm power in his look and action. His face itself is.
diminutive, smaller even than a child's, but there is great
breadth at the temples, and his forehead, over which he
wears his hair long and carelessly, is of the finest form
and amplitude. On the whole, we think the common
impression, after seeing Dr. Channing, would be that of
a mind, a mere intellect, wrapped in the slightest dra-
pery of flesh that will cnnfine it—a coil of mortality so
loosely worn, that, whenever its errand was complete,
the inhabiting spirit would release itself by the simplest
heavenward volition.

Dr. Channing's delivery is not at all oratorical os
passionate. It may have been so in the earlier days of
his ministry, for he is naturally of a kindling and en-
thusiastic temperament, and it is a source of natural
wonder to those who hear him after having read hh
fervent composition, that he should yield so little to tiro
sway of feeling. His manner is earnest and absorbed,
but, unless excited by a favourite or opposed opiniee„
perfectly unimpassioned. You may not doubt few a
moment that the whole truth of his soul is breathire
on his lips, but he seems to you under the influence of
an inward power which is too holy for human excite-
ment, and which chastens and subdues his whole spirit
like a mighty spell. We know of nothing more strange-
ly and deeply impressive than this almost unnatural
suppression of enthusiasm. He is gifted by nacre
with a voice of singular depth and sweetness, which de-
bility seems only to have made more low and musical,
and with the calm serenity, na3, majesty of his man-
ner, and the high order cf his thoughts, it has some-
times seemed to us a very spirit tone—the voice of a
being without passions, breathed into utterance by the
pure inTiratioo of truth. The viglrous beauty of
his style is too well known and admired to be more
than alluded to, but a mere reader cam have little idea
of its effect when heard from the writer's own lips. His
emphasis and c..dence are very peculiar. His tares
seem the most simple effort of articulation, but he has a
way of lingering on what we can only express by calling
it the crisis. of a sentence, and of giving a depth and
richness to the forcible word, which yield an exquisite
satisfaction to the ear, not easily described. You sit
and listen, as it might be, to music. The sense is, for
the time, qpiptive ; and. if the melody in winch it comes
clothed, ars not wholly disguise the sentiment, it at
least gives it a winning persuasion most dangerous to the
charmed judgment of the hearer.