New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1879-12-28

sold at auction And this reminds me that
when he died, TO the grief OF all who
intimately knew him. sundry small people OF
the smaller press fit to speak Of him IN an
underbred. familiar way, as IL he had been more
of bon rirant and Jester than clergyman. They
were much surprised when Others, about whose
critical judgment there conld be no mistake, wrote
of him gTavely. nnd showed of what small account
were his foibles when weighed against his merits
and his inyncible amiabilty. | remember that
Edwin Z. Whippe, the ossayist, Aaid to me: Dr.
Choulcs had great deal Of religion. and OF the
good solid kind, too by which Nr. Whirple meant
rather more than he said.
When gets INTO the company OF clergymen,
one onght in this graceless world. to be in no hurry
to get cut of It. OF Claiming. can only say that
l Just saw and heard him. and nov think that bis
great reputation as preacher was rather due TO
the winning and apostolic graces of his mnnner than
10 the force and vigor of his dscourses. AS
one reads his printed sermons there Is.
think, q sense of feebleness. and OF matter
larger than the manner. This came to some
extent from what has ruined far smaller men
than the great Apostle of Unitarianism-a habit OF
refining and fear of anything like inelcganee.
clergyman who upon intimate terms with Dr.
Claiming and saw good many of his Mss. told
me that they were remarkable for interiineatioIs
and crasurcs aud that the writer's constant effort
course Iaudable. The moral courage of this great
man. exhibited in his essay on Slavery. was the
more notable because he was naturally cautious anu
had great horror of anything like extremes. lie
struck the keynote q the whole crusade agar
the institution" wiseacres used to be fond -
calling it, when he exclaimed Property in man!
You might as well talk of property in ange.s!'
Beacon Street was wonderfully stirred by this IN
expected evangel but II encountered many sur
pfiscs of the kind before all was over and bad to
bear as best II might the detection Of many of its
most respectable denizcns from the safe limits of
its frgid and eminently proper conservatism
Shock followed shock and desertion assertion, until
there was nobody left to hold up the hands of
Daniel Webster save n few small clergymen,
smaller lawyers. with here and there journalist
who SO misused types that some readers regretted
their invention
In Lockhart's Life of Scott there is an account
| of an American clergyman who visited Abbotsiord
and astOnshed the servants. for he did not see tine
master. by the eccentrcity of his conduct This
good man, for he was really good one was uncom-
monty long-winded; and preaching one Sumner
afternoon before some religions convention IN our
| church. he became so much excited, and followed
| the rule of Demosthenes with such energy that he
knocked his sermon from the pulpit cushion.
| through an open window, into the street never
saw an instance of greater self-p0sscssioD. What
did he dot lie went on as II nothing had
| happened: somebody went ont In search OF the
vagabond leaves; and when they were brought
| back and placed before him he simply rearrangcd
| them, and proceeded for an hour or two as If
nothing had happened All he did during the
absence of his 10 take oil his spectacles,
maybe ont Of some delicate appreciation of the
| everlasting fitness of things.
Perhaps the reader Will remember Methodist
! tha Roy .Iohn Neyyland Moiiit an Irish
man who always reminded me of the Irish orator in
- Nicholas Nicklcby," who made speech before the
| Crumpet and Muffin Association and who said that
he should demand extension of the blessings of
the society to his own native land-that
be looked eagerly forward to that time
when crumpets should he toasted in her lowly
cabins and muffin bells rurg in her dark green val
leys Mr. MGfit published book, of which
| heard when boy; sentence in II something like
this we used to quote with screams OF laughter as
capital example OF the way in which our CON-
positions should not be written Prom the far
famed haunts of romantic Erin solitary stranger
comes to lay bis devastated Offering Gt Coumbias
feet" Long years after, when heard him preach.
Mr.. Maffi's style stll ornate the tail OF
peacock; yet lie became Professor of Rhetoric in
Southwestern College, o Chaplain of Congress- and
| even published volume of 4" Poems" He had an
Irlshman' facility for getting into trouble: ms
standing ia the church little shaken, and /
am not sure that when he died he was a member Of
any Conference. He is worth mentioning an in
stance of the power of a rhetorician pop
| ular masses. When heard him knew that 50 far
| as taste and substance were concerned, il all
very bad yet listened 10 his cYqusitely musical
voice in a kind of trance and only detected the
substantial fnery when he had stopped speaking.
church is full of traditions, and ours which had
passed from the granite foundations of Orthodoxy
to the pleasant pastures Of Uniaransn. had its full
share of them. And here may beg my infulgent
reader TO remember that sometimes speak of what
have myself and heard. and sometimes of what
was told me- could never have seen the Rev. Samuel
West, D. D.. among other reasons. because he died
thirteen years before was born: but saw his old
| meeting house two or three miles from the town.
with its tall pulpit and great square going TO
wreck and ruin, while. with great numbers of his
| congregation. he peacefully siumbered in the
adjacent demeslles This was the Dr.. West who
| had the temerity to write treatise in reply
| to Edwards "On the Will" He did the State
some service during the Revolution, being a vjgor-
ous writer on he side OF the Rebels He il was who
performed for the Patriots service like that
which TIKI TRIBUNE lately did for the whole coun-
try. lie deciphered the reasonable letters of DIR.
Benjamin Church--an exposure which rendered it
necessary to lock up that false physician He came
to greater grief afterward. for the vessel in which
lie Was embarked for the West Indies was never
heard from. Our DIR. West-tbere was another,
also acknowledgements knotty treatises on Liberty
and Necessity and such like triaes and was never
so well pleased as when he mp TO his dear
old eyes in a slough of theological dialectcs
Scores OF stories were told of his absence of mind
how. having dismounted to rest his old horse, the
animal slipped the bride, and the Doctor walked
home with it over his shoulder, and with 10 sus-
ma the VS. not bettpt 1hpre