Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1888-05-16
Rev. Sam. smaII-Lecture and Sermon.

Rev. Sam. SmalI-Lecture and Sermon
The low famous Rev. Sam. Small, Of Allan
ia, Ga, on last Friday night, in the Operi
House, 10 a large and delighted audience, de
livered his celebrated lecture-"From the Bar
room to the Pulpit"-and on Saturday, at L
a, M, In the NJ. E. Church South, to o very
large audience, he preached a sermon based
ON the text: Hebrews XIII: IA: "For here
have we no continuing city, but we seek on,
to Gomez
His style is unique ss well as eloquent, earn
est and forcible. His manner is graceful and
bis rhetoric brilliant with opposite imagery
His figures are striking and his illustrations
graphic. He is skillful rhetorical thinner
and his pictures stand out boldly on the can
vas. His audiences were led by his reputa-
ton to anticipate rich intellectual feast, and
their most sanguine expectations were more
than realized, and they felt like exclaiming.
as did the Queen OF Sheba,-"ths half had not
been told" After giving. in narrative form,
expressed In fluent language with poetic i'm
agery, gracefully delivered, the trials Of his
life whilst enslaved in the tolls of the destroy
ing habit; the Intellectual means resorted to by
medicine and otherwise to free him; the
intense suffering 1t caused him to feel and the
heart-rending anguish of the wife OF his bos-
ON, who resorted to every device that offered
tbs least ray Of hope to rescue him and the So
licitude of kind friends who were Interested
in his welfare-in a word, after giving
graphic description of his life up to the time
he was unexpectedly and mysteriously con-
vertea by a sermon preached by Rev. Sam
JONES' when he Immediately went from the
bar-room to the pulpit" he entered upon reg
ular argument in favor Of prohibition. and in
support OF the prohibition party. This portion
of his lecture was particularly unique. graph
10 and striking. His thrusts were keen and
delivered with vigor. HE cried aloud and
spared not" He was no respecter OF persons,
and the preachers shared but little, If any.
better than the politicians. the liquor-sellers,
the so-called statesmen, and weakened
members of the church. and others. who were
in turn impartially and mercilessly assailed
by his arguments. sarcasm and ridicule. Both
political parties were alike assailed and ridi
culed-both were opposed to prohibition-the
Democratic party honestly and frankly; the
Republican party cowardly and hypocritically
His peroration, in which he personiled Faith,
Justice. Mercy, Temperance and other virtues,
was q fine specimen of word-painting and po-
etic imagery, and presented q gorgeous and
fascinating picture that took captive the imag-
nation.
In his sermon on Saturday morning, after
showing the transitory nature ofal earthly
things, as illustrated by the decay of monu-
ments cities, nationalities. and even civiliza-
ton, he gllded into a Temperance speech, main
tanning that we could have no continuing
city" of prosperity whilst liquor saloons were
allowed to exist. He said the ministers wer
greatly respons ible, through their remissness,
for the existence of saloons and the evils con-
sequent thereupon, and mentioned Carriers
Vile and Rome, Ca. as illustrations of what
The ministers could do by united and earnest
sfort-in both Of which places the saloons
we're in a short time abolished by the efforts Of
The preachers. He closed with description of
.he imaginary journey that, when he came to
lie. his spirit. accompanied by that of his
mother. would make through space, passing
world after world, and their joyful arrival
within the city of golden streets, jasper walls.
and pearly gates mot made with hands, eter-
nal in the Heavens" This, like the perora-
lion of his famous lecture, was fine specimen
Of rhetorical defamation.