The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1895-12-07

| dOOKerS Oh Olu, were INC iulinS
traits in this modern man of God. He
was another Cromwell in the rigor
with which he held himself and other
men to the strictness of the moral
law. and insisted on the Divine
Statutes, not as dead letter on the
codes of society, but as full of vitali-
ty today, to be needed, obeyed, en-
forced. This was the nature Of the
man. And he gave that nature con-
genial training, and converted it into
that second nature which is charac.
ter. He never weakened his sense of
duty by ignoring it. He never
dimmed the light of conscience by
triAing with it. He gave his heart
without reserve to his church and his
fellowmen and his Maker, SO that the
dispositions to right which were born
in him, matured into the voluntary
choice of his soul, and strengthened
with the practice of the years. He
fostered the gifts of God within. 1t
was thus that he developed consis-
tently and naturally into the man
conformed to reason, to duty and to
love.
And it was this entire genuineness,
this harmony of the man and his
deeds, this perfect rapport between
his moral life and his manifold ac-
tivities which gave his personality
such weight. There can be no last
ing influence in this world without
sincerity. The man, as teacher, lead
er, prophet, who carries his fellowmen
with him does it by virtue of the
moral gravitation of his inner life, his
real self. Perhaps there is the more
propriety in the stress put upon this
truth, from the fact that DR.. Miner
himself never claimed any especial
Difference to himself, as man. | do
not think that he looked large to him.
self, or that, if he did feel his own
weight, he ever was perturbed by it.
There was none of the business of
little greatness about him. He never
timed his entrances nor fastened his
exits in mems sight, so that they
should have him much in their eye.
He never used his gifts of speech for
oratory's sake. He was never man
to minimize the force and value of
the outward details of life. He never
neglected the little things which ex-
press and perform life's functions,
because he himself was great. But
small matters grew large and dignified
under his touch, and the little epis-
odes of intercourse, as he used them,
became vastly significant. His morn
ming salutation had all the broad and
gracious effect of the sunrise. His
handshake was like the sealing of a
compact of perpetual friendship. In
the smallest transactions with him
one felt the sway of this large per-
sonality. Yetnever was the thrust of
this force at all like egotism. 1t was
the inevitable and necessary power of
a great nature.
In this power of his personality we
may find, | suspect, one source OF
his hold upon the men and women
who heard his preaching and went
away again and again,a little troubled
that they had not been more inter-
ested. His words were often above
the heads of his hearers. They could
not always follow where his mind
moved SO easily. But nevertheless
they liked to listen, if only to hear
the man. They might not feel the
force of what he said; they always
felt the force of what he was. The
sermon might be too abstruse; the
man never was. Whatever else they
might misunderstood, they under
stood him. He was noble illustra-
ton of the rule that the preacher
is more of the sermon than anything
he says. The orator is the real ora
ton. And so when that clear voice
Glove the air, and that graceful arm
accented speech with gesture, and
the eye frightened with the fire of
kindled thought, all of us who listened
became aware of something far tran
scending speech and action and all
the arts of oratory,-the man who was
making them the means of reaching
other men, the energy of a noble soul
pouring out its life upon other souls.
1t has seemed to me that there
were two or three words which were
the keynotes of his character, to which
all his thinking and acting were at
tuned. They explain his spirit and
they account for the consistent, I'M
swerving lines of his conduct through
that long and active life. The first
of them is Truth, which he loved, for
which he lived. He was not one of