The Minneapolis journal. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn.) 1888-1939, 1902-04-26

"a A H ferry boat. landing in Brooklyn,
lNMA9 and climbing the sloping,
densely populated hill. to Beechers
church.
But he was out of town lecturing, and
som ebody else was in the pulpit; and
walked away with a discomfort which
did not take any particular care to con-
ceal from good -natured looking burgh-
er who stood at the doorway of his house,
summing himself.
"Why don't you go and hear this new
light up on Schermerhorn street," he
asked. He's almost as good
So 70 Schermerhorn street wended my
way, and found the new light Just
commencing his sermon. He was tan.
bony, angular man over feet high, and as
wide as a spacious pulpit platform would
allow him to be-wide In the sense that
he could occupy every inch OF that
rostrum within sixty seconds and any CIV
en- time. His face was thin, sandy Burn
side whiskers ornamented it. His voice
was harsh though strong. His gestures
were such as the average elocutionlst
would promptly condemn. Where IS MS
drawing power?" I unused; Tor was
standing up for lack OF a seat. in that
massive audience.
The answer came in the very next
sentence; it contained clear-cut,
startling, oratorioal figure, that caught
Won by the collar and held you, whether
YOU would or not. 1t was prose-poem
in twenty words,
~ wonder If he can do that again, or II
it's his per-epigram OF the day, was the
next thought. "..t
He did II again and again. He seemed
to be so full OF that sort OF thing, tna'
he had hardly time to give them all OUT
INDEPENDENTLY of it's religious character
his sermon was literary feast-or rather
a series of literary electric shocks.
Candor compels me to admit that mad,
during the preceding week, attended the
theater six evenings in successor; Tor a
student Just out of college restrictions Is
prone to indulge himself somewhat "her
he gets into a city. But during all the SIX
nights. had seen no acting like this
had found no stage--however large the
communicated UP with attractions ike
this: no scenery equal to that which ne
drew with his own unaided tongue.
So far as the way-down subject matter
OF the discourse was concerned, there was
nothing particularly new; you could go
Into the church of any good old Presby-
terrain divine and hear exactly the same
doctrine But when 1t came to the man
ner of stating those doctrines then it was
that the excitement commenced .., s..
His ideas of the fallibility OF earthly
grandeur had been preached again and
again but probably no one had coun-
selled people to ask the French guillotine
in Madame Tussaud 8 museum concerning
the queenly necks it had discovered. His
views of eternal punishment were as or
thodox as If they had been brewed a
hundred years before; but he alone as
serted, in those same words. that He'll Is
a great metropolis Of suffering. l hac
heard infidels denounced. but had never
before imagined that they gathered all the
divine teachings, and under them lighted
the fires of their own wit and scorn ant
sarcasm, and then danced in the light O
that blaze, and then scratched amid the
rubbish for sonnet hing with which to hell
them in the days of trouble.
And when he was through, he referred
to a great shipwreck that had recent.
taken place, and said, solmenly, and i'm
pressively:
Toll, toll the bell for the spirits o
those who were lost beneath those mur
derous waves!' .. ... ~.
And Immediately, from the regions O
che belfry came the half-muffled sound
of the tabernacle bell-tolled by the han
of the sexton, who was, it seems, a coad
tutor in this impre ssive speech. Tai
mage seemed that morning like q job
Knox, George Whiteheld, and Lorenz
Dow. all rolled into one.
Preaching to Imaginary Audiences
was few years later to become
near ntighbor of this unique man-an
TO see and hea. him under all sorts {
conditions, and in almost every mood. H
had been a farmers boy in New Jerse,
he told me. and had preached many sci
mon to the night woods and winds
imag ginning that large audiences sat befol
him His father was strong, rathe
austere man, who was stern and sturd
enough to be elected sheriff Of the count
His mother was poet in prose--nevt
telling fact in plain words If there WI
q figure with which to illustrate it. Cd
witt, bounce up like lamplighter! 81
would call from the bottom Of the stat