The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-04-01
THE LATE CANON LIDDON

Those who visited London in the sos and heard Canon Llddon preach at St. Paul's cathedral used to tell of the fa- ous Anglican divines clean cut diction and his compelling eloquence. Among the Anglican contemporaries of Liddon distinguished for pulpit power was Canon Farrar, afterward dean of Canterbury. For many years Farrar preached in the Westminster Abbey. His homiletc style was ornate, as those who read his books might imagine. Liddon was regarded as raan of broader scholarship and strong CT intellectual grasp. It Is said that one could never tire of listening to Canon Liddon. The church of England has many brilliant preachers today, but with the exception of Boyd Carpenter, who recent ly retired from the bishopric of Ripon, there Is perhaps no one In the class of Lddon, who died in 1890. In recent num- Der of the Nineteenth Century and After in a paper on the oxford Movement, is this charming sketch of the great church. man:
 Tt will not be by his theology so much as by his sermons that Liddon will be remembered. In these he left the sac ramental shbboleths behind. In these he Is loyal to his own true self and loyal to the language of the prayer book.
 Even as We write we seem to feel our selves back in that familiar cathedral where for 20 years the silver chime of
  vast audience Is once more gathered un- der the great dome-solemn, silent, ex- pectant of the good things to come. The well known spare, emacated figure has once more mounted the pulpit steps. As with MT. Wesley, the first parent of the Oxford Movement, every part of Liddons S person and dress seems to betoken fas- tidious care The dark countenance and flashing eye seem to peer into the hearts of all that sea of upturned faces. The manuscript is already arranged in it's place. The little black Bible is in one hand. Upon the other arm he leans for ward with impressive dignity as if con scious of the weighty charge which he is intrusted to deliver.
 And now he slowly and artlculately enunciates the text The atmosphere Is already charged with a strange kind of enthusiasm. A hush pervades the vast host spread out Beneath the vaulted can opy of stone. The keen, eager manner of the preacher at once arrests attention. The exquisitely modulated voice soon fills the ear.
 "'And all the air of a solemn stiffness
 holds
 "The burning zeal of the orator pene- trates at once the heart of the subject He holds the audience in the hollow of his hand. Conviction breeds conviction. Faith becomes as it were contagious. And as the roll of the well turned period reverberates around the circle of the dome, laundering in the ear of the guilty the echoes of his doom, pleading in the bosom of the penitent the solaces of a pardoning love, we forget to notice the peculiar excited, energetic manner of the speaker who has woven around us the spell of his genius and lavished upon us all the resources of his art.
 His models are French; he himself is a Frenchman by long descent. As a re- suit the grand manner is, perhaps, lit- | tie too uniform. The ornate character of the diction is perhaps more than the texture of the discourse can always ade- l quately bear. The structure of the ser ! mon may sometimes lack that variety | which conceals the laborious artfulness of art. But these defects are lost sight of in the splendor of the occasion and the universality of the theme-the joys of re- demption. the hopes of forgiveness, the bliss of the sanctified, the trump of the archangel and the second coming to judge the world.'