Year: 1879

for the ideal of all, the immense, the
unknown, the fathomless mystery which
we seek forever, but never find.


shall never forget, even should my
life be protracted for ages, the first time
that had an opportunity of seeing and
hearing this western prodigy. 1t was at
the town of Fayette, in the county pre-
vlously mentioned. The large court
house was used as place of temporary
worship, and, long before the appointed
hour, it had been crowded to its utmost
capacity, while hundreds, unable to gain
admission, hung around the doors and
windows, determining to get glimpse,
or catch at least tone of the won
derful orator, whose fame was on every
body's tongue.


Several preachers were on the plat
form and among the dense throng arose
the low murmur, made up of thousand
eager whispers - " Which is Ellis p''-
(which is the new Whitfield ?"
Which is he ?" And the general con-
clusion of those who had never seen the
object of their curiosity appeared to be,
that a fine formed, middle-aged person,
with ruddy complexion and shining
bald head, was the man. The inference
grew stronger when the individual de-
scribed arose, gave out a hymn, and,
kneeling, uttered an eXtemporaneou
prayer of considerable fluency and un-
bounded fevor. However, upon the whole,
the congregation felt keen disappoint-
ment. The effort did not in any degree
correspond with the grandeur of their
preconceived ideas. Nor was this at all
strange, as the performer in this case
happened to be only the elder in charge
of the district; and such clerical officers
in Methodist denomination are COM
monty chosen with reference to their
steady and solid talents for government,
and their unimpeachable orthodoxy,
more than from any manifestations of
logical acuteness or theological genius.


The petition to Heaven was ended
Those who had bowed to the earth In
real or simulated alteration resumed
their seats, and, for five minutes after
wards, there prevailed a solemn silence
the profound calm of expectation
Then suddenly slender figure, that
nobody had observed before, ascended
the platform, and pale yet luminous
face, shining with two earnest, starry
eyes, glanced slowly and calmly around
the vast assemblage, as if silently meas
uring their capacity for the reception of
the truths about to be enunciated.


He did not open the Bible-he did not
formally take any text, but all at once
he cried out, in trumpet tones, which
caused every hearer to start on his
seat:


Behold make all things new !'-
And then he spread out all the sails of
imagination, and launched bodily forth
into an illimitable ocean of eloquenee.
The burden of his discourse, in its first
division, was the susceptibility of the
material molecules composing the visi-
BILE and tangible universe for endless
transformations of utility and trans
cendental beauty throughout endless ages
of eternity. He demonstrated from the
latest discoveries of chemistry, and the
best established truths of all physical
science, that matter is not that gross,
disgusting thing which the atheistic
philosophers and some superstitious
theologians would have us believe it,
but that all its aspects of responsiveness,
of sweetness, of sublimity and of terror
depend upon the arrangement of its
atoms and the composition of its ele-
ments.


AS the speaker went on advancing
into the beart of his subject, the pale
ness gradually left his face, which at
last glowed like fiery furnace; and the
azure of his eyes turned to red, literally
lighted around him, and as he closed
the first branch of his subject, describ-
ing the beatitude to be enjoyed in the
new heaven and earth,' the final home
of the saints in light, general and ir-
repressible shout of enthusiasm broke
forth among the faithful.


He then commenced the second divis-
ion of his discourse, with the singular
remark that although it was declared
that all things should be made new,
there was no intimation that all persons
should be made new, but that an OPP
posite inference might be deduced from
the letter and spirit of the text" And
Notwithstanding, as every intelligent
reader will at once perceive, that this
construction was fanciful and far