A Group of Recollections

From a very early period I was fascinated by the writings of George Gilfillan, whom I then only knew as a United Presbyterian minister. I had never seen the man, nor had any description been given to me; simply from an independent perusal of his writings I felt that he was a master in Israel. Though I at once venerated and dreaded the power of this brilliant and dashing critic, I ventured to send him a copy of my “Helps to Truth-Seekers,” and proud was I to receive a letter full of the kindest appreciation. When I now look at the book and the letter side by side, I cannot but feel that Mr. Gilfillan ceased to be a critic in order that he might be a friend. His” Bards of

the Rible” fascinated me as no other book 382

GEORGE
GILFILLAN

had done up to the time of my perusing it. The “Literary Galleries” amounted to something like a revelation in literature. Even in my then utterly undisciplined mental state I could not fail to notice that all Gilfillan’s geese were swans, all his swans were eagles, and all his eagles were archangels. The only counteractant of such literary dram-drinking was a steady perusal of some dry-as-dust metaphysical volume. One of Hoppus’s lectures would have been an excellent alterative. But Giliillan was the man for the young and enterprising mind. His metaphors, his images, his coruscations, his noble eulogy, and his scorching satire, when taken together could hardly fail to intoxicate the young fancy and overturn the inexperienced judgment. Gilfillan came to preach for me in Manchester; and once, when he lectured there, he had dinner and tea at my house, so we saw the giant close at hand, and weighed him and measured him without coming to exact figures in either case. He was in very deed a big man — big altogether, in head and heart, in physical avoirdupois and mental troy. He only knew a very little part of himself; of his Own personality there were outlying districts, almost provinces, which he had not laid under adequate cultivation, and which were full of mines and treasure-trove. I am not sure that cultivation, in any pedantic sense, had much to do with Gilfillan’s greatness. The difference between him and most other men was the difference lietween an egg and an eagle. Gilfillan was in his highest moments alight with the glory of genius. He discovered nothing by mere labour; he seemed to know intuitively. He saw from afar. What, then, if in his seeing men found haze, aerial colour, and a perspective that brought parallels to angles and so upset the popular geometry? Gilfillan seemed to start life without any special regard for Euclid; not that he ever sjioke disresjsectfully of squares and triangles, but to him they were nowhere beside the Gospel-breathing flowers and the Apocalyptic clouds. The Woman standing in the sun was no miracle to Gilfillan; the miracle would have been to find a woman in any other place. Ezekiel, Daniel, and Revelation were written in his mother tongue. He understood them and loved them and simplified them by minor images. Did Gilfillan ever think but in metaphor? Did he ever hear of a syllogism, — that mental porridge of the Scot! — or, hearing of it, did he leave it that he might accept a higher and diviner hospitality r

A GROUr OF EECOLLECTIONS 385

Porridge or nectar, syllogism or trope, Gilfillan was a well-fed man, so overflowing Avitli life that his touch had healing in it. As a young man I simply revelled in his style, and now that I am no longer young I still find — within all the gay and fragrant florilegiuni — a strong man’s strength and a good man’s tenderness. Of course the stylo is highly coloured: I knoAV it; I admit it; I do not deplore it. Of course is it redundant: quite true — redundant after the manner of old mother Nature, so hountiful and so lavish in all her summer ways. Gilfillan’s music is the rush of torrents, or the shout of Bashan and Lebanon in the very riotousness of their pride. The lute and the harp were not his favourite instruments, though now and then he could he placid and soothing in his strains. He loved to see the upheaving of mountains, the salutations of passing comets, and Etna signalling to Sirius. All this was quite in his way. It was a great, rugged, royal way, and not the way of the temperate men avIio have often smiled upon his mannerism. These arc the men who mistake fluttering for flying, and a stone-hreaker for a sculptor.

Can I ever forget the sermon Gilfillan delivered in my pulpit in Manchester P

386 A rKEACHEK’S LIFE

Nothing like it was ever seen under the sun. He took the sermon out of his trouser pocket and laid it in little heaps — not of the whitest paper — on the pulpit Bible, and took it up scrap by scrap, and read each at the pulpit lamp as if he were announcing a bazaar or a tea-meeting. But listen! Shut out the grotesque image of a j)iece of paper held up to a lamj) by a giant in gold spectacles, and listen. HoAV clean-cut each sentence! What a figure was that! What a portrait in few words! What an electric-spark sentence! How long, solemn, subduing the voice, dying in a cadence that has in it the moan of a heart-sob! When he announced the hundredth psalm, the word psalm seemed to become a tune in the saying of it. Yes, it was a grand sermon; but it Was execrably deliA’ered as a Avliole. It might have been some other man’s sermon, read for the purj)ose of shoAldng how poor it was. Yet, listen, listen! You will then be charmed and thrilled and blest. “First the shock, then the almost-laugh, then the wonder, then the prayer, then the heartfelt thanks. It was very wonderful, and often beautiful exceedingly.

Prom a domestic and dining ])omt of view George Gilfillan left us a vivid recollection.

It would be too strong a metaphor to describe our honoured guest as an ascetic. He was not, and his ways were not exactly prim. In the upper room he rubbed his glorious head and face with a towel, and then threw the towel upon a swing-mirror. Coming downstairs, he vigorously stirred the fire with our best tongs, and then threw the tongs under the bars with a fine disregard of domestic j)erspective. I remember well that on the day of Mr. Gilfillan’s dining with us Ave had an afternoon engagement at five o’clock which Ave could not put off. Should we ask him to stay to tea? We had to start soon after four, so what time was there for tea? Mr. Gilf llan settled the business for us, for immediately after dinner he drcAV his chair to the fire and said, “We maun have tea early.” Thus do the Invisibles work kindly for us if Ave will but let them alone and cease to fret about the coming and going of daily life.

To return. Gilfillan’s style has been described as turgid, bombastic, and artificial. There are men who can use such words quite glibly in describing other men’s literary method. Gilfillan’s style may be all they say, but under this style lies the bold and burning thought, What of that? Besides, Nature has many expressions. Her chariots, like her Lord’s, are twenty thousand, and her angels are thousands of thousands. Think of the Ganges rebuking the Atlantic! Think of the bantam regarding the eagle as an exaggeration! “Every man in his own order, and God for us all,” should be our motto. Gilfillan had his own royal way, and royally he pursued it. Blessing on his memory! Honour to his high name!

Norman Macleod was physically quite as big a man as George Gilfillan. He had his ovll qualities, which, though so totally different, were in no degree inferior to those of the great Dundee author. George Gilfillan excelled in imagination, in glow of fancy, in fervour of eloquence, and in intellectual audacity. Everything went uj) or down before his rushing rhetoric. Gilfillan must have his rhetorical framcAvork, whatever glorification or murder might take place within tlic furnace-like environment. George Gilfillan forced rhetoric into the service of criticism, and the criticism, often suffered because it was overborne or affrighted by the lava of Vesuvian

NORMAN MACLEOD rhetoric. If any one should think that my epithets are too fervid, let him study Gilfillan and then give me his calm opinion. Dr. Macleod was in many respects the exact opposite of all this. Above all things he was genial, sjTnpathetic, humane. Dr. Macleod had the great gift of humour; he saw many things from something like a comical point of view. He was a most profound student of human nature in all its varieties and evolutions. This made him the great preacher which he undoubtedly was. He came to preach for me in Manchester at a time when I was in great domestic trouble. When, after the service, I gave him a hint of my affliction, I can never forget the womanly tenderness with which he drew me to him (I was then thirty-tAvo years of age) and talked to me like a pastor sent from God. The sermon had been a wonderful illustration of the power of conA’ersational eloquence, but in some respects the private address was more penetrating in genuine human pathos./ When Dr. Macleod opened the” vestry door of Cavendish Street Chapel and saw the great size of the building, he stepped back into the vestry and said, “In AA hat tone must I speak in order to fill that space?” I ventured to say, “Adopt a conversational base, and rise and fall just as you feel your sentiment requires.” On returning from the pulpit lie said: “Thank you for giving me that hint; if you had not given it I should have roared and bellowed so that not a soul in the place could have heard a word I said. Be sure to tell Alexander the same thing.” Dr. Macleod did adopt the conversational tone, and he did rise and fall from that flexible base. The sermon was, I say, a marvellous illustration of what Henry Rogers used to say, that “Preaching should be conversation at its best.” The great man talked to us, talked straight into our hearts; spoke about human nature with reverent and intelligent familiarity, and brought redeeming Gospel thoughts to bear with great effect upon our daily life.

On one of my last visits to Scotland I heard an anecdote or two about Norman Macleod which, at that time at least, had never been published. One of them I must give, as it came to me almost directly from the speaker himself. When a very young man, he was preaching in a small Scotch village. On walking out on the following Monday morning, he saw a man unmercifully beating a donkey, but the man did not know who was walking behind and ohscrving the cruelty. (Here I may note, for the benefit of Southern readers, that in Scotland a donkey is often called a “cuddy.”) On turning round, the man saw approaching the preacher of yesterday, whose ministry he had attended, whereupon he exclaimed:

“Eh, Mr. Macleod, it is just as true as the Gospel what you were saying yesterday, that through muckle tribulation we maun enter the kingdom: naebody can tell the trouble I hae wi’ that cuddy o’ mine!”

“John,” was the lightning-like reply, “if it is a question o’ tribulation, I think the cuddy will be there before ye are.”

Another story of the great Norman I heard as I ramljled on the banks of the Esk, storing Scotch energy for London use. Norman was young at the time of this anecdote. Having preached on the previous Sunday, he went out during the week in search of a farmhouse called the “Dafllin.” At the Dafflin he was expected to baptise the latest addition to the family. But Norman did not know where the Dafflin was, therefore lie needed to inquire his way. Fortunately he met a hright-looking herd-boy, who told him that he himself was going on an errand to the town, and would be back in a few minutes, and then he would show the stranger the way, for it so happened that the herd-boy belonged to the very farm towards which Norman Macleod was proceeding. The little herd-boy, with a small bag over his shoulder, came up to Macleod, and the following conversation took place:

“There’s gaun to be a fine shine
at the Dafflin th’ neet.”

“Aye; what’s going to be up at
the Dafflin?”

“The meenister’s cumin’ to bapteese the AA’ean. I’ve got the cookies i’ th’ bag.”

Norman did not tell the boy that
he himself was “the meenister” in
question but said, “Noo, hoAV d’ye
get a livin’?”

“Oh, I’m just a herd laddie. I
split the wood, and carry the Water,
and bring the kye hame, and do just
AA’hat I’m felt.”

There A’as a moment’s silence.

Then the boy, turning to Norman, Scaid, Avitli a mark of interrogation in each eye, “Hoo d’ye get a liyin’?”

“Well, that’s a fair question. I asked ye how ye got a livin’, and ye felt me; now I’ll tell ye how I get a livin ‘. I get a livin’ by tellin’ auld folk, and young folk, and little folk like ye the way to heaven.”

The little boy stood still and simply screamed with laughter. His laughter “»as uncontrollable. He was doubled up with laughter. When the tumult of merriment subsided a little, he turned to Norman, and said: “That’s a good un.” Then another burst of laughter, and then this profound inquiry, Hoo can ye tell the way t’ hivven Allien ye dinna ken th’ way t’ th’ Dafflin? ‘’

Dr. Macleod was one of the wits of the century. This was one of the elements of his great pulpit power, not that he made much room for the play of his wit in any pulpit exercises, yet through many of his sermons there ran a peculiar light Avhicli indicated that he had been AA-atching human nature and coming to large conclusions

A PREACHEE’S LIFE

respecting it. I shall ever love the memory of Dr. Norman Macleod. He was as a good Samaritan to me when I was wounded on the way. His majestic figure, his summer-like smile, his fatherly and genial voice, his sympathetic eloquence are memories and treasures which no man can take from me.

Going back a long way, I find that Joseph Barker was one of the men who had great influence over me in my early teens. He used to come to our town after he had been expelled from the Methodist New Connection and lecture to us in the open air. Many of us had a high time of it when Josejih Barker was our visitor. I never heard any one so singularly quiet and yet effective in debate. His use of short words was quite remarkable. No dictionary was needed to make out the meaning of Joseph Barker’s simple eloquence. He was a fine-looking man, slightly above medium height, with a noble head and a quiet but piercing eye. He never raised his A’oice aboA’e the pitch of ordinary couA’crsation. When he was rejilying to the most impassioned attacks he spoke as if quietly addressing a neighbour over a garden hedge. It was

JOSEPH BARKER this singular quietness that had such a happy effect upon many of us. Nothing was done by passion, declamation, or rapidity of utterance. Barker’s talk was like a river flowing between green banks AA^th the utmost placidity. We used to delight in hearing his criticisms upon the Christianity AA’hicli he had abandoned. Barker Was great in scoffing. He was peculiarly clear and trenchant in pointing out the glaring inconsistencies of Christian professors. I remember his delivering an address on the steps of the market cross — the same cross at which the bed was offered for sale in payment of Church rates. The hot summer sunlight was pouring down from the afternoon sky. I remem])er Barker being dazzled by the glow, and saying in his quiet but solemn manner, “I call you to a God of whom that fair sun is but a dim emblem.”

Amongst the Methodist Ncav Connection ministers of the time, perhaps the foremost place was occupied by the Rev. Thomas Allin. He told me a story abovit Barker which AA’as singularly characteristic. It became the duty of Mr. Allin and a brother minister named William Cook to accuse Barker of some breach of orthodoxy. For something like two hours they stated their case, and strengthened it by many incidents and illustrations clearly showing, as they thought. Barker’s guilt. In some way or other they desired to bring discipline to bear upon him. He had been eccentric, erratic, or in some way obnoxious. When the two orthodox ministers had made their statement they sat down, and Mr. Barker was presidentially called upon to give his answer. Mr. Allin told me that Barker’s rej)ly was in this one sentence, “William Cook and Thomas Allin have told sixty lies.”

The last time I saw Joseph Barker was in the Free Trade Hall, Manchester. A great meeting had been called to express sympathy with the North during the American Civil War. Barker was sitting immediately under the front of the platform, and it was exyected that he would make an attempt to address the meeting. The Honourable and Be v. Baptist Noel was making a speech, in his own plaintive and gentle way, during which he said, “No man avIio is listening to me can deny these facts “; whcreujion a quiet voice replied, “Yea, I am listening, and I deny them all.” It was the voice of Joseph Barker. Instantly he was seized by a number of Xortlicrn sympatliisci’s and ig-nominioiislydraggecl out of the hall. To me the occasion was genuinely pathetic. Ilere was the idol of my teens roughly handled and bitterly humiliated. I am glad to know that Joseph Barker returned to the faith which he had abandoned, and died strongly professing his love for Jesus Christ and the everlasting Gosyel.

It is with but a weak hand I can -pay a written tribute to the memory of my ascended friend, yet I am comforted by” the thought that even in such weakness there may be an element of pathetic strength. AVhen the announcement of Professor Elmslie’s death first came under my notice, I am not ashamed to say that my Christian faith staggered for a moment, especially because, from a human yoint of vicAv, he seemed to be indisjiensable to the comileteness of to-day’s Christian influences. We needed his scholarship, his spiritual energy, his delicate J’ancy, and his ardent eloquence, and we had come to think that Ave had such rights in him and his powers that avc might quiet ly reckon them our Own for many years to

W. VT.

ELMSLIE.D.D.

come. “We needed him, too, amongst us as men because his society (always associated with the buoyancy of youth) was so humanising, and his genial temper so free from the acrid humour that is apt to find its mischievous way even into fraternal conversation. Nor was my feeling assuaged as I thought of his life at home, — that sweet home, lighted and warmed by a kindred soul, and inexpressibly endeared to him by the Sweetest, quaintest, comeliest boy that ever doubled and glorified a father’s earthly life. That such a man should have been taken from us as if by Divine violence — torn from us, rather — when we expected him to go down to old age with ever-accumulating honour, seemed to be an act absolutely without reason or justification. We are all dumb before God. We may hardly even ask a question or abate our sorrow by telling God how great it is. We must seek the sanctuary of great principles, and through the darkened aisles of silence must, step by step, find our way into the temple of praise.

As I have just hinted, his large and nearly unique combination of qualities gave Dr. Elmslie a primacy of singular range and influence; it gave him, too, a catholicity

A OrvOUP OF RECOLLECTIONS 300

which ensured him coi’dial welcome far beyond Presbyterian limits, and which, without destroying his denominational identity, made his acceptance of extra-mural work at once natural and agreeable. In Congregational and Baptist pulpits he was always hailed with delight. The speech which he delivered in the City Temple on the occasion of a Baptist missionary meeting was an admirable specimen of varied jjower, showing, as it clearly did, that he could seize the momentary incidents of an occasion, and make them contribute to the elucidation of his main theme with very happy effect. Listening to sentences which fell into such close and rhythmic sequence, one could not but feel that the speaker was an energetic reciter of his own eloquent compositions; but the inweaving of words which his predecessors had just spoken, and the felicitous allusion to events which had just occurred, entirely modified this painful impression by giving one to feel that the speaker was independent of his memory and in full accord with the action of his larger faculties. I have sometimes said that in any magazine or ncAvspaper I could easily point out the contributions of Professor Elmslie. By what signs could I fix his literary identity? Given an article that flowed like a full river through scenery that changed within every few yards, that narrowly escaped redundance by timely restraint of expression, that was tinged with the colour of large and varied reading, that punished an adversary by sparing a life of which he had been made ashamed, and especially an article Avliich took a liberal view of all well-meant though ill-directed service, and without hesitation I Would claim it as the work of this Presbyterian Apollos.

That finely chiselled and finely pencilled Greek forehead explained it all. It was the head of a poet. No stigma of vulgarity was there. Every line was a threadlet of chastened life. No doubt the Professor was a scholar; yet without being more he would have been less. A scholar may be a burden to himself and a difficulty to his friends; but in this case the scholar was overshadoAved l)y the man, the poet, the minstrel; and all aaio kncAV him felt that his scholarship Was but the pedestal on which the l)rcathing sculpture rested. Such a forehead is ahvays associated AA^th a fine sense of proportion, and Professor Elmslie was no

A GROUP OF rxECOLT.ECTIONS 401

exception to the rule. The Professor could subside. Some men are monotonously strong. In Dr. Elmslie there was a graceful undulation of power; a coming and going, after a tidal manner; a movement as if by solar action. I have played with him as if he had been a boy. I have laughed with him as if life had suddenly become holiday, I have also stood back from him, in admiration of his knowledge and his genius, as if the whole space belonged to him by every right. It is not too much, therefore, to say that such a man had not only a fine sense of j)roportion as ’ a classical quantity, but also in the sense which relieves intellectual strain, and finds in playfulness the natural alternative of toil.

In his estimate of other men, Dr, Elmslie was at once critical and appreciative. I never knew him severe. In a sentence he could indicate a large opinion; but whilst an index-sentence was enough for his criticism, he wanted many a page for his appreciation. No kinder hearer ever listened to a sermon. He saw Avliat perhaps the preacher himself never suspected in the quality of the discourse, and he was not slow to encourage and inspire the minister

A rREACHEirS LIFE

to whom he had gratefully listened. It was especially noticeable in Professor Elmslie that he cared hut little for sermons that were merely intellectual or argumentative. He described them as hard. Intellect and argument he was the last man to underrate; but in a Christian sermon he would desiderate the holy human feeling which fittingly belongs to the most pathetic religion known to mankind. His ideal sermon would be at once strong and tender, unassailable in criticism, overwhelming in feeling. In his own case the feeling would not infrequently be in the manner of delivery rather than in the verbal expression of emotion. The hearer felt the speaker. The orator took his audience at the spear-point, and held it by right of strength. No man’could doubt the earnestness of that burning speaker. A friend who heard his last sermon at the City Temple said of Dr. Elmslie, “He preaches like one avIio has a message to deliver, and will soon be gone “; a remarkable instance of prevision as well as a fine tribute to the preacher’s Baxterian zeal.

In the all too premature departure of my friend was there not something more than space for mourning? Should we be content to utter our threnody and disappear? The Christian can have but one answer to such inquiries. In that solenm event a great message went forth to Presbyterian ministers and students, and especially to the students whose Elisha has ascended. Who will fill up his measure of service? Who will close the ranks, so as to give the enemy no advantage? If we cannot be great we can be good. If we cannot acquire his power we can emulate his faithfulness. Were I permitted to address Presbyterian students throughout the world, I would solemnly yet joyously exhort them to study the life and methods, the spirit and service, of Dr. Elmslie. Better die at forty-one, having lived virtuously and self-sacrificingly, than go on in ease to a nameless and pithless old age. Nor is the lesson limited to Presbyterian lines. Prom this premature grave there goes forth a warning and a challenge to every minister and student, and blessed will he be who answers the glowing appeal in its own spirit. Christ wants us all. He can use every talent and faculty. Christ has a right to us all. Por us He died, and for us He lives, and will live evermore. Even now, then, let us one and all give ourselves in holiest love to the service of Elmslie’s Saviour.

In 1852, as already stated, I was the assistant minister of the Tabernacle in Moorfields, under the pastoral care of Dr. John Campbell. On one occasion, as the pastor was renewing the communion cards for the year, there came into the vestry (I see them quite vividly at this moment) a tall man and his wife, plainly and neatly attired, to whom Dr. Campbell said: “I have just returned from Birmingham. It is a great thing for your son that he has secured the confidence of Mr. James.” The father and mother were quietly pleased with this intimation, and in due course took their leave. The matter was nothing to me at the moment. Since then it has been a pleasant and cheering memory.

/ In 1851-2 the Tabernacle was a hive of Bible-classes. One of them was conducted by a Twies law-reporter, and another by a local solicitor of good standing. A young member of one of those classes (I am not sure which) told me that they had just lost their most promising member, a youth named Robert William Dale. “A splendid speaker,” he continued; “could talk by the hour, and contradict the teacher,”

R. W. DALE,
LL.D.

A GROUP OF TxECOLLECTIONS 405

One summer evening I was preaching in the Tabernacle-yard to a large congregation of passers-by. I regarded them all as strangers. Many years afterwards Dr. Dale told me that on that summer evening he was one of my congregation. What impression was made upon him will appear later.

In 1853 I settled at Banbury, about forty miles from Birmingham, and there I soon learned that the great Congregational man of the circuit was “Dale of Birmingham.” How to get that great man to Banbury soon became an anxious question. A year or two passed before I could pluck up courage to write to him. Then another year; and when I did write I got a note signed, I think, “Bessie Dale,” the outcome of which was that Mr. Dale favoured us with a visit and a sermon on the occasion of laying the foundation-stone of a larger chapel. Never was a prominent man kinder to an obscure one. I think he must have dressed down to the occasion, for certainly a less pretentious hat and coat were never seen on the head and back of a Dissenting minister. Not one of us realised until he had left the town hoAV gracious and charming a visitor AA’^e had entertained. Quite a sense of vacancy was felt by our little circle, yet a sense of wealth, for we encouraged ourselves to believe that we had gained a friend. As a young minister I was transported with delight. It was a new era for me. I then saw something of what might be possible in the use of the Christian pulpit, and went to work with new and glowing determination.

Some years after this Dr. Dale Was iuAdted to the pulpit of Cavendish Street Chapel, but did not see his way to accept the invitation. In course of events I went to be minister of that chapel, as I have already related, and remained in office rather Over eleven years. During those years Dr. Dale came to deliver the annual address to the students of Lancashire College. At the festival, which ahvays accompanied and crowned that event. Dr. Dale made gracious reference to Cavendish Chapel and myself, saying: “When I was considering the invitation to Manchester, I said to my dearest earthly friend, ‘If I do go to Manchester, the man to succeed me at Carr’s Lane is Joseph Parker, of Banbury.’” When he said this I could not but Avondcr whether his father and mother had spoken kindly of my ministry, and whether a happy impression had been made uj)on him by that open-air sermon one summer evening in the front yard of Whitefield’s Tabernacle.

Like everybody else, I was perfectly conscious of Dr. Dale’s intellectual power, yet I may say that I was even more struck by his solicitous and almost punctilious courtesy. That courtesy never failed him. I was invited to preach a missionary sermon in Carr’s Lane Chapel on a week-day morning. The sermon was not connected with the Congregational denomination, and the chapel itself was only lent for the occasion. Dr. Dale wrote, in view of my visit, that he had a public engagement in London which would prevent his receiving me, but he knew his assistant would gladly take his place. This may be a little thing in itself, but it is pregnant with meaning and suggestion. More than this, a year after the event he asked me if I had been well looked after on the occasion of my visit to Carr’s Lane. A man who took so much notice of comparatively small affairs was not likely to be wanting in thoroughness in the larger concerns of the ministry.

The nature and scope of his sermons will confirm this view. Every word was written.

Every sentence was a piece of verbal sculpture. His sermons were not miracles of strength at the beginning, falling away paragraph by paragraph into feebleness and syncope. The last sentence was as strong as the first; the steed of his eloquence, if I may so put it, went forward to the end in a great bound of ramj)ant strength. The level of power was ahvays high. To some persons a little intermission of force would have been agreeable, but intermission there was none; from first to last the strong man went over rough ground and smooth ground at the same impetuous and irresistible speed.

Dr. Dale’s religion was emphatically the religion of sublimity. He was overpowered by his own sense of spiritual wonder. When he j)i’ayed he saAV the “angels and archangels and all the company of heaven.” The seraphim that glow around the Throne were to him alive, active, dazzling, and blinding in vital glory. God was “august “; eternity was an infinite dream; the Day of Judgment was the very ghost and fear of life. The whole intellectual march was stately. It was accompanied by red l)anners, and military music, and every sign of heroic and righteous conquest. When the high monotone ceased. men felt that no clarion could do more. The argument was complete; the battle must he fought.

This was the Dr. Dale of the pulpit — the orator of the great occasion. And, strange to say, this was the Dr. Dale of his Own earliest days. If he did not “grow” in the ordinary sense of that word, it was because he was from the beginning a great and commanding power. Some of us have had to labour and tug and try again, and only after much blotting, erasure, and interlineation have AA’e been able to show a fair copy of painful commonplace; but from the first Dale was thorough, massive, and sufficing. I knoAV his sermons. I heard him forty years ago, and I heard him three or four years since, and it Was the same mighty and regnant energy. I once asked him why he read his sermons, and he said because “my command of AA’ords is such that as a young man I could preach standing on my head. To be condensed is my object in AA’riting my sermons. If I spoke extemporaneously I should never sit doAAU.”^ He had, indeed, an extraordinary gift — I do not say an extraordinary range — of language. His style was not after the type of the rainbow, it was a gathering of stars. Dr. Dale’s sermons were no love-letters sentimentally read; they were the marching orders of the day, clear, definite, and leaving no room hut for prompt and unreserved obedience.

But there was another Dr. Dale some of us like to think of. Who so social, so fond of humour, so willing to join the family game, so ready to be a child once more? I do not at this moment remember Dr. Dale showing any implacable aversion to engagements and enjoyments condemned by misunderstood and misapplied Puritanism, yet I never saw him in any mood or relation which would have been incongruous with an immediate exercise of religious rites and usages. His very laughter was religious. In his freest conversation he was never censorious. Never did I know him utter one wounding word. On the contrary, I have knoAATi him speak graciously of some Whom others ignorantly and peevishly condemned. He had no gift of Avorrying. Once I asked him what to do in the case of a man AA’ho was a “heretic” and had settled near me. “Call on him,” said he; “he is good, even if he is not AA’hat Ave call exactly orthodox.” That was the other Dale; that was the halancing quality.

I HAD often heard of Professor Huxley looking in at the City Temple and taking an apparent interest in the public service. On the strength of this I ventured to ask him to attend one of my Thursday morning conferences, and to deliver an address. I may explain that these conferences took place immediately after the Thursday twelve o’clock service, and that they embraced many different subjects which were likely to interest the public mind. Lord Shaftesbury attended one, Lord Cowper-Temple attended one, Mr. Gladstone attended one, and various other leading men took part in these public conversations. It occurred to me to suggest that Professor Huxley might read a paper upon “What Science cannot do,” and I ventured to submit this subject for his consideration. Having explained to him our plan, he wrote me this answer:

“Deak Dr. Pauker, — Few things have struck me with so curious a sense of unexpectedness as your invitation to deliver an address in the City Temple. I cannot lecture upon the subject you name, but I am prepared

PROFESSOR
HUXLEY

A rREACHEirS LIFE

to give an address upon ‘What Science can and cannot do! ‘It must be understood that I deliver my address without any introduction, and leave the platform without any inquiry and discussion....”

Of course it was impossible for mc to accept these terms. The City Temple testifies to certain great doctrinal truths. The trustees of such a building have no right to permit it to be used except for purposes in harmony with the trust. There was some risk in permitting Professor Huxley to deliver any address in a building so defined and limited by legal covenants, but I thought everything would be made clear by our reserving the right to reply to anything Avliich might be said by any of the distinguished visitors who might take part in our conferences. I replied to Professor Huxley accordingly, making it essential that Ave should have the right to reply or to ask questions, or in some way to put the Christian vicAV. This condition he would not accept, so the proposed arrangement came to nothing. Professor Huxley was an agnostic, — an able, honest, and reverent agnostic. If all agnostics were as reverent as Professor Huxley was, they would greatly promote the elucidation of their distinctive views. Professor Huxley was the author of the Word “agnostic.” His wonderful face was itself a sermon, — no frivolity ever turned those solemn dark eves into an expression of silly merriment. I do not know whether Professor Huxley himself was a musician, or a critic in execution, but he always responded with something like enthusiasm to the appeals of thrilling music.