t have believed it possible for me to welcome anybody to the place of
his predecessor with the pleasure with which I welcomed him. The augury
of that hour has been fulfilled in most delightful intercourse with
one of the noblest and most generous men I ever knew. With a singularly
clear insight and penetration [88] into the deepest things of our
spiritual nature, with an earnestness and fearlessness breaking through
all technical rules and theories, with a buoyancy and cheerfulness that
nothing can dampen, with a fitness and readiness for all occasions, his
power as a preacher and his pleasantness as a companion have made him
one of the most marked men of his day.

As to my general intercourse with society, whether in New York or
elsewhere, I have always felt that its freedom lay under disagreeable
restrictions, if not under a lay-interdict; and when travelling as
a stranger I have always chosen not to be known as a clergyman, and
commonly was not. I once had a curious and striking illustration of the
feeling about clergymen to which I am alluding. I was invited by Mr.
Prescott Hall, the eminent lawyer, to meet the Kent Club at his house,
a law club then just formed. As I arrived a little before the company, I
said to him: "Mr. Hall, I am sorry you have formed this kind of club, a
club exclusively of lawyers. In Boston they have one of long standing,
consisting of our professions, and four members of each, that is of
lawyers, doctors, clergymen, and merchants." "To tell you the truth,"
he answered, "I don't like the clergy." I said that I could conceive
of reasons, but I should like to hear him state them. "Why," said, he,
"they come over me; they don't put themselves on a level with me; they
talk [89] ex cathedra." I was obliged to bow my head in acquiescence;
but I did say, "I think I know a class of clergymen of whom that is not
true; and, besides, if I could bring all the clergy of this city into
clubs of the Boston description, I believe those habits would be broken
up in a single year."

There were two men who came to our church whose coming seemed to be by
chance, but was of great interest to me, for I valued them greatly. They
were Peter Cooper and Joseph Curtis. Neither of them, then, belonged
to any religious society, or regularly attended upon any church.
They happened to be walking down Broadway one Sunday evening as the
congregation were altering Stuyvesant Hall, where we then temporarily
worshipped, and t