ew nothing of Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, German, or Dutch, nor
indeed of any other modern language.

And now let me say how he came to be an extemporaneous speaker, and
sometimes not only logical and convincing, but truly eloquent. On my
return from abroad, in 1826, I passed through Boston, on my way to
Portland, for a visit to my family, and was taken possession of by him,
and went to Hollis Street Church, where I heard my friend, for the
second time, in the pulpit. He was exceedingly impressive, and the
sermon itself was one of the best I ever heard,--calm, serious, and
satisfying; not encumbered with illustration, but full of significance.
Although the discourse was carefully written out, word for word, and
almost committed to memory, yet he ventured to introduce a
paragraph--one paragraph only--which had not been prepared beforehand.
My eyes were upon him, and he told me at dinner that he saw by my look
how well I understood his departure, and how soon I detected it. "And
now," said he, "I hope you are satisfied. You see now that I shall never
be able to extemporize. I put that paragraph into my sermon this morning
to see how you would take it, after having urged me, year after year, to
extemporize at least occasionally. No, no, John; though writing two
sermons a week is no trifling labor, I must continue writing to the end;
for, if I cannot extemporize a single paragraph, how can I hope to
extemporize a whole sermon?"

"Suffer me to say that I think you misunderstand the whole question,"
said I. "The difficulty is in beginning. After you are well under way,
if you can talk sitting, you may talk standing. Better take with you
into the pulpit the merest outline of the discourse, and then trust to
the inspiration of the subject, or to the feeling of the hour, when you
have the audience before you, and can look into their eyes, than to have
a discourse partly written, with blanks to be filled up as you go along;
for then you are always beginning afresh, and by the time you have got
easy in your spontaneous effort, you are obliged to go back to what you
have written, and of course can never get warmed up with your subject,
nor try any new adaptations, whatever may be the character of your
hearers."

He shook his head. "No, no," said he, "you will never be able to
persuade me that it is easier to say over the whole alphabet than to say
only a part."

I persisted, urging the great advantage of spontaneous adaptatio