n was just getting well from a dangerous attack
of bleeding at the lungs. We made our way with difficulty
into the crowded church. The people were, almost all of them,
standing. We were obliged, by my friend's condition, to get
out again before the sermon. I remember, however, the old
man's attitude, and his prayer in the racy, broad Scotch,
the most tender, pathetic and expressive language on earth
for the deeper emotions as well as for humor. I wonder if
my readers have ever seen the version of the Psalms--

"Frae Hebrew Intil Scottis," by P. Hately Waddell, LL.D.,
Minister, Edinburgh, 1891.

If not, and they will get it, a new delight is in store for
them, and they will know something of the diction of Dr.
Guthrie.

He once began a prayer, "O Lord, it is a braw thing to loe
ye. But it is a better (bitter) thing to hate ye."

The beauty of this dialect is that while it is capable alike
of such tenderness, and such lofty eloquence, and such exquisite
and delicate humor, it is, like our Saxon, incapable of falsetto,
or of little pomposities.

I heard Lyman Beecher, then a very old man, before a meeting
of the members of the Massachusetts Legislature in 1852, when
the measure known as the Maine Liquor Law was pending. He
bore unmistakable marks of advanced age. But there were one
or two passages that showed the power of the orator, one especially
in which he described the beauty and delight of our homes,
and intemperance threatening them with its waves like a great
sea of fire.

I saw Henry Ward Beecher several times in private, and had
pleasant talks with him. But I am sorry to say I never heard
him speak, so far as I can now remember, on any occasion when
he put forth his power. But if half that is told of his speeches,
during the Civil War, some of them to hostile and angry audiences,
be true, he was a consummate master. One story is told of
him which I suppose is true, and, if it be true, ranks him
as one of the greatest masters of his art that ever lived.
It is said that he was speaking to a great crowd in Birmingham,
or perhaps Liverpool, which constantly goaded him with hostile
interruptions, so that he had great difficulty in getting
on. At last one fellow provoked the cheers and applause of
the audience by crying out--"Why didn't you put down the Rebellion
in sixty days as you said you would?" Beecher paused a moment
until they became still, in their eagerness to hear his reply,
and then