xception of a young gentleman in knickerbockers, who was so
astonished at the apparition of a real stranger that he kept staring at
me all the time of singing, all seemed to do their duty. The
singing--and there was plenty of it--was really and truly Congregational.
Five or six parts of the Bible were read, and the congregation followed
with open Bibles. The preacher laboured at his discourse, and quoted
Hebrew and Latin as if we had all been learned divinity students. Nor
could he have prayed with more fulness and power had the benches been
filled with living souls waiting to draw near to the Father of spirits
and live. One could not but respect the preacher, however useless seemed
his learning and misdirected his research. Yet I would be sorry to stand
in his shoes. He had hearers once--Where are they? Dead, or moved away,
is the reply. He says in 1840 he began "to officiate as afternoon
preacher in the ancient Sabbath-keeping congregation in Mill Yard." He
talks of "nearly sixty years of close critical, philological, and
exegetical study of the sacred Scriptures;" of "more than thirty years of
constant and laborious exposition of them;" of his having fully, freely,
fearlessly, and repeatedly discoursed upon every part of natural and
revealed religion. In spite of his age, physically he is not unequal to
his work. He has a good voice, yet practically he beats the air. There
are few to listen to his words and respond to his appeal. I wonder--as
in his quiet study he reads the ancient versions of the Bible and
laboriously constructs his argument:--whether it ever occurs to him that
there is something better and grander than seventh-day baptism, or
systematic theology, and that is everyday Christianity. I wonder, too,
while looking on the dead graves and the long grass, whether it occurs to
him that in that region of all unclean and deadly sin it especially
behoves the preacher, in preference to ingenious speculation or
antiquarian research, to impress on the heart and consciences of men the
yearning, living love of God. It is not in the calm retreat, the silent
shade, that vice and irreligion can be confronted and changed into purity
and piety. One would fancy at Mill Yard the contrary opinion was held,
as the preacher goes on, expounding the Proverbs or the Book of Job to
empty benches, while close by the harlot plies her unhallowed calling,
the publican retails his vitriol gin, and mothers, with eyes arti