On a cold winter evening I made a call on
a wealthy merchant in New York. As I left his door, and the piercing
gale swept in I said, "What an awful night for the poor!" He went back,
and bringing to me a roll of bank bills, he said: "Please hand these,
for me, to the poorest people you know of." After a few days I wrote to
him, sending him the grateful thanks of the poor whom his bounty had
relieved, and added: "How is it that a man who is so kind to his fellow
creatures has always been so unkind to his Saviour as to refuse Him his
heart?" That sentence touched him in the core. He sent for me
immediately to come and converse with him. He speedily gave his heart to
Christ, united with, and became a most useful member of our church. But
he told me I was the first person who had ever spoken to him about his
spiritual welfare in nearly twenty years. In the case of this eminently
effective and influential Christian, one hour of pastoral work did more
than the pulpit efforts of almost a lifetime.

CHAPTER XIII.

SOME FAMOUS PREACHERS IN BRITAIN.

_Binney.--Hamilton--Guthrie.--Hall.--Spurgeon.--Duff and others_

In attempting to recall my recollections of the eminent preachers whom I
have known, I hardly know where to begin, or where to call a halt. I
shall confine myself entirely to those who are no longer living, except
as they may live in the memory of the service they wrought for their
Divine Master and their fellow men. When I first visited London, in
early September, 1842, the two ministers most widely known to Americans
were Henry Melvill and Thomas Binney. Melvill was the most popular
preacher in the Established Church. His place of worship was out at
Camberwell, and I found it so packed that I had to get a seat on one of
the steps in the gallery. He was a man of elegant bearing, and rolled
out his ornate sentences in a somewhat theatrical tone, but the hushed
audience drank in every syllable greedily. The splendid and thoroughly
evangelical sermons which he orated most carefully were exceedingly
popular in those days, and even yet they are well worth reading as
superb specimens of lofty, devout and resonant oratory. On a very warm
Sabbath evening I went into the business end of London to the "Weigh
House Chapel" and heard Dr. Thomas Binney. He was the leader of
Congregationalism, as Melvill was of the Church of England. On that warm
evening the audience was small, but the discourse was prodigiously
large.