dare speak
here after that."

CHAPTER XIV.

SOME FAMOUS AMERICAN PREACHERS.

_The Alexanders.--Dr. Tyng.--Dr. Cox.--Dr. Adams.--Dr. Storrs.--Mr.
Beecher.--Mr. Finney and Dr. B.M. Palmer_.

The necessary limitations of this chapter forbid any reference to many
distinguished American preachers whom I have seen or heard, but with
whom I had not sufficient personal acquaintance to furnish any material
for personal reminiscences. In common with multitudes of others on both
sides of the ocean, I had a hearty admiration for the brilliant genius
and masterful sermons of Phillips Brooks, but I only heard two of his
rapid and resonant addresses on anniversary occasions, and my
acquaintance with him was very slight. I heard only one discourse by
that remarkable combination of preacher, poet, patriot and philosopher,
Dr. Horace Bushnell, of Hartford,--his discourse on "Barbarism the Chief
Danger," delivered before the "Home Missionary Society." His sermon on
"Unconscious Influence," was enough to confer immortality on any
minister of Jesus Christ. I never was acquainted with him, but after his
death, I suggested to the residents of New Preston, that they should
name the mountain that rises immediately behind the home of his
childhood and youth, _Mount Bushnell_. The villagers assented to my
proposal, and the State Legislature ratified their act by ordering that
name to be placed on the maps of Connecticut. In this chapter, as in the
previous one, I shall give my recollections only of those who have ended
their career of service, and entered into their reward.

During the six years that I spent in Princeton College and in the
Seminary (between 1838 and 1846) I came into close acquaintance with,
and I heard very often, the two great orators of the Alexander family.
Dr. Archibald Alexander, the father of a famous group of sons, was a
native of Virginia--had listened to Patrick Henry in his youth; had
married the daughter of the eloquent "Blind Preacher," Rev. James
Waddell, and even when as a young minister he had preached in Hanover,
New Hampshire. Daniel Webster, then a student in Dartmouth College,
predicted his future eminence. The students in the Seminary were wont to
call him playfully, "The Pope," for we had unbounded confidence in his
sanctified common-sense. I always went to him for counsel. His insight
into the human heart was marvelous; and in the line of close
experimental preaching, he has not had his equal