they remind one
strikingly of similar experiences of John Bunyan--to whom Finney bore a
certain degree of resemblance. At Rochester many of the leading lawyers
were attracted by his bold and logical style of speech; and among his
converts there was the distinguished jurist, Addison Gardner. It was
during his ministry in New York that he delivered his celebrated
"Lectures on Revivals," which were reprinted abroad and translated into
several foreign languages. Of all Mr. Finney's published productions,
these lectures are the most characteristic. Often extravagant in their
rhetoric, and sometimes rather reckless in theological statements, they
contain a mine of pungent truth which every young minister ought to
possess and to peruse very often. I shall never cease to thank God for
the inspiration they have imparted to my own humble ministry; and they
have had a place in my library close beside the "Pilgrim's Progress,"
and the biographies of Payson and McCheyne, and the soul-quickening
sermons of Bushnell, Addison Alexander and Dr. McLaren.

After his extended evangelistic labors in various cities, Mr. Finney was
appointed to a theological chair in the newly organized college at
Oberlin, Ohio. From this post, his irrepressible desire to kindle
revivals and to save souls often called him away, and he conducted two
famous evangelistic campaigns in Great Britain. He was the first man to
introduce American revivalistic methods into England and Scotland; but
his labors were never as wide, as influential, and generally acceptable
there as the subsequent labors of Messrs. Moody and Sankey. Forty years
of his busy and heaven-blessed life were spent at Oberlin, where he
impressed his powerful personality on a multitude of students of both
sexes; few religious teachers in America have ever moulded so many
lives, or had their opinions echoed from so many pulpits.

With all my admiration of President Finney's character, I could not--as
a loyal Princetonian--subscribe to some of his peculiar opinions. It
was, therefore, with great surprise that I received from him a letter in
1873 (two years before his death) which contained the startling proposal
that I should be his successor in the college pulpit at Oberlin! He
wrote to me: "I think that there is no more important field of
ministerial labor in the world. I know that you have a great
congregation in Brooklyn, and are mightily prospered in your labors, but
your flock does not contain