was in Africa. When he
died, men like Phillips Brooks and Dr. Fuller, of Rochester, who were old
friends of his and who knew him intimately, the man and his work, had
already crossed the mystic stream of death and passed over to the other
shore. But he was a power in his own race to the last. Still in the late
forties, he delivered three addresses that attracted considerable
attention. In 1847 he addressed a colored convention at Troy, N. Y. And in
1848 he visited London and spoke at the annual meeting of the Anti-Slavery
Society, with such fire, force, finish and polish that he made many
friends, both for himself and his race.

He visited Liverpool. He so impressed the Bishop of the diocese, that he
was invited to officiate as minister in the St. George's Church at
Everton, of which the Reverend Mr. Eubanks was rector. The audience had
never heard a colored man preach before. And Crummell's dignity and
bearing in the pulpit, his polish and refinement, his lucid exposition of
the text, his sublimity of thought, beauty of diction, and fire and force
of utterance for nearly an hour held that cultured audience spellbound.
Crummell made history for the race on that Sunday morning in 1848. And I
suppose that Crummell's eulogy on Clarkson, delivered in New York City in
1846, in its grandeur of thought, sublimity of sentiment and splendor of
style, surpasses any oratorical effort of any colored man in the
antebellum days. From that time until his death in 1898, Crummell swayed
both colored and white audiences.

I remember in the fall of 1896, a Baptist preacher lectured in Newport,
R. I. At the close of the lecture, a tall, slender, venerable looking man,
with an aristocratic air, arose and stirred the audience with his heroic
words. The Baptist preacher was so touched that he sought Crummell out.
And then an influence entered his life that made him a new man, a stronger
moral force in the Baptist denomination. I remember, too, when McKinley
was inaugurated in 1897. Men and women, old and young, from all sections
of the country, of varying degrees of culture, of divers religious creeds,
came to Crummell's house as a mecca. Some had been thrilled by his sermons
and commencement addresses; others caught the inspiration of their lives
from his works, "Africa and America," "The Future of Africa," and "The
Greatness of Christ, and Other Sermons." Today his memory is treasured in
Washington, in cities of the north and south, and al