er, James, and
John preached of what they had seen and heard and known and felt. Too
generally the modern preacher tells you what he has read, and which,
parrot-like, he repeats. It is not so with Binney. You see all that man
has to go through, he must have gone through--that scepticism must have
stared him in the face--that passion must have appealed to him in her
most seductive forms--that the great problem of life he has not taken
upon trust, but unriddled for himself--that he has gone through the
Slough of Despond--passed by Castle Doubting, and sees the gilt and the
rouge in Vanity Fair: or, as he says himself in his life, 'the man has
conquered the animal, and the God the man.' Such a man has a right to
preach to me. If he has known, felt, thought, suffered, more than I, he
is master, and I listen. Such a man is Binney. I can yet read in his
face the record of passion subdued, of thought protracted and severe, of
doubt conquered by a living faith.

Well, the service has been begun. The congregation has joined in praise;
and now it is hushed and still, while in accents feeble at first, but
gradually becoming louder and more distinct, the preacher prays. The
liturgy of the English Church is beautiful and touching, but it is cold
and unvarying. It does not, with its eternal sameness, answer to the
shifting moods of the human soul. Such prayers as those of Binney do.
They bear you with them. Your inward eye opens and refines. Earth grows
more distant, and heaven more near. For once you become awe-struck and
devout. For once there comes a cloud between you and the world and the
battle of life. You are on the mount, and breathe a purer air. Your
heart has been touched, and you are ready for the preacher and his
discourse. At first you hardly hear it. The great man before you seems
nervous, awkward, as a raw student. He runs his fingers through his
scanty hairs. He takes out half a dozen pocket-kerchiefs and blows his
nose. Being asthmatic, you are compelled to cough, and you have
immediately the preacher stopping, to turn on you a withering glance.
But at length you catch, like a gleam of sunshine in a November fog, a
fine thought in fine language. Your attention is riveted. What you hear
is fresh and original, very different to the common run of pulpit
discourses. The preacher warms, his eye sparkles, his voice becomes
loud, his action energetic. You listen to powerful reasoning and
passionate