Yet more, as brandy had
been prescribed for Mrs. Pierpont by the family physician, Dr. Randall,
her husband used to take his brandy and water with her sometimes, just
before dinner, by way of a "whet."
Again: he had been brought up, like St. Paul, at the very feet of
Gamaliel. He was born Orthodox,--he lived Orthodox,--he sat for years
under the preaching of Dr. Lyman Beecher, whom he looked upon as a
"giant among pygmies,"--and well he might, as a metaphysician and as a
controversialist, if not as a theologian,--and was, I have lately been
told, a member of Dr. Spring's Orthodox church at Newburyport, before
his removal to Boston. But once there, in that overcharged atmosphere,
he took a pew in the Brattle Street Unitarian church,--without being
then a Unitarian, or dreaming of the great change that was to follow
within two or three years,--and was a regular attendant under the
preaching of Mr. Everett up to the last. On his removal to Baltimore, he
swung round again toward Orthodoxy,--that Orthodoxy which has been so
wittily defined as _my_ doxy, while heterodoxy is _your_ doxy,--and sat
for three years under the preaching of Dr. Ingals, the highly gifted
gentleman to whom he dedicated his poem--_in blank_--when it first
appeared, being perhaps a little afraid of committing himself in
advance; and then, at the very first gathering of the Baltimore
Unitarians in a large auction-room, which led to the organization of a
church within a few months, the erection of a beautiful building, and to
the settlement of our friend, the late Dr.
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