So, too, when I first knew him, and for a long time after, he was
incapable of making a speech. Even a few sentences were too much for
him; and though he argued at least one case to the court, while in
business at Newburyport, I am persuaded, from what I afterward knew of
him, that he must have done what he did by jerks, or have committed the
whole to memory. And this, strange as it may now appear to those who
knew him only as a lecturer and platform-speaker, continued long after
he had entered upon the ministry; but of this more hereafter. Even his
prayers were written out, and learned by heart, years after he took
charge of the Hollis Street Church, though I dare say it was not known
by his people. Perhaps, too, I may as well say here, lest I may forget
to say it hereafter, that, at the time I speak of, he was neither a
phrenologist, nor a spiritualist, nor a conscientious believer in
witchcraft, or rather in the phenomena that used to be called
witchcraft, in the days of Cotton Mather.
Soon after the beginning of our acquaintance, Mr. Joseph L. Lord, the
brother of his first wife,--and he too has just passed away,--seeing
what the prospect was for the brother-in-law he was so proud of,
persuaded him to abandon the law at once, and forever, and go into the
jobbing and retail dry-goods business with him, on the corner of Court
and Marlborough, now Washington Street.
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