It
seems that he had engaged to supply a neighboring pulpit,--perhaps that
of his son John, who was newly settled at Lynn. He thought he had his
sermon in his pocket; but, on entering the pulpit, found that he had
either left it at home or lost it on the way. What was to be done?
Luckily, he had just read it over the night before, and was full of the
subject therein treated. Remembering what I said, as he told me himself,
he determined to go to work, hit or miss, and either make a spoon or
spoil a horn.
The result was, that, after a little hesitation and floundering, he got
fairly in earnest, and threw off a discourse which so delighted those
who were best acquainted with him, that they stopped round the door to
shake hands and congratulate him. He had never preached so well in all
his life, they said. This settled the question forever; and from that
day forward he began to believe that anybody who can talk in his chair
can talk standing up, after he has got over his first impressions, and
all the better for having a large auditory, with upturned faces, before
him; so that he became at last, and within a few years, one of the
finest pulpit orators of the day, and one of the best platform speakers,
though not, perhaps, what the multitude consider eloquent; for, at the
best, he was only argumentative and earnest and clear and convincing, in
his highest manifestations.
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