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.

Of his career after this, I cannot say anything as I wish, without the
risk of saying too much. He had one of the wealthiest and most liberal
congregations of New England. He was their idol. He was in every way
most agreeably situated, with a large family flowering into usefulness
about him, and hosts of friends, enthusiastic and devoted.
Nevertheless, believing that, as a servant of God, he had no right to
preach smooth things where rough things were needed, and that
acknowledging other people's transgressions would not satisfy the law,
he came out boldly, with helm and spear, against two of the worst forms
of human slavery,--the slavery of the body and the slavery of the soul,
the slavery of the wine-cup, and the slavery of bondage to a master.
Whether his beloved people would hear or whether they would forbear,
being all the more beloved because of their danger, he must preach what
he believed to be the truth, and the whole truth. It was like a fire
shut up in his bones. He persisted, and they remonstrated, or rather a