most of his centres seems to have been extensive and solid, as many still living are eager to testify. His preaching, though theological, was so thoroughly popular that he could hold the attention of any audience throughout a sermon of extraordinary length. With plenty of facility, he was absolutely simple and true to nature. Far beyond any Plymouth Brother I ever met, he played at will (if indeed it were not rather quite without design) on the emotions of his audience. Cynical hearers have wept with the rest. It was a good example of a rare thing—the eloquence of genuine pathos.
The two friends produced jointly, for the benefit of the less instructed class in their community, a monthly magazine entitled Things New and Old. It was a carefully and intelligently edited periodical, and ran a long and prosperous course.[1] Thus Exclusivism, as if to show that not even the followers of Darby could wholly save themselves from the influence of their environment, began to gather converts from without, and to care for their instruction when they were gathered.
Meanwhile, in Yorkshire, a similar work was being successfully prosecuted by a very different man. Charles Stanley, a Rotherham manufacturer, was an evangelist of considerable native ability, who owed little to culture. But a graphic description, or an apt and homely illustration, lost nothing in his lips by the broad Yorkshire dialect in which it often slipped out. As a preacher he was uncertain, but on his day he wielded an indubitable power. The following story I received from one who
- ↑ Prosperity must on no account be understood in a financial sense. Even the poorer Brethren seldom reckoned to make much by their books, which were often published at a ridiculously low price. In the present case, there was no need to raise any financial question.
