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1867 he was the orator of the occasion. It was a memorable event, bring the first time that General Lee had presided. With matchless vM.ice and dignity he introduced the speaker. A vast audience of representative people from all parts of the country was present. Dr. Hoge was in splendid mental trim, and for more than an hour he held tin- great assembly spellbound with the witchery of his resistless power. One who was reporting that speech for a Richmond paper >.ivs of it : "I followed the speaker for awhile with my notes, but iL, r ave up the undertaking. I looked around, the other reporters had dropped their pencils. I said to one of them : 'Why don't you report the speech ? ' He replied: ' I can't report the surging of a mountain torrent.' '
One of the most attractive efforts of Dr. Hoge was in 1876, at the centennial celebration of Hampden-Sidney College. He was on his old tramping-ground, amid the friends of his boyhood. He gave the reminiscences of the old college. The address was intensely inter- esting, sparkling, glowing, and facetious. He related a great many amusing things. In speaking of the changes he told how old Mr. Ritchie, of the Enquirer, had announced in his paper as a startling piece of news that a steamboat was approaching Richmond at a won- derful rate of speed seven miles an hour, up stream. He said in old times, when the General Assembly of the Church met in Phila- delphia, Dr. Alexander was always sent as a delegate from his pres- bytery, because he was the only member of that body who knew the way.
ORTHODOX; NOT SECTARIAN.
Dr. Hoge was thoroughly orthodox. No member of the West- minister Assembly was more so, nor more devoted to the Presbyterian polity, but he had nothing of the narrowness of a sectarian. His Christianity was broad enough to embrace all who love Christ. As a consequence, he was beloved and admired by all denominations, and members of other churches were constantly found among his congregations. His success as a preacher was due to a variety of causes all of which conspired to make him a great pulpit orator. His profound Christian experience and his thorough knowledge of the human heart enabled him to suit the Gospel message to every class of sinful humanity.
His mind was eminently logical, but his reasoning was overlaid with an exquisite rhetoric, which, while it detracted nothing from
strength, imparted to it a never-failing charm.
