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with affection and gratitude, to pen the following inadequate -i-n- tences:
From my earliest recollection, Dr. Hoge has been the one of all our ministers who most frequently, and always with honor to him- self and his denomination, represented the Presbyterian Church in great Ecclesiastical assemblies of Christians in America and Europe. By reason of his breadth of sympathy, his wide acquaintance with public men, and his splendid ability as an orator, there was no man of his time who could, with more propriety, grace and impressive- ness, rise to an occasion. He always challenged first the attention, and then the confidence and admiration of his audience, whether in an American city or beyond the sea. We have lost the man who most represented the Southern Presbyterian Church to the Christian Church at large, and to the world; the man of whom, whenever he appeared in the arena of a national or international assembly, we were always proud.
In our own church courts Dr. Hoge had little interest, and took small part in the details of Ecclesiastical procedure. He was not given to much speaking, but only on occasions of importance did he take the floor. When he did, it was with a gentle and easy grace, coupled with masterly eloquence, and always on broad lines and for peaceful measures. He was never polemical, always irenic. Proba- bly there is no living man whose feelings Dr. Hoge ever wounded in the least degree in debate. His courtesy was a principle and an instinct.
HIS PULPIT CHARACTERISTICS.
As to Dr. Hoge's pulpit characteristics, these are well known in most cities of the English-speaking world. Partly from his natural endowments, and partly from his wide studies and careful prepara- tion for preaching, he spoke with an exquisite grace of thought, diction and manner, that caused him to be regarded as a model sacred orator. There was in his style a charm, a fascination, diffi- cult to analyze, and yet impossible to resist. No one who heard him could help listening, and was bound to acknowledge that the speaker felt every word he uttered. He was an evangelical of evan- gelicals, and held unwaveringly to the time-honored doctrines of the Church. He espoused no novelties in theology, but preached Christ and Him crucified, revealed by infallible Scriptures, as the only hope of sinful men, and the sufficient Gospel, for a lost and ruined world.
Few men have had so great a gift in comforting the afflicted, both
