_
I cannot follow the discourse. It presently becomes very fervid, and
in the midst of its fervor he takes the broad-brim hat from his head,
and almost dashing it down with violence on the seat behind, continues
with uninterrupted earnestness. But, I say, I cannot repeat, hardly
suggest his sermon. Though the differences and disputes of the formal
division of the Society of Friends were even then under way, he did
not allude to them at all. A pleading, tender, nearly agonizing
conviction, and magnetic stream of natural eloquence, before which
all minds and natures, all emotions, high or low, gentle or simple,
yielded entirely without exception, was its cause, method, and effect.
Many, very many were in tears. Years afterward in Boston, I heard
Father Taylor, the sailor's preacher, and found in his passionate
unstudied oratory the resemblance to Elias Hicks's--not argumentative
or intellectual, but so penetrating--so different from anything in
the books--(different as the fresh air of a May morning or sea-shore
breeze from the atmosphere of a perfumer's shop.)
While he goes on he falls into the nasality and sing-song tone
sometimes heard in such meetings; but in a moment or two more as if
recollecting himself, he breaks off, stops, and resumes in a natural
tone. This occurs three or four times during the talk of the evening,
till all concludes.
Now and then, at the many scores and hundreds--even thousands--of his
discourses--as at this one--he was very mystical and radical,[43] and
had much to say of "the light within.
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