University of Virginia Library

"It was one Sunday, as I travelled through the County of Orange, that
my eye was caught by a cluster of horses, tied near a ruinous, old, wooden
house, in the forest, not far from the roadside. Having frequently seen

such objects before, in travelling through these states, I had no difficulty
in understanding that this was a place of religious worship.

"Devotion alone should have stopped me to join in the duties of the
congregation, but I must confess that curiosity to hear the preacher of
such a wilderness, was not the least of my motives. On entering I was
struck with his preternatural appearance; he was a tall and very spare old
man; his head, which was covered with a white linen cap, his shrivelled
hands, and his voice, were all shaking under the influence of a palsy; and
a few moments ascertained to me that he was perfectly blind.

"The first emotions which touched my breast were those of mingled
pity and veneration. But ah! sacred God! how soon were all my feelings
changed! The lips of Plato were never more worthy of a prognostic
swarm of bees, than were the lips of this holy man! It was a day of the
administration of the sacrament; and his subject, of course, was the passion
of our Saviour. I had heard the subject handled a thousand times;
I had thought it exhausted long ago. Little did I suppose, that in the
wild woods of America, I was to meet with a man whose eloquence would
give to this topic a new and more sublime pathos than I had ever before
witnessed.

"As he descended from the pulpit, to distribute the mystic symbols,
there was a peculiar, a more than human solemnity in his air and manner,
which made my blood run cold, and my whole frame shiver.

"He then drew a picture of the sufferings of our Saviour; his trial
before Pilate, his ascent up Calvary, his crucifixion, and his death. I
knew the whole history, but never, until then, had I heard the circumstances
so selected, so arranged, so colored! It was all new; and I seemed
to have heard it for the first time in my life. His enunciation was so
deliberate, that his voice trembled on every syllable; and every heart in
the assembly trembled in unison. His peculiar phrases had that force of
description, that the original scene appeared to be, at that moment, acting
before our eyes. We saw the very faces of the Jews; the staring, frightful
distortions of malice and rage. We saw the buffet; my soul kindled with
a flame of indignation, and my hands were involuntarily and convulsively
clinched.

"But when he came to touch on the patience, the forgiving meekness
of our Saviour; when he drew, to the life, his blessed eyes streaming in
tears to heaven; his voice breathing to God a soft and gentle prayer of
pardon on his enemies, `Father, forgive them, for they know not what
they do'—the voice of the preacher, which had all along faltered, grew
fainter and fainter, until his utterance being entirely obstructed by the
force of his feelings, he raised his handkerchief to his eyes, and burst into
a loud and irrepressible flood of grief. The effect is inconceivable. The
whole house resounded with the mingled groans, and sobs, and shrieks of
the congregation. It was some time before the tumult had subsided so far
as to permit him to proceed. Indeed, judging by the usual, but fallacious

standard of my own weakness, I began to be very uneasy for the situation
of the preacher. For I could not conceive how he would be able to let his
audience down from the height to which he had wound them, without
impairing the solemnity and dignity of his subject, or perhaps shocking
them by the abruptness of the fall. But no; the descent was as beautiful
and sublime as the elevation had been rapid and enthusiastic. The first
sentence with which he broke the awful silence, was a quotation from
Rousseau, `Socrates died like a philosopher, but Jesus Christ like a God.'

"I despair of giving you any idea of the effect produced by this short
sentence, unless you could perfectly conceive the whole manner of the
man, as well as the peculiar crisis in the discourse. Never before did I
completely understand what Demosthenes meant by laying such stress on
delivery. You are to bring before you the venerable figure of the preacher;
his blindness, constantly recalling to your recollection old Homer, Ossian,
and Milton, and associating with his performance the melancholy grandeur
of their geniuses; you are to imagine that you hear his slow, solemn,
well-accented enunciation, and his voice of affecting, trembling melody;
you are to remember the pitch of passion and enthusiasm to which the
congregation were raised; and then, the few minutes of portentous,
death-like silence which reigned throughout the house; the preacher
removing his white handkerchief from his aged face (even yet wet from
the recent torrent of his tears), and slowly stretching forth the palsied
hand which holds it, begins the sentence, `Socrates died like a philosopher'
—then pausing, raising his other hand, pressing them both clasped
together with warmth and energy to his breast, lifting his `sightless balls'
to heaven, and pouring his whole soul into his tremulous voice—`but
Jesus Christ—like a God!' If he had been indeed and in truth an angel
of light, the effect could scarcely have been more divine.

"Whatever I had been able to conceive of the sublimity of Massillon,
or the force of Bourdaloue, had fallen far short of the power which I felt from
the delivery of this simple sentence. The blood, which just before had
rushed in a hurricane upon my brain, and in the violence and agony of
my feelings had held my whole system in suspense, now ran back into my
heart, with a sensation which I cannot describe—a kind of shuddering,
delicious horror. The paroxysm of blended pity and indignation, to which
I had been transported, subsided into the deepest self-abasement, humility,
and adoration. I had just been lacerated and dissolved by sympathy, for
our Saviour as a fellow-creature; but now, with fear and trembling, I
adored him as `a God.'

"If this description give you the impression that this incomparable
minister had anything of shallow, theatrical trick in his manner, it does
him great injustice. I have never seen, in any other orator, such a union
of simplicity and majesty. He has not a gesture, an attitude, or an accent,
to which he does not seem forced by the sentiment which he is expressing.
His mind is too serious, too earnest, too solicitous, and, at the same time,

too dignified, to stoop to artifice. Although as far removed from ostentation
as a man can be, yet it is clear from the train, the style, and substance
of his thoughts, that he is not only a very polite scholar, but a man of
extensive and profound erudition. * * * * * * *

"This man has been before my imagination almost ever since. A
thousand times, as I rode along, I dropped the reins of my bridle, stretched
forth my hand and tried to imitate his quotation from Rousseau; a thousand
times I abandoned the attempt in despair, and felt persuaded that his
peculiar manner and power arose from an energy of soul, which nature
could give, but which no human being could justly copy. In short, he
seems to be altogether a being of a former age, or of a totally different
nature from the rest of men."

"Here lies James Barbour
Originator of
The Literary Fund
of Virginia."