The religious denominations in the United States: their history, doctrine, government and statisticsWith a preliminary sketch of Judaism, paganism and Mohammedanism . ignity which usually attends it, a comprehensive faculty ofgeneralization, which felt independent of details, but presented in over-whelming logic grand summaries of thought. This comprehensiveness, combined with energy of thought, wasthe chief mental characteristic of the man—under the inspiration ofthe pulpit it often, and indeed usually, became sublime. We doubtwhether any man of our generation has had more power in the pulpit
The religious denominations in the United States: their history, doctrine, government and statisticsWith a preliminary sketch of Judaism, paganism and Mohammedanism . ignity which usually attends it, a comprehensive faculty ofgeneralization, which felt independent of details, but presented in over-whelming logic grand summaries of thought. This comprehensiveness, combined with energy of thought, wasthe chief mental characteristic of the man—under the inspiration ofthe pulpit it often, and indeed usually, became sublime. We doubtwhether any man of our generation has had more power in the pulpitthan Stephen Olin. And this power was in spite of very marked ora-torical defects. His manner was quite ungainly, his gestures quiteagainst the elocutionary rules, his voice badly managed and sometimesalmost painful in its heaving utterances; but the elocutionist is notalways the orator ; while you saw that there was no trickery of artabout Dr. Olin, you felt that a mighty, a resistless mind was strugglingwith yours, you were overwhelmed—your reason with argument, yourheart with emotion. Such is but a glance at his intellectual character, both as a scholar. r Key. Stephen Olin, D. d. 591 Methodist Episcopal Church. 593 and a preacher. His moral character was pre-eminent for the two chiefvirtues of true religion, charity and humility. In respect to the formerhe had, with theological orthodoxy, a practical liberalism which wefear most orthodox polemics would pronounce dangerous. There wasnot an atom of bigotry in all the vast soul of this rare man. Mean-while, it could be said of him as Rowland Hill said of Chalmers, that The most astonishing thing about him was his humility. He was,we think, the best example we ever knew of that childlike simplicitywhich Christ enjoined as essential to those who would enter into thekingdom of heaven. His social character was as beautiful as his intellectual was it could not be in the nature of such a man to indulge the sheer in-anit
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