ministers kindly regarded his wishes and even whims, so closely did he cling to this office and work of his life. He made "the Bethel" famous in all lands. He made that familiar name his own; so that, since Jacob, no one has arisen with whom that word was so closely identified as with Father Taylor. "The Bethel " was no other seamen's chapel. It was his alone. He and it were almost synonymous terms. He was the Bethel, the Bethel was he. If a sailor in any port thought of one, he thought of the other. The blue and white flag that floated over it seemed to dance before their wandering eyes under every sky. The mighty man of God who preached beneath its folds equally presented himself to these floating souls at every port, on every sea. He was their "father" always, and in all places.

So completely did this name and its real import control them, that two sailors, seeking this church one sabbath morning, turned into North Square, beheld the flag flying, and spelled out the letters, "BET Beat, HE L, Hell, Beat Hell! That must be Father Taylor's," he cried, and joyfully cast anchor. Standing in this centre, he did move the world. Though "the hub" is the expression of another, the idea, feeling, and execution were especially his own. North Square was the pedestal, the Bethel the fulcrum, his voice the lever that moved the moving world. Sailors carried his name and influence to all climes; and no temptation befell them that was not resisted by strength he had contributed to impart, or indulged in with remorse that he had been offended.

He might say of himself in his new church and its surroundings of store and boarding-house and multitudinous friends of wealth, piety, and intelligence, as he said of his Mariner's House, when it was opened, and he visited it for the first time: as he entered the door, he paused and said, "Satisfied!

As he stepped in, looking to the right and left, he still said, "Satisfied!"

As he passed from room to room and from hall to hall, he continued to exclaim, "Satisfied! SATISFIED!"

Herr Teufelsdreuch, of "Sartor Resartus," concludes his biography with his attainment of a professorship. Father Taylor (not Devil-pressed, but Devilpressing) may have his formal biography end with his entrance into this new church. Henceforth his life flows like a gulf stream round the world, warming the Arctic, cooling the Tropic, a tide of inspiration and of blessing unto "all that go down to the sea in ships, and do business on the great waters."

VIII.

IN THE BETHEL.

Part of what he said. "He is Cursing his Mother."-Webster's Death.-Defends Jenny Lind." So was I, David."— New Versions of the Doxology. - Mean Christians. - The Come-outer put down."My Saviour never made a Shaving!"-"A Gaff-topsail Jacket."- Sailors' Hearts, how big and how sweet. The Stolen Sermon.-"Follow what you do understand." When to pray the Lord's Prayer. - Bigotry and Bad Rum.Mixed Condition of Feeling if not of Faith. Some Souls don't know where they are.Orthodox in spite of Himself. Theodore Parker and the Bible. -Voltaire spoken to." Farther than that." Dedication at Quincy. Ultra-Catholic Catholicity and Ultra-Orthodox Orthodoxy. - The Devil Upset"Put Spurs to Lightning, and blow a Trumpet in the Ear of Thunder." -"The Stem-End of a Cucumber."-"Dare not face a Decent Devil.” — A Minute-Man. Plea to a Drunken Hearer. "Biled Jordan."— Zeal for the Bible. His Appearance in the Pulpit.- - His Preparation and Exhaustion. - Rev. Dr. Waterston's Description of his Power over the Sailors.

THE field into which this young orator had en

THE

tered was instantly his own. From his first sermon in the little chapel in Methodist Alley to the day his form lay in state in the Bethel, he never ceased to fill it with his presence, and control it by his genius. Those sermons of forty years none can gather up. For thirty years his house was thronged with eager hearers of every rank; but, unfortunately, no stenographer took his place at the table to transmit those flashes

of genius to every eye. Even the prayers, in which more than almost any man's were

"Thoughts commercing with the skies,"

only leaped from lip to ear, and were forgotten or ere they were born. A very few of the most rich and tender expressions have survived; the most died at their birth. But as a quaint preacher, storming fiercely with voice and form at a camp-meeting, defended his gesticulations by saying, "Paul says, 'Bodily exercise profiteth little,' but I go in for that little," so we must content ourselves with "the little" that is left to us of those

"Rich words, every one

Like the gold nails in temples to hang trophies on."

Even these, as retained in the memory of his hearers, are chiefly brief, witty sentences, sharp hits, quick retorts, sometimes as remarkable for oddity as for wit. He not only wrote out no sermons, his brightest words were hardly even thought out. They were unpremeditated, parenthetical, flashes of light not to be reported; often, from their wonderful succession, not to be remembered.

Perhaps no reported sentence is better than one with which he closed his description of a young man coming from the country full of good resolutions, stored with good lessons, and falling into one temptation after another, till he had become a degraded castaway. When he seemed to have reached the lowest

depth of horror, he added these words, that thrilled the marrow of the bones: "Hush! shut the windows of heaven. He's cursing his mother!"

His manner no words can describe. Sometimes the expression of his face took the place not only of gestures, but of words. Thus after the death of Daniel Webster, he said, "Once, when the storm gathered, and the ship bowed under the fury of the wind, we looked toward the helm, and we saw Webster there. All right, turn in: we can sleep in peace. Now there are mutterings in the air, a war-cloud across the sea: we turn out, we look"" An expression of blank dismay completed the unfinished sentence, and the church seemed to grow dark with the orator's despair.

Once, when Jenny Lind attended services at the Bethel, Father Taylor, who did not know that she was present, was requested, as he entered the house, to preach on amusements. The church was crowded, and the pulpit and stairs were filled. The sermon opposed dancing, card-playing, theatre-going, but approved of music. The preacher paid a glowing tribute to the power of song, and to the goodness, modesty, and charity of the sweetest of all singers, "now lighted on these shores." Jenny Lind was leaning forward, and clapping her hands with delight, when a tall person rose on the pulpit stairs, and inquired whether any one who died at one of Miss Lind's concerts would go to heaven. Disgust and contempt swept across Father Taylor's face, as he glared at the interloper. "A Christian will go to