Mr. Gladstone, in his speech on "Preaching" at the - City Temple
on Thursday, gave remarkable sketches of three great preachers or Speakers whom he hadimown,—Dr. Newman, Dr. Chalmers, and Mr: Shell,—all of whom had great faults of manner, considered in the abstract, but all of whom had that wonderful power of so identi- fying their faulty manner with the very essence of the person who addressed you, that you could not wish even their faults other- wise,- lest you should thereby lose some of the essence of the man. Of Dr. Chalmers, he said that though his Scotch accent was harsh and distasteful, it was yet so " overborne by his power and melted into harmony with all the adjuncts of the man, that I -.weakl not have had it altered in the slightest 'degree." This was hisslescription of Shell If you will imagine a tin-kettle battered about from place to place, rand producing a succession of sounds =vs it knocked first against one side and then -against the other, that is;really one of the nearest approximations I can make to my .-atzbeeibrance of the voice of 'Mr. Shell." Yet " in •him I would not have changed it, for it was part of a most remarkable whole, and nobody ever felt it painful when he listened to it. He -was a great orator, and an orator of much preparation, carried, I -believe, even to words, with a very vivid imagination, and an WRIOnnOnS power of strong feeling. There was a peculiar charac- . Ur, a sort of half-wildness, in his aspect and -delivery ; and his "Whole, figure and voice and matter were an such perfect-keeping -'with-one another, that they form a great Parliamentary picture, -.mid though it is •now twenty-five years since I heard Mr. Shell, my recollection of .him -is just- as vivid as if I had been listening to - him to-day." Dr. Newman, Mr. Gladstone described as -reading -montrtonously, "-with not-very much change in the inflexion of his -voice ;action there was ,none ; his sermons were read, and his eyes'- were always- on his book." Nevertheless, " there was a • stamp• and seal upon the man ; there was a solemn music and sweetames in •the tone ; there- was a completeness in the figure, -Wren together with the tone and-with the-manner,"-which made even that delivery an expression of a most unique and powerful personality. That is singularly true; of Dr: Newman. The music Of hit delivery is the pathetic music which a, great intellect gives forth when it is pleading in the minor key under the constraining , power of ,an imperious-and ascetic conscience, tempered by most
tender and delicate sympathies. - -
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