"I used," said he, "to despise Dr. Welsh's rules at the time I heard
him; but now I feel I _must use_ them, for nothing is more needful for
making a sermon memorable and impressive than a logical arrangement."

His intellectual powers were of a high order: clear and distinct
apprehension of his subject, and felicitous illustration,
characterized him among all his companions. To an eager desire for
wide acquaintance with truth in all its departments, and a memory
strong and accurate in retaining what he found, there was added a
remarkable candor in examining what claimed to be the truth. He had
also an ingenious and enterprising mind--a mind that could carry out
what was suggested, when it did not strike out new light for itself.
He possessed great powers of analysis; often his judgment discovered
singular discrimination. His imagination seldom sought out object of
grandeur; for, as a friend has truly said of him, "he had a kind and
quiet eye, which found out the living and beautiful in nature, rather
than the majestic and sublime."

He might have risen to high eminence in the circles of taste and
literature, but denied himself all such hopes, that he might win
souls. With such peculiar talents as he possessed, his ministry might
have, in any circumstances, attracted many; but these attractions were
all made subsidiary to the single desire of awakening the dead in
trespasses and sins. Nor would he have expected to be blessed to the
salvation of souls unless he had himself been a monument of sovereign
grace. In his esteem, "_to be in Christ before being in the ministry_"
was a thing indispensable. He often pointed to those solemn words of
Jeremiah (23:21): "_I have not sent these prophets, yet they ran; I
have not spoken to them, yet they prophesied. But if they had stood in
my counsel, and caused my people to hear my words, then they should