It was a Sabbath evening in spring at "The Trinity Methodist Church,"
Jersey City. Rev. William P. Corbit, the pastor of that church, in
compliment to my relatives, who attended upon his services, invited me
to preach for him. I had only a few months before entered the Gospel
ministry, and had come in from my village settlement to occupy a place
in the pulpit of the great Methodist orator. In much trepidation on my
part I entered the church with Mr. Corbit, and sat trembling in the
corner of the "sacred desk," waiting for the moment to begin the
service. A crowded audience had assembled to hear the pastor of that
church preach, and the disappointment I was about to create added to my
embarrassment.

The service opened, and the time came to offer the prayer before sermon.
I turned to Mr. Corbit and said, "I wish you would lead in prayer." He
replied, "No! sharpen your own knife!" The whole occasion was to me
memorable for its agitations. But there began an acquaintanceship that
became more and more endearing and ardent as the years went by. After he
ceased, through the coming on of the infirmities of age, to occupy a
pulpit of his own, he frequented my church on the Sabbaths, and our
prayer-meetings during the week. He was the most powerful exhorter I
ever heard. Whatever might be the intensity of interest in a revival
service, he would in a ten minute address augment it. I never heard him
deliver a sermon except on two occasions, and those during my boyhood;
but they made lasting impressions upon me. I do not remember the texts
or the ideas, but they demonstrated the tremendous reality of spiritual
and eternal things, and showed possibilities in religious address that I
had never known or imagined.

He was so unique in manners, in pulpit oratory, and in the entire type
of his nature, that no one will ever be able to describe what he was.