of undoubted talent, and thinking the Methodists were too slow in
promoting him, he became a Baptist. His next hop was to the
Universalists, whom, because he found too penurious, he deserted for the
Congregationalists, from whom he got a call to a southern pro-slavery
church, where, after amassing considerable wealth in cash and "human
chattels," he resigned his charge, came to the north again to recruit
his sinking constitution, and, after trying two or three other minor
sects, he settled down an old-school anti-slavery Presbyterian. Poor
man! his star has gone down now, and his memory will soon be forgotten;
but the anecdotes and tales that his extraordinary life illustrated will
not be forgotten for generations to come. The passage in his study,
through which he used to admit his "Cressida" from a secret door
communicating with his "basement church," is now shown as a specimen of
his skill. The transformations and metamorphoses he used to undergo,
like Jupiter of old, in order to pass unobserved to the retreats of his
"Europas," on the sides and on the summits of the classically-sounding
hills of the city of his ministry,--all these things, and more, are
known to the poorest retailers of interesting stories and anecdotes. In
a word, he was as impure as Caligula, as cruel as Nero or Calvin
himself, and as violent as Luther or John Knox.

Yet it is a melancholy fact in connection with, and illustrative of, the
spirit of the Protestantisms of the United States, that for twenty years
and more, with all this guilt, with all the crimes in the calendar on
his head, with the full knowledge of all his sins of impurity,
hypocrisy, intolerance, and cruelty to his wife, this _reverend
gentleman_ was the most popular, well-supported, and _respected_
minister in the whole state in which he resided. He was a good preacher,
an eloquent expounder of the word, a smart man; that was enough.
Protestantism could not afford to lose him now, when she was so spare of