and well-directed talents must not be underrated. Different soils require
different culture, and that which is inoperative on one man may be
beneficial to another, and it is hardly possible for any one to form a
due estimate of the elevation of which pulpit oratory is susceptible who
never heard Robert Hall. This character of his preaching refers more
particularly to the period when his talents were in their most vigorous
exercise; a little before the time when he published his celebrated
sermon on "Infidelity."

This sermon I was so happy as to hear delivered, and have no hesitation
in expressing an opinion that the oral was not only very different from
the printed discourse, but greatly its superior. In the one case he
expressed the sentiments of a mind fully charged with matter the most
invigorating, and solemnly important; but, discarding notes, (which he
once told me always "hampered him") it was not in his power to display
the same language, or to record the same evanescent trains of thought; so
that in preparing a sermon for the press, no other than a general
resemblance could be preserved. In trusting alone to his recollection,
when the stimulus was withdrawn of a crowded and most attentive auditory,
the ardent feeling; the thought that "burned," was liable, in some
measure, to become deteriorated by the substitution of cool philosophical
arrangement and accuracy for the spontaneous effusions of his overflowing
heart; so that what was gained by one course was more than lost by the
other.

During Mr. Hall's last visit to Bristol, (prior to his final settlement
there) I conducted him to view the beautiful scenery in the
neighbourhood, and no one could be more alive to the picturesque than Mr.
H. On former occasions, when beholding the expanse of water before him,
he has said, with a pensive ejaculation, "We have no water in