His manner in the pulpit at this period is thus
described : —

" His preaching had in those days a fiery qual-
ity, an urgency and willful force, which, in his
later style, is stiU felt in the more subdued glow
of poetic imagery. There was a nervous insistence
about his person, and a peculiar emphasizing swing
of his right arm from the shoulder, which no one
who has ever heard him is likely to forget. It
seemed as if, with this gesture, he swung himself
into his subject, and would fain carry others along
with him. His sermons were always written out
in full and read ; never extemporized, never mem-



SERMONS 277

orized. For the latter mettod and its results he
had no liking. For the former, not sufficient
confidence, though that came to him later, when
driven to extempore work by ill-health. His early
manner betrayed this want of confidence, and was
at times a little constrained and labored. The same
was true of his prayers, which lacked ease and flow,
such as came to him with fuller inspiration. The
whole effect of his services was, however, always
pointed and practical. Prayers, hymns. Scripture
reading, text, sermon, aU converged on the same
central theme, and went to heighten the impres-
sion of the leading thought."

A closer description of his preaching, at an early
period, is given by Charles Loring Brace, whose
life illustrated the influence he describes : —

" The writer holds it among the especial bless-
ings of his Hfe that his boyhood and youth were
passed imder the pastorate of Dr. BushneU. Those
were the eager and powerful days of the great
preacher, when his language had a pure and
Saxon ring which it somewhat lost in later years,
when emotions from the depths of a passionate
nature bore him sometimes to the highest flights
of eloquence, and wit and sarcasm flashed from his
talk and speeches, and he stood the most inde-
pendent and muscular sermonizer in the American
pulpit. He reached afterwards a higher plane of
spiritual life, and showed more balanced power
and more consideration for the views of others,
and was no doubt more humble minded, and yet



278 HORACE BUSHNELL

more elevated above the world ; still those early
fiery days of his left an indelible mark on all the
youth who came under his influence. 