hour, in the densely crowded church, the thronging auditors sat in reverent silence, listening to the words spoken by one who was at once poet, priest, patriot, prophet and patriarch. During the solemn address the clock in the rear of the church ticked audibly throughout the congregation. No one moved. No one spoke. No one whispered. There was not even the slightest coughing so common in densely crowded halls and on days damp, cheerless and depressing. When the great Apostle of God's law had finished, a gray-haired parishioner in the gallery, who had listened attentively to every word of the discourse, turned to the man at his elbow and said . . . with strange earnestness and sincerity, measuring every word he uttered: 'Greatest man alive!" " Other addresses were the baccalaureate sermon at the University of Georgia, July 16, 1901; and an address before Tulane University, delivered during the February preceding his death, on "Love of Truth the Inspiration of the Scholar;" and many others. The last one named was, for the most part, an old address rewrought. It is remarkable how little use he made of old speeches, notwithstanding the pressure of years and of the burdens of his office. He usually preferred to bring forth for the occasion. This is no complete catalogue of his addresses of the period. Others of greater value than some of these might be added. 14 Times-Democrat, January 2, 1901. CHAPTER XVIII. THE FINAL STADIUM OF SERVICE; NOBLE THOUGH BROKEN.-Continued. (1888-1902.) PUBLISHED WRITINGS OF THE PERIOD: "FORMATION OF CHARACTER."- DE R. PALMER published four volumes in the course of these last fourteen years. The first to pass through the press, was that on the "Formation of Character"-twelve lectures delivered on as many Sabbath evenings in his church, in 1889. The lectures had been delivered in response to a request signed by twenty-five young men of his congregation. Shortly after their delivery a stenographic report of the lectures was placed in his hands, with a request to revise them with a view to their publication. Such a request he found it hard to deny; and accordingly complied with it. The several subjects of the lectures were: Youth, the Formative Period; Elements Which Enter Into Character; Influence of Piety in Forming Character; Obligations Arising from a Pious Ancestry; Obligation Arising from the Trust of Life; Obstacles to Piety in the Young; Choice of Amusements; Sin of Profane Swearing; Sin of Sabbath Breaking; Intemperance and Sins of the Flesh; The Sin of Gambling; The Scriptures Our Rule. The lectures are thoroughly sane, strong, and rich expositions of correlated teachings of God's word on these subjects. "The Broken Home; or, Lessons in Sorrow," 1890, was the next volume to appear from his pen. The production of the manuscript for this book was in this manner, viz.: After the death of his eldest daughter, which occurred in 1863, he sketched her life and character, primarily for her mother's comfort and satisfaction and to preserve the various incidents in the life and death of his dear child. Similarly, after the death of each of the other daughters who went to an early grave, he wrote down that which he and the rest of the family, left behind, would wish to recall. After the death of Mrs. Colcock, he wrote (some time in 1875, perhaps) the sketch of his firstborn, who had impressed himself indelibly on his father's memory. Mrs. Palmer treasured the sketches greatly and had them gathered into a blank book, now before us. Soon after Mrs. Palmer's death, the Doctor prepared a life sketch of her, and their one remaining daughter started to copy it into this treasured blank book. But the suggestion came to publish it and make their sorrow a means of blessing to others. The whole was carefully revised and room was made in the volume for a sketch of his mother's life and death, also. In an introductory note he says: "The following pages are committed to the press with no little mental conflict. The 'stricken deer,' says Cowper, withdraws, "To seek a tranquil death in distant shades:' and so the mourner should hide his wound beneath his mantle. But the Free Masonry of those in sorrow would pour the balm into other hearts which the Spirit of Consolation may have given to each. "From the simple desire of comforting those who mourn, this story of repeated bereavements is here told. . . . Long treasured memories are now scattered upon the winds, with the prayer that they may help to bind up the broken-hearted." It would be hard to find in all Christian literature a sweeter, or a saner, Christian spirit than runs through this whole volume. It is worthy of a place in every mourning household. If high example in the midst of affliction could have any uplifting influence, the glimpses of it given in this volume should make the book a boon to every one to whom the Gospel is a savor of life unto life. The literary style of the sketches is marvelously beautiful. They are each a poem in limpid and nervous prose. They linger on the ear like sweet, sad music. Printed on cheap paper, bound in homely guise, and insufficiently advertised, the book has had slight sale; but properly published it ought to have the widest circulation and rank as a classic in pathetic and devotional literature. It is a queer fact that, notwithstanding its markedly Christian character, a Jewish Rabbi should have used it in his pastoral work in dealing with the afflicted members of his flock. In 1891, Dr. Palmer published a pamphlet of nineteen pages, entitled "Hindrances to Union with the Church: A Letter to An Aged Friend." This letter had been actually written February 3, 1874. It was designed to reach a man believed to be a child of God but distrusting his own religious experience to such a degree as to be unwilling to unite with the Church. The next volume to come from the press was his "Theology of Prayer as Viewed in the Religion of Nature and in the System of Grace," 1894. The work makes an octavo volume of 352 pages, consisting of two parts. In the first part he treats the subject of prayer on the plane of natural religion, "the main design being to discuss the objections raised by skeptics against it, as a universal duty." As these for the most part reject the authority of the Scriptures, the author endeavors to meet the question on their own ground; and "to show that the argument drawn from the consideration of nature itself, and especially from their own mental and moral organization, scatters these objections to the winds." In the second part, he had the more "grateful task" of interweaving prayer in the whole scheme of grace, by showing its connection with every part of the office discharged by each person of the Godhead. The work thus covers the ground of natural and revealed religion so far as the subject of prayer is concerned. It stands in a class by itself; and fills a gap which had existed hitherto in our theological literature. It is a real contribution to practical theology. Dr. Palmer's ripeness of knowledge and of grace, the products of many years of toil on the part of a brilliant mind, and of God's leading him through great and sore tribulation, went into this effort at didactic and polemic teaching concerning prayer. His last volume was one entitled "The Threefold Fellowship and the Threefold Assurance," an essay in two parts, 1892a modest duodecimo of one hundred and forty-four pages. His eyesight had become very dim after 1896 or 1897. This work was, therefore, dictated to his granddaughter, Miss Gussie Colcock, who produced the copy for the printer. The volume betrays no abatement of mental power. The first part begins with an admirable argument for the unity and the tri-personality of God. In successive chapters it discusses fellowship with each of the three Divine persons in turn. The second part deals with the threefold assurance of understanding, faith and hope which grows out of the fellowship in its trinal form. It is on the same general level of excellence with the "Theology of Prayer." During this period he made an occasional contribution to reviews and newspapers. Of his review articles, one in the Southern Presbyterian Quarterly for April, 1898, had for its thesis the following proposition: "The Hebrew Commonwealth enshrined the fundamental principles of political and civil liberty, which modern nations have only reproduced, and, under other forms have applied." This very interesting thesis he argued with great ingenuity and ability. His pen was frequently employed in the framing of tributes to the dead-deceased parishioners, deceased friends in the ministry. Many of the friends of his early mature manhood preceded him to the grave. Their other friends looked to this grand old man to say the fitting thing for the occasion. Thus in 1894, he prepared memorial sketches of the Rev. Dr. Thomas Railey Markham and the Rev. Dr. Henry Martyn Smith, able and godly men, whom he had taught, back, at Columbia, in 1854, and with whom he had sustained warm friendship, who had been his close neighbors in New Orleans, to the last. In 1898, when Dr. Robt. L. Dabney died, the most felicitously expressed tribute of all that were drawn forth by that great man's death was from Dr. Palmer's pen. Dr. Palmer said, when Dr. Dabney died, "I am lonesome, now that Dabney's gone." This was said because they had for twoscore years fought together in behalf of the same great principles; he must often have felt lonesome, though successive days were ever bringing him new friends, for so many of his friends of forty years or more were going to the Great Beyond. That he so felt, his correspondence gives some sign. "Oh, how death is thinning our number and soon the marble slab will contain the last record of us all!" he exclaimed in a letter of September 3, 1889. He continued, in some sense, the pastor to many far beyond his parochial bounds. In times of affliction he put forth his efforts to serve, as under-shepherd to the Great Pastor, all whom circumstances rendered it peculiarly incumbent on him to comfort. In the following letters we have instances of this kind of effort: |