And at last, called to the metropolitan centre, he enters a field whose limits of influence were to be bounded only by the limits of the civilized globe. With each increase of influence came corresponding responsibilities. So far he had developed resources sufficient for each increase in his burdens; but would he be sufficient for this new experience? He had fully sustained himself as a missionary and a preacher in a pioneer State, in a comparatively rude and uncultured society. He had earned a reputation that had preceded him East; could he maintain it? Could he meet the requirements of the refined, critical, and highly-cultured metropolis (for New York and Brooklyn were, to all intents, one great centre)? Many feared, and kindly volunteered the information that neither the new church nor its new pastor would last many months. He was altogether too outspoken for his own good, said they. It was all very well for a minister to combat evil, but he must do it in the good old-fashioned, orthodox way: he should confine himself to generalities and not be too specific. There were some things he ought not to meddle with: the pulpit was no place for politics, and slavery was purely a political question. He would find that in New York the public would not tolerate those things which had been permitted to him in Indiana. If he persisted he would soon have empty pews to preach to, even if he did not have a personal demonstration of the folly of attacking those popular sins—sins which most of his clerical brothers had had the good sense to leave alone. Endless were the similes and metaphors indulged in, of which the well-worn rocket was perhaps the most suggestive. Some amiable critics even went so far as to intimate that his success in the West was due more to the surreptitious use of the father’s old sermons than any inherent ability in the son, and he was generously given just one year to run through the barrelful of such sermons supposed to have been brought on with him. The barrel, like the widow’s oil-cruse, seems to have had a miraculous power of refilling. Many friends advised him against the change: the risk was too great, his experience too little. He said of this time: “In coming to Brooklyn I had but one single thought—that of zeal for Christ. I came under all manner of warnings and cautions. Many good brethren told me how men got puffed up in the city, what temptations I would encounter, and how I would very likely be conservative, and forget my zeal, and so on; and I was obliged at last to say even to my father: ‘Father, do you understand, then, that God’s grace only extends to the country, and that He cannot protect anybody in the city?’”