That rhetorical instrument, the historical present, which makes the pages of his books tell such vivid stories, he often used with admirable effect in the prayer-room, impressing and thrilling all hearts. No little one ever believed more confidently the promises of its parent than did this little child in humility who was yet a man in understanding. Yet his was not blind credulity. He always faced the facts. He was willing to get to the bottom of reality, even though it might cause much drilling of the strata, with revelation of things at first unpleasant to know. I never knew a man whose piety rested less on traditions, institutions, persons, things, or reputations taken for granted. To keen intuitions, he was able to add the riches of experience, and his experience ever wrought hope. Hence the tonic of his thought and words. He dwelt on the mountain-top of vision, and yet he had that combination, so rare, yet so indispensable in the prophet,--vision and patience, even the patience of service. Naturally his themes and his illustrations, so pertinent and illuminating, were taken largely from history. It is because he saw so far and so clearly down the perspective of the past, that he read the future so surely. "That which hath been, is that which shall be,"--but more. "God fulfils himself in many ways." To our friend, history, of which the cross of Christ was the centre, was the Heavenly Father's fullest revelation. Many are the ways of theophany,--"at sundry times, and in divers manners,"--to one the burning bush, to another the Urim and Thummin, to another the dew on the fleece, to one this, to another that. To our man of the Spirit, as to the sage of Patmos, human history, because moved from above, was the visible presence of God. The war, which dissolved the old world of slavery, sectional bigotry, and narrow ideals, and out of the mother liquid of a new chaos shot forth fresh axes of moral reconstruction, furnished this soldier of righteousness with endless themes, incidents, illustrations, and suggestions. Yet the emphasis, both as to light and shading, was put upon things Christian and Godlike, the phenomena of spiritual courage and enterprise, rather than upon details of blood or slaughter. Neither years nor distance seemed to dim our fellow patriot's gratitude to the brave men who sacrificed limb and life for their country. The soldierly virtues, so vital to the Christian, were brought home to heart and conscience. He showed the incarnation of truth and life to be possible even in the camp and field.