I sit, just one in that great crowd, and listen spellbound, for it will not do to lose one of those sparkling sentences. I want him to stop, for he has given me more than I can possibly digest in one week; but yet I want him to go on, too, for it seems wrong to break the spell of enchantment. I catch a suggestion that I might surely profit by, but I cannot remember it, there is so much else that I must hear crowding it out. I risk a turn of my head to see if all the crowd are as intensely interested as I am. None of them see me, so intent is each one to catch every word. So it goes on for an hour. When he suddenly stops with, “Let us pray,” the whole congregation gives one simultaneous long breath. It is a short prayer. Then there is a hymn by the united choir and congregation--old Plymouth congregational singing, nowhere else to be heard. The great crowd rises to go away. I look in front of me and see there this young minister, meeting and shaking hands with the crowd that is rushing forward to greet him, as placid and quiet and as gently receiving his friends as though he had but just now stepped into the hall. There is not the slightest show of fatigue. And here I discover the greatest element in all this young man’s attractiveness. Dominating all else is his personality. All who meet him and have the privilege of speaking to him and shaking his hand are his devoted, loving friends. Such is Dr. Hillis, and this the dawn of his career. What will he be at high meridian? The Rev. Dr. Joseph Parker, minister of City Temple, London, and the greatest of living pulpit orators--I do not say the greatest preacher, for I think that distinction has belonged to Plymouth Church, Brooklyn, during the past fifty-three years--has eccentricities that have retarded his friendships among strangers. Dr. Parker and his congregation in London were loyal, staunch friends of Mr. Beecher and his church during the time of the great preacher’s deepest sorrow. In 1886, while in England with Henry Ward Beecher, I engaged Dr. Parker to come over here and make a lecture tour. [Illustration] Meanwhile his friend, Mr. Beecher, died, and as Dr. Parker was coming to America, it was arranged that he should deliver a eulogy on his friend in the Academy of Music, Brooklyn. The net proceeds I was to present to the Beecher Statue Fund, then being raised. It was the Doctor’s first appearance on the tour, and a large audience of Mr. Beecher’s friends nearly filled the Academy. The net proceeds were subsequently turned over to the Statue Fund as a contribution from me.