Huntington is described as having been, towards the close of his
career, a fat, burly man, with a red face, which rose just above the
pulpit cushion; and a thick, guttural, and rather indistinct voice. A
contemporary says:--"His pulpit prayers are remarkable for omitting
all for the King and his country. He excels in extempore eloquence.
Having formally announced his text, he lays his Bible at once aside,
and never refers to it again. He has every possible text and quotation
at his fingers' end. He proceeds directly to his object, and except
such incidental digressions as 'Take care of your pockets! Wake that
snoring sinner! Silence that noisy numskull! Turn out that drunken
dog!' he never deviates from his course. Nothing can exceed his
dictatorial dogmatism. Believe him, none but him--that's enough. When
he wishes to bind the faith of his congregation, he will say, over
and over, 'As sure as I am born, 'tis so;' or, 'I believe the plain
English of it to be this.' And then he will add, by way of clenching
his point, 'Now you can't help it,' or, 'It must be so, in spite of
you.' He does this with a most significant shake of the head, and with
a sort of Bedlam hauteur, with all the dignity of defiance. He will
then sometimes observe, softening his deportment, 'I don't know whether
I make you understand these things, but I understand them well.' He
rambles sadly and strays so completely from his text, that you often
lose sight of it. The divisions of his sermons are so numerous that one
of his discourses might be divided into three. Preaching is with him
talking; his discourses, story-telling. Action he has none, except that
of shifting his handkerchief from hand to hand and hugging his cushion.
Nature has bestowed on him a vigorous original mind, and he employs it
in everything. Survey him when you will, he seems to have rubbed off
none of his native rudeness or blackness. All his notions are his own,
as well as his mode of imparting them. Religion has not been discovered
by him through the telescopes of commentators."
Huntington's portrait is in the National Portrait Gallery, in
South Kensington. He "might pass, as far as appearances go, for a
convict, but he looks too conceited. The vitality and strength of his
constitution are fearful to behold, and it is certain that he looks
better fitted for coal-heaving than for religious oratory."--_History
of Clerkenwell_, 1865, pp. 529-531.
Amen.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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