Fifty Notable Years: Views of the Ministry of Christian Universalism During the Last Half-Century; with Biographical SketchesAdams, John G. (John Greenleaf)
Religion
Fifty Notable Years: Views of the Ministry of Christian Universalism During the Last Half-Century; with Biographical Sketches
Adams, John G. (John Greenleaf)
Universalism; Universalist Church -- Biography; Universalists -- Biography; Universalists -- United States -- History
Another comer from the anvil, a strong, cheery, blunt, warm-hearted
man, deeply in love with the truth of the Gospel, and running over
with zeal in his advocacy of it, was Rev. EMMONS PARTRIDGE. He was
superintendent of the Sunday school in the First Universalist church
in Providence, R. I., while Rev. David Pickering was its pastor. He
entered the ministry with but little scholarly preparation for it; but
somehow, by divine grace, he did quite an acceptable work as a
missionary and as pastor of a number of societies. God chooses his own
instruments in his work, and this minister was one. Without the graces
of oratory, he was a plain and often instructive preacher, because he
was usually highly charged with his subject and eager to declare it to
his hearers. If his illustrations were sometimes homely, they were
usually to the point, and if they excited a smile carried a
conviction. He was ready in expedients, if these were necessary, to
win the good will of his neighbors who might be strongly prejudiced
against his theology. "I had hard work," said he, "to get the kind
attention of one man. I tried many ways: but at last, as we were both
very much interested in raising rare kinds of poultry, I opened his
heart towards me by occasional exchanges of choice eggs with him!" He
could meet pulpit embarrassments coolly and more successfully than
others might have done. Lecturing one evening in his pulpit at
Watertown, Mass., he came to a place in his manuscript where the
matter was confusedly mixed. The leaves had been wrongly stitched
together, and he vainly tried to put them in order. Despairing of
this, he quietly and quaintly remarked, "Well, this is strange. I
thought I put these leaves in as they ought to be, but they are so
mixed that I can't make anything out of them. I think I will say the
rest without the notes!" and he did, to the satisfaction as well as
amusement of the audience. He died somewhat advanced in years, highly
esteemed by all who knew him.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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