charioted in splendor along, as the wealthiest of our citizens, _or flounce in the robes of magistracy_, it is his part to keep as purely and indignantly aloof from such society as this, as he would from the vilest and most debasing associations of profligacy.' "The words which I have underlined do not appear in the sermon as printed. While uttering them, which he did with peculiar emphasis, accompanying them with a flash from his eye and a stamp of his foot, he threw his right arm with clenched hand right across the book-board, and brandished it full in the face of the Town Council, sitting in array and in state before him. Many eyes were in a moment directed toward the magistrates. The words evidently fell upon them like a thunderbolt, and seemed to startle like an electric shock the whole audience." Another interesting memorial of this sermon is supplied by Dr. Wardlaw, who was present at its delivery. "The eloquence of that discourse was absolutely overpowering. The subject was one eminently fitted to awaken and summon to their utmost energy all his extraordinary powers; especially when, after having cleared his ground by a luminously scriptural exhibition of that supreme authority by which the evils he was about to portray were interdicted, in contradistinction to the prevailing maxims and practices of a worldly morality, he came forward to the announcement and illustration of his main subject--'_the origin, the progress, and the effects of a life of dissipation_.' His moral portraitures were so graphically and vividly delineated--his warnings and entreaties, especially to youth, so impassioned and earnest--his admonitions so faithful, and his denunciations so fearless and so fearful--and his exhortations to preventive and remedial appliances so pointed and so urgent to all among his auditors who had either the charge of youth, or the supervision of dependents! It was thrilling, overwhelming. His whole soul seemed in every utterance. Although saying to myself all the while, 'Oh! that this were in the hands of every father, and master, and guardian, and young man in the land!' I yet could not spare an eye from the preacher to mark how his appeal was telling upon others. The breathless, the appalling silence told me of that. Any person who reads that discourse, and who had the privilege of listening to Dr. Chalmers during the prime and freshness of his public eloquence, will readily imagine the effect of some passages in it, when delivered with even more than the preacher's characteristic vehemence." FOOTNOTES: [21] _Peter's Letters to his Kinsfolk_, 2d edit, vol. iii pp 267-273. [22] Foster. [23] _Memoirs of the Life of the Right Hon. Sir James Mackintosh_, vol. ii. p. 343. The person known among his particular friends by the name of "Bobus" was Robert Smith, who had held the office of Advocate-General in Bengal, and who is not to be confounded with his namesake, the brother of the Rev. Sydney Smith.