"Dr. Bennett, in health, will always be remembered by his acquaintances as an incomparable specimen of physical manhood, with a face bearing the lines of strong character. Indeed, he seemed moulded for any work or position in Methodism. His mental endowments were of a high order. His early advantages were such as to secure a good English education, with some knowledge of Latin; and from our knowledge of the man, we may safely conclude that his opportunities were well improved. A schoolmate says of him: 'He was studious, with great grasp of intellect and steadiness of purpose.' The writer, and others, perhaps, will remember his modest reference to his fondness for reading while a boy, in using 'the first money he could command to subscribe for the _Richmond Advocate_,' which he subsequently edited with so much ability. By judicious reading and study, and by such collegiate helps as his appointments favored, he became the peer of any. Ten years before he was elected President of Randolph-Macon College he received from that institution the degree of D. D., was a member of every General Conference since 1858, and was a representative of our church at the Ecumenical Conference in London in 1881. The opinion of the editor of the _Richmond Christian Advocate_, no doubt, is the judgment of his brethren, that 'he was the best-rooted man in the Conference in theology, and saturated with church history, dogma, and doctrine.' "As a preacher, he occupied the front rank in pulpit power, and his discourses were such as lived in the memory and hearts of his hearers. 'His sermons,' says Bishop Granbery, 'were stately, elaborate, and massive, mighty discussions of great truths, with wide range of thought, lucid and forcible argument, earnest, solemn, and often impassioned application.' Bishop Doggett says of him: 'Bennett, at times, is the greatest preacher I ever heard. His sermon at the late camp-meeting, on Matthew xxiii. 37, 38, surpassed anything I ever listened to from the pulpit. His description of the desolate house I can never forget. I remember,' says he, 'to have heard him at Charlottesville, on the flood, when for more than an hour the congregation seemed dazed by the power of his eloquence.'