The new pastor believes that this system "leads to the destruction of all morality and religion". By him the Eden narrative is read as a literal fact. The young orator quotes from Montesquieu, Lord Bolingbroke (though the reporter could not catch either the point or the words) and Hume, by which he would prove that "this system leads to the destruction of civil society and civil government". Warming to his theme, he declares that "all vice is the immediate offspring of the dogmas of Universalism.... The doctrine of universal salvation leads to all the vices and abominations under heaven". Reference is made to the fact that "New York tells a mournful tale in consequence of this doctrine"--the allusion being to a recent duel between a citizen of New York and a citizen of Philadelphia. The preacher even declares that "a man holding such sentiments should never be entrusted with any civil office".[7] [Footnote 7: Was this the duel of Midshipman Hunter and the brilliant young Philadelphia lawyer, Miller, the latter losing his life and the former becoming the famous "Alvarado" Hunter told of in the life of Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry, (Boston, 1887) p. 239?] Against the background of "fire and brimstone and an horrible tempest upon the wicked and ungodly" he pressed the invitation to come to "the Redeeming Saviour, the Divine Saviour, the Glorified Saviour". The eloquent preacher closes his discourse, which is from beginning to end directed to the conscience, with a good, warm, direct appeal to his hearers for personal decision. Enough of proof is here given that from the first, even to the last year, if not the latest moment of his life, John Chambers never lost sight of the needy, sinful, human soul, and that he always closed with a tender and affectionate personal appeal. Men might be as steel against his logic, but their hearts melted under his winning importunity. One great landmark in John Chambers's life was his visit to Europe in 1830. His excessive labors and long-continued use of his voice in public discourse compelled him to cease both preaching and pastoral work. As he said in 1875: "In the year 1830 I lost my voice so that I could not have been heard twenty paces from where I am now if you had given me the world. My physician ordered me away and I was gone fourteen months. When the announcement was made to my brethren that I had to go they instantly made arrangements. They put into my purse twenty-five hundred dollars, and into the hand of my dear friend and brother, Rev. Dr. Ludlow, the father of Judge Ludlow, one thousand dollars to preach on the Sabbath for one year, making thirty-five hundred dollars down at once. It was a noble and generous act on their part".