He owed a great deal to his commanding figure, fine voice, and graceful elocution. His memory also was as marvelous as that of Dr. Storrs or Professor Addison Alexander. One night, for the entertainment of his fellow-passengers in a stagecoach, he repeated two cantos of Scott's poem of "Marmion"! I have heard him quote, in a public address before the New York University, a whole page of Cicero without the slip of a single word! His passion for polysyllables was very amusing, and he loved to astonish his hearers by his "sesquipedalian" phraseology. A certain visionary crank once intruded into his study and bored him with a long dissertation. Dr. Cox's patience was exhausted, and pointing to the door, he said: "My friend, do you observe that aperture in this apartment? If you do, I wish that you would describe rectilineals, very speedily." I could fill several pages with racy anecdotes of the keen wit and the varied erudition of my venerable friend. But let none of my readers think of Dr. Cox as a clerical jester, or a pedant. He was a powerful and intensely spiritual preacher of the living Gospel. In his New York congregation were many of the best brains and fervent hearts to be found in that city, and some of the leading laymen revered him as their spiritual father. Sometimes he was betrayed into eccentricities, and his vivid imagination often carried him away into discursive flights; yet he never soared out of sight of Calvary's cross, and never betrayed the precious Gospel committed to his trust. The first time that I ever saw Henry Ward Beecher was in 1848. He was then mustering his new congregation in the building once occupied by Dr. Samuel H. Cox. It was a weekly lecture service that I attended, by invitation of a lady who invited me to "go and hear our new-come genius from the West." The room was full, and at the desk stood a brown-cheeked young man with smooth-shaved face, big lustrous eyes, and luxuriant brown hair--with a broad shirt collar tied with a black ribbon. His text was "Grow in Grace," and he gave us a discourse that Matthew Henry could not have surpassed in practical pith, or Spurgeon in evangelical fervor. I used to tell Mr. Beecher that even after making full allowance for the novelty of a first hearing, I never heard him surpass that Wednesday evening lecture. He was plucking the first ripe grapes of his affluent vintage; his "pomegranates were in full flower, and the spikenard sent forth its fragrance." The very language of that savory sermon lingers in my memory yet.