it will cast a wave on the shores of Europe which will strike back to the islands of the Southern Sea, rebound on the Northwest coast, and so make the circuit of the world and strike this port again.” The realization of this prediction was more extravagant than the bold imagery of it. At the dedication of the Bethel he cried: “America is the center of the world, the center of America is Boston, and the center of Boston is the Bethel.” The first place of a returning sailor’s thoughts became the Bethel, instead of the groggery. Two of them, seeking it for the first time, spelled out the name on the flag floating above it: “B-E-T, beat, H-E-L, hell; beat-hell! This is Father Taylor’s place,” and they cast anchor. “There he is, Bill,” said an old tar to another, as they entered the Bethel; “there’s the old man walking the deck. He’s got his guns double-shotted and will give it to us right and left. See how fast he travels—fifteen knots on a taut bowline. When he walks that way he’s ready for action.” There were strange scenes in that vast audience room. The body of the church was reserved for sailors always, while the side slips and galleries were for the general public. When the seats were all filled, he would order the sailors forward like a sea captain, and crowd the altar rail, the pulpit stairs, the pulpit, and the pulpit sofas with the weather-beaten mariners, while the grandest in the land stood and listened in the aisles. “Now,” he would say, with a beaming face, “we have got the hold full and a deck load, and we’ll up anchor and start.” Many of the best critics and reporters have tried to describe and analyze a service after such a “start”—Dickens, Harriet Martineau, Fredricka Bremer, Horace Mann, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and others—but all fail to give us much comprehension of the method of the man; I suspect because they were all so absorbed they forgot to take notes, mental or otherwise. But they recall the _effects_ of the preaching vividly, each in his own way. So much of the power of Father Taylor was in his presence and action, that no report of one of his sermons has been made and preserved. He said himself, “You might as well try to report chain lightning.” Dr. Bellows said, twelve years ago, “Alas! nothing remains of him but his memory and his influence. He will be an incredible myth in another generation.” Why _need_ this be so? He has left a wealth of original sayings behind him unequaled by the utterances of few save Abraham Lincoln; and he may furnish the material for many rare studies in character. We may be forgiven the presumption of attempting to help rescue Father Taylor from vanishing into oblivion. What, then, were the characteristics that lay at the foundations of this remarkable character? I would classify them under four heads: