Elias Hicks was given to using figures of speech and scriptural illustrations in a broad sense, and those who carefully read his utterances will have no trouble in seeing in the quotation used by Doctor Harris simply an attempt to repudiate the attribute of favoritism on the part of the Heavenly Father toward any of his human children, and not to formulate a new philosophy of life, based on a theory of the universe about which he had never heard. The special labor of Elias Hicks, as we may now dispassionately review it, was not as an expounder of doctrine, or the creator of a new dogmatism, but as a rationalizing, liberalizing influence in the field of religion. He was a pioneer of the "modern thinkers" of whom Doctor Harris speaks, and did much, amid misunderstanding and the traducing of men, to prepare the way for the broader intellectual and spiritual liberty we now enjoy. CHAPTER XXIV. Recollections, Reminiscences and Testimonies. Many statements which have come down to us from the generation in which Elias Hicks lived, warrant the conclusion that he was a natural orator. He possessed in a large degree what the late Bishop Simpson, of the Methodist Episcopal Church, called "heart power." We are able to give the personal impression of a venerable Friend[206] now living, who as a boy of eleven heard Elias preach twice. [206] Dr. Jesse C. Green, of West Chester, Pa., now in his 93d year. Doctor Green almost retains the sprightliness of youth. One of the sermons was delivered at Center, Del., on the 8th of Twelfth month, 1828, and the other the day before at West Chester. This was on his last long religious visit, which took him to the then "far west," Ohio and Indiana. Doctor Green says that the manner of Elias Hicks when speaking was very impressive. In person he is described by this Friend "as above medium height, rather slim, and with a carriage that would attract universal attention." He wore very plain clothes of a drab color. With no education in logic, and no disposition to indulge in forensic debate, he was, nevertheless a logician, and had he indulged in public disputation, would have made it interesting if not uncomfortable for his adversary. If he occasionally became involved, or got into verbal deep water, he always extricated himself, and made his position clear to his hearers. Doctor Green tells us that he had an uncle, not a member of meeting, but a good judge of public speaking, who considered Elias Hicks the most logical preacher in the Society of Friends. On one occasion he heard Elias when he became very much involved in his speaking, and as this person put it, he thought Elias had "wound himself up," but in a few minutes he came down from his verbal flight, and made every point so clear that he was understood by every listener. Henry Byran Binns, Whitman's English biographer, gives the following estimate of the preaching of Elias Hicks: