So searchingly did he probe the consciences of his hearers, that it was not unfrequent with some among them to visit him for the purpose of private conference, counsel, and consolation. He well knew how to “speak a word in season to the weary,” with a peculiar sympathy and kindness. Yet quite as well he knew how to apply “the terror of the Lord:” and I remember his telling me, that one of the _most effective_ sermons (as he had reason to believe) which he had ever preached, was of terrific character, and founded on those words of overwhelming horror; “In Hell he lifted up his eyes, being in torments.” _That_ sermon (he had reason to hope) had been used by the Lord as an instrument for rescuing “a brand from the burning,” which the preacher aimed to represent. Another of his most striking sermons, divided between the morning and evening of the same Sabbath, was formed on a theme contrasted with the preceding, the _conduct_ and the _reward_ of the faithful Christian, as exemplified in St. PAUL: “I have fought the good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day.” {264} But, whatever excellencies he possessed as a preacher, Mr. Mortimer was unconscious of them himself: for he frequently deplored what he considered the inefficiency of his ministrations, and was accustomed to speak in the most humble terms of his sermons. On one such occasion, he said, “When I come out of the pulpit, and turn over in my mind what I have said, I think, What does it all amount to? How much more to the purpose it might have been, and how much more useful!” On the Sunday evenings, after committing his past endeavours into the hands of his God by prayer, he would turn his thoughts from the review of what he considered his past failures to the hope of future usefulness, by at once renewing his exertions. With this view, he was accustomed, before he retired to rest on the Sunday evening, to look out a text for the following Sunday, and to form the outline of the sermon. But although he was thus peculiarly anxious about the preparation of his sermons, he seldom spoke on the subject without remarking upon the necessity of the accompanying influences of the Holy Spirit, to render efficacious even the most highly wrought, powerful, and most convincing sermon. Indeed, he has expressed the opinion, that the most common-place sermons were often made the most useful; because, in such cases, the preacher, being aware of their defects, and being thus divested of all feelings of self-congratulation, was led, in more humble dependence upon God, to entreat that He would give the increase.