Mr. Martin’s forte is seriousness. He appears always solemn and devout. In the man himself you see no sign of great intellectual power. Dressed in sober black, close buttoned to the chin, you see a young man, with a pale heavy face, worn down by work. You may listen a long time before fire flashes from those eyes and lips, or before that brain thinks out of the commonest style of pulpit thought. It is really remarkable with how little instrumentality Mr. Martin produces so great an effect. He looks perfectly unimpressible—as if the world’s vanities never could charm him—as if he passed his life in some hermit’s dismal cell, and not in the city’s passionate and restless crowd. You would fancy that he was the inhabitant of an altogether different sphere, that he never laughed or smiled or read ‘Punch;’ and this appearance, I take it, is some help to his pulpit success. Charles Fox said it was impossible for any one to be as wise as Lord Thurlow looked. I would not go so far as to say that no man can be as devout as Mr. Martin looks, but certainly his appearance must be in his favour with the large class who attend public worship, although his nasal twang is not very agreeable, and his face itself is more indicative of the priest of narrow thought and of ascetic habits, than of the man with glowing sympathies and generous life. In the pulpit all this tells. Wait awhile, if you are sceptical, and you will soon be convinced of the fact. The mass around you will soon be permeated by the preacher’s power. As he unfolds his subject—as he goes directly to the point—as, with plain and terrible language, he warns men of sin, and of its fearful results—as he expatiates on the terrors and splendours of a world to come—as he realises the day when the trumpet shall sound, when the grave shall give up its spoil, when the dead, small and great, shall stand before God—you see that he has got at the heart of his audience—that it hangs upon his lips—that he sways it at his will—that at his bidding it trembles and despairs—or that it believes and hopes, and loves and lives. And all this seems done with little effort, in the boldest and plainest language possible.