Page:The Galaxy, Volume 5.djvu/193

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REMINISCENCES OF DR. WAYLAND.
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felt the magnetism of his personal presence, to understand the marvellous effect they produced upon those who heard them on that impressive occasion. The audience, the building, the speaker himself, were for several minutes forgotten. "When Dr. Wayland closed," said a person, who was present, to the writer, "had we at that moment beheld with mortal vision the 'pearly gates' opening to receive our president, no one would have been startled, but considered it a natural sequence of that which we had just heard—so completely were the time and circumstances of the occasion forgotten!"

Seventy-five bound volumes, written and published by Dr. Wayland during his life, including discourses, reviews, lectures and magazine articles, attest the industry of the man. All are replete with thought and varied information, and, it is believed, have accomplished the purposes for which they were designed. The works, however, on which his reputation will rest as a vigorous and original writer, are his "Moral Science," "Political Economy," and "Intellectual Philosophy"—works which still retain their place as text books, both in this country and in Europe.

But, perhaps, he will be remembered less for these works than for his great and life-long services to the cause of religion and education. His sermon, preached in Boston, in 1823, upon "The Moral Dignity of the Missionary Enterprise," marked an era in the history of missions among all denominations of what are called Evangelical Christians. Up to the period of its delivery, the missionary cause had languished, and its future seemed shrouded in gloom. But the enthusiasm then imparted has never grown cold. The original thought contained in it compelled attention. Candid minds, forced by the broadness and catholicity of its views, saw the hitherto despised enterprise in a new light. The sermon was at once copied into the organs of all denominations of Christians, and the demand for it was so great that four successive editions were speedily exhausted. Two years after its publication here, it was reprinted in England, with an introduction by Dr. Wardlaw, of the Scotch Church, and passed through several editions, "receiving as hearty admiration abroad as it had done in America." The British "Evangelical Magazine," speaking of it, says, "It is the burst of genius and of consecrated zeal. Well may America glory in the man who could rear such a monument." It may be questioned whether, with the exception of Webster's reply to Hayne, any passage in American literature has been oftener quoted than the paragraphs which delineate the conquering march of the Christian Church.

Nor was the effect of President Wayland's sermon upon the "Apostolic Ministry" (delivered at Rochester in 1853) less marked. The aim of the discourse was to show that the Christian Church was rapidly departing from its primitive simplicity, and that if