‘Blazed the comet of a season.’
To this day his name yet lives. In spite of the delusions and follies with which his name was connected—in spite of the reaction, the natural result of all enthusiasm, no matter what—Irvingite churches remain amongst us to this present hour. But at one time they threatened to pervade the land. All London flocked to Regent Square Church: the religious world was in a state of intense excitement. Timid men and nervous women went there, Sunday after Sunday, till they became almost mad. Unknown tongues were heard; strange sights were seen. Some thought the end of the world had come, and were seized with trembling and fear. It was a time of wonder, and mystery, and awe; but it passed away, as such things in
this world of ours must pass away. The great magician died. The crowd that had wondered and wept at his bidding, went to wonder and weep elsewhere.
Under such circumstances, to attempt to fill the vacant pulpit was no easy task; and yet that it has been done, and done successfully, is evinced by Dr. Hamilton’s success. It is a fact that he preaches there every Sunday to a crowded church; that there, where there were divers prophesyings and bewilderment universal, now order reigns; that the only voice that you hear there now, besides that of the preacher, is that of the precentor, as he reads the bald version of the Psalms, to which the modern Scotch stick as immovably as did their fathers to the Covenant in the days of Montrose. This is an undeniable fact. Nor does it surprise you when the Doctor makes his appearance in the pulpit. At first, perhaps, you are rather surprised. There is certainty nothing taking about the man. He looks tall, strong, and awkward, with a cloudy face, and a fearfully drawling voice; a man, not timid, but not striking—plain and unaffected—better fitted for the study than for the fashion of May Fair. If you look closer, you will see
indications of a calm, untroubled heart, with deep wells of fine feeling, of tenderness and strength combined. But still the Doctor is not the man to make a sensation at first sight—very few ministers are. One can understand this in a way. In certain families, it is said, the good-looking are put into the army—if fools, into the Church. Yet, generally, the jewel is worthy of the casket. If the one be rich and beautiful, the other is so as well. Plain and slouching as he is, I am told the Doctor succeeded in engaging the affections of a lady possessed of considerable property. But this is by no means remarkable: clergymen of every denomination make as many successful marriages as most men. One would think that they took the common wicked standard of wicked men, and judged a woman’s worth by the extent of her purse. I fear that there are as many fortune-hunters in the Church as there are in the world.
If ‘Hudibras’ had been written in our day, we should at once have supposed that Dr. Hamilton had helped the poet to a hero. Like Hudibras, the Doctor
‘scarce can ope
His mouth, but out there flies a trope.’
He has been called the Moore of the pulpit. An admiring critic says of him: ‘Like the poet of “Lalla Rookh,” he possesses vivid imagination, brilliant fancy, and sparkling phraseology. His sentences are strings of pearls, and whatever subject he touches he invariably adorns. His affluence of imagery is surprising. To illustrate some particular portion of Scripture, he will lay science, art, and natural history under contribution, and astonish us by the vastness of his acquirements, and his tact in availing himself of the stores of knowledge which, from all sources, he has garnered up in his mind. But plenteous as are the flowers of eloquence with which he presents us, their perfume, their sweetness, do not cloy. We listen in absolute wonderment as he pours forth a stream of eloquence, whose surface exhibits the iridescent hues of loveliness—one tint as it fades away being succeeded by another and a brighter. And a pure spirit of earnest piety pervades the whole of the sermon, the only drawback of which, to southern ears, being the broad Scotch accent in which it is delivered.’
Perhaps this character is a little coloured. Something must be set down in it for effect.
Still the characteristic of the Doctor’s oratory, whether in the pulpit or on the platform, is poetry. He is a prose poet, and his genius makes everything it touches rich and rare. As becomes a divine, he sees everything through an Eastern medium. He is at home in the Holy Land. Jerusalem is as dear to him as London. All the scenes of sacred story, in the dead and buried past, live before him, and are realized by him as much, if not more, than the most exciting scenes of the living present. He follows the Christ as he treads the path of sorrow—sees him in the manger—in the temple disputing with the doctors—in the crowded streets followed by an awe-struck Hebrew mob—alone in the wilderness—or dying, amidst fanatic scorn and hate, a triumphant death: and the Doctor tells you these things as if he were there—as if they had but happened yesterday—as if he had come fresh from them all. Hence there is a pictorial charm in his preaching, such as is possessed but by few, and excelled by none.