His delivery was wonderful. Henry Clay, who was well qualified to judge, pronounced him the finest natural orator he had ever heard. His form was almost perfect, his carriage noble and graceful, every movement light and springy, so that, as some of his hearers have declared, “he scarcely seemed to touch the ground.” He dressed with great taste, and on this account was often objected to by the early Methodists, and came very nearly being refused admission into his Conference. But he soon became a general favorite with the people, who would throng to hear him from the whole country for miles around. When he entered the pulpit he seemed nearly borne down by the weight of his accumulations, and it was only after he had begun to make headway that he became easy and self-possessed. Then he poured forth torrent after torrent of highly wrought eloquence, until the hearers were lost in admiration of the vast powers he displayed.
A very partial biographer considers it as very strange that he took but little part in any Conference discussions, or debates on general topics. The truth is, that with his mode of preparation, carried as far as he carried it, he could not. There was no time to forecast his sentences, and slowly build up a gorgeous fabric, and he therefore remained silent.
He had a mighty imagination, and could so represent any object he undertook so describe, that it would live before the eyes of his hearers. But he cared so much for beauty that he wandered too far from his way to seek it, and the consequence was that the object of his discourse
——“Passed in music out of sight,”
and his hearers after recovering from their rapture and astonishment remained as they were before. He drew vast audiences together, wrought effectually for the building up of some colleges, collected much money for various agencies, was made a Bishop of the M. E. Church, South, in compliment to his eloquence, but in real work was far inferior to many a Methodist minister whose name is unknown to fame.
JOHN SUMMERFIELD.
The eloquence of the good and noble, but early fallen Summerfield was in sharp contrast with that of Bascom. A lady who had heard them both, gave the preference, in some neat verses, to the latter, on the ground that he was more grand, awe-inspiring, and tempest-like. The melody and pathos of Summerfield she compared to the mild zephyr, and thought this was necessarily inferior to the earth-shaking storm. But the world has not agreed with her. Bascom held assembled thousands for hours beneath the charm of his voice, weeping, smiling, or shouting, at his will. Yet when all had passed, and the spell had been dissolved, the only impression that remained was one of simple wonder. The man and his own eloquence had risen so far above the subject he was to enunciate that the latter faded from the mind. More earnestness for truth and sympathy with it, would have enhanced his real power a hundredfold.
But it was very different with Summerfield. His soul was full of earnestness, and he moved in an atmosphere of tenderness and pathos. The eloquence of the great Whitefield might be compared to the whirlwind, prostrating everything in its path; that of Bascom to an iceberg glowing in the rays of the morning sun, displaying a thousand colors, but cold and impassive; and that of Summerfield to the light of the sun, calm and genial, shining on fields of green, filling the air with life and light. His speech was simple, easy, and unadorned, flowing right out of his own heart, and awakening an answering echo in the hearts of all who heard. The sermons which he has left are mere fragments—sketches such as he employed in his preparation, and of course give no idea of the real power he wielded.
Stevens thus describes his method of preparation:
“Though in the delivery of his sermons there was this facility—felicity we might call it—in their preparation he was a laborious student. He was a hearty advocate of extempore preaching, and would have been deprived of most of his popular power in the pulpit by being confined to a manuscript; yet he knew the importance of study, and particularly of the habitual use of the pen in order to success in extemporaneous speaking. His own rule was to prepare a skeleton of his sermon, and after preaching it, write it out in fuller detail, filling up the original sketch with the principal thoughts which had occurred to him in the process of the discourse. The first outline was, however, in accordance with the rule we have elsewhere given for extempore speaking, viz., that the perspective of the entire discourse—the leading ideas, from the exordium to the peroration—should be noted on the manuscript, so that the speaker shall have the assurance that he is supplied with a consecutive series of good ideas, good enough to command the respect of his audience, though he should fail of any very important impromptu thoughts. This rule we deem the most essential condition of success in extemporaneous preaching. It is the best guarantee of that confidence and self-possession upon which depends the command of both thought and language. Summerfield followed it even in his platform speeches. Montgomery notices the minuteness of his preparations in nearly two hundred manuscript sketches.”