Page:The English Peasant.djvu/360

 A clergyman, who regularly attended his ministry in later times, thus describes his manner in the pulpit:—"He never either raved or ranted, or even exerted his voice, which was clear and agreeable, and if it had ever been powerful, became softened in his later years. He laid great weight or emphasis upon the concluding words of his sentences, which made them very forcible." "Preaching," says Garnett Terry, who, in his day, was engraver to the Bank of England, and an impartial witness^ since he so far fell out with Huntington as to threaten him with an action for libel—"preaching," he says, "was with Huntington talking—his discourses were as story-telling. No labour in his art, no action; his was the agreeable style of preaching, for in speaking, as in writing, he seemed frequently to laugh in his heart. Engaging as was this last trait in him, both from the pulpit and the press, it was sometimes carried to excess, and displayed so as to act repulsively." He was generally so attractive, and his congregation so intensely interested, that the majority rose from their seats and stood, eager not to lose a word.

His memory was so good that in the latter part of his life he never used a Bible in the pulpit, yet he was never known to make a mistake in his text, or to be at a loss in quoting Scripture, always giving the book, chapter, and verse. The Bible, in fact, had been his sole school-book; from its continual perusal he had learnt to write and to speak in a style which makes him the worthy compeer of Defoe and Cobbett; on its glowing imagery the more poetic side of his mind had feasted, until he became so enamoured with it that he could not speak or write long without falling into an Oriental strain.

This tendency may be seen in the titles of some of his sermons, as "The Heavenly Work-folks and their Mystic Pay;" "The Colour of the Fields and their Fitness for the Harvest;" "The Apartments, Equipage, and Parade of Immanuel."

He pushed his own peculiar views to extreme lengths, and as a controversialist was wanting in all charity. A "perfect Ishmael, his hand was against every man, and every man's hand against his. He violently opposed John Wesley, and his whole system of divinity, and only agreed with him in politics. There were, in fact, very few ministers of any denomination in London with