JAMES WALKER. 487 



loners, from whom he had been separated for thirty-five years ; for his 

 memory was still green in their own hearts, and had been instilled into 

 the hearts of their children and grandchildren. 



There were those among his clerical brethren who advised Dr. 

 Walker against accepting his appointment to a professorship, fearing 

 that he would be lost to a ministry which could ill afford to spare him. 

 liut others, and among them Dr. W. E. Channing, urged him to go t'» 

 Cambridge. He said: ''To guide the young to just principles of moral 

 and intellectual philosophy is to contribute more to their education 

 than any other teaching can do." The event has proved that what 

 was gained to the college was not so much lost to the churclies. Dur- 

 ing the period of more than twenty years while Dr. Walker was 

 Professor or President, and afterwards, as long as his health permitted, 

 he preached frequently in the college or otlier pulpits, and with ever- 

 increasing power and attractiveness. After he had retired from the 

 Presidency of the college to private life, in the sixty -sixth year of his age, 

 with some bodily infirmities, but in the full possession of all his grand 

 thoughts, and the fire of his old eloquence to utter them, he was invited 

 to the pulpit of King's Chapel in Boston. There can be no doubt that, 

 whatever else Dr. Walker was or might have been, he was born to be 

 a preacher, and possessed all the qualities of mind and heart, and all 

 the physical gifts, which fit a man to be a great preacher ; reverence, 

 sympathy, a searching logic, a deep insight into character, a simple 

 and terse style, and an inspiring look and voice which made the man- 

 ner an exact counterpart of the matter. AVhat he had to preach is 

 best stated in his own words, taken from an installation sermon printed 

 in 1823. " Mere moral lectures, which a heathen philosopher might 

 have preached as well, will not answer ; nor ingenious and subtle dis- 

 quisitions respecting the foundation of morals, or the fitness of things, 

 or the beauty of virtue, or the counsels of mere worldly prudence. 

 All this may be very well in its place, and it need not be entirely 

 excluded from the pulpit : but it is not preaching Christ ; and that 

 minister will find himself to have sadly erred, who depends upon it 

 mainly for success. We find none of it in the discourses of the 

 Saviour; none of it in the pi'eaching of the Apostles. It was not by 

 such means that Christianity was established, or the Reformation 

 begun : nor is it by such means, even at the present day, and notwith- 

 standing all the changes that have taken place, that interest and popu- 

 larity can be given to any system of doctrines, or the bulk of any 

 conofregation be kept awake, or their souls saved from death." 



Though Dr. Walker habitually held himself to a strict account to 



