Edward Livingston Youmans 85 



sured a hundred times (for I asked everybody I 

 met) that I could get a sleeping-car to Zanesville, 

 and when I was all ready to start I was informed 

 that this morning there was no sleeping-car. By 

 the time I reached here I was pretty completely 

 used up.&quot; 



Such a fatiguing life, however, has its compensa 

 tions. It brings the lecturer into friendly contact 

 with the brightest minds among his fellow country 

 men in many and many places, and enlarges his 

 sphere of influence in a way that is not easy to 

 estimate. Clearly, an earnest lecturer, of com 

 manding intelligence and charming manner, with 

 a great subject to teach, must have an opportunity 

 for sowing seeds that will presently ripen in a 

 change of opinion or sentiment, in an altered way 

 of looking at things on the part of whole communi 

 ties. No lecturer has ever had a better opportunity 

 of this sort than Edward Youmans, and none ever 

 made a better use of his opportunity. His gifts 

 as a talker were of the highest order. The com 

 monest and plainest story, as told by Edward 

 Youmans, had all the breathless interest of the 

 most thrilling romance. Absolutely unconscious 

 of himself, simple, straightforward, and vehement, 

 wrapped up in his subject, the very embodiment 

 of faith and enthusiasm, of heartiness and good 



