340 LIFE OF BENJAMIN SILLIMAN. 



ing, and with other Professors attended in the chapel many 

 other evenings in the week. His manner in the desk was, 

 on the whole, I should say, prevailingly rhetorical, and is 

 probably more distinctly remembered by the multitude of 

 his pupils than that of any one of his colleagues. He was 

 quite rapid, so that he almost produced the impression that 

 he would lose no time ; but he spoke with a full flowing 

 voice, with rising and falling tones which were sometimes 

 perhaps a little extravagant, but always delightful for their 

 melody. It is easy to recall with what unction and swing 

 he used to read his favorite hymns, such, for instance, as 

 the one, peculiarly appropriate to Sunday evening, which 

 begins 



" Frequent the day of God returns," 



And ends with the stanza, 



" Where we in high seraphic strains 



Shall all our powers employ, 

 Delighted range the ethereal plains 

 And take our fill of joy." 



Or the one beginning, 



" Stern winter throws his icy chains." 



He was more accustomed than others also to adapt his 

 selections, whether of hymns or of Scripture, to the time, the 

 seasons of the year, or public occurrences, or the events 

 of our College life. In prayer his mind was fertile, and 

 his petitions sometimes unusual. A stranger would hardly 

 have discovered in his public devotions how profound was 

 his habitual reverence for the Supreme Being. You know 

 with what affectionate reverence he was accustomed on 

 more private occasions to draw near to God as his only 

 sufficient friend. I have hardly in my life been more 

 touched by the utterances of a Christian man than I was by 

 some remarks on the subject of prayer made by him in one 

 of the latest years of his life at an evening meeting for 

 religious instruction and worship in the President's lecture- 

 room. We could see, from the words he addressed to us, 



