338 History of Methodism 



point out the analogy which existed between the point 

 he would establish and the objects before them. His 

 comparisons were derived not only from rural and 

 pastoral scenes, whence the poets gather their flowers, 

 but from all the common arts of life, from the proc- 

 esses and utensils of the kitchen, and the employments 

 of housewifery and husbandry. The aptness and force 

 of his metaphors always atoned for their occasional 

 meanness, and it was apparent to all that they were 

 dictated by a shrewd acquaintance with the human 

 heart. Their effect upon the congregation was often 

 like that of successive shocks of electricity. I once 

 heard him preach upon the opening of the books at 

 the final judgment, when he presented the record of 

 human iniquity in a light so clear and overwhelming 

 that the thousands who were listening to him started 

 back and turned pale, as if the appalling vision had 

 burst actually upon their view. Russell's whole char- 

 acter was one of scriptural efficiency, and he valued 

 no qualification of mind or body any further than it 

 tended to the salvation of souls. His eye seemed to 

 be fixed upon the examples and successes of the first 

 preachers of the gospel, upon the events of the day of 

 Pentecost, upon Peter's sermon to the centurion and 

 his family, upon the conversion of the eunuch and 

 the jailer. He looked for a renewal of these scenes 

 under his own ministry, and whenever he preached 

 the cross he expected the Holy Ghost to give efficiency 

 to the word. If this spiritual assistance was sometimes 

 withheld, he seemed disappointed and humbled, as if 

 he had not only failed in success, but in duty. To a 

 deep sense of the weakness of human exertions, and 

 their utter dependence on God for all success, he united 

 the strongest confidence in the strenuous and skillful 



