Dr. Tyng was the acknowledged leader of the “Low Church” wing of Episcopacy in this country, both during his ministry in the Epiphany at Philadelphia, and in St. George’s at New York.  He edited their weekly paper, and championed their cause on all occasions.  He was their candidate for the office of Bishop of Pennsylvania in 1845, and the contest was protracted through a long series of ballotings.  It was urged, and not without some reason, that his impetuous temper and strong partisanship might make him a rather domineering overseer of the diocese.  He possessed an indomitable will and pushed his way through life with the irresistible rush of a Cunarder under a full head of steam.  His temper was naturally very violent.  One Sabbath evening he was addressing my Sunday school in Market Street, and describing the various kinds of human nature by resemblances to various animals, the lion, the fox, the sloth, etc.:  “Children,” he exclaimed, “do you want to know what I am?  I am by nature a royal Bengal tiger, and if it had not been for the grace of God to tame me, I fear that nobody could ever have lived with me.”  There was about as much truth as there was wit in the comparison.  His congregation in St. George’s knew his irrepressible temperament so well that they generally let him have his own way.  If he wanted money for a church object or a cause of charity, he did not beg for it; he demanded it in the name of the Lord.  “When I see Dr. Tyng coming up the steps of my bank,” said a rich bank president to me, “I always begin to draw my cheque; I know he will get it, and it saves my time.”

His leading position among Low Churchmen was won not only by his intellectual force and moral courage, but by his uncompromising devotion to evangelical doctrine.  He belonged to the same school with Baxter, John Newton, Bickersteth, Simeon and Bedell.  In England his intimate friends were the Earl of Shaftesbury, Dr. McNeill and others of the most pronounced evangelical type.  The good old doctrines of redemption by the blood of Christ, and of regeneration by the Holy Spirit were his constant theme, and on these and kindred topics he was a delightful preacher.

Strong as he was in the pulpit, Dr. Tyng was the prince of platform orators.  He had every quality necessary for the sway of a popular audience—­fine elocution, marvelous fluency, piquancy, the courage of his convictions and a magnetism that swept all before him.  His voice was very clear and penetrating, and he hurled forth his clean-cut sentences like javelins.  A more fluent speaker I never heard; not Spurgeon or Henry Ward Beecher could surpass him in readiness of utterance.  On one occasion the Broadway Tabernacle was crowded with a great audience that gathered to hear some celebrity; and the expected hero did not arrive.  The impatient crowd called for “Tyng, Tyng;” and the rector of St. George’s came forward, and on the spur of the moment delivered such a charming speech that the audience would not