That which I hear about men who are unfortunate makes no impression on me.  There is always a great jubilee over the downfall of a financier.  I like to put the best phase possible upon a man’s misfortune.  No one begrudged the wealth of the rich men of the past.

The world was becoming too compressed, it was said; there was not room enough to get away from your troubles.  All the better.  It was getting to a compactness that could be easily poked up and divinely appropriated.  A new cable was landed at Rockport, Mass., that was to bring the world into closer reunion of messages.  We were to have cheaper cable service under the management of the Commercial Cable Company.  Simultaneously with this information, the s.s.  “America” made the astounding record of a trip from shore to shore of the Atlantic, in six days fourteen hours and eighteen minutes.  It was a startling symbol of future wonders.  I promised then to exchange pulpits with any church in England once a month.  It seemed a possibility, as proposed in Mr. Corbin’s scheme of harbours at Montauk Point.  There were pauses in the breathless speed we were just beginning at this time.  We paused to say farewell to the good men whom we were passing by.  They were not spectacular.  Some of them will no doubt be unknown to the reader.

A gentle old man, his face illumined always by a radiant smile, fell behind.  He was Bishop Simpson.  We paused to bid him farewell.  In 1863, walking the streets of Philadelphia one night with an army surgeon, we passed the Academy of Music in that city, where a meeting was being held on behalf of the Christian Commission, the object of which was to take care of wounded soldiers.  As we stood at the back of the stage listening, the meeting seemed to be very dull.  A speaker was introduced.  His voice was thin, his manner unimpressive.  My friend said, “Let’s go,” but I replied, “Wait until we see what there is in him.”  Suddenly, he grew upon us.  The address became adorned with a pathos, a sublimity, and an enthusiasm that overwhelmed the audience.  When the speaker sat down, I inquired who he was.

“That is Bishop Simpson,” said my informant.  In later years, I learned that the Bishop’s address that night was the great hour of his life.  His reputation became national.  He was one of the few old men who knew how to treat young men.  He used no gestures on the platform, no climaxes, no dramatic effects of voice, yet he was eloquent beyond description.  His earnestness broke over and broke through all rules of rhetoric.  He made his audiences think and feel as he did himself.  That, I believe, is the best of a man’s inner salvation.