And now let me say how he came to be an extemporaneous speaker, and sometimes not only logical and convincing, but truly eloquent.  On my return from abroad, in 1826, I passed through Boston, on my way to Portland, for a visit to my family, and was taken possession of by him, and went to Hollis Street Church, where I heard my friend, for the second time, in the pulpit.  He was exceedingly impressive, and the sermon itself was one of the best I ever heard,—­calm, serious, and satisfying; not encumbered with illustration, but full of significance.  Although the discourse was carefully written out, word for word, and almost committed to memory, yet he ventured to introduce a paragraph—­one paragraph only—­which had not been prepared beforehand.  My eyes were upon him, and he told me at dinner that he saw by my look how well I understood his departure, and how soon I detected it.  “And now,” said he, “I hope you are satisfied.  You see now that I shall never be able to extemporize.  I put that paragraph into my sermon this morning to see how you would take it, after having urged me, year after year, to extemporize at least occasionally.  No, no, John; though writing two sermons a week is no trifling labor, I must continue writing to the end; for, if I cannot extemporize a single paragraph, how can I hope to extemporize a whole sermon?”

“Suffer me to say that I think you misunderstand the whole question,” said I.  “The difficulty is in beginning.  After you are well under way, if you can talk sitting, you may talk standing.  Better take with you into the pulpit the merest outline of the discourse, and then trust to the inspiration of the subject, or to the feeling of the hour, when you have the audience before you, and can look into their eyes, than to have a discourse partly written, with blanks to be filled up as you go along; for then you are always beginning afresh, and by the time you have got easy in your spontaneous effort, you are obliged to go back to what you have written, and of course can never get warmed up with your subject, nor try any new adaptations, whatever may be the character of your hearers.”

He shook his head.  “No, no,” said he, “you will never be able to persuade me that it is easier to say over the whole alphabet than to say only a part.”

I persisted, urging the great advantage of spontaneous adaptation to the people.  He agreed with me altogether, provided it were possible for him to do it, which he denied, though he promised to take the subject into serious consideration once more, to oblige me.