Salvation by works is the principle of the
Divine Government throughout the universe, among all the creatures of
God.
My favorite preachers were William Dawson, David Stoner and James
Parsons, all eloquent and earnest men, and all decidedly practical. I
never missed an opportunity of hearing them if they came within five or
six miles of the place where I lived. And many of their sermons which I
heard more than forty years ago are still fresh in my memory, and
continue to exert a happy influence on my heart.
William Dawson was a local preacher, a farmer. He was a large,
broad-chested, big-headed, strong built man,--one of the finest
specimens of a well-made, thoroughly developed Englishman I ever saw.
And he was full of life. There was not a sluggish atom in his whole
body, nor a slow-going faculty in his whole soul. He had eyes like fire;
and his face was the most expressive I ever looked upon. And his voice
was loud as the fall of mighty waters. And it was wonderfully flexible,
and full of music. And he always spoke in natural tones. There was
nothing like cant or monotony in his utterance. Yet he would raise his
voice to such a pitch at times that you could hear him half a mile away.
He was the most perfect actor I ever saw, because he was not an actor at
all, but awful, absolute reality.
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