Your ever-affectionate Niece, PHEBE MORTIMER.
MR. MORTIMER, says one of his friends { 262} (well fitted to form a correct estimate of him), was “a _rarely gifted_ person.” As a _preacher_, he possessed very considerable excellence. His extemporaneous discourses were of a very finished kind, lucid in order, striking in illustration, and powerful in application. These discourses were not the mere effusions of thoughts unprepared and of matter undigested, but the result of diligent reading, close study, and fervent prayer, which alone can enable even the competent _extempore_ speaker to address a Christian congregation with any good effect. He was eminently a practical preacher, and signally excelled in pourtraying the unfair arts so often practised by men of business with a view to their worldly gain: and, as his hearers were mostly tradesmen, his graphic delineations were sometimes keenly felt in the consciences of individuals, who were ready to say, “Art thou come to call our sins to our remembrance?” More than one of his mercantile hearers has asked him, in private intercourse, by what means he had acquired so exact and extraordinary an acquaintance with the varieties of fraud, which, however familiar in the busy walks of trade, might be supposed little known to a minister of the gospel. To such a question he has replied, that he had derived his knowledge, partly from the habitual study of his own heart, partly from his personal experience of a busy life in his earlier years; as he had been apprenticed to an eminent London bookseller, previously to his collegiate preparation for the ministry.
So searchingly did he probe the consciences of his hearers, that it was not unfrequent with some among them to visit him for the purpose of private conference, counsel, and consolation. He well knew how to “speak a word in season to the weary,” with a peculiar sympathy and kindness. Yet quite as well he knew how to apply “the terror of the Lord:” and I remember his telling me, that one of the _most effective_ sermons (as he had reason to believe) which he had ever preached, was of terrific character, and founded on those words of overwhelming horror; “In Hell he lifted up his eyes, being in torments.” _That_ sermon (he had reason to hope) had been used by the Lord as an instrument for rescuing “a brand from the burning,” which the preacher aimed to represent. Another of his most striking sermons, divided between the morning and evening of the same Sabbath, was formed on a theme contrasted with the preceding, the _conduct_ and the _reward_ of the faithful Christian, as exemplified in St. PAUL: “I have fought the good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day.” { 264}