AN ADDRESS AT THE MEMORIAL MEETING AT THE MUSIC HALL, BOSTON, JUNE 15,
1860
“Here comes Parker, the Orson of parsons, a man
Whom the Church undertook to put under her ban.—
...
There’s a background of God to each hard-working feature,
Every word that he speaks has been fierily furnaced
In the blast of a life that has struggled in earnest:
There he stands, looking more like a ploughman than priest,
If not dreadfully awkward, not graceful at least;
...
But his periods fall on you, stroke after stroke,
Like the blows of a lumberer felling an oak,
You forget the man wholly, you’re thankful to meet
With a preacher who smacks of the field and the street,
And to hear, you’re not over-particular whence,
Almost Taylor’s profusion, quite Latimer’s sense.”
—LOWELL, _A Fable for Critics_.