That he had made himself learned, that his sympathy knew much of the soul of man, that he was conscious of a very near communion with the Divine--were qualifications that alone might not avail.

Yet were they not lost, for, apart from their own restricted exercise in the circle of his own little "cause" and the other causes for which, in the technical phrase, he would occasionally "supply," they had passed into his son, and met in him other more energetic qualities, such as a magnetic eloquence, a love of laughter, and a mighty humanity.
Thus Theophilus Londonderry was partly his father licked into shape and partly something bigger and more effectively vital.
At sixteen he was learned in all the theologies; at nineteen he was said to have preached a great sermon; at twenty-two he was the success of a big political meeting; and at twenty-four he was the new lay-pastor at New Zion.
This is not to be the theological history of a soul, so I shall not attempt to decide upon the exact proportion of literal acceptance of Christian dogma underlying the young pastor's sermons.

I doubt if he could have told you himself, and I am sure he would have considered the point as unimportant as I do.

His was a message of humanity delivered in terms of Christianity.

The message was good, the meaning honest.