His manner, I remember thinking, was unlike any that I had ever witnessed in the pulpit, and appeared to me to resemble rather that of a very earnest speaker at the hustings than the usual pulpit style.

His sentences seemed to run downhill, with continually increasing speed till they came to a full stop at the bottom.

It was, I think, the only sermon I ever heard which I wished longer.

He carried me with him completely, for the century was in those days, like me, young.

But if I were to hear a similarly fervid discourse now on the same subject, I should surely desire some clearer setting forth of the difference between "knowledge" and "wisdom." It was about this time, _i.e._, in the year 1839, that my mother, who had been led, by I forget what special circumstances, to take a great interest in the then hoped-for factory legislation, and in Lord Shaftesbury's efforts in that direction, determined to write a novel on the subject with the hope of doing something towards attracting the public mind to the question, and to visit Lancashire for the purpose of obtaining accurate information and local details.
The novel was written, published in the then newly-invented fashion of monthly numbers, and called _Michael Armstrong_.