The consecration of his splendid powers to the work of the ministry helped to ennoble the ministry in the popular eye, and led young men of brains to feel that they could covet no higher calling.
One of the remarkable things in the career of Dr.Storrs was that by far the grandest portion of that career was after he had passed the age of fifty! Instead of that age being, as to many others, a "dead line," it was to him an intellectual _birth line_.

He returned from Europe--after a year of entire rest--and then, like "a giant refreshed by sleep," began to produce his most masterly discourses and orations.

His first striking performance was that wonderful address at the twenty-fifth anniversary of Henry Ward Beecher's pastorate in Plymouth Church, at the close of which Mr.Beecher gave him a grateful kiss before the applauding audience.

Not long after that Dr.Storrs delivered those two wonderful lectures on the "Muscovite and the Ottoman." The Academy of Music was packed to listen to them; and for two hours the great orator poured out a flood of history and gorgeous description without a scrap of manuscript before him! He recalled names and dates without a moment's hesitation! Like Lord Macaulay, Dr.Storrs had a marvelous memory; and at the close of those two orations I said to myself, "How Macaulay would have enjoyed all this!" His extraordinary memory was an immense source of power to Dr.Storrs; and, although he had a rare gift of fluency, yet I have no doubt that some of his fine efforts, which were supposed to be extemporaneous, were really prepared beforehand and lodged in his tenacious memory.
Dean Stanley, on the day before he returned to England, said to me: "The man who has impressed me most is your Dr.Storrs." When I urged the pastor of the "Pilgrims" to go over to the great International Council of Congregationalists in London and show the English people a specimen of American preaching, his characteristic reply was, "Oh, I am tired of these _show occasions_," But he never grew tired of preaching Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

The Bible his old father loved was the book of books that he loved, and no blasts of revolutionary biblical criticism ever ruffled a feather on the strong wing with which he soared heavenward.