The style of these sermons is what might be expected from the character
of the mind it expresses. If Dr. Walker were not a thinker, it is plain
that he could never have been a rhetorician. He has no power at all as
a writer, if writing be considered an accomplishment which can be
separated from earnest thinking. Words are, with him, the mere
instruments for the expression of things; and he hits on felicitous
words only under that impatient stress of thought which demands exact
expression for definite ideas. All his words, simple as they are, are
therefore fairly earned, and he gives to them a force and significance
which they do not bear in the dictionary. The mind of the writer is felt
beating and burning beneath his phraseology, stamping every word with
the image of a thought. Largeness of intellect, acute discrimination,
clear and explicit statement, masterly arrangement of matter, an
unmistakable performance of the real business of expression,--these
qualities make every reader of the sermons conscious that a mind of
great vigor, breadth, and pungency is brought into direct contact
with his own. The almost ostentatious absence of "fine writing" only
increases the effect of the plain and sinewy words.
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