Sometimes, in the
heat of his discourse, he would suddenly jerk up his head, whirl entirely
round with his face to the wall and his back to the audience, and then as
suddenly whirl back again, his words all the while pouring along in a
perfect torrent of involved and fervent thought. Add to this a constant
writhing and swinging of his legs, with a frequent slight spitting,
produced by a chronic weakness of the salivary glands, and you have a
picture of the outward man known in Berlin as John William Augustus
Neander; to be known in history as one of the most learned, revered and
beloved teachers of our century.
While it is indispensable to our full and lively appreciation of Neander
that these little things be known of him, no one will be so foolish as to
let such accidents and eccentricities of the outward life divert his
attention from the grand and rarely equalled manhood which lay behind and
beneath them. To give anything like a just estimate of this manhood would
be no easy task, however. His native endowments, the attainments he had
made in the learning pertaining to his department, and the part he was
called to play in the regeneration of German science and German faith,
were all remarkable.
Pages:
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142