His Influence: shown by Various Letters--From the West--From England and Germany
--To U. A. W.--Patience Ford-- John Brown, the Blacksmith--To Miss Cobbe--From
Mr. Buckle and Professor Gervinus.

THE wide influence which the sermons preached in the Music
Hall attained, as they were scattered in volumes or the phono-
graphic reports of newspapers, is shown in a remarkable way by
the letters received by him from all quarters of the world, from
persons of both sexes, and of every estate in life. If they could
be published, they would create the most emphatic endorsement
and guarantee of the fitness of his nature to reach the heart of
mankind, and to feed its inmost longings. He was sought by
young and ardent minds, during the period of transition in New
England, and later in the West, when parties were changing, and
old modes of thought were breaking up. They came to him as
to a master: there was no reservation in the eagerness and
positive abandonment of their hearts to his brotherly society.
People who desired to know what were the facts about theology
and religion, troubled by creeds, just cast adrift from them, and
uncertain where next to go,--soldiers, students, laborers, shop.
keepers, Catholics, Methodists, and members of all sects,--people
with special questions about retribution, God, non-resistance,
miracles, free-will, many who were in distress or uncongenial
circumstances, suffering from intemperance, pining for want of
remunerative labor, and all people who longed to be of service to
their kind; young converts who had become suspicious of the
machinery which turned them out Church members; old men,
filled suddenly with profound dissatisfaction at dogmas which
they fancied they believed; and whole neighborhoods speaking
through their ready writer, who had been put forward to ask
some news of him; it was as if a great crowd hurried towards

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