The Scalpel
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THE SCALPEL.—
The January No. of the Scalpel is welcome as any of its predecessors.1 Dr. Dixon,2 its editor, is in the medical profession what Henry Ward Beecher3 is among preachers. The peculiarity of such men is not that they think very differently from others, but that they think very differently from others, but that they say right out whatever they do think. Few, even of their admirers, endorse all they say, for the timid shrink from such rashness, and the bold are too much in the habit of thinking for themselves to accept any man's views wholesale. Dr. Dixon says in the number before us—"We look with pity on the man who fears censure, and he who cannot bear it should never attempt to instruct others. A journal that is not occasionally worth a little abuse, must a very feeble sort of affair." We must confess we do not see much to censure in the present number. The first article is a retrospective view of the Scalpel's career, by the editor, from which we gather that its expenses have been more than its direct receipts—though the deficiency of $2000 has been amply made up to the Dr. in reputation. The next article is a sketch of objects of interest in London, by John Matthews. His criticism on Spurgeon is the most intelligible explanation of that individual's influence on an audience that we have read, and hits the true medium between the undue depreciation of Spurgeon4 by Mr. H. J. Raymond,5 and the frantic eulogium bestowed on him by Rev. T. L. Cuyler6:
His sermon occupied about an hour, and her interspersed his comments with effective poetical quotations and anecdotes. I never saw an audience more wrapped in attention. The sermon, though eloquent, was not a powerful spiritual exhortation. If uttered by any other preacher I ever heard, I believe it would be impossible to produce the same effect. The appearance and fervor of this preacher, powerful as those qualities are, can not account for it; for as soon as he speaks the eye loses sight of all personal qualities, and you feel that the real secret of success lies in his voice. I have certainly never heard one more clear, so flexible, or as thilling; as it rolled forth in deep denunciation it startled his audience with terror, and in his descriptions of beauty, its fine vibrations appeared to sparkle and flash, like the prismatic hues of falling spray. The exquisite pathos with which he related an anecdote, was such that men wept and women sobbed aloud. Owing to his common-place similes and want of spirituality, his sermons lose much of their effect when read. But the magic of his voice breathes fire into the tamest sentence, and clothes an eloquent or pathetic passage with a brilliancy and beauty which in vain you endeavor to forget. You feel the charm, and resign yourself to its influence. The tines still linger in my ear, and I can scarecely persuade myself that it is eight days since I heard them. I can not help wishing that the witchery of such a voice might be combined with that dignity as spirituality which produce such powerful effects upon mankind, when spoken by a Luther, a Calvin, or a Knox, to numbers much inferior to those who assemble weekly at the Surrey Gardens, and which would rather avoid than seek a mixed though vast multitude of hearers, as the end of ambition.
Dr. Powell contributes an important paper on the influence of temperament on matrimony, and which, as well as one or two of the succeeding articles, we should be glad to extract from now, did space permit. But a single notice is insufficient to enable us to do justice to the Scalpel.
Notes:
1. The Scalpel was published quarterly in New York by editor and doctor Edward H. Dixon (1808—1880). [back]
2. Edward H. Dixon (1808—1880), a doctor, was a leading sexual health physician and editor of The Scalpel, a medical journal. [back]
3. Reverend Henry Ward Beecher (1813–1887) was a minister and social reformer who used his position in the church to advocate for anti-slavery. He is the brother of author Harriet Beecher Stowe. [back]
4. Charles Haddon, or C. H., Spurgeon (1834–1892) was a Baptist preacher whose sermons received wide acclaim and commercial success in his home country of England and in the United States. [back]
5. Henry Jarvis Raymond (1820–1869) was a politician, journalist, and founder of The New York Times. [back]
6. Theodore L. Cuyler (1822–1874) was a New York reverend and writer of religious articles. [back]