1. _Intensity._ This gave him concentration of thought, earnestness of belief, courage and aggressiveness in action. He went into everything with an irresistible impulse. His training on the sea and in the circuit gave free growth to this trait. He was never placed where he needed to be politic or conservative; and his combativeness always had free play. He was the champion of his despised sect, but he fought with the polished weapons of a wit, and the impressive presence of a will which the foes of his cause more dreaded than force. And then his spirit was so lovable that there is no instance on record of any one ever having laid hands on him, fierce disputant as he was.
He was a man born to command. His will was imperious. The last conscious act of his life was to shake his fist at his nurse, who refused to let him rise from bed. Peter Cartwright said there were two cataracts in this country—Niagara and Father Taylor. His brethren called him “the breaking-up plow of the Church.” Miss Martineau spoke of “the prodigious force which he carries in his magnificent intellect and earnest heart.” Another English writer said, “He goes on as energetically as any ‘Praise-God Barebones’ of the old Covenanter times.”
I think one thing all his biographers lost sight of was the fact that his belief became a vital part of him, the very breath of his nostrils. There is a mighty difference between truly believing, and simply accepting a belief second-hand, which latter passes for belief with most people. It is the men who genuinely believe who make others accept and adopt their belief. In the pulpit his action is tremendous. He always comes down wet through with perspiration, and a complete change of wardrobe is necessary with every effort.
2. _Imagination._ To this quality is to be referred his profound religious nature, his poetry, dramatic power, eloquence, and (in conjunction with his earnestness) even his faults. One called him a poet; another, a born actor. James Freeman Clarke said he was the only man he ever heard to whom the much-abused word, “eloquence,” could be truly applied. But I think none of these terms so accurately classify his genius as to call him a painter. His earnestness made everything his quick imagination conjured up seem realistic to him; and his dramatic power enabled him to make these images realistic to his hearers. His thoughts were entities to him, and they always took the form of objects real and visible. This differs from the _poetic_ imagination, the essence of which is unsubstantiality. The poet sees visions, the artist creates forms. Taylor was an artist, with words for his colors, action for his pencil. One who heard him said: “While he preached the ocean rolled and sparkled, the ship spread her sails, the tempest lowered, the forked lightnings blazed, the vessel struck, her disjointed timbers floated upon the waves. It was all pictured to the eye as positive reality. You could hardly believe afterward you had not actually witnessed the scene.”