“To our thinking, no compositions of the same class, at least since the days of Jeremy Taylor, can be compared with these Sermons delivered to the congregation of Trinity Chapel, Brighton, by their late minister.  They have that power over the mind which belongs only to the highest works of genius:  they stir the soul to its inmost depths:  they move the affections, raise the imagination, bring out the higher and spiritual part of our nature by the continual appeal that is made to it, and tend to make us, at the same time, humble and aspiring—­merciful to others and doubtful of ourselves.”

 [From a SERMON preached at the CONSECRATION of the BISHOP of NORWICH,
 by the REV.  J.H.  GURNEY, late of MARYLEBONE.]

“I do not commit myself to all his theology; I may differ from the preacher in some things, and listen doubtfully to others.  But I know of no modern sermons at once so suggestive and so inspiriting, with reference to the whole range of Christian duty.  He is fresh and original without being recondite:  plain-spoken without severity; and discusses some of the exciting topics of the day without provoking strife or lowering his tone as a Christian teacher.  He delivers his message, in fact, like one who is commissioned to call men off from trifles and squabbles, and conventional sins and follies, to something higher and nobler than their common life:  like a man in earnest, too, avoiding technicalities, speaking his honest mind in phrases that are his own, and with a directness from which there is no escape.  O that a hundred like him were given us by God, and placed in prominent stations throughout our land!”

 [GUARDIAN.]

“Without anything of that artificial symmetry which the traditional division into heads was apt to display, they present each reflection in a distinct method of statement, clearly and briefly worked out; the sentences are short and terse, as in all popular addresses they should be; the thoughts are often very striking, and entirely out of the track of ordinary sermonising.  In matters of doctrine such novelty is sometimes unsafe; but the language is that of one who tries earnestly to penetrate into the very centre of the truth he has to expound, and differs as widely as possible from the sceptic’s doubt or the controversialist’s mistake.  More frequently Mr. Robertson deals with questions of practical life, of public opinion, and of what we may call social casuistry—­turning the light of Christian ethics upon this unnoticed though familiar ground.  The use of a carriage on Sunday, the morality of feeing a railway porter against his employers’ rules, are topics not too small for illustration or application of his lessons in divine truth.”

 [BRIGHTON GAZETTE.]