Alfred Allen Paul Curtis

"Although he was a self-educated — in contradistinction to a college-bred — man, yet he early attained to real scholarship in ecclesiastical learning. His knowledge of the Sacred Scriptures, which he read in their original Hebrew and Greek, and of the Fathers of the Church, also read in their Greek and Latin texts, was deep and accurate. From these pure sources of Christian truth he drew rich material for his unique preaching, his sermons portraying an originality of thought, a precision of language and an earnestness of delivery peculiarly his own. Moreover, his character of sterling honesty, his hatred of sham, his practices of mortification, sense of duty and many other virtues are even stronger."