Nearly 20 years ago I watched this video in the law library and wept. I don’t remember what I was supposed to be studying.
I remember the screen, the headphones, and an old man telling a story about a coat and a pair of worn out shoes and the gospel coming through him so plainly.
That’s the thing about Hinckley. He never raised his voice. He didn’t need to. He spoke the way a father speaks when he knows what he knows, quietly, without performance, without trying to convince you.
The authority wasn’t borrowed. It wasn’t the authority of a king or an office or a pulpit.
It was the authority of a man telling the truth, and you could feel it in your chest before your mind caught up.