Text from Challen's Monthly, January 1858, pages 13-20. This online edition © 1998, James L. McMillan.

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charm against certain diseases by the word Abracadabra. He taught that sublime mysteries were hidden under the letters which comprised this word. The Hebrew letters found in it represent the numerals which make up 365--not only the days of the year, but also the different orders of celestial beings. We cannot say so much for the names we shall give to the different characters described. But they will at least represent something characteristic of them.

In pursuance, then, of our object, we shall introduce to your notice Andronicus. There are some men so entirely destitute of point or edge, whose characters, intellectually and morally, are so level and smooth--in whom there are so few angles and knots, that it is impossible to form any clear and vivid conceptions respecting them. If there was anything peculiar in their form or face, in their size or gait, in their voice and manner, in mind or body, you could at once identify them. If they would only stutter or limp, or had any--even the slightest--idiosyncrasy of character, the portrait could be hung upon it, or at least give proof that he was the person intended. Now, it may be said of the character we are about to describe, that he was "a man of mark;" so--

"That men would tell their children--This is he!"
"Others would say--Where?"

It could not be said of him that his countenance was so inexpressive that it could not be limned. There was something uncommon in his eye, nose, mouth, and forehead-- the color of his hair, and his general appearance--that seeing him once, you could not easily forget him. The faces of some men are like a carte blanche--of no more expression than this blank sheet of paper, on which I am writing these chance lucubrations. But, we repeat, such was not the case with the archetype of this sketch. He was to all intents an original. We ne'er shall "look upon his like again."

He was, I think, about five feet ten inches high; perhaps in youth six feet, for he was inclined to stoop. He had been accustomed to labor in early life, and nearly through the greater part of his life. He was a practical farmer, and I should judge

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a good one. For whatever he undertook to do, he did well, and this is more than can be said of most men. His gait was rather awkward, but it was his own, and therefore suited him. And as to his dress and general appearance, he did not seem much concerned about them; though I think that as he advanced in life he was, out of respect to his family and to public opinion, more careful. He was a minister; and when properly apparelled, though it did not so well befit him, no man made a more respectable person in the pulpit. That he was not insensible, however, to appearances, is evident from the fact that at home he had two hats, one for the week days, and the other for Sunday; and these invariably hung on different pegs when not in use. And I have heard him say that such was his love of order, that if they had by accident or neglect been placed on the wrong peg or pegs, he could neither read nor write in the room until he arose and replaced them. He said to his wife shortly after their marriage, "that if they should ever have any difficulty, it would grow out of little things; these had always troubled him."Great matters he could manage, or submit to as by necessity, when the worst came to the worst. But it was in his case that the "flies spoiled the ointment of the apothecary, and the little foxes crept up on the wall that destroyed his grapes."

This feature was in him a prominent one. It was seen in everything. In all his domestic arrangements, from the yearly almanacs that hung by the fireplace, to the latchet that fastened the gate in his farm-yard. It was seen in the swallows which his horse took at the ford, which he invariably counted. In the care which he took in sending out his appointments to preach for a week or a month, never failing to reach them and punctiliously to fulfil all his engagements. And in the day and hour for his return home. So accustomed was his wife to his habits in this respect, that just at twelve, meridian, her table was set and the dinner smoking hot, to greet him on his return from his many and frequent appointments. If it so happened that he was a little behind the hour, he would spur up his horse, so as to reach his home in time; and if too near, he would tarry, in order to be faithful to his promises. This was not from any

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eccentricity of mind. It was from principle, and the settled habits of his life. It might seem strange to others but not so to him. He could not, without violence to his nature, have acted otherwise.

But let us return once more to the personnel of Andronicus. His head is a superior one. Almost a fac simile of Edmund Burke's; and it would not have disgraced the shoulders of that distinguished philosopher and statesman. We might add, however, the prominence on the lateral and upper portions of it, not unlike that of Sterne's, indicative of wit, raillery, irony, ridicule, and all sorts of conceptions, comical and ludicrous. He never was known to be taken by surprise, to be thrown off his guard, or to be unequal to any emergency. His eyes, apparently small but penetrating, wandering, and playful; his mouth by no means large, teeth nearly ground away, and lips thin and easily compressed, indicative of firmness and decision; and wholly unfit for honeyed words. When they were once closed, it would seem that nothing could open them but a well-applied lever, and this was always at hand in the shape of his tongue; and never was lever applied more frequently or safely.

His whole face looks hard, and knotty, and weather-beaten; his forehead finely wrinkled. He looks like a pioneer of the olden time--as indeed he was--who had chased the wolf from his cabin door, and had hunted the wild game of the forest by day and by night, and whose face had been embrowned by the suns of many summers, or cloven by many a northwester from the hills of his native country. He was a man for the times, had great powers of endurance, could stand up under any amount of labor, and scorned the difficulties which would have dismayed other minds.

He in early life embraced the Gospel; when or where, we know not. We do not think that he was naturally disposed to be religious. It must have been by the force of testimony which carried conviction to his judgment, or the power of affliction, or the stern necessities of his nature, or his circumstances, that wrought upon his moral constitution. But it is certain that the change was radical; for no man was more deeply

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penetrated with the truth of Christianity, or the power of its evidence and the strength of its motives, than he.

With but a small amount of mental preparation or education, as in those early times, he soon began to preach the Gospel, having felt its power himself, and tasted its heavenly consolations, he was anxious that others should enjoy the same privilege; and therefore he gave himself with characteristic zeal to the propagation of its truths. But such was the roughness of his manners, the plainness of his dress, and his back-woods appearance, that when from home, attending meetings with strangers; when arising among the more gentle and polished brethren of the ministry, the people exclaimed, "Is Saul also among the prophets?" But they soon discovered in him talent of a high order; and they lost sight of the peasant in the noble and original conceptions of the man. They were struck with the readiness of his utterance, the strength of his metaphor, his knowledge of the Scriptures, his skill and adroitness in handling them, and the irresistible power of his reasoning. He, at the commencement of his public life, was highly Calvinistic in his religious sentiments. He fought hard and long in maintaining and defending the knotty points of Calvin and Fuller, and would doubtless, to the end of his days continued in his belief, but for the "Ancient Gospel," which overtook and changed the whole current of his religious thoughts. So soon as he saw the truth, he was not only captivated by it, but with all his heart he embraced it; and the cherished system of years, he buried a thousand fathoms deep, never in his own mind to be restored again to positive existence.

Having felt and seen the baleful effects of his system, he ever afterwards directed his artillery against it, and with singular power he detected its sophistry and exposed its errors. Sectarianism in all its forms he deemed it a work of love to oppose; and at times his shot was terrible, his satire withering, and his success most perfect and complete. In grappling with an antagonist either at the fireside or in the pulpit, he displayed the utmost coolness and self-possession, and after he had slain him, he dragged him round the walls of Troy as a trophy of his prowess or an enemy of his king. Woe to the unhappy wight

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who threw himself in his path! Some not knowing the resources of Andronicus did so, and he took special pains to decoy and disarm them;--they soon found that the "better part of valor was discretion," and were glad to escape from the contest.

He investigates the most abstruse and difficult questions with ease, and brings them out before his audience with all the distinctness with which they appear to his own mind. He seems but little affected by the power of numbers, and can preach just as well to a handful as to listening thousands. His subject always interests his own mind, and has in it all the inspiration he needs to call up the hidden treasures of thought that lie within him.

Many anecdotes are told of him--enough indeed to fill a volume. And nothing is more entertaining shall to spend a day listening to his own stories of battles fought and won. Nothing is forgotten by him. In all the minute details he will recount them, with an infinite fund of good-humor and good sense.

Take him by and large, either to defend the ramparts of Christianity, to storm the citadels of the enemy, to direct the big guns of the garrison, or to grapple hand to hand in "the imminent deadly breach," he is a wonder and a marvel. Had he been an educated man, and in a proper field, no one would have made a deeper impression on the public mind, or left more durable monuments of his greatness.

I will close this sketch by saying, that notwithstanding, the apparently stern qualities I have given him, he has a heart of great simplicity and tenderness. Full of sympathy for the poor and the afflicted, and a heart open to minister to their necessities. He is not destitute of genuine kindness and Christian benevolence. These, indeed, are prominent traits in his character, and the mainsprings of his whole ministerial life. He is like the muskmelon, the rougher the outside the more sweetness within. The times made him much of what he was, and doubtless he had much to do in fashioning the times for wherever he went and labored, the impress of his mind he has left on others. I should judge that in early life he might

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be compared to nothing so aptly "as to a young horse of high blood, let out into a spacious pasture, exercising every muscle, and careering in every direction with extravagant delight." In his field of ministerial labors he went rapidly from assembly to assembly, followed by admiring crowds, in times of great awakening, and during all the intervals plying the same work among warm and affectionate disciples. And thus by conversation, prayer, and praises, and by constant accessions to the number of the saved, his mind was kept in that state of pleasurable and healthful excitement which animates and exalts it, and gives all the necessary equipment for its ready exercise and expression. We doubt not but that he was cured of many a fit of dyspepsia by a good meeting or a long and animated sermon to listening crowds. He will soon pass away, and then it is to be hoped that some more enduring memorials will be given of him.

A friend of his thus writes:

"It has been my privilege, during the year past, to enjoy a day or more every month in the society of this venerable disciple and minister of Christ. Though beyond his threescore and ten years, and suffering from paralysis of body, he possesses, without any perceptible abatement, the same vigor of mind, persistency of memory, and ardor of spirit which characterized his Promethean efforts in the promulgation of primitive Christianity, thirty years ago."

There are many anecdotes told of him--and some of them he tells about himself, but you should hear them from his own lips to feel their force and quaintness. I suppose that his life will one day be written, and a full sketch given of everything known of him. I remember one anecdote that will serve to show his readiness and wit--indeed he was equal to any possible emergency.

One of his old friends once meeting him, who had been associated with him in the same church, or belonging to the same denomination, and probably a preacher, but, as Andronicus had united with the new party recently formed, he, like many others, refused to recognise him as a fellow-disciple. In passing the usual salutation, Andronicus gave him the familiar and daily appellation of Brother, and was answered, coldly, with

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"Mister." "What," said Andronicus, "have they turned you out of the Church?" "No," replied his churlish Brother. "I thought they had," said he, "and that you deemed it improper to call me ‘Brother,' in consequence of your exclusion." Whether the witty rebuke occasioned any better manners, I do not know. It is to be hoped, however, that the lesson may not have been lost upon him. A thousand incidents of a similar kind are afloat respecting him, but as I merely design to give an outline of his character, this will suffice. In a following number we shall obtain the setting of another case, and if the light is good, we shall furnish a picture, the features of which will be known by all who have seen the original.

James Challen