Text from Challen's Monthly, February 1858, pages 165-170. This online edition © 1998, James L. McMillan.

It takes a great variety of men to make up the race, and in the ministry a pretty fair specimen of the different species may be seen. The original of this sketch is a rara avis, and we feel some hesitation in attempting to delineate his character. But his tout ensemble is so singular and original, that we shall find no difficulty in presenting it. We are always struck with first appearances. The outer man first and then the inner--the animal and the spiritual--is the order of nature, and also of religion, and we shall pursue this order in our sketches.

Boanerges is about five feet seven inches high, large bones, and heavy set. We should suppose that his ordinary weight would be one hundred and eighty pounds-- perhaps two hundred. He has round shoulders, and an easy, careless, and "don't-care" kind of gait. His head is large,--uncommonly so; and covered with a huge, bristly, heavy crop of hair, which stands on end "like quills upon the fretful porcupine." His toilette never seems to make any improvement on it, or upon the corporeity that sustains it. He always looks about the same, despite of comb and brush, and all suitable appurtenances. I should think that the bumps on the cranium of my friend would puzzle any phrenologist, as he in many respects is a puzzle to his most intimate friends.

We do not say that there is no truth in this science, if it may so be called, for we do think there is much in it; but no system that we have yet seen, however chronicled, mapped out, or reduced, can furnish him a chart that any man, woman, or

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child would be willing to venture life and limb with, in sailing round the head-lands of Lake Phrenology. His forehead is apparently quite low, as the hair reaches down within the limits of an inch and a half of his eyebrows, and gives him rather an unsightly and comical appearance, especially as the brow covers two small, keen, quizzical eyes of singular expression. They were for laughter and tears, and both find an easy inlet and outlet from them. I do not know but what they are often coetaneous--but perfectly unbidden and natural. His cheek-bones are unusually high and large, giving astonishing breadth in that part of his face. His skin sallow and rough. He would easily be taken at home for a hewer of wood if not a drawer of water, and not be mistaken in him. He can do both equally to perfection. His mouth is not very large for his face, but sufficiently so to afford him the largest utterance of any man to be found among a thousand.

We speak without a figure. His arms and hands are evidently in his way when speaking, and he does not know at times what they were made for, or what to do with them, unless to give a deeper intonation, if such a thing were possible, to the thunder of his eloquence; and at such times the Pulpit and the Bible fare badly; in a short time they must need call for repair. His dress is plain and rough--anything but clerical. He puts on just whatever suits him, with very little if any compliment to his audience. His delivery is rapid and boisterous, never at a loss for ideas, or words to express them. His thoughts flow too fast to give them the chance of being born in due season. His extreme rapidity of speech, and the vehemence with which he declaims, destroy at times the effect of his oratory, as it is wanting in proper emphasis, cadence, and intonation--faults common to all such speakers, and faults not easily corrected. He sometimes runs out of breath, and comes to a sudden pause in the middle of his most impassioned strains of oratory, and the effect is somewhat ludicrous. To see a man suddenly stop when fairly under way, and going at the rate of ten knots an hour, produces an effect on the beholder like to a horse in full speed, when reined up against a fence, by which process the rider is very certain to land on the opposite side; such instances we

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have known. This would not take place with him, however, for he generally sits down the moment he is thus caught, and looks around, we have thought a little bewildered, though not confused; but feeling as if the work was done, the earthquake was spent, and he must fain see the effect upon the persons around him. The writer remembers being with him and another preacher at a meeting in one of the meanest, dirtiest villages in Ohio--made so from the manufacture of whiskey, and the pig-styes appended to it--and after the discourse Boanerges arose to give a word of exhortation. There were not more than a dozen persons in the house; the grog-shops and still-houses kept the people away from the church. He commenced speaking on the highest key to which he could screw up his voice, and apparently was determined that as but few had come to the meeting, the town should have the benefit of the best part of it. I am sure that it was not his fault if all in the village did not hear his exhortation, as it broke through the doors and windows like the sound of a mighty rushing wind! But what was my surprise when at the highest pitch of his voice, and amidst the most rapid torrent of words, when his feelings were wrought up to the greatest possible intensity, suddenly he stopped, and as suddenly sat down! It struck me as the very climax of the ludicrous, but to him it was as natural as the piping of the lark; he was the only one in the house who was insensible to anything that was laughter-provoking.

Boanerges is an educated man, and had, in the early part of his public life, been a minister among the Restorationists. He is from New England, and inherited a strong mind, and a strong physical constitution, and withal great transparency of character. No one could be with him a day without being assured of the sterling honesty and straight-forwardness of his disposition, and his sincere and heartfelt devotion to the truth. After his removal to the West, he became acquainted with the Disciples, then rapidly rising to importance and numbers; he became a convert, and so effectually did his mind undergo revolution in all its previous habits of thought, that we have never heard or known that any taint of his former religious belief remained either to distract himself or others.

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The most striking traits of his character seem to be these:

He is possessed of a sound judgment, a vigorous understanding, a quick perception, considerable compass of thought, and a power of keeping his mind in abeyance until he has fairly reached his conclusions; and when reached, he holds on to them with singular tenacity. He is not satisfied with looking at a subject simply in one direction, but seeks to examine it in all its bearings and relations.

He is a lover of the truth, and is never weary in its pursuit. His thirst for knowledge is at times a passion,--an appetite--and his application unwearied and constant. This will account for the strength of his reasonings on all subjects with which he is familiar, and why he so often surprises his hearers into new trains of thought, by shedding light on some difficult passage, or presenting new views upon some old subject.

He is possessed of great simplicity of character; kind, confiding, and full of warm and strong attachments, which make him a most agreeable companion. He is utterly devoid of all envy and jealousy, and free from every ungenerous suspicion. A constant and devoted friend, a cheerful, pleasant, and profitable companion. Whether in the investigation of a difficult problem, or the development of some recondite principle, or in the more familiar intercourse with a fellow-Disciple, in discoursing upon the hopes and fears, the doubts and difficulties, the snares and temptations which beset their path, he is equally at home. As a companion by the way, or in his own home or that of a brother or neighbor, he is always free and unreserved, and you cannot choose but to love him.

He has considerable powers as a controversialist, though he has not often been called into public discussions. He is, however, considered as a formidable opponent and able debater.

His skill lies chiefly as an evangelist over large fields. He easily adapts himself to every situation in life and class of society--chiefly to the more humble and hard-working. With these he is a special favorite, and is held in high estimation for his plainness and simplicity, and the sympathy awakened in their behalf.

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He has extraordinary powers of exhortation, and at times but few can excel him in the directness of his appeals, and the impassioned character of his address. If he could be persuaded to pay more attention to his manner, his elocution, his gestures, he would be far more effective as a speaker. "The still small voice" is sometimes more potent than the loud and the clamorous. God is not always in the fire, the earthquake, or the tempest. The best of speakers are those who are didactic and conversational in their manner, and who, as occasion and the subject demands, can give due voice and emphasis to whatever they utter. It is possible to speak so low that nobody can hear you, and on so level an altitude of voice that the assembly will go to sleep under it, as those do who are familiar with the roar of the falls of Niagara. A good speaker is careful (by habit or nature) of the tone, modulation, pitch, quantity, and quality of his voice. His voice sweeps through the scale with the utmost ease, from high to low, the plaintive to the severe, and rarely becomes monotonous. Every man is natural in conversation, but so soon as one rises to speak to an assembly, an artificial and affected key is often assumed. As a general rule, a public speaker should neither pitch his voice on a high or low key, but in what is called the middle one, so as to have the entire command of all his voice in the ascending and descending scale. Every singer knows this, and therefore is he careful about the pitch of his voice. An error or failure here would prove fatal to his success; and so it is vith the speaker. Think not that these rules are unnecessary or arbitrary. No one succeeds who does not observe them.

Many anecdotes are told of Boanerges. One is so amusing and so characteristic that I am tempted to relate it, as it shows how perfectly unconscious he is of anything singular in his appearance and manner in the pulpit. The following was related to me by one who witnessed it. Boanerges was in one of the villages in the state in which he resides, preaching at night to a large and attentive audience. He became deeply interested in his subject, and the big drops oozed out of his forehead, and ran down his flushed cheeks. His gesticulations were rapid and herculean, and seizing the ample Bible in one hand, and

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the tallow candle in the other, he thrust them in every direction, scattering now the melted grease, and threatening every moment to extinguish it by his singular gyrations, and on the other hand holding up the Bible at the heads if not the hearts of his astonished and greatly interested audience, who bore it with becoming complacency, as a thing with which they had been often familiar. It is impossible to give a full description of the scene without awakening too strongly the feelings of the ludicrous. And yet no man was heard in that village with more attention, and none could move them to action with more decided effect.

Take Boanerges altogether, he is a character--a man of mark--and but few men in the mixed and shifting population of the West has done more good. Long may he live to preach the Word, to build up the churches, to reconcile brethren at variance, to advocate the cause of temperance, and to be the friend of education. He fills an important place in the Temple of Truth, and has become a necessary fixture in it.

James Challen