The Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1865-1903, 1866-08-03

a1lon, was IN the pure and mike
mathematics-the man who compre
nended truth at glance; for Sir. Wm
hamilton says that the imagination
lis as Indispensable condition of sue
cess in the abstract sciences as in III,
poetlcal and plastic arts" Both Navr
ton and Campbell, well furnished Will
these faculties, seemed to have trutf
. inbred in their minds. The clew
without which it were dangerous t.
enter into their several labyrinthint
departments of thought, was in thei,
hands. They had what Ancillon cali.
1.-The Imagination of reason, which rep
resents a principle in connection will
its consequences, the effect in depend
ence upon its cause"
have seen near twenty pieces of un
published poetry from his pen when ht
was about twenty years of age. H,
rhymed easily and wrote some blank
verse, seeming equally at home in the
devotional, the descriptive, the seuti
mental and the satrical.
Mr.. Campbell's position kept his
rare endowments in vigorous exercise
By tongue and pen he telegraphed his
thoughts to the world, while along the
same wires came suggestive queries
and rebutting arguments, back to his
mind from all the marts of thought
II is dull mind that can slumber in q
full of ticking word-machines.
Mr.. Campbell's great joy was iC the
discovery of truth. He could not
build upon another mans fonn-
dation. But he must have the
truth. 4 mystic once asked him.
bare, bare naked truth?" "Yes," lie
curtly replied, las naked as two bares
can make it, The elements of his in
tellectual greatness We're, then. calm
comprehensiveness, width of grasp.
and wonderful energy and rapid
lty. There was no suppression
of some faculties and exagger-
alton of others. There Was an exalta-
ton of the whole spiritual nature and
such activity of special ca pacities as his
work demanded. He had quite a sym
metrical mind, easy of adaptation to
almost any elevated pursuit. Withal
he was eminently practical. For fiftv-
hve years he was proprietor of n large
estate, which he always managed him
self. At one time he was farmer, shep-
herd, printer, editor, preacher and
BILE practical knowledge of medicine
and government.
Mr.. Campbell was n remarkable
preacher. Not an orator, such as White
field, Summerfield, or the Irish kir-
wan. He had not the voice, gesture or
Pathos ofeither of them. He could not.
like them, raise a storm and queu il at
will; and yet he would draw as large a
congregation, hold them longer, and
leave them furnished with much more
views of truth and duty.
He spoke more sensiblv, more rhetori-
cally and more scripturally than either
of them, and his work on earth will
abide longer. We can imagine few
more pleasurable sights than this grand
nFaaRhaF 6aliCaFinT i
course, while supporting himself en-
feebled by dyspepsia, on his cane, in
the midst of the largest and most intel
lectual audiences our country could
afford. Thus he stood, like Paul on
Mars Hill, among the orators and
statesmen OF Kentucky, at an early day,
in the largest hall of Lexington; thus
he entranced the elite of Richmond in
1880, and of Nashville shortly after;
thus, shortly before that, he held spell
bound for two hours, the Legislature
of Ohio, before breakfast, ready to de-
part; it was thus, in 1888, he addressed,
with great power, the skeptics of New
York. two successive evenings in their
own Tammany Hall, with such Suavi-
ty as to draw praise from every lip,
and secure a vote of thanks from the
men whose air-built castle he demoI-
ished. These speeches flowed from his
lips like the water from the rock smitten
by the prophet, and the people felt like
famished Israel as they drank the
cooling draught, that hand OF power
had relieved their thirst. All were
charmed with the man and impressed
with the majesty of the Scripture.
Mr.. Campbell's preachings did not
cease when he left the pulpit; the stream
flowed ON until every little goblet and
great vase around the hearth was filled
and nature demanded rest.
H.
lar. His colloquial powers were of
an unusually high order. Inevery cir
Gle he seemed to be the center of at
traction and radiance, his social dis
coursings reminding one of the nine
mile sweeps of the Mississippi. II l
him with Webster, Chalmers,
Calhoun, or the elder Beecher, as n con-
he is their superior. 1
must look further for his peers, and
find them in Luther, Johnson, Macau-
ley and Coleridge. In private, as in
public debate, he was more the sage
than the controversialist. The universe
was his library; his conversation a liv-
ing study"
But these social discoursings were
not on Metaphysics. Having in early
life read the sensuous philosophy of
Locke, and having possibly been in
jured by it, he seemed disinclined to
pursue the subject, which l presume
did not come within his short curricu-
lum in Glasgow. He never became a
simply because his
tastes took another direction. Early in
life, the short logic of Locke certainly
did pervade his mind. Had Browne or
Cousin or Sir VIM. Hamilton then been
his teachers, quite a different turn
might have been given to his life by the
influence of their fertile pens.
\ taste for such inquiries, with such
leaders, might have diverted his atten-
tion from that life-devotion to biblical
study, which has placed him in such a
commanding position before the world
Instead Of studying critically the mem
tai structure, he consecruted the powers
of that structure to the study of God in
his word, founding there his moral sys-
tenn.
He was in warm sympathy with Pro-
as his debate with Roman
Catholic Bishop attests, yet he mourned
over its divisions all his life, and ceased
his healing labors Just as Europe and
America seemed to awake 10 the impor-
tance of evangelical union. His death
also, on Il year and day preC-
nant, to him, with eliminating prophe-
cy. The first vernal Lords day,-the
astronomical opening of 1866, the year
of the greatest conjunction of planets
since the creation, the year to which
the expectant eye and ear of Christen-
dom have long been turned as the prob
able dawuing of a brighteE.day for the
church; this was the time, the temple OF
Janus being shut, selected by the Lord
for his servant to come up higher. He
had not been laggard, but had hasten
ed to the coming of Jesus Christ, whose
he was, and whom he served. Since
Paul called the name of his Master over
ten times in the first ten verses of Cor,
l doubt whether any one on earth has
given, with the tongue and pen, espe-
cially the former, "A richer offering of
intelligent homage to the Saviour. than
was the hnrtan of Alexander Camn