ve
him his peculiar charm was not one or two striking characteristics
which distinguished him from other men, but it was a beautiful
combination of many noble and lovely traits, in proportions so just,
and in harmony so pleasing, that when I have attempted to select this
and that characteristic for description, I feel that I have succeeded
about as well, as if I had collected a bouquet from the valley of which
I just spoke, and should give it to a friend as a picture of the
landscape itself. The truth is, my young friends, you will never truly
know your Grandfather unless you are so happy as to meet him in heaven.
And yet this is no reason that you should not desire to know something
of him, and form some true idea of his character. And it is with the
hope that I may add to your pleasure that I shall try and give you some
account of him from my own personal knowledge and intercourse with him.

My relations to Mr. Charless were intimate for about eight years,
I being, during that time, the Pastor of the Church in which he was a
Ruling Elder. This official connection necessarily brought me in
frequent intercourse with him, and as it was hardly possible to know
such a man at all, without wishing to know him better, our intercourse
soon ripened into friendship, which continued while he lived.

How well do I remember the first time I saw Mr. Charless, and the
impression he made upon me. I had just come to St. Louis, from
Virginia, to visit Westminster Church, with a view of settlement as its
Pastor, if we should be mutually pleased. Being comparatively young
and inexperienced, I felt much diffidence in undertaking the charge of
a Church in a large city. It would have taken little to have
discouraged me and made me abandon the thought; when I saw St. Louis, I
felt so unfit to labor in such a place, that I was more than half
regretting that I had listened to the invitation. As soon as he
learned that I had arrived he called to see me. And there was
something so cordial and winning in his manner, he was so frank and
kind, that I at once felt that I could give him my confidence, and that
with such men I would love to live and labor. It was Mr. Charless,
more than all others in St. Louis, that induced me to make it my home.
It would be easy for me to fill sheets with my recollections of
personal kindnesses shown me. I never went to him discouraged or
dispirited that he did not impart some of the cheerful hope, which wa