His was
essentially a practical understanding; he was a man of action, a man for
men more than for man, the curious reverse in this of my father. He
delighted in public life, had a native turn for affairs, for all that
society needs and demands,--clear-headed, ready, intrepid, adroit; with
a fine temper, but keen and honest, with an argument and a question and
a joke for every one; not disputatious, but delighting in a brisk
argument, fonder of wrestling than of fencing, but ready for action; not
much of a long shot, always keeping his eye on the immediate, the
possible, the attainable, but in all this guided by genuine principle,
and the finest honor and exactest truth. He excelled in the conduct of
public business, saw his way clear, made other men see theirs, was
forever getting the Synod out of difficulties and confusions, by some
clear, tidy, conclusive "motion;" and then his speaking, so easy and
bright and pithy, manly and gentlemanly, grave when it should be, never
when it should not--mobile, fearless, rapid, brilliant as Saladin--his
silent, pensive, impassioned and emphatic friend was more like the
lion-hearted Richard, with his heavy mace; he might miss, but let him
hit, and there needed no repetition. Each admired the other; indeed Dr.
Heugh's love of my father was quite romantic; and though they were
opposed on several great public questions, such as the Apocrypha
controversy, the Atonement question at its commencement; and though they
were both of them too keen and too honest to mince matters or be
mealy-mouthed, they never misunderstood each other, never had a shadow
of estrangement, so that our Paul and Barnabas, though their contentions
were sometimes sharp enough, never "departed asunder;" indeed they loved
each other the longer the more.

Take him all in all, as a friend, as a gentleman, as a Christian, as a
citizen, I never knew a man so thoroughly delightful as Dr. Heugh.
Others had more of this or more of that, but there was a symmetry, a
compactness, a sweetness, a true _delightfulness_ about him I can
remember in no one else. No man, with so much temptation to be heady and
high-minded, sarcastic, and managing, from his overflowing wit and
talent, was ever more natural, more honest, or more considerate, indeed
tender-hearted. He was full of animal spirits and of fun, and one of the
best wits and jokers I ever knew; and such an asker of questions, of
posers! We children had a pleasing dread of that