something as if a spiritualized ogre had invited me.
Nevertheless, he was a man, I believe, of a very affectionate and tender
nature; indeed, I afterwards came to think so; but at that time, and
up to the age of twelve, it is a strict truth that I did not regard Mr.
Judson as properly a human being,--as a man at all. If he had descended
from the planet Jupiter, he could not have been a bit more preternatural
and strange to me. Indeed, I well remember the occasion when the idea of
his proper humanity first flashed upon [15] my mind. It was when I saw
him, one day, beat the old black horse he always rode, apparently in
a passion like any other man. The old black horse--large, fat, heavy,
lazy--figures in my mind almost as distinctly as its master; and if,
as it came down the street, its head were turned aside towards the
school-house, as indicating the rider's intent to visit us, I remember
that the school was thrown into as much commotion as if an armed spectre
were coming down the road. Our awe of him was extreme; yet he loved to
be pleasant with us. He would say,--examining the school was always a
part of his object, "How much is five times seven?" "Thirty-five," was
the ready answer. "Well," replied the old man, "saying so don't make it
so"; a very significant challenge, which we were ill able to meet. At
the close of his visit he always gave an exact and minute account of
the Crucifixion,--I think always, and in the same terms. It was a mere
appeal to physical sympathy, awful, but not winning. When he stood
before us, and, lifting his hands almost to the ceiling, said, "And so
they reared him up!" it seemed as if he described the catastrophe of
the world, not its redemption. Indeed, Mr. Judson appeared to think
that anything drawn from the Bible was good, whether he made any moral
application of it or not. I have heard him preach a whole sermon,
giving the most precise and detailed description of the building of the
Tabernacle, without one word of comment, [16] inference, or instruction.
But he was a good and kindly man; and when, as I was going to college
at the age of eighteen, he laid his hand upon my head, and gave me, with
solemn form and tender accent, his blessing, I felt awed and impressed,
as I imagine the Hebrew youth may have felt under a patriarch's
benediction.

With such an example and teacher of religion before me, whose goodness
I did not know, and whose strangeness and preternatural character only
I