Familiar Characters

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Feb 6, 1866

Familiar Characters.

A CORRESPONDENT of the Central Christian Advocate gives some fine pen-sketches of characters that are familiar to most persons. We present a few specimens:

Mr. Cheatus talks also of being persecuted. Ah, he complains loudly thereat, and feels that he is an injured man. But I have found that Mr. Cheatus takes advantage of his neighbor's ignorance or necessity. When he trades, he says, "It is naught, it is naught," and straightway when he has sold an article for more than it is worth, or obtained something for less than its value, he turns to his companions and with a chuckle of delight exclaims, "Didn't I put it to him," "I guess I came it over him that time."

He is careful never to assist in paying the sexton or preacher; does next to nothing toward building the church or keeping it in order; coolly avoids contributing for the purpose of the Sunday-school library; allows the collection-box to pass him with the utmost indifference and neglect, and the claims of poverty, or of the missionary cause appeal to him in vain. He seems to imagine that he has a free pass to Heaven, and that somebody else must pay his fare, and keep the road in order and meet all expenses. He wants a comfortable seat and a warm room, but is filled with indignation if called on to bear his share of the burdens. He is a dead-head on the road. He went into the vineyard not to labor, but to sit in the shade and drink the wine, and have somebody to wait on him, and keep the flies off him. He cheats his neighbors in business, and sponges his way through the church, and feels that he is persecuted when plain people express themselves in plain English, and say that he is a liar and swindler. Let them persecute and take him, and let there be none to deliver him until his soul be delivered from its degradation.

Near akin to Mr. Cheatus is Mr. Gripe. He differs from Mr. Cheatus in this: He aims to be honest in all his dealings, and scrupulously endeavors to keep all his promises, excepting always the promises he made when he joined the church. He has not yet found out that it is one of the impossibilities to be stingy and be a Christian at the same time. Even in this nineteenth century he is fool enough to suppose that he can accomplish what millions have tried to do, and failed in every case. For six thousand years, not a single one has succeeded. Yet Mr. Gripe tries it with as much doggedness and self-composure as if he were sure of coming off in triumph. He prays God to bless the poor and needy, and extend his kingdom over all the earth, but takes care that he is not used as an instrument to fulfill his petitions. He has a holy horror of a sermon that calls for money, and dreads the presentation of a subscription paper, and sighs for the good old days, when a quarter of a dollar was quarterage. He advises his preacher to say nothing whatever about his salary, especially in the pulpit, as that would give his ministry the appearance of being secular, and thus weaken his influence.

One of his old acquaintances from New York called to see him. It gave Mr. Gripe immense satisfaction to show him about his farm. He talked largely of its soil, his flocks and herds, his fine horses and splendid swine; and spoke with great elation of feeling, of his sagacity and success in money-making, and proudly pointed to the solid facts as proof positive of what he said. As he was engaged in the delightful task of communicating this kind of intelligence to his New York acquaintance, he held his head high, as if he were owner of all the space above him as well as the soil beneath; his words were glowing and alive. The glory of his present possessions was only surpassed by his vast expectations for the future. He swelled with enthusiasm, and was eloquent with gesticulation; he stood over much territory, and threw his feet a good way apart, and swung them about with a far-reaching and majestic sweep, making you think that he was trying to imitate the Colossus of Rhodes, or that he was a little Nebuchadnezzar, taking a triumphant survey of his rural Babylon. But while in the ecstasy of his enjoyment, a neighbor called for his aid to a benevolent project. "Mirabile dictu!" how soon Mr. Gripe grew poor! His hogs had died with cholera; the price of cattle had fallen; his crops were likely to be light, and times were hard, and sure to be harder. He was going to build a new barn; in fact, he claimed that he had been losing money. Oh! how poor he had grown in a few short hours. I have found a new application of the wise man's words, "Riches take to themselves wings and fly away." I came very near feeling sorry for him as he recounted his losses and failures, and miserable prospects. And when I looked in his face I was more troubled than ever; for he could not have looked more doleful had he at that moment expected the cholera to attack himself, family and hogs.

Another brother of the Gripe family lives in the city. He does a large and thriving business, his family ride in a fine carriage, and dwell in a spacious mansion of upper-ten pretensions, and he talks of the thousands he has made in trade. All his manner of living is of the

elegant type. He has all the signs of becoming a rich man. He acts and talks and looks like a rich man, and evidently feels rich, and wants others to feel that he is rich.

But when I called upon him for help in a church enterprise, his countenance fell at the first statement of the case; the blood rushed to his head, and I was afraid that I had been guilty of bringing upon him an attack of apoplexy. I felt almost ready to apologize for making him so miserable. And before I left him I felt poor and miserable myself. For, according to his statements and the cast of his countenance, he was the poorest man in the county; and I was going to say the meanest, but I will not say that. He is periodically tormented with the irrepressible conflict of a desire to appear respectably liberal, and a dread of the expense. I never want to ask his pecuniary help to a worthy enterprise again. I would rather visit the hospital and run the risk of being attacked with all the diseases there, from the measles to the small-pox. Whenever I am beset with an intolerable bore, who is a compound of dunce, dignity and persistence, I send him to Mr. Gripe, if possible; he'll paralyze him. Yet Mr. Gripe complains of being persecuted because every body knows that no man can be a Christian without having his liberality enlarged, without a soul of expanded benevolence. He feels that he is persecuted by the vulgar world because it calls him "Old Tight-fist," "Old Skin-flint." This is natural persecution.