Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1900, volume 1).djvu/610

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CHANNING
CHANNING

tled as farmers in North Carolina, and at the age of forty-four or forty-five married two sisters, by whom they had children (Chang six and Eng five), of whom eight, with the two widows, survived them. Two of the children were deaf and dumb; the rest had no malformation or infirmity. They lost a part of their property, which consisted partially of slaves, by the war, and were very bitter in their denunciation of the government in consequence. After the war they again resorted to public exhibitions, but were not very successful. Their lives were embittered by their own quarrels and the bickering of their wives; and they returned home, with their tempers much soured and their spirits depressed, after a decision by the most eminent European surgeons that the severing of the band (which both desired) would prove fatal. Notwithstanding this, they always maintained a high character for integrity and fair dealing, and were much esteemed by their neighbors. In 1870 Chang had a paralytic stroke, and was subsequently weak and ill, while Eng's health was much improved. Chang died first, probably of cerebral clot, during the night; and when Eng awoke and found his brother dead, his fright and the consequent nervous shock, acting upon an enfeebled heart, produced a syncope, which resulted fatally two hours and a half after Chang's death. Their bodies were taken to Philadelphia and carefully examined by eminent physicians. The connection of the two was by a fleshy and partly cartilaginous band extending from the xiphoid region of the sternum down to a point below the umbilicus of each. There had been but a single umbilical cord attached to the middle of the under side of this band, and while the band (which was eight or nine inches in length, about eight in circumference, and two and a half in diameter — its upper or outer surface being convex, and the under or inner concave) was cartilaginous and nearly insensible except at its median point, there was evidently some inter-communication through it to the viscera of both. The breast-bones were so nearly joined that they were naturally face to face, and could never have occupied the position of back to back. It was then found that there were no direct blood-vessels or nerves connecting either the circulation of the blood or the nervous fluid through both bodies, but that the peritoneum or membrane covering the bowels was extended in two pouches from the abdomen of Chang passing through the band into the abdomen of Eng, and that one similar pouch from the peritonæum of Eng passed through the band lying between the two from Chang, into the abdomen of Chang. These pouches contained small blood-vessels coming from the livers of each (which were in both close to the cord), and these blood-vessels were covered with a thin layer of genuine liver-tissue. A separation or division of the cord would therefore have been almost certainly fatal to both. The twins differed considerably in size and strength as well as in disposition, Chang being considerably the larger and stronger, but also the more irritable and intemperate.


CHANNING, William Ellery, clergyman, b. in Newport, R. I., 7 April, 1780; d. in Bennington, Vt., 2 Oct., 1842. His boyhood was passed in Newport, where his first strong religious impressions were received from the preaching of Dr. Samuel Hopkins. As a youth, he appears, though small in person and of a sensibility almost feminine, to have been vigorous, athletic, and resolute, showing from childhood a marked quality of moral courage and mental sincerity. In his college life at Harvard, where he was graduated in 1798, he showed a singular capacity to win the ardent personal attachment of his fellows; and, though he was very young, his literary qualities seem even then to have been fully developed, his style being described by his classmate, Judge Story, as “racy, flowing, full, glowing with life, chaste in ornament, vigorous in structure, and beautiful in finish.” He was also conspicuous in the students' debating-clubs, and shared fully in the political enthusiasms of the day, refusing the commencement oration assigned him until granted permission to speak on his favorite theme. Among the authors of his choice at this time, Hutcheson appears to have inspired his profound conviction of “the dignity of human nature,” Ferguson (“Civil Society”) his faith in social progress and his “enthusiasm of humanity,” and Price (“Dissertations”) that form of idealism which “saved me,” he says, “from Locke's philosophy.” As a private instructor in Richmond, Va., in the family of D. M. Randolph, in 1798-1800, he felt “the charm of southern manners and hospitality,” and at the same time acquired an abhorrence of the social and moral aspects of slavery, then equally abhorred by the most intelligent men and women at the south. Here he became eagerly interested in political discussions growing out of the revolutionary movements in Europe, and a keen admirer of such writers as Godwin, Mary Wollstonecraft, and especially Rousseau; but, as if by a certain unconscious reaction against these influences, he gave special study to the historical evidences of Christianity, to which class of evidences he ever after strongly adhered, and was confirmed in his purpose to prepare for the ministry. He also disciplined himself by a vigorously ascetic way of life — exposure to cold, hardship, and fatigue, with scant diet (leading to permanent “contraction of the stomach” with painful dyspepsia), insufficient clothing, and excessive devotion to study. The ill-effect of these practices, aggravated by the exposures of his return voyage to Newport, followed him through life, and “from the time of his residence in Richmond to the day of his death he never knew a day of unimpaired vigor.” After a short stay in Newport, where the influences of early life were renewed and deepened, he returned to Cambridge as a student of theology, with the title and petty income of “regent,” a sort of university scholarship. At this period Bishop Butler and William Law were the writers that chiefly influenced his opinions; and he is represented as having had a tendency to Calvinistic views, though “never in any sense a Trinitarian.” His first and only pastoral settlement was over the church in Federal street, Boston, 1 June, 1803, which he accepted, in preference to the more distinguished place in Brattle square, partly on the ground that a smaller and feebler congregation might not overtax his strength. Here he was shortly known for a style of religious eloquence of rare “fervor, solemnity, and beauty.” His views at this time — and indeed, prevailingly, during his later life — are described as “rather mystical than rational”; in particular, as to the controverted doctrine of Christ's divinity, holding “that Jesus Christ is more than man, that he existed before the world, that he literally came from heaven to save our race, that he sustains other offices than those of a teacher and witness to the truth, and that he still acts for our benefit, and is our intercessor with the Father.” Early in his ministry, however, Mr. Channing was closely identified with that movement of thought, literary and philosophic as well as theological, which gave birth to the “Anthology Club,” and to a series of journals,