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in has been manifested in my weakness; so that although I have often been troubled on every side, yet I have not been distressed; perplexed, but not in despair; cast down, but not destroyed.

But now I have reason to think my work is finished which I had to do as your minister: You have publicly rejected me, and my opportunities cease.

And then, [at the day of judgment,] it will appear whether, in declaring this doctrine, and acting agreeable to it; and in my general conduct in the affair I have been influenced from any regard to my own temporal interest or honor, or desire to appear wiser than others; or have acted from any sinister, secular views whatsoever; and whether what I have

done has not been from a careful, strict, and tender regard to the will of my Lord and Master, and because I dare not offend

him, being satisfied what his will was, after a long, diligent, impartial, and prayerful inquiry; having this constantly in view and prospect, to engage me to great solicitude not rashly to determine truth to be on this side of the question, where I am now persuaded it is, that such a determination would not be for my temporal interest, but every way against it, bringing a long series of extreme difficulties, and plunging me into an abyss of trouble and sorrow. And then it will appear whether my people have done their duty to their pastor with respect to this matter; whether they have shown a right temper and spirit on this occasion; whether they have done me justice in hearing, attending to and considering what I had to say in evidence of what I believed and taught as part of the counsel of God; whether I have been treated with that impartiality, candor, and regard which the just Judge esteemed due; and whether, in the many steps, which have been taken, and the many things that have been said and done in the conrse of this controversy, righteousness and charity, and Christian decorum have been maintained; or, if otherwise, to how great a degree these things have been violated. Then every step of the conduct of each of us in this affair, from first to last, and the spirit we have exercised in all shall be examined and manifested, and our own consciences shall speak plain and loud, and each of us shall be convinced, and the world shall know; and never shall there be any more mistake, misrepresentations, or misapprehensions of the affair to eternity.

This controversy is now probably brought to an issue between you and me as to this word; it has issued in the event of the week before last: But it must have another decision at that great day, which certainly will come, when you and I shall meet together before the great judgment seat.-Vol. I. pp. 125–128.

In retirement and obscurity at Stockbridge, employed in composing and preparing for publication, those writings which have gained him his celebrity, and endeared him to the christian world, he unexpectedly received an appointment to the presidency of a highly respectable College. If adversity, as we have seen, exhibited his patience, disinterestedness, and self-denial, the offer of a more honourable and lucrative situation evinced his genuine humility, and a freedom both from vanity and ambition, rarely equalled in one who could not but be conscious of superiour abilities. He declined accepting the invitation, on the ground of his own incapacity, and of his engagements in two important works, which he greatly desired to finish.

In his letter to the Trustees of the College, he says,

On the whole, I am much at a loss, with respect to the way of duty in this important affair: I am in doubt, whether, If I should engage in it, I should not do what both you and I would be sorry for afterwards. Nevertheless, I think the greatness of the affair, and the regard due to so worthy and venerable a body, as that of the trustees of Nassau Hall, require my taking the matter into serious consideration. And unless you should appear to be discouraged by the things which I have now represented, as to any further expectation from me, I shall proceed to ask advice, of such as I esteem most wise, friendly and faithful: If after the mind of the commissioners in Boston is known, it ap pears that they consent to leave me at liberty, with respect to the business they have employed me in here."

In this suspense be determined to ask the advice of a number of gentlemen in the ministry, on whose judgment and friendship he could rely, and to act accordingly. Who, upon his, and his people's desire, met at Stockbridge, January 4, 1758; and, having heard Mr. Edward's representation of the matter, and what his people had to say by way of objection against his removal, determined it was his duty to accept of the invitation to the presidency of the college. When they published their judg ment and advice to Mr. Edwards and his people, he appeared uncommonly moved and affected with it, and fell into tears on the occasion, which was very unusual for him in the presence of others: And soon after said to the gentlemen, who had giv

en their advice, that it was matter of wonder to him, that they could so easily, as they appeared to do, get over the objections he had made against his removal.... But as he thought it his duty to be directed by their advice, he should now endeav our cheerfully to undertake it, believing he was in the way of his duty.

Accordingly, having had, by the application of the trustees of the college, the consent of the commissioners to resign their mission; he girded up his loins, and set off from Stockbridge for Princeton in January. He left bis family at Stockbridge, not to remove till spring. He had two daughters at Princeton, Mrs. Burr, the widow of the late President Burr, and his oldest daughter that was unmarried. His arrival at Princeton was to the great satisfaction and joy of the college.

The corporation met as soon as could be with convenience, after his arrival at the college, when he was by them fixed in the President's chair. While at Princeton, before his sickness, he preached in the college hall, Sabbath after Sabbath, to the great acceptance of the hearers; but did nothing as president, unless it was to give out some questions in divinity to the senior class, to be answered before him; each one having opportunity to study and write what he thought proper upon them. When they came together to answer them, they found so much entertainment and profit by it, especially by the light and instruction Mr. Edwards communicated in what he said upon the questions, when they had delivered what they had to say, that they spoke of it with the greatest satisfaction and wonder.

During this time, Mr. Edwards seemed to enjoy an uncommon degree of the presence of God. He told bis daughters he once had great exercise, concern and fear relative to his engaging in that business; but since it now appeared, so far as he could see, that be was called of God to that place and work, he did cheerfully devote himself to it, leaving himself and the event with Gods to order what seemed to him good. Vol. I. pp. 90, 91.

Within about two months after his arrival at Princeton, his useful life was unexpectedly terminated. He was inoculated with the small-pox; the disease seemed not severe, but several pustules in his throat made it impossible for him to swallow the medicine, which might have allayed the fever, and occasioned his death, March 22, 1758, in the 55th year of

his age.

There is a universal desire to know the views and feelings of persons eminent for piety, in the immediate prospect of death. This desire can be

but partially gratified in the present instance. After he was sensible that he could not survive that sickness, he called his daughter and addressed her in nearly the following words.

"Dear Lucy, It seems to me to be the will of God that I must shortly leave you; therefore give my kindest love to my dear wife, and tell her, that the uncommon union which has so long subsisted between us, has been of such a nature, as I trust is spiritual, and therefore will continue for ever: And I hope she will be supported under so great a trial, and submit cheerfully to the will of God. And as to my children, you are now like to be left fatherless, which I hope will be an inducement to you all to seek a Father who will never fail you. And as to my funeral, I would have it to be like Mr. Burr's; and any additional sum of money that might be expected to be laid out that way, I would have it disposed of to charitable uses."

He said but very little in his sickness; but was an admirable instance of patience and resignation to the last. Just at the close of life, as some persons stood by, expecting he would breathe his last in a few minutes were lamenting his death, not only as a great frown on the college, but as having a dark aspect on the interest of religion in general; to their surprise, not imagining that he heard, or ever would speak another word, he said, "Trust in God, and ye need not fear." These were his last words-Vol. I. pp. 92, 93.

The following is a short description of his sickness, by his attending physician, in a letter to Mrs. Edwards:

"Never did any mortal man more fully and clearly evidence the sincerity of all his professions, by one continued, univer. sal, calm, cheerful resignation and patient submission to the divine will, through every stage of his disease, than be. Not so much as one discontented expression, nor the least appearance of murmuring through the whole! And never did any person expire with more perfect freedom from pain; not so much as one distortion but in the most proper sense of the words, fell asleep."-Vol. I. p. 93.

Following this great man in our minds, through the progress of his useful life, admiring the productions of his pen which he had already pubJished, and anticipating still greater, and more interesting results of his future efforts, when we come to stand by his bed of death, we are ready to regret that he was induced to leave

his retirement and studies at Stockbridge, and look upon it as a mysterious providence, that God should take from the world in the prime of his life, and in apparently the commencement of his usefulness a man whom he had so eminently qualified by the gifts of nature and grace, to advance his glory in the world. The dispensation looked dark to the children of God, and brought with it, a severe disappointment of their hopes. It is a part of those ways which are as much above ours, as the heavens are higher than the earth.

If any are inclined to accuse us of partiality to Edwards, and to remark that in this review of his writings and character, we have given no place to censure, we answer, that we have no great desire to refute the accusation. Who, that feels in his bosom any admiration of excellence, or has any sympathy with the great and the good in their desires and efforts to glorify God, and promote the happiness of his creatures, can fail to be wrought into partiality by contemplating the character of Edwards? We know that he was not perfect as a christian, or a man. He had not all the versatility of talent, possessed by Voltaire, nor have his writings all the taste, elegance and conciseness, which are now seen in the productions of far inferior authors. We do not call him Master, or subscribe to every sentiment he has advanced on religion, or moral philosophy, but who, when admiring the glorious luminary of Heaven, wishes always to recollect that there are spots on his surface, or to take his glass that he may inspect them? We fully confess we do not envy those who can never be so warmed with generous admiration of excellence, as willingly to forget that the object of their love is marked with imperfections.

Letters on the Eastern States: by William Tudor. Second Edition. Boston, 1821.

In the preface to the present edi

tion of these Letters, the author tenders his acknowledgments to those journalists who have contributed to aid the favourable reception of the former; one of whom has favoured the work with a "courteous notice," and another has given "an extended account of it, and exercised towards it one of the offices of criticism in the most lenient manner." However much our vanity might tempt us to court a similar distinction in the preface to the next edition, we shall not seek it at the expense of honesty; but shall be contented to deserve the gratitude which is due to plain dealing, and shall presume on the magnanimity of our author, so far as to believe he will thank us for standing equally ready to acknowledge his merits and to expose his faults. While it was uncertain whether these letters would meet with any higher fate than the majority of our attempts at popular writing-that of being read and talked of for a month by those who have nothing else to do, and then forgotten, we deemed it scarcely necessary to make their contents the subject of particular animadversion. But the call for a new edition indicates that this work has had, and promises to continue to it in future, a degree of influence on the opinions of the reading community, somewhat higher than is attained by publications of the ordinary stamp. There are also some adventitious circumstances which co-operate in the present instance with the simple fact just mentioned, to give it a claim on our critical labours. It has ceased to be an anonymous publication, and has been promoted from the humble rank of duodecimo in a moderate style of execution to that of an imposing octavo. The erroneous views it may contain, have now not only the advantage of a highly respectable name to aid their implicit reception at home, but of a fair type and broad margin to push them into circulation

abroad.

We would advise such of our readers as may hereafter take up these

Letters for the first time, and may begin either with the first, or (as many are apt to do) with the last, not hastily to throw the book aside. On looking farther, they will find between these unpromising outsides, much interesting and valuable discussion on our politics, commerce, manufactures, literature, arts, manners and character; and indeed, something worthy of perusal on almost every topic which can be fairly embraced within even so sweeping a title as the one adopted by the writer. He has evidently been a close observer of our character and institutions, and has brought to his undertaking all the advantages conferred by a personal acquaintance with those of foreign countries. On most subjects, he has apparently given the results of a mind which thinks for itself, and suffers not its decisions to be warped by prejudice or subserviency to party interest. Much the greater part of the volume might perhaps have been entitled with more exactness "Letters on the metropolis of the Eastern States and its immediate vicinity;" but the figure of speech by which the whole is put for a part is one which has long been recognized by rhetoricians, nor do we know of any law of criticism which forbids an author to introduce it into his title page,-especially when a very slight inspection of the contents is sufficient to conduct the reader to the right interpretation, and the book is found not the less interesting or valuable for not having literally fulfilled the implied promise with which it began. A large portion of these Letters makes no pretensions to any thing beyond a local application; and very often, when the language is generalized, there is room to suspect that the actual views of the writer were circumscribed by the horizon of his own neighbourhood. It must be admitted, at the same time, that there is so much of a family likeness among the different clans which trace their descent from the puritans, that a good portrait of Boston and its neighbourhood would in many res

pects be no bad delineation of the remotest county in New-England; and that if we, in this distant corner, have some features of our eastern brethren attributed to us which we should be loth to recognize, our vanity is about as often gratified by a generalization which spreads over us those flattering touches to which we possess no claim.

It will be readily inferred that Mr. T. seldom makes the peculiarities of other states than his own the subject of exclusive remark. An exception occurs in the following paragraph, which we quote, from the letter entitled "Politics," to show in what estimation the political character and institutions of our own state are held by at least some of her neighbours.

Connecticut affords an example of this narrowing influence of local policy. There is no state where the common, and many of the higher branches of education, are more easily obtained; there is oone where instruction is more generally diffused. No one will deny that its inbabitants possess both wit and acuteness. Yet among all their able, public men, there is hardly one, with the exception of those who have been transplanted, who has shown a mind capable of extensive range, or that was not bigoted to, or fettered by local considerations. This might be in some degree owing to the want of a large town in the state, where through the intercourse and collision of cultivated minds, brought together from a distance, a system of gener alizing might be produced on the ruins of small prejudices and diminutive apprehensions. Their government vibrated between two villages, and a man could not be trusted as a delegate for more than sis months. There was a sort of habitual, inquisition and village scrutiny, that requipervading police, made up ef Calvinistic red a very deleterious subserviency from all candidates for public life. A very conceited intolerance held opinion in subjection. Superior minds were obliged to cower to inferior ones, till they lost the power of rising to, and sustaining an ele vation, whence they could discern the bearing and relations of distant objects. and may boast of having produced some accomplished and powerful statesmen. This may have been owing in part to our having a capital, the seat of the state Gov

We have done better in Massachusetts,

ernment, and which is the natural centre, not of its own state alone, but of the neigh

bouring territories. A very active and

and extensive foreign commerce has made

it a mart where much information is collected, and where many strangers resort. A greater variety of pursuit has enlarged the sphere of observation and diminished the influence of local prejudice. The University in this vicinity has fostered the taste for literature and science, and it has always possessed a more numerous class of cultivated society than cities of the same, or even much greater size. These circumstances, among others, have tended to preserve us from that provincial atmosphere, under which every thing, save plants of common growth, is blighted or dwindles. pp. 59, 60.

It becomes us to be modest in asserting our claims to the respect of our sister states for our political character; but when the memory of those in past generations whom we revere as the founders and supporters of institutions which have procured for us an almost unrivalled measure of every public blessing, is undervalued and assailed, no rule of decorum forbids us to lift our voice in their behalf. We had supposed, we confess, that the names of Ellsworth, Trumbull, Tracy, and Griswold, (not to go beyond the last generation) might have rescued the state which gave them birth from the reproach of having "produced hardly one, who has a mind capable of extensive range, or that was not bigotted to, or fettered by local considerations." If these were not men of enlarged views, where shall we look for those "transplanted" ones, to whom the letter writer would have it believed that we owe most of the little respectability we possess? He will probably call upon us to produce what our native statesman have accomplished, as the test of our claims for them. For evidence that Connecticut possessed men who were not incapable of “extensive range" in regard to the cause of the colonies and the prospects which awaited them, we might appeal to the fact, that she did more, compared with her means, for the establishment of their independence, than any one of the thirteen. At a later period, she contributed her full proportion to that "illustrious combi

nation," (p. 33.) to which we owe the establishment of the federal constitution, and probably our very existence as a united republic. That her part in the national councils has since been performed under the guidance of enlightened and liberal views, we shall urge no other evidence to Mr. T., than that she has pursued on all great questions, a policy the same with that of the state for which he claims so decided a superiority. In no state, it is presumed, have the deliberations of the national delegation been less frequently embarrassed by instructions from home dictated by local interest, than in Connecticut. If instances be demanded in which the measures of the state government have been under the guidance of men who were capable of forming enlarged plans for its present and future prosperity, Mr. T. himself shall furnish one.

unexampled prosperity for a whole generation, has done any thing to accumulate funds for public improvement, with the exception of the state of Connecticut. The exception is, indeed, a noble one; she bas accumulated a fund that now pays for all the schools in the state. Massachusetts had great means in her power, but they have been chiefly frittered away.--p.

Not one of these states, in a career of

276.

We wish it were in our power to add more examples, drawn from the history of the last twenty years. The circumstances of this state do not indeed admit of her displaying her public spirit on such canalling operations as are taking place in New-York and North-Carolina; nor does she need to expend the public funds on those roads and bridges which are better left to private associations; nor will she probably discern the expediency of conferring bounties on manufacturing at the expense of agricultural industry;-but there are two or three ways in which she has a fair opportunity to rid herself of the charge of parsimony and want of public spirit, which whether justly or unjustly, is often brought against her in neighboring states.

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