USA > Connecticut > The history of Connecticut, from the first settlement of the colony to the adoption of the present constitution, vol. II > Part 51
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NEW HAMPSHIRE .- Jeremiah Mason, Simeon Olcott.
NEW YORK .- James Watson, John S. Hobart.
SOUTH CAROLINA .- John C. Calhoun.
GEORGIA .- Abraham Baldwin, John Ellrath.
OHIO .- Stanley Griswold, R. J. Meigs. ILLINOIS .- Elias K. Kane.
DELAWARE .- John M. Clayton, John Wales.
NORTH CAROLINA .- George E. Badger.
RHODE ISLAND .- Christopher Ellery, Asher Robbins, Ray Green.
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HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT.
Deeply as they loved him, they had too much of the old emigrant spirit, which looks at the future of a child through the medium of the present, to make him a toy with which to amuse themselves. They regarded him rather as a holy jewel, left in their charge to be kept pure and bright for the use of the Prince who had entrusted it to them. Yet we are not to suppose that this family entertained no thoughts of his future promotion in the world. They were soon made aware that he was no common child. The germ of great thoughts, sown so freely and with such a broad cast by the creating hand, began early to spring up and to grow in this young mind, and were gracefully directed, though they seemed scarcely to need it, by their fair fingers. New forms of expression, combinations rare and strange, puzzling inquiries, a remarkable gift of language, a fervent manner, and an imagination that soared upward with a steady flight, like the eagle, into the mid heaven-these were some of the attributes that were observed in Edwards at a very tender age. He hardly seemed to be a child, but rather a select and gifted traveler who had come from some other land to look upon the objects that surrounded him ; the rolling river, the starry heavens, the birds fluttering among the branches of the trees, the bursting flower, the falling leaf, the blinding snows-and to read in them all a language weighty with the philosophy that teaches the destinies of men and the attributes and providence of God. Still, upon a near view to those who watched him, he was but a child. It was observable that he was all the while advancing in knowledge, and in the attitudes and phases of his thoughts. His friends also observed that his moral nature was becoming, as he grew older, more exquisitely toned, more perfectly moulded, and illuminated as if by a light burning steadily in his soul. The elements of his character grew more harmonious, and gradually fell into a sweet accord, like the parts in a highly wrought piece of music. When only seven years old, he was in the habit of retiring into the woods alone, to meditate upon the great mysteries of human accountability and probation.
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JONATHAN EDWARDS.
Dark misgivings some times clouded his mind, as he looked out upon nature through the leafy labyrinths of his retreat. But after a few years, the whole plan of redemption, without any sudden or startling revelation, was opened to him, and, embraced by him. In his own inimitable words he has described this change :
" There seemed to be as it were a calm sweet cast or ap- pearance of divine glory in almost every thing. God's ex- cellency, his wisdom, his purity and love, were visible in every thing ; in the sun, moon, and stars; in the clouds and blue sky ; in the grass, flowers and trees ; in the water and in all nature, which used greatly to fix my mind. I used often to sit and view the moon for a long time; and in the day, spent much time in viewing the clouds and sky, to behold the sweet glory of God in these things ; in the mean time, singing forth with a low voice my contemplations of the Creator and Redeemer. And scarce any thing among all the works of nature was so sweet to me as thunder and light-
ning. * * I felt God, if I may so speak, at the first appearance of a thunder-storm, and used to take the opportu- nity at such times, to fix myself in order to view the clouds, and see the lightnings play, and hear the majestic and awful voice of God."
What a perfect healthfulness of nature do these few sim- ple words express ! With what even scales does this youth, probably not more than fifteen years old, poise the relations of the world and the conditions of humanity, which seem to other minds so belligerant and wild. How precious to all coming time will be those forest shades and secret nooks by the banks of the Connecticut, and how tame in the eye of the christian scholar, will one day seem the classic haunts where Numa roved in dalliance with that shy nymph, Egeria ; how tame will be the mountain haunted by the muses, or the palm groves that shaded the Socratic school ; how cold and dead, when compared with the oaks, the elms, and " the rushy-fringed bank," where this greatest of philosophers lin- gered in his youth, solving for himself the problems, and un-
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folding those hidden truths that were older than the sun that met him on the lawn, or the moon that shed her trembling beams upon the river !
The progress made by Edwards in the studies which are usually pursued by boys preparatory to entering college was astonishing. When only six years old, his attention became absorbed in acquiring the Latin language; and when his venerable father was too much occupied with the duties of his calling, to assist him, his sisters who were older than him- self would assume the place of teachers. The thorough ac- quaintance with that language which he is known to have had, as well as with Greek and Hebrew, and his high stand- ing at Yale, evince that he was a scholar, as well as a thinker. He entered college at the age of twelve years. His temper- ance in diet, and the habitudes of his mind, while at Yale, may be best known by reading his diary kept at that time .*
While at college, he was a frequent visitor at the house of the Rev. James Pierpont, and there made the acquaintance of Miss Sarah Pierpont, a young lady of uncommon powers of mind, excellent education, and, as appears by the portrait still preserved of her, one of the most beautiful women of her time. To this lady, then in her eighteenth year, he was married on the 28th of July, 1727. The following brief extract, taken from a sketch of her character written by her husband on the blank leaf of a book, in 1723, when he was only twenty years old, and she but little more than thirteen, is lover-like, yet perfectly truthful, and shows us what traits in the female character he most admired. "If you present all the world before her, with the richest of its treasures, she
Tuesday, July 7, 1724 .- When I am giving the relation of a thing, re- member to abstain from altering, either in the matter or manner of speaking, so much, as that if every one, afterwards, should alter as much, it would at last come to be properly false.
" Tuesday, Sept. 2 .- By a sparingness of diet, and eating as much as may be what is light and easy of digestion, I shall doubtless be able to think more clearly, and shall gain time ; 1. By lengthening out my life ; 2. Shall need less time for digestion after meals; 3. Shall be able to study more closely, without injury to my health ; 4. Shall need less time for sleep; 5. Shall more seldom be troubled with the headache."
591
SARAH PIERPONT.
[1727.]
disregards it and cares not for it, and is unmindful of any pain or affliction. She has a strange sweetness in her mind, and singular purity in her affections ; is most just and con- scientious in all her conduct, and you could not persuade her to do any thing wrong or sinful, if you would give her all the
world, lest she should offend this Great Being. * She will sometimes go about from place to place, singing sweetly, and seems to be always full of joy and pleasure, and no one knows for what. She loves to be alone, walking in the fields and groves, and seems to have some one invisible always conversing with her."
If ever the author of this exquisite passage saw any part of God's creation through an exaggerating medium, it must have been when he cast his partial regards upon Sarah Pier- pont. Yet this description of her, as all who knew her could have borne testimony, approached more nearly to a handsome portrait, than it did to an ideal picture. She was indeed worthy to be the wife of Edwards, the companion of his solitudes, the soother of his toils, the superintendent of his household, the mother and teacher of his children, the hostess of those honorable guests, who thronged from the old world and the new, to pay court to the great man beneath his lowly roof, with deeper reverence than if he had been a titled monarch. She was the one person on earth who like him was always conversing " with some one invisible," and who, with the greatness of the soul and the understanding of the heart was his equal. A lady of graceful manners, a thorough scholar, a prudent wife, the presiding genius of his table, the provider of the most ordinary articles required in the domestic economy,* she seemed made for a ministering
* While he resided at Northampton, Mrs. Edwards, who took charge of all his affairs, as well in the garden as in the house, on one occasion begged her hus- band, when he took his accustomed walk, to call at the blacksmith's shop and leave directions with the smith to make two garden hoes for the use of the family. The great man stopped as requested, and did the errand, " I will make one of them to-morrow, may it please your reverence," was the prompt answer. "But Mrs. Edwards wants two," reiterated the philosopher. It was not till after some ex- planation, that the author of the " Treatise on the Will," could be so far brought
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HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT.
angel, to keep him as much as mortal can be kept from the chilling contact of the world.
But we must not linger over the details of the life even of such a man as Edwards. His faithfulness as a pastor, his labors as a missionary, his humility, his mildness of temper, his industry as a writer, the patience with which he investi- gated the great subjects that occupied his mind, without ade- quate libraries or suitable books of reference, belong rather to his biographer than to the author of such a work as this.
Whether Edwards was accurate in all his views of the divine economy, let theologians and metaphysicians decide. There is a deep significance in the unabated contest that has been going on now for nearly a century and a quarter, between the philosophers of four generations and this great normal New England mind. When we see Chalmers, with reverent face approach and look upward, as the traveler who gazes upon the sun-illumined brow of Mount Blanc, until with dimmed eye, he turns away awestruck and confounded-the spectacle is sublime. Nor are we less amazed, when we see Mackintosh, Stuart, and a whole swarm of English, Scotch, German, and American phi- losophers, like so many geologists, attempting to knock off as with hammers the sharp angles and corners of "those propositions which have remained as if they were mountains of solid crystal in the center of the world." Even those who are least able to assent to those propositions, seem equally with his followers to admire his transcendent genius. They are unable to classify such vast powers, and to give an orbit to this independent self-acting mind. They have exhausted their whole vocabulary of technics in attempting to define and illustrate what kind of man their adversary is. The terms philosophy, theology, ethics, metaphysics, in their or- dinary acceptation, can not bind his faculties with their iron links, or fetter his swift limbs. If they build up around him
back to the consideration of common-place matters of existence, as to compre- hend the fact that a blacksmith could not make upon the same anvil two hoes at the same time.
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JONATHAN EDWARDS.
a wall of words and definitions, he vaults over it and escapes ; if they oppose doors of iron and bars of brass to his entrance, with one blow of his ponderous battle-axe, like the knight in black armor, he batters them down. Clear-sighted as the eagle, untiring as the light that travels from the fixed stars regarding the wide field of human thought with a glance more delicate and comprehensive than that of Plato, an im- agination no less sublime, and a soul how much more serenely pure than that of Bacon, he stands foremost among all phi- losophical thinkers, ancient or modern.
As he excels all other philosophers in the vastness of his conceptions and in the sharpness of their outlines, so of all men who have lived since the days of the apostles, he ap- proached nearest in the spotless purity of his life and in the holiness of his affections, to Him who knew no sin. His last days were his best. The farewell sermon that he preached to his people from the text. "We have no continuing city, therefore let us seek one to come ;" the sublimity with which, when he had said farewell to his children on leaving his old home to go among strangers, he turned himself about, and looking toward the door where they were clustered to watch through their tears the receding form of the patriarch, and exclaimed, " I commit you to God"-are unequalled save in the closing scenes that proved him victorious over death and the grave .*
* Mr. Edwards was born in Windsor, October 5, 1703 ; graduated at Yale College in 1720 ; became a tutor in that institution in 1724; and was settled in Northampton, as colleague pastor with his grandfather, the Rev. Solomon Stoddard, in 1727. Having been dismissed at his own request in 1750, he succeeded Mr. Sargeant as a missionary to the Housatonic Indians, at Stockbridge, Massachu- setts, where he remained until January, 1758, when he accepted the presidency of the college of New Jersey. The prevalence of the small-pox induced him to be innoculated, an event which occasioned his death on the 22d of the following March, at the age of 54 years.
The principal works of President Edwards, are, an Essay on the Freedom of the Will; the great Scripture Doctrine of Original Sin ; a Treatise concerning Reli- gious Affections ; Dissertation on the Nature of True Virtue ; and a Dissertation on the End for which God created the World. In 1809, a splendid edition of his works were published in England, in eight volumes, edited by Dr. Austin. In
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HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT.
Associated with the name of Edwards, is that of his friend and fellow-laborer, Doctor Bellamy. This distinguished pub- lic orator and divine, was born at Cheshire in 1719. He was educated at Yale College, and was graduated in the year 1735, when only sixteen years old. Two years after, he commenced that brilliant career as a preacher, which only terminated with the coming on of those infirmities that unfit the great as well as those of more humble abilities for the active duties of life. His reputation as an eloquent preacher soon spread throughout the American colonies, and long before he was settled over the people with whom he spent the best portion of his life, the announcement that Mr. Bel- lamy was to preach in any pulpit in Boston, Salem, Hartford, or New Haven, would call together hundreds who were in the habit of attending other places of worship.
While wandering through the thinly peopled parts of Mas- sachusetts, the young licentiate one Saturday afternoon rode
1830, an edition in ten volumes was published, edited by his descendant, Sereno Edwards Dwight, D.D.
A recent number of " The Westminster Review," speaks of Edwards as fol- lows : "Before the commencement of this century, America had but one great man in philosophy, but that one was illustrious. From the days of Plato, there has been no life of more simple and imposing grandeur, than that of JONATHAN EDWARDS." Says Sir James Mackintosh-" This remarkable man, the metaphy- sician of America, was formed among the calvanists of New England, when their stern doctrine retained its rigorous authority. His power of subtile argument, perhaps unmatched, certainly unsurpassed among men, was joined, as in some of the ancient mystics, with a character which raised his piety to fervor."
" The London Quarterly Review," remarks, "The most elaborate treatise on original sin is confessedly that of President Edwards of America. It is not only the most elaborate but the most complete. There was every thing in the intellec- tual character, the devout habits and the long practice of this great reasoner, to bring his gigantic specimens of theological arguments as near to perfection as we may expect any human composition to approach. * * We are not aware that any other human composition exhibits, in the same degree as his, the love of truth, mental independence, grasp of intellect, power of concentrating all his strength on a difficult inquiry, reverence for God, calm self-possession, superiority to all polemical unfairness, benevolent regard for the highest interest of man, keen analysis of arguments, and the irresistible force of ratiocination. He reminds us of the scene described by Sir Walter Scott, between Richard and Saladin, uniting in himself the sharpness of the cimiter, with the strength of the battle-axe."
595
REV. DOCTOR BELLAMY.
[1719.]
up to the door of Mr. Edwards, at Northampton. He was invited to stay and preach a part of the next day. Mr. Bel- lamy consented to do so, and selected his sermon upon the half-way covenant. Scarcely had the preacher announced his text and began in his clear strong manner to set forth his views upon a subject so familiar to the great metaphysician, when the latter began to manifest unusual interest in the discourse. His eyes became riveted upon the speaker, and he bent forward and gazed at him with admiration. As soon as the service was over, and while " the congrega- tion were retiring, the two ministers were seen in the midst of them, engaged and lost in earnest conversation. Indeed, they had gone some distance from the door, before either dis- covered that Mr. Edwards had forgotten to take his hat."
At the age of twenty-two years, he was ordained as pastor of the congregational church in Bethlem. In this quiet village, in the midst of scenery that could not fail to inspire his mind with healthful thoughts, he soon developed powers which could not be confined to the shades of retirement.
When only thirty years old, he published his great work entitled, " True Religion Delineated," which soon found its way to England and Scotland, and elicited the attention of the whole religious world. The Rev. Dr. John Erskine, of Edinburgh, and the Earl of Buchan, were his ardent admirers and correspondents .*
Bellamy was the most powerful pulpit orator in New Eng- land at that time. His personal appearance was eminently calculated to command the attention of an audience. He was large and tall, and of a commanding presence. His manner was earnest and bold, and his voice deep and of great compass. He was a close reasoner, and had not only a happy facility in the use of language, but a practical mode of illustrating and enforcing his positions that rendered them
* Cothren's Woodbury, 251. The Earl of Buchan sent to Dr. Bellamy an engraving of himself, which is still in the possession of the Bellamy family. Within the past year, a gentleman from Scotland has paid a visit to Bethlem to look for materials for a more complete life of Dr. Bellamy, than has yet been given to the public.
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HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT.
obvious to the plainest capacity. The grave of this remark- able man has not buried his fame. The spot where he died is still a place of interest to the theological student of his own country, and sometimes there wanders from the schools of Aberdeen or Edinburgh, a young enthusiast who stops at Bethlem to gather up some traditionary shreds of the per- sonal history of Bellamy, and to shed a tear upon his tomb.
" He became early in his ministerial life," says the Rev. Dr. McEwen,* " a teacher of theology ; and at Bethlem, for years, he kept the principal school in the United States to prepare young men for the ministry. The great body of the living fathers in this profession, who adorned the closing part of the eighteenth century, were his pupils."
It is difficult to name a portion of the whole continent that might with more propriety be called a wilderness, than most of the present county of Litchfield was, when those honored patriarchs, John Marsh and John Buel, t with their neighbors and friends, first began to clear the ground and build their log houses on the unpromising alder-swamp where the village of Litchfield now stands. This was nearly one hundred years after the valley of the Connecticut was settled. It needed an emigrant's faith to foresee the changes that human industry, under the guidance of good principles, could bring about in the face of wintry skies and in defiance of steep hills.
In a few years, frame houses began to take the places of
* Discourse at the Centennial Anniversary of the North and South Consocia- tions, at Litchfield, 1852.
The origin of " Sabbath Schools," and the name of their supposed founder, have long been the fruitful theme of christian writers. The Rev. E. W. Hooker, D.D., however, assures us that Dr. Bellamy had such a school in his church from the beginning of his ministry in Bethlem. It was divided into two classes, the eldest being instructed by Dr. Bellamy himself, while the second class was placed under the instruction of a deacon, or some other prominent member of the church.
t The name of Bewelle has a coat of arms in England, which is thus described in Burke's Complete Armory :- " Or, a cheveron between three torteaux."
" Bewelle's Cross," in Bristol, England, is a place where criminals recite their prayers previous to their execution.
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LITCHFIELD HILL.
the first rude attempts at architecture, and the court-house and the jail, standing on the common by the side of the meet- ing-house, had begun to form a center of attraction for the few towns that were gathering around it, most of them perched upon their favorite hill-tops. There gradually sprang up under the culture of a virtuous industry, a class of men of uncommon mental endowments and of refined man- ners. Clergymen, lawyers, physicians, taught partly at Yale, and partly at home, were observed to thrive well there, and it was noticed that although the climate was forbidding at certain periods of the year, yet the seeds of learning germi- nated in that ground with great certainty, and that the young plants grew thriftily and took root with a firm fibre in the strong mountain air.
At last, a second company of emigrants began to visit this then remote region. They brought with them all their little stock of wealth. The names of Allen, Birge, Beebe, Collins, Garrett, Griswold, Kilbourn, Phelps, Stoddard, Sanford, Webster, Woodruff, and others, are enrolled among the early settlers at "Bantam."
The revolutionary war was hardly over, when the Hon. Tapping Reeve, one of the judges of the superior court, opened a law school in this village. Its fame soon spread over the whole union. Judge Reeve was the sole teacher of this school from the time when he instituted it in 1784, down to 1798, when he associated with him as joint instructor, James Gould, Esquire. These two gentlemen continued together in this capacity until the year 1820, when Judge Gould took the superintendence of it, and delivered lectures to the students, being aided in the recitation-room by the Hon. J. W. Huntington. Judge Gould discontinued his lec- tures in 1833, at which time there had been educated at the Litchfield law school one thousand and twenty-four lawyers, from all parts of the United States .*
* A catalogue embracing the names of 805 of these students has been pub- lished, of whom 19 were from New Hampshire, 25 from Vermont, 98 from Mas- sachusetts, 208 from Connecticut, 124 from New York, 14 from Delaware, 12
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HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT.
It seems proper in this place to give a brief portraiture of the two men who exerted such an influence upon the juris- prudence of the western world, and upon the mind of that generation.
from New Jersey, 37 from Maryland, 16 from Virginia, 16 from North Carolina, 45 from South Carolina, 60 from Georgia, 9 from Kentucky, 25 from Pennsylva- nia, 22 from Rhode Island, every state then in the Union having been represented in the school. Fifteen of the number have been United States Senators, viz., Benjamin Swift, William Woodbridge, Henry W. Edwards, John C. Calhoun, Alfred Cuthbert, Horatio Seymour, Samuel S. Phelps, Jabez W. Huntington, Levi Woodbury, Perry Smith, Roger S. Baldwin, Peleg Sprague, Chester Ashley, Truman Smith, William C. Dawson, and John M. Clayton. Five have been members of the Cabinet ; viz., John C. Calhoun, Levi Woodbury, John Y. Ma- son, John M. Clayton, Samuel D. Hubbard. Ten have been Governors of states ; viz., H. W. Edwards, Marcus Morton, William Woodbridge, Levi Wood- bury, George B. Porter, Richard Skinner, Roger S. Baldwin, John Y. Mason, William W. Ellsworth, William C. Gibbs. Two have been Judges of the Su- preme Court of the United States; viz., Henry Baldwin and Levi Woodbury. Fifty have been members of Congress ; forty have been Judges of the highest state courts ; and several have been Foreign Ministers.
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