Letters While Tutor in College, 1824–1825

Princeton, April 21s£, 1824.

It is my expectation to leave Trenton to-morrow at 6 A. M. in the steamboat, for your city. Without more ado I give you the state of the case. A week ago nothing was further from my intentions, but a few days since I was astounded by the information that the trustees of the College had elected me mathematical tutor. This was the more extraordinary as I have already twice, in the most peremptory manner, refused the office; and as the proper complement of officers is now in the faculty, the appointment is extra, and at an unusual time. When I heard it, last Wednesday, my feelings instantly revolted, and I said No with the most perfect determination and confidence. Upon weighing all circumstances, however, and finding upon consulting with my friends that they all, without exception, urged my acceptance, I have determined to enter upon the duties at the commencement of next session. As I have formerly said to you, my youth will permit me to spare two or three years from my theological course, with advantage: I feel, and my friends feel for me, that my mind needs maturing before taking upon me the character of a minister. It is, after all, an odious situation, and I expect it to be, by far, the most trying and mortifying that I have ever been placed in. Yet trials, and self-denial, and mortifications I must expect in almost every situation. I need to be buffeted about a little to call forth what little energy and firmness I may possess. As the session commences just as that of the Seminary closes, I must take my vacation now, or not at all: and my lank and sal low cheeks demand some speedy recreation. It has been long since we saw one another, and each of us has, probably, undergone much change. As for me I fancy that in the prominent traits both of the outer and the inner man, you will find me much the same boy as ever. I am no son of Anak, and have altered little in dimensions. There was indeed once some glow and bloom of health upon my face, which has departed. I confess, with the confidence of friendship, knowing that it is not exposing myself to ill-timed raillery, that melancholy has secretly and deeply preyed upon my spirits, more than my most intimate friends would judge from my demeanour. Often, the unnatural and excessive gaiety of my manner has been accompanied by bitter gnawings at the soul. From this I suffer less than formerly; nothing at present. My temperament is such that I am susceptible of the most deep emotions of pleasure as well as pain to a great degree, but the pleasure is generally succeeded by a proportionable depression.

PRINCETON, May 14, 1824.

Your communication by [James] “Weatherby [of the Seminary] which I received this morning, admitted me to something very like a tete-d-tete with you. A letter, as the thought just now strikes me, should be as nearly as possible the transcript of one’s common-talk; or perhaps a better description of a good, that is an acceptable letter, would be that it is a soliloquy in black and white, penned with the freedom of a private meditation, yet written for the eye of another, with whom the disclosures it contains, are just as safe as in their native bosom. It is for answering this description that I like your letters; and, by adhering to the same rule, I have occasionally disgorged to you some of my splenetic meanings. You must take me just as you find me; I don’t ask you to pardon my failings; criticize them faithfully; but, prythee, bear with them. When I speak of melancholy to you, I speak of it seriously, and of melancholy in its truest and most appalling shape; not the puling, pensive, pleasing reveries of a moon-struck lover, or a young, novel-reading, boarding-school Miss; but that deep and horrible over-clouding of the soul, which none can understand but those who suffer it, which can be described only by faint and insufficient similitudes, which, until my nervous system received a violent shock, I never knew, and which I do sincerely wish you may always be able, as I never shall, — to laugh at. Nervous irritability (I am not com- but c.r-plaining) I have got in a very fair way by right of primogeniture, and have increased by neglect of proper recreation and exercise.

You know how closely body and soul are united, and how mental and corporeal changes go hand in hand. But perhaps you do not know — and may you never — what it is to feel the whole man in a state of distressing disorder, without knowing whether the body has communicated the distemper to the mind, or the mind to the body; to feel the tremulous agitation of the whole material fabric of nerves, and the accompanying and more in tolerable agitation of spirit, depression, blues, hypochondria, or what you will. Will you smile when I say that to shake off this state of soul — I call it so, for the suffering of body is trifling — is no less impossible than to shake off a fit of the stone 1 One is equally with the other a disease. Call it, if you please, a disorder of the imagination, and say that it is whim and folly. Granted; and yet it is no less dreadful, far more mortifying, equally beyond the influence of mere resolution. When a withered arm can stretch itself out for relief, then may a diseased mind heal itself. Could I once determine to be placid and cheerful, and so effect a change in the mental state, the cure would be already complete. Enough as to the physiology of the case — now for its reality in my own person. I am more easily excited to pleasure or pain than most persons. My joys are excessive; sometimes a little frantic. The same susceptibility makes me liable to depression from circumstances which would scarcely for a moment ruffle the feelings of some; and to depression, some times, which has no perceptible cause without. To compare levity and melancholy in a moral point of view, is comparing two sins equally repugnant to the mild placidity and cheerful calm which the truths of the gospel produce on a heart that is exercised aright. The latter afllicts my conscience least, because it is what I loathe, and what I would as joyfully shun as I would a delirium, and which it is just as much in my power to avoid. Undue mirth is a fault which brings with, it, to me, its punishment, in the shape of the vapours which follow in its footsteps. Perhaps the words I may have used in a former letter convey to your mind an impression not exactly correct. Forebodings of future pain or misery arc not often the subjects of my thoughts, but there comes over my soul, I can no otherwise describe it, a cloud, a blackness, a horror, which tinges every object with out or within with a certain indefinable, vague, and terrific darkness; which absorbs the powers of the soul, and seems to concentrate all the faculties upon some hideous something, or nothing, and waste the mental energy in empty musing. I am some times months without such a visitation, and sometimes weeks with little else; and my condition has been somewhat this for a week past. But peace — let us rise into daylight.

I might write you a great deal of loose gossip, were it not for my pressing business, and my very, very kind acquaintances, who are too obliging to wait for any hint to come, and too dull to take any hint to go, and who never think of such a query as “Is he at leisure?” I am indeed laid under the necessity of husbanding every hour. I have scarcely looked at mathematics for a year, and am expected to take the tuition of the Sophomore class, who have been at Algebra all the winter, as well as to induct them into geometry, and the Freshmen into Algebra. The preparation requisite is by no means slight. It is something more than what might enable one to undergo a strict examination upon the several subjects. The instructor must hold him self in continual readiness to detect every error, as soon as made, and to enter immediately into every variety in the mode of demonstration or solution. And, by the bye, the intensity of attention which this will require, in the recitation-room, will equal hours of study in the closet, as to exhaustion of spirits, as well as to improvement of the mind in fixed habits of thought.

The examination of the Theological Seminary is now going on. From this, I am now, as having no further connexion with the Seminary, exempt. Our printing press, though a little thing, is yet a mighty wonder here. The children, great and small, are turning up their eyes, and expanding their palms at the novel sight of “PRINCETON” at the foot of the title-page of a “Report” just printed.

My real troubles commence, unless Providence interpose in an unexpected manner, next Thursday. Then may you expect to hear of cracker-firing, of scraping (do you understand “?) of funking, of door-bolting, of ducking, of rope-tripping, of wir.dowbreaking, of all the petty vengeance which unruly striplings wreak on their hapless instructors. My colleague in the tutor ship, Mr. Samuel K. Talmage,1 made a speech at the Bible So-

1 Now President of Oglethorpe University, Georgia. In a public letter, written in August, 1859, Dr. Talmage says:” We were placed on terms of very intimate intercourse and communion as fellow-tutors during the year 1 824. He had become pious since we had parted as students, and I now saw much of his inner life, as he disclosed it but to few. He had grown graver in manner, and somewhat prone to pensiveness of spirit. To the public eye he seemed retiring and apparently distant. But when with a friend in a retired walk, or in the abandon and intimacy of private personal intercourse, he was the most cheerful of companions, abounding in playful remark and discriminating observation. He had a keen relish for the humorous, and a nice appreciation of the virtues and defects of his fellow-men. He had a perfect horror of cant, pretension, bigotry, exclusiveness, and was himself remarkably free from all these failings, thus imparting an irresistible charm to his intercourse with friends.

“His piety was, even at that period, deep toned, and remarkably advanced for one of his age. He was at times overwhelmed with a sense of sinfulness, and has told me that often he could scarcely refrain from crying out in the college chapel from an awful sense of guilt before God, under the pungent appeals of the beloved Professors of the College and Theological Seminary, although he was sitting on the stage before the assembled students as one of the Faculty.”

4:6 WHILE TUTOR EST COLLEGE.

ciety anniversary in New York. How long shall it be before our turn comes 1

What think you of the presidential squabble? Jackson brightens wonderfully. His recent letters — 1 mean his recently published letters, set the man’s character in a noble light, and command my highest respect.

Saturday.

My boasting is generally fatal to my hopes, by throwing me off my guard. That cold, or a lineal descendant from it, has come upon me like a strong man armed. I have tried the valiant mode, of defying the cough, and going through thick and thin in spite of it, and the effect has been to fix it deeply in my lungs. I am now reduced to terms of submission, and am driven to the humble mode; i. e. sitting by the fire, keeping out of the wind, drinking teas and slops, and eating pectoral medicaments of various kinds. This regimen, together with an approach to starvation, promises to release me.

The title of an old Scotch song furnishes a key to many of my actions — “For lack of gowd” [My temptation to covet greater affluence is small, while I am at home; and even in your city, where baits are hung out everywhere, I presume that habit would soon make me able to withstand their influence. When I look around me at those who have silver and gold always in promptu, I cannot perceive that they are one whit happier than

myself. Is, think you, more comfortable and easy, than

when his only fortune was his tongue, his whiskers, and his front of brass? These thoughts you will doubtless be wonderfully surprised at, for their originality.

I would not call myself an admirer of the “Lake school of poetry,” but I have seen passages in the works both of Coleridge and Wordsworth which have breathed the true spirit of poetry, and gone home — I know not and ask not why — to my inmost soul. If these lines are not to be found in the “Sybilline Leaves,” or perhaps in the “lines upon the vale of Chamouny,” which I have not ad unguem, you will find there much that is cast in the same mould. It would be difficult to extract from the Lake-poets a longer passage than this without involving some of their “littlenesses,” to use one of their own words, yet a good delectus might be culled out of them of such isolated morsels. If this little scrap, which, like the mutilated Torse, shows the hand of a master, is American, so much the better. Tell

1 Referring to some twenty lines of an anonymous quotation on Niagara. They proved to be the American Brainerd’s.

“The thoughts are strange which crowd into my brain,” &c.

that Mr. [Moses C.] Scarle [of the Seminary] is within nine inches of my elbow; has just played and sung the old favourite “O years are flown,” &c., and “Suppliant” this moment. We

have not heard his violoncello since Aunt left us, and

George Potts [when in Seminary] used to make one in all our little concerts. The absence of the distant friends was more deeply felt than the presence of those at hand, and music has a power to bring back old recollections with a life peculiar to itself. The scene was not altogether to my liking. I am not fond of tears, and to me there is no “bliss” in them; they are at best a quid pro quo, a less evil for a greater, a price paid for getting rid of grief, or the swelling outrageousness of grief. Yet just now with my mother overwhelmed, my father to a considerable degree melted, Mr. Searle weeping, or something like it, and Bill looking amazingly comical between an attempted smile and an unaccountable quivering about the lower lip, premonitory, in some cases, of a “cry,” I felt not a little incommoded, and read with might and main in an obsolete newspaper that happened to be within reach. “Launch s” dog in the Two Gentlemen of Verona was not more consummately hard-hearted.

Reed [” Student’s Notes “] certainly is a fine writer. But do you not see a very close imitation of the mannerism of his favourite Gibbon? It is natural that he should glide into the same style, from continual intimacy, but there seems to me a studied copying of the gorgeous and protracted simile, the measured and rhythmical structure of sentences, and the elaborate circumlocutions of the great Heathen. He writes in a manly and eloquent manner, notwithstanding imperfections, which those who cannot equal him may discover.

My fears are not slight, that I shall, in these misanthropic walls, become “the mere student,” and forget my duties to those without, as well as neglect to cultivate the society of the amiable and the tender. If I live until next Autumn, I shall, probably, be even more a clown than I now am, and need an evolution of six weeks among softening scenes to bend and mollify me.

Sunday, 11 o’clock.

I am left at home while the rest of the family have gone to church. My hours, in my present condition, are likely to hang heavily upon my hands, therefore a little serious talk with y<>u will be both interesting and proper. My melancholy — I commence at the old point, for, you know, it is a physical impossibility to start from any other point than that in which the body is found at the moment when the motion commences; — my melancholy, if I may compare great things withymall, and pretend even to the blemishes of a great man, is described to a tittle by Cowper, in one of his letters cited in the “May Advocate.” 1 Like him, I find my bitterest ruminations so wrought up with fantastical thoughts and phantasies, that I am forced to laugh at my own creations, when I feel miserable enough to hang myself. That tall fellow whom he describes so happily, stands preeminent in my chamber of thought, and utters his eternal cry like the most pertinacious shad-woman.3 Like him (P. S. you will see by reading the letter that I am wrong) I can be gloomy, yea wretched, without being sober, and the transition is oftener easier from hypochondria to levity, than to seriousness. Like him I find religion, and religious thoughts, not the causes or the concomitants of melancholy, but its surest remedy. When the promises of Scripture can be brought to bear, as I thank God they have sometimes been, upon my troubled mind, they have never, never failed to diffuse a calm and a sweet content which makes the Gospel more valuable, as to this life, to me, than it would be under different circumstances. Yet infatuated creatures that we are! that which we know, and have tasted to be the chief and only good, how ready are we to neglect and abandon! A hymn of Madame Guion, (whom the world calls fanatic,) translated by Cowper, impressed me deeply this morning. Among other lines, these:

“Long plunged in sorrow, I resign

My soul to that dear hand of thine,
Without reserve or fear;

That hand shall wipe my streaming eyes;

Or into smiles of glad surprise,.
Transform the fulling tear.

My soul’s possession is thy love;

In earth beneath, or heaven above,
I have no other store;

And though with fervent suit I pray,

And importune thee night and day,
I ask thee nothing more.”

Of sorrow she says:

“It costs me no regret, that she,
Who followed Christ, should follow me;

And though, where’er she goes,
Thorns spring spontaneous at her feet,
I love her — and extract a sweet

From all my bitter woes.”

1 The extracts in the “Advocate” were from the “Private Correspondence” of Cowper, first published by his kinsman, Dr. John Johnson, in 1824.

a “My thoughts are clad in a sober livery, for the most part as grave as that of a bishop’s servant. They turn, too, upon spiritual subjects; but the tallest fellow and the loudest amongst them all, is he who is continually crying out with a l«ud voice, actwn est de te; periisti.” — Letter to Newton.

Does it amuse you to hear me talk of sorrows? I confess that to complain would be a heinous ingratitude in me. I have had perhaps more external favours and forbearance at the hand of Providence than most persons, and I do desire to thank God; but still, there is a world within, a world that seems as vast and wonderful, and inexplicable as that without, to one who has the habit or the disease of poring inward upon it. And here, whether from imaginary fears (though these are not my great tormentors) or conflicts between inclination and duty, between a restless, ambitious, proud, and giddy soul, and a principle that strives to keep down its gigantic writhings, and labours to repress the upheavings and desperate agonies of effort, in the earthy spirit, which oftentimes gets the upper hand, and crowds under the poor weak element of piety, and triumphs in a mighty rage — here in the inner man, when the gale of hilarity, and the bustle and hurricane of business is blown over, and when religion, through sinful neglect, is not at work to make this ocean smooth, — “when,” as Hurley says, “I am brought to face at night, or in solitude, that phantom self, which all day long I have laboured to avoid; what can be conceived more horrible!” Enough, far, far too much am I drivelling to you of this. I grant you a truce. I was going to say, just when the unruly quill took the bit in his mouth and ran away with me, that no thought has within a day or two, struck me more forcibly than this — “why do we not live as we know most assuredly we ought to live?” Why do we not obey the imperative call of duty, of gratitude, which commands us to love God with all our soul, and reiterates the extent of this demand, with all our strength, &c.? Why despise the call of interest? Godliness, says Jehovah, who cannot lie, (and O my slight experience enables me to say Amen with exultation,) is profitable for all things, having the promise of the life which now is, and that which is to come. / know that the love of God in the heart does fill and satisfy .it, partly by filling that void which, I know as surely, ambitious thoughts, or glorious success, or wealth, or pleasure can never fill; and partly by repressing and quenching a thousand vain desires which give us incessant and fruitless anxiety. I have been ambitious — What do I say? I am this moment, in spite of God’s law, ambitious to a high degree. What has been its fruit? Am I happier? Do I not still, and will I not forever be gasping after something yet to come? something which never can come1? Will fame gratify mei? Will universal honour give me peace? Will a conquered world make me more content than my insane name-

1 A Roman Catholic preacher whom he had heard in Philadelphia. VOL. i. — 3 sake of Macedon? No! my experience, and universal testimony, and the word of Jehovah thunder, No! Did you ever read the life of Henry Martyn 1 If you have not, upon the strength of our friendship, I charge and entreat you to do so. My present perusal of it is about the sixth, which for me, who seldom read any book through, is strong proof of esteem. If there is on earth or on record a character which I love more than that of IT. Martyn, I know it not. To meet him in heaven is a wish that burns intensely in my heart.

Upon taking the highest honours at Cambridge, an honour which ennobles a man in the eyes of the whole British nation, and gives him a name in the whole world of letters, and for which he had for four years laboriously toiled — he said: “I have grasped this bubble honour, and it vanishes in my hand,” — and thenceforward renounced the world and himself, and became a self-denied and honoured servant of God. Could I tread in his steps, I should feel no envy for the highest potentate, or the greatest scholar upon this footstool. And why cannot you and I, as well as Martyn, take up our cross and follow Christ 1 It is not that the gate is not thrown wide open. Every page of Scripture gives the lie to such a thought. It is solely because the way is so strait, that our worldly pleasures, our gods, our palpable enjoyments, (which lie close to us and are therefore appreciated,) our joys which are merely terrene cannot accompany us.

I have sometimes been inclined to murmur at the idea that we must deny ourselves, that we must give our whole souls to God, that it is impossible to “love the world” without being “the enemy of God,” — and to shrink from that yoke which, to my dim eye, seemed to bring no indemnity for the loss of good things; but the demands of the Scripture are inexorable, and it is not until we are willing to receive the whole truth and to obey it, that we can pretend to be willing to be saved. It is not be cause the gate of entrance is inaccessible, that I have felt my stubborn soul unwilling to strive to enter in. It is because it is too low for my pride, and too arduous for my indolence. “Believe,” is a price too small, and “Work out your salvation with fear and trembling,” a labour too great for unsanctified human nature. Is it instruction as to what we are to do that we need? He that has his Bible needs nothing else. Is it assistance in doing what we know is duty 1

“Were half the words thus vainly spent,
To heaven in supplication sent,
Our cheerful song would oftener be,
Hear what the Lord has done for me.”

Cowper.

Monday, May 17 th.

Dr. preached last night; the general impression left

by his performance, was that his manner was by far too light for the pulpit. I think so too. He prayed that God would destroy and eradicate “that cursed superstition” (Popery) from South America. Such language I think not only unchristian, but upon his own principles, without foundation. The popish creed does contain, shrouded in great superstition, I confess — but still it does contain, the great fundamental saving doctrines of the Bible. Better far would it be to curse those doctrines which many in our communion hold, to wit, that every thought of man is an immediate effect of God’s efficiency; that every blasphemous thought is, as much as every pious thought, caused by God’s immediate agency. From my soul I could curse such blasphemy as this.

NASSAU HALL, No. 25, May 21, 1824.

This is my first letter since I came into this house. I have indeed, time for nothing but the incipient duties and preparations of my new situation. I can promise you but few such voluminous reports as my last epistle. So fully am I occupied with little arrangements relative to my own accommodation and the admission of students, that I have not been at our house since yesterday morning. It requires all the effrontery which I can assume to fill my gown with any kind of effect, to sit in the focal point of vision before a hundred carping young gentlemen, on the scaffold yclep’d the stage, to march through the congregation at the foot of the refectory steps with manifold tokens of respect, and then to march at their head, and sit in state at the upper end of the long college table, &c., &c. However, in all such matters, when a thing must be done, I am fond of putting the best face upon it, and — “neck or nothing” going forward. I have never gained any thing by shrinking, although few have oftener made experiment of it, and shrink I will not, though my head should be the price of daring. If you wish to view an original character, and gain a study for future sketches, come hither, and I will show you my valet de place James McCarricr, a true born Emeralder, whose delight is rendering services, and who knows no greater happiness than to be kept constantly running, and doing. The addition to college is small — 6 or 7; it is seldom that a greater number is added at the commencement of the summer term. The examination of even this small band was tedious — an hour being consumed upon each. You will no doubt be pleased with the specimen of Princeton typography on the other side.

1 Proposals by Borrenstcin for publishing a weekly paper under the title of “The Princeton Religious and Literary Gazette.”

I foresee one thing with pleasure, that occupation is ousting melancholy thoughts and musings from my mind. I have so much real matter for anxiety, that the creations of fancy find little room. Love and regards to those who love and regard me.

NASSAU HALL, J/ay, 1824.

When I tell you that six hours and a half is the least portion of every day which I devote to Mathematics, — and I exclude the time of recitation, — you will be ready to pardon me for writing no more. My classes, the Freshman and Sophomore, have both made considerable progress in algebra, and the problems in Bonnycastle, especially in the last editions, are truly formidable. I am visited, too, by my hopeful youth from time to time, in order to be consulted respecting difficulties. These things require labour. Yet my motto shall ever be, Perseverando, or as my friend and servant Jemmy McCarrier would render it, “Wid patience and perseverance, a man may open an oyster, dear, wi’ a rollin-pin.” Add to these things such items as these. With us tutors, is left all the discretionary power for preserving order. No one can change his room without our permission, — or go to the tavern, or leave the bounds in study hours, or leave the refectory, or have a meal sent out to him, or take his seat after grace, or get a letter on Sunday, &c., &c., unless we give him leave. Besides going through the college thrice a day on a round of inspection, it is our rule to send for every student who fails to come voluntarily, and render an account of his absence from his chamber. This week, it becomes my duty to preside in the refectory, to conduct morning prayers in the chapel, and two prayer meetings connected with the college, as well as to have the more minute supervision of the students, and to take care that the edifice is never, for any time, left without one officer.

I should like if I had time to enter into a more free discourse with you upon Calvinism, than we have yet had. I think the matter may be talked over more satisfactorily, with less partiality and passion, and more probability of adhering to the subject, and attaining a conclusion, on paper, than vivd voce; and therefore, I avoided all mention of the matter at our last interview. I rejoice that you seem little disposed to cavil, and sneer. Too many use invective instead of argument, especially against the doctrines of our church, which, somehow or other, like their propagator himself, are “despised and rejected of men.” A dis-I 1 insert the simple, incontrovertible statements that follow in this and other letters, for the benefit of such sciolists, young and old, as the boy to whom they were originally addressed.

torted view of Calvinism is often held up as a target, at which the Arminian discharges his arrows with great pomp and complacency, and marches off with his victorious laurels, won from those who hold no such doctrines as those which he opposes. With you, I find no such doctrine as that of fate in the New Testament, nor did any ever pretend to such a discovery, as far as my information extends. Yet like some whom you name, after reducing matters to certain ultimate principles, I am guilty of referring much that is inexplicable to the unsearchable ways of God; and I do it in common with Arminians themselves, who, unless their knowledge of human power be pitiably meagre, must yield up many points as beyond their ken; with Socinians themselves, who, professedly rejecting all mystery, are still saddled with doctrines which they cannot thoroughly explain, and from which an escape to professed infidelity cannot entirely save them. I am willing to say, with Cowper,

“Deep in unfathomable mines

Of never- failing skill,
lie treasures up his bright designs,

And works his sovereign will.
Blind unbelief is sure to err,

And scan his work in vain:
God is his own interpreter,

And he will make it plain.”

I know that doctrines in themselves true and important may be made instrumental in doing great evil; and if there are those concerning wrhom you speak, although 1 own that I know not whither to go in search of them, I doubt not that in their hands this doctrine must produce an ill effect. But if you mean to ask whether the belief of sovereign, unconditional election, leads, from its nature, to want of fervour in piety and preaching, I would not hesitate a second to say no, with full assurance of being able to sustain my negative by a host of examples. I would not propose this as a test of the truth of a doctrine, although if victory over an opponent were my aim, I would ask no better ground. Look around you, and answer to your own self, your own inquiry. Think you that the Arminian clergy are the most ardent men, or that they evince more zeal than our own preachers? Was Luther indifferent to the soul’s interests of men when he thundered so nobly for God and truth? and yet he states the doctrine with a harshness which I dare not imitate. Was Martyn, was Newton, were Dr. Scott, Edwards, Da vies, devoid of anxiety for the welfare of men 1 Was Whitefield, who traversed the earth in seeking the lost sheep; or Brainerd, whose labours in a solitary wilderness terminated his life, destitute of fervid benevolence? Yet all these men did assert most stoutly the hateful doctrine of election, even that “God hath chosen some, in Christ, unto everlasting life, out of his mere free grace and love, without any foresight of faith, or good works, or perseverance in either of them, or any thing in the creature, as conditions, or causes moving him thereunto, and all to the praise of his glorious grace.” And what shall 1 say more, for time would fail me to tell of Eliot, and Buchanan, and Schwartz, and “Ward, and Carey, and Marshman, and (as I should say if speaking to one of my own belief) of the great teacher and defender of the doctrine, the zealous and indefatigable apostle of the Gentiles. Indeed, if you inquire who they are that in every place are most zealous for the Lord of hosts, you will find them men who delight to dwell upon God’s sovereignty, and man’s guilt and impotence. The Methodists, to be consistent, ought to cleave to these doctrines, for they do hold, and contend for the sister truths of abounding grace; and the fervour of their zeal may be attributed to the influence of these doctrines. Upon this principle, I proceed in forming my own opinions. The Bible speaks the truth. The Bible teaches this, or that — ergo, This and that are true. The syllogism is reversed with many persons. Thus they argue: The Bible speaks nought but the truth. This or that doctrine is not the truth. Therefore, the Bible does not teach this or that doctrine. I speak logically for conciseness. The major of the first syllogism I have proved to my own satisfaction. If I had not, I would cease to give myself any trouble about religion. The minor is, to me, clear as day; and I have been forced into it by stress of absolute conviction. I ask for no further proof. Explanation I may require, but it would seem most philosophical, first to discover what the Bible does say, and then to ask why it does say so. Now all metaphysics apart, — although all metaphysics, as I have no doubt a brief study of the controversy would convince you, bears with full power in favour of Calvinism. Read your Bilk. If you believe it firmly to be the word of God, you are fully prepared to commence the investigation. If you do not, without scruple, without the figment of a doubt, fully rest on it as a rule infallible, then cease, I pray you, to query with regard to doctrine. You cannot be satisfied as to the truth of a proposition, until you have a plenary reliance upon the

testimony. Examine your reasons for believing the Bible to be God’s word. What are they? Unless you can answer this satisfactorily to your own mind, pause, and investigate this base of all religious argumentation. Suppose that you should meet in the Bible this day, such a text as this, “He that sinneth once, shall forever be damned, and that without the possibility of atonement or rescue.” How would it afl’ect you? Would you believe it? If you continued to inspect the page, and still continued to find these words, and could find no escape or evasion, would you believe them 1 If not, then your confidence in the Bible is yet wavering. I hold myself ready to believe all and every the contents of the Bible, On reading such a text as that which I have made, I should, no doubt, be startled; I might doubt whether I understood it; I might suspect it to be an interpolation; but as soon as this doubt should be removed, so soon should I believe that proposition. The Unitarian, in such circumstances, says, — it is false, therefore God has not said it; therefore, though how it came there, I am unable to explain, yet believe it I will not. Evidently he is now tearing up the foundations of all his previous creed. He has proved, or he ought to have proved to his own mind, that the Scriptures are the word of God, and that all which they contain is true, or ho ought to have some infallible touchstone by whose aid to discriminate between the true and the false. To make our own limited views and knowledge this touchstone, is obviously irrational; for thus the Hindoo who reads the Bible would reject the unity of the Godhead; the Mussulman would reject the spirituality of the Christian paradise; the lover of sin would denounce the doctrine of eternal punishment; and every carnal heart would answer against God, and say, “Why hast thou made me thus?” Our only firm footing is here.

A book comes to us purporting to be a revelation from God. Examine the proofs which it brings to substantiate this claim. If they are incontrovertible, believe the book, and believe every word in it. If they are insufficient, burn the volume. Now I think that the Bible tells me that there are three persons in the Godhead, and I believe it, as I believed my father when he told me that the earth moved round the sun, although my senses flatly contradicted it. And I think that God tells me in the Scriptures that “he hath chosen us in Christ before the foundation of the world,” — “that we should be (not because we should be) holy, and without blame before him in love.” I cannot read Rom. viii. 30, and doubt whether sanctification be the cause of our election, or election of our sanctification. So 2 Tim. i. 9. We are “created in Christ,” — the expression is a notable one — “unto good works, which God hath ordained that we should walk in them.” Can those works thus foreordained be the foundation of our election? Say so, and you embrace a difficulty liable to all the objections which can be urged against our doctrine. In the third chapter of the confession of faith you may find my creed on this subject. This is, what our church calls it, a high mystery, and yet not more so than a thousand other credible truths. And as to its repugnance to reason, I see it not. Does the certainty that an act will take place destroy the liberty of the agent? Yet this certainty is what God’s decree secures, and it does nc more. However, as I shall never cease to say — read your Bible; and if you read it candidly, I care not what else you read not. This simple means led Luther, and Calvin, and Melancthon, and Hamilton to the truth, from the corruptions of popery. This simple means brought the candid and pious Dr. Scott from Socinianism to Calvinism. And God’s word has never failed to enlighten those who peruse it with sincerity.

June lsL

The first of May I spent in your company, free from all cares, and all regular employment; this day finds me as closely chained to business as was ever a galley slave. Yet business is my balm, the panacea for all my ailings, and therefore I never can complain of the greatest amount of active useful labour, which it is possible for me to undergo.

I have been reading Irving’s orations again; particularly the latter parts of his Argument, and my admiration for the man increases with every nearer view. If any living writer may be said to think for himself, Irving is that man: and even if he often draws hasty and incorrect conclusions, who would not pardon them, when the general character of the work is so manly and independent? His affectation ceases, already, to appear so to me. His defence of eternal punishment is one of the most commanding arguments I ever read.

None of the casualties which you mention have yet befallen your tutor. Indeed, matters have proceeded, as yet, very swim mingly. There has been no act of the faculty this session calculated to excite the indignation of the young gentlemen, and until that takes place we may expect peace and safety. Open disrespect has never been shown to any of the present tutors during the eighteen months which they have spent here, and although, out of doors, and behind their backs, / have heard them reviled, and calumniated, and ridiculed, yet they tell me that they have never, even in the times of highest excitement, met with any thing short of external courtesy. I can certainly say this much for the manners of our students, that I never received more universal and continued deference from any persons whatever. I know, from my own recollections, that even when young men talk in the most braggadocio style, and vow eternal vengeance on their teachers, they are as meek as lambs in their presence. You would smile at the difference in the manner of a young man

when he struts among his mates in the campus, and when lie comes, with all possible humility, to ask leave to go into the town, or to be excused from recitation. Our laws are so well digested, and our discipline so exact, that, except in cases of general rebellion, no student dares to offer indignity to any officer. The faculty are always united in supporting their own authority, and the trustees in backing the faculty; and dismission or expulsion is what no young man, however depraved, wrill hazard for nothing. Their tricks are tricks of fear. They are done always under cover of darkness, and are generally such as it would disgrace them among their own comrades to avow. As to personal danger, I believe that a park of cannon would not keep me from what I think is my sworn duty. Strength of nerve I have not, but I am mistaken greatly if I dare not face any danger which these wralls can ever harbour. Every student who falls under discipline, as many must, looks on the person who exercises it as his personal enemy; and hence, rancour and hatred I do expect. Every one who is guilty and suffers punishment, makes up the best story possible, to clear his character; and as the faculty make no official statements, these accounts from the culprits are those which gain currency. So that calumny and contempt I expect. Yet I know that the straightforward line of duty never led man wrong. I may suffer in a thousand ways, but if I am permitted to act conscientiously, then may I say, Integer vitce, &c. I think — for I use the confidence of friendship — that without vain boasting, I can say, that my determination is to make the rule of duty my only rule in my new station. College popularity is a wind that is forever shifting, you know not why or wherefore, and it seldom long fans the faithful officer. For so changeable a thing, and a thing so worthless, let me never go a hair’s breadth out of my way.

You speak with justice of the formality of ministers. It is a woeful truth, and it is with shuddering that I anticipate adding myself to the venerable corps which contains already so many d cones. Yet there are those who, bating the inevitable imperfections of nature, are what their Saviour directed them to be; and perhaps the reason why they seem to be so few is, that they do not seek the glare and bustle of publicity, and pompous anniversaries. My own favourite Moravians do seem to have caught some of the apostolic spirit.

Your notions respecting the conduct of professors of religion, ns far as you have clearly denned them, seem to contain a great deal that is true. Christians do, too much, connive at the levity and thoughtlessness of the world, although I think that, cceterit paribus, whatever is lawful and expedient for a non-professor, is VOL. i. — 3* lawful and proper for a professor of religion. It is every man’s duty to love God, and therefore all the self-denial and obligations resulting from this love are the duty of every man. A profession of faith, is merely one of these resulting duties. God forbid that I should say aught in exculpation of our brotherhood; our guilt is rank; yet I sometimes think that the “world” who keep not one commandment, take an inconsistent pleasure in criminating the “church,” who endeavour to obey in some. As for my self, I feel a daily compunction for my failings. There cannot, surely, be a human creature less satisfied with himself than I. In religion, in moral principle, in every branch of attainment and character, I see myself far, far below what I desire to be, and often can I enter into the spirit of the Apostle’s remarks, Rom. vii. 14 — 25. I confess that I see very little in the selfish, secluded, torpid devotion of the monk, which savours of the glowing, expansive, ever active piety of the Apostles. I know too much of solitude to have very romantic ideas of the piety which is generated by it. Spleen and moroseness gain more rapid growth in the cell, than benevolence and humility.

Cicero comes next upon the docket. It requires no great in dependence of soul to think him a master in eloquence. This I do, and my conviction of his just claim to that character, increases with every new approach towards familiarity with his writings. I do not, it is true, rise into the raptures which some affect, and which a few may feel, and for this simple reason, I am not sufficiently versed in the Latin language. Every Frenchman who has been in America six months, knows more of English than I do of Latin; and yet who would set up such a man as a judge of the merits of Shakespeare? And believe me, the peculiar circumstances which render the latter writer obscure, exist in a threefold degree, with regard to the orator. Yet his invectives against Catiline, and especially the peroration “Pro Mi lone,” I have felt, and felt in a manner that assured me how powerfully his words must have smitten the souls of those who listened. Demosthenes I have never felt, and yet I dare not suspect a moment, that he was not a noble orator. I do not profess myself able to judge. I cannot feel the Greek language, and I can hardly feel the Latin. But the claims of these men do not rest on wrhat may strike us, nor even on the universal suffrage of scholars, (I say universal, for with the exception of a few wrongheads, who would rather broach a new lie, than submit to

1 In May of this year, he contributed to the National Gazette, (“from the portfolio of a solitary student,”) an article on “Cicero de Aniicitia;” and in July, another on “Mlddlcton’s Life, and Melmoth’s Epistles of Cicero.”

believe an old truth, I know none competent to judge who have dissented,) the effects, the unparalleled effects at the time, declare beyond all contradiction how eloquent, how superhuman were their powers.

Aikin’s lines upon Melancholy, &c., have much reason in them. I know, as to my own case, that placidity of mind is the sole preventive and remedy. “Is not this like saying that ease of body is the best preventive of rheumatism?” Not exactly. Quiet of mind, equally removed from the intoxication of company and the intoxication of study; the medium between jollity and spleen, it is in the power of a man to whom belongs “mens sana in corpore sano” to preserve. This quiet is to be found, not in the bustle of life, not in the palaestra of literary ambition, not in mystic ravings, not in that most variable and tyrannous of all pursuits, authorship, but in a life of gentle, virtuous, regular business.

I have been confined to the house almost all this day, by the rain, so that I get more time than usual for writing. But when I do sit down to write, after the fatiguing, but pleasing studies of the day, my pen and my thoughts move heavily, and remind me of men whom I have seen walking home after gorging at a great dinner, hardly able to draw one foot before the other. For want of something better, I send you some lines which acconi panied a bouquet, sent last summer to a little girl:

Perhaps these flowers, so frngrant now, and fair,

Culled from their native stalk with nicest care,

Ere thy young hands have touched them, or thine eye

Has hailed the promised gift, shall fade and die.

Thus, cv’n in tasting, vanish all our joys,

Frail as our clay-built frame, mere transitory toys.

These various petals, bright as clouds of eve,

From God’s creative touch their hues receive;

These tints so exquisite, this gorgeous frame

So richly coloured, from his pencil came.

Yet heaven-born as they are, and to the sight

Of wond’ring eyes, too sweet to know a blight;

Still must they fade, their season is a span

Brief, gay, and brilliant, like the life of man,

Seen, like a flash, through midnight clouds to quiver —

A moment brightly seen — then gone forever.

Use wisely then these flowrets, while they last,

Quaff all their sweetness — or if thou canst cast

Some charm about their evanescent bloom,

That may prolong their day, — postpone their doom —

Or perpetuity to odours give,

Formed but a little season fresh to live, —

This do — and kindly, from the withering breath

Of blasting heat release these heirs of death.

But shall no tender wish my gilt attend?

Yes, dearest, thy early, unchanged friend,

Prays from his inmost soul, that every grace

These emblem flowers can picture — in thy face,

Thy form, thy manners, and thy opening mind,

In sweetest harmony may be combined;

And by some charm of richest heavenly dew

Guarded from all that withering blasts can do.

And when from Earth transplanted, may’st thou bloom

In a new Paradise beyond the tomb.

Do you ever read Wordsworth? I should very much like to get a copy of his Lyrical Ballads. I wish the men who so “belabour him in their critiques, would borrow from him a little of that rare originality and poetic fire which sometimes shine out among his quaint and childish thoughts. Have you ever skated? Then read this:

“So through the darkness and the cold we flew,
And not a voice was idle: with the din,
Meanwhile the precipices rang aloud:
The leafless trees and every icy crag
Tinkled like iron: while the distant hills
Into the tumult sent an alien sound
Of melancholy, not unnoticed, while the stars
Eastward were sparkling clear, and in the west
The orange sky of evening died away.”

O I feel it! I feel it! and it breathes into my soul all the soft recollections of just such a scene, a long, long time ago, when I was all sport and frolic. This accurate description, whether of objects of perception or consciousness, is, after all, what most enters into my heart. Here is a quotation that will bear studying, and I confess it moves me not a little. [Then followed the familiar lines, beginning:

“Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting.”]

June, *lth.

Had a cracker about two o’clock on the night before last; it was exploded at the prayer-hall door, which it burst open, about 25 yards from my head. I was not certain what it was that had awakened me, until my room was filled with powder-smoke, which came in through the glass ventilator above my door. No bones broken yet. Indeed the physical inconveniences of my station I do not regard one straw.

If you see a man in Philadelphia dressed in a Tartan plaid frock coat, with a cape, — note him. He is a captain in the regular service of the British. By his costume you may know him to be eccentric, but you must see him more closely to know all about him. He is a man of considerable property, living upon full pay, a bachelor, on an indefinite furlough, and yet is as economical as a miser, and as laborious, in teaching a school, as a pauper, and all from a purity and benignity of motive that I have hardly ever known in any other man. 1 know him to have given $2,000 in private charity during the last year. He lived thirteen years in India, is a thorough master of the Telinga, Hindoostanee, and Persian languages, and more than all, shows in the fervour of his conversation, and the beneficence and kindness of his life, that he is a sincere Christian. If you wish to see benevolence personified, see Capt. •.

NASSAU HALL, June 19, 1824.

I think I shall throw up gazettcering. It is my desire, I confess, to leave something behind me that may testify, after my death, that I have not been altogether a useless stock in this world; but ten years will not be too much to spend in secret meditation before thinking of such a thing. If I die within that time, God’s will be done. If I live, I shall be able to have matured my crude and now only germinating notions, and to judge what may, or may not, do good. Hear a short translation from Herder, a German philosopher: “With the greatest possible solicitude avoid authorship. Too early, or immoderately employed, it makes the head waste, and the heart empty, even were there no worse consequences. A person who reads only to print, in all probability reads amiss; and he who sends away through the pen and the press, every thought, the moment it occurs to him, will, in a short time, have sent all away, and will become a mere journeyman of the printing office, a compositor, “ein blosser Diener der Druckerey, ein Buchstabensetzer.” This, from a fortunate author, has weight.

NASSAU HALL, June 21, 1824.

The one simple question with me is, “what says the Scripture 1” Unless we become as little children, we cannot enter into the kingdom of God, and in no point is the unquestioning humility of a child of God more put to the test, than in receiving doctrines which even in apostolic times, were rejected and opposed. Very few Pharisees ever came to Christ and those who did, were not wont to inquire of him how far his doctrine tallied with their preconceived opinions, but simply to believe. I beg you to remember, that I do not stake myself to answer for all, nor for any of the faults of Calvinists; I am not desirous in the slightest degree, of vindicating God’s character against those who choose to accuse his doctrines of inconsistence with any doctrine whatever of free-will, or free-agency. “If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God,” and I know not that he has anywhere promised to make plain, to a mind that is unwilling to obey his first commandment, those decrees which he has of his good pleasure chosen to reveal. “All the disputes between us and the Arminians may be reduced to these two questions: 1. Is God dependent upon man, or is man dependent upon God? 2. Is man a debtor to God, or is God a debtor to man?” Please to ponder upon them. According to Arminiamsm, as I have heard, grace has the name, but free-will has the game. But enough: and to use the words of the same minister whom I last quoted, “One moment’s communion with God is worth all the controversial writings in the world” — and this communion I would fain have you to know.

[After mentioning what he considered his spiritual declension, for the last six months, the letter continues.] But I thank his name that he has caused the solitary reading and devotion of this my privacy to arouse me to some sense of the realities of religion. My determination now is this — and may God prevent my falling again by the hands of my adversary — henceforward to “seek the righteousness of God,” “knowing that all other things shall be added unto me.” “Henceforward let no man trouble me, for I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus.” I can enter with a sweetness which I never before experienced, into these words, Gal. iii. 8 — 19, and address them fervently to you. And, my dear friend, let me exhort you from a heart that knows no insincerity upon this subject, to seek, or rather accept that righteousness of God which he condescends to offer. “What am I to do 1” say you 1 This is the work, saith Jesus, which he requireth of you, to believe on him whom he hath sent. If you wish to know what belief is, and what conversion is, I could not refer you to a better answer than that of one of the sailors on board the Thames to [Rev. C. S.] Stewart. See last Advocate. Truly the wind bloweth where it listeth, and ye hear the sound thereof, but cannot tell whence it cometh or whither it goeth. So is every one who is born of the Spirit. You have turned over the Bible, and you have, I can say, with out oracular insight into your heart, you have tried various ways of becoming pious; you have done this and that, and are perhaps wondering where that change so much spoken of is to be found. You have sought relief to your mind by endeavouring to shrink from those doctrines of God’s sovereignty which you cannot but

1 “It is not any thing you have done or can do. It is only believing and trusting to what Christ has done: it is having your sins pardoned and soul saved, because he died and shed his blood for sin, and it is nothing else.”

see in the literal text of almost every book in the New Testament. Now answer to your own conscience; I do not assume the part of a questioner, or ask for an answer — Have you any free-will to be a Christian? If you have, why then, I am ready to cease inquiring of you; for this unanswerable question stares you in the face, Why am I not holy? If your heart is like mine, it is a sink of uncleanness, and so long as you endeavour to conceal this from yourself, you do but err. If you are able, from being dead in trespasses and sins, to raise yourself to life, (for give the solecism; it lies in the absurd doctrine,) then why ask for assistance any longer ] Arise and stand up in the perfection of Christian character. Look back on your past life, and tell me how many free acts you ever did. Did you ever do one thing, or take one step, which was not the effect of some preceding view or feeling 1 If you have, name it, and I will grant you the freedom of your will. Can you will to be everlastingly miserable 1 Sit down and try; and then say whether your will is free: if it is as much dependent on motives as the wheels of a watch on the spring, it is about as free. If it is not absolutely and literally independent, in all possible cases, to call it free is nugatory. The carnal mind, believe me, is enmity against God, and is not subject to his will, neither indeed can be. You must be born again. You may marvel, as did Nicodemus; and yet if I have told you earthly things, and you believe not, if the first doctrine of the Bible is beyond your comprehension, how shall you believe if I tell you of heavenly things? how shall the inscrutable and eternal things of God be clear to you?

Are you desirous of being converted to God, or does your pride cause you to reject the humbling terms of the Gospel? The gate of the kingdom is strait, and pride must crouch low before that little wicket gate can be entered. Now, answer conscience, and not me. Suppose God to judge of your desire to be converted by the means which you use, and the earnestness and importunity with which you use them, what do you suppose would be his estimate of the anxiety which you manifest 1 Answer to him, how many times you have earnestly sought in his word for the means of salvation. Ah! have you not oftener asked of man 1 or have you asked at all? I feel no hesitation in saying here as elsewhere, Go straight to the Scriptures. Sectarians may squabble as they please, yet I have no fear in directing any one to go to the fountain head, the Bible. You may say that you have. How many days did you ever devote to it? how many anxious nights? If the body, instead of the undying soul, was in peril, you would scarce think of aught beside. Remember the word is strive (uyuw£ere) to enter, &c. And I prediet that unless your eyes are opened by his Spirit that you will find no sweetness there; therefore pray, and that not in halfearnest, for that wisdom which he has promised to give to all who ask.

NASSAU HALL, July 10, 1824.

I begin by informing you that I have finally been humbled by the prostration of my own will, which has been since birth free only to evil, to the point of entire submission to God. I have been a false and hypocritical professor, but God has in mercy brought me to a view of my utter impotence, of the justice of the law which would condemn me to eternal wrath, and of my being helpless in the hands of an Almighty Avenger. Henceforward, my single aim is, to submit myself to God as an instrument in his hands to be used for what he chooses. Death would be a release, should it come this instant; and except to do God’s work, I desire not to breathe another moment. You talk of election, &c. Depend upon it you will ever sink into an abyss of perplexity and deeper and still deeper confusion, until you renounce a dependence upon your own powers of intellect. Spiritual vision or faith is as different from intellectual vision or mere belief (in a human sense) as their objects are diverse. The one is conversant with naked speculations which might for ever play about the head and communicate no spark of heat. The other is the gift of God. If any man will do the will of God he shall know of the doctrine whether it be of God. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved, and a part of this salvation is a knowledge of the truth. Christ is “made unto us knowledge,” when you have received power to be the son of God through him, then shall you see in him all that it is necessary for you to know. Read 1 Cor. i. 18-31. It is the Spirit that teacheth. 1 Cor. ii. 6, 7, and 10 and 14. If you wish to understand these things let me direct you to the Scriptures. Quere. How many days did you ever devote exclusively to the prayer ful reading of the Bible 1 And how great is the probability of your understanding it until you dig in it, as for choice treasure? And how great is your anxiety on the subject, if you have never given even a week to the book 1 Are you not more fond of read ing human discussions on the subject, than of going to the fountain-head? Do you not often dispute in your own mind certain propositions before you have had them fairly defined? Are you not a little afraid of finding certain doctrines in the Bible if you should search it too closely or candidly? If this doctrine should stand out prominently as a declaration of the word of God, “God will damn all men;” would you believe it 1 If God should thunder it in your oar would you believe it? If you would not, then you would be making God a liar; the very essence of that unbelief which keeps us from him. You wish to believe not as the word of God, but as the word of man; not because God says it, and you humbly credit whatever he says, but because it is demonstrated to you. At this rate you may become a grand skeptic, but never a Christian. If you do not come to the Scriptures with a mind equally willing to believe one thing as another, you come with a bias, you come without believing it to be the word of God, and you come in vain. Now observe, I assert nothing to be believed upon my ipse dixit, or that of any human creature. Please to read over in connexion, without stopping for any difficulties, or quarrelling about any doctrine, the gospel by John; read it three or four times; and if you do not see that the Scripture is clear and consistent, and plain, too, if we were not blinded by the God of this world, then I forfeit my character.

NASSAU HALL, September 20, 1824.

You have here another prospectus of another Princeton work which I trust will prove honourable to us, and useful to the cause. The election of our next Professor of Languages is a matter of considerable interest to us at this time. I would hope that it might be Professor Patton, of Middlebury. He is a ripe scholar in modern as well as ancient languages, has made his researches upon the European continent, and in his private manners is said to be highly interesting.2

You suggest to me to write something on “Irving.” The fact is just this, I should like to do it very well, but I feel no motion that way at present. I have not that enviable self-command which enables some men to decree that they will do this or that, and then sit down and effect it. I must take myself when I am in the notion of it. I must humour myself. Most of my scribbling is done at single sittings, and currente calamo. When I am full of a particular subject, and find that the ink will run, I usually drive the quill to its utmost, which is sometimes only ten lines. That I ever finished any thing, I dare not aver. I count those productions happy which have a beginning and an end, and of course are fit for the press. I would almost engage

1 The hope has been abundantly realized, for the work referred to was the Biblical Repertory, the publication of which was begun in 1825, and is still continued, under the same editor, with the second title of “Princeton Review.” The original proposals are “for the periodical publication of a collection of dissertations, principally in Biblical Literature. By Charles Hodge, Professor,” &c.

8 Mr. Robert B. Patton was elected.

to send you beginnings of essays enough to make your fortune, if you will only tack bodies to them. The enclosed tractate I did intend to purge and perfect, and perhaps make the first of a series, but for reasons like those above, I can’t promise. If Walsh takes it, very well; if not, it may sleep among its brethren.

I pray you if you are going to write to me about La Fayette, that you will find out something new, or something that he is doing himself. I hear a great deal about what they are doing to him, taking him here and taking him there; but it might be the College shoe-black as for any life or character that there is in it. I am heartily sick of it, and make a point of skipping every column in the paper which has his name in it.

PRINCETON, October 2, 1824.

From amidst all the delightful confusion of vials, porringers, spoons, bowls, boxes, and the other paraphernalia of a sick room, with a head muddled with a week’s debauch upon opium, and my whole person redolent with Castor oil and ipecacuanha, with griping, with retching, in short among all the little agremcns of a confinement with the dysentery, I am (by stealth) inditing you an epistle. On the day of La Fayette’s transit, I was seized, after having had the honour, if honour it can be called, when conferred on all, of handling his fist, and gorging myself at what they were pleased to call a cold collation. I trust that I am getting well now, although I feel a lamentable feebleness in all my limbs, and a weakness in body and in brains. I scarcely know why it is, but so contrary is my disposition, that the occurrences of life operate upon me in a manner seemingly opposite to their natural tendencies. I am never less solemn than when on a sick bed; perhaps, in this case, because I have been drunk with opium all the time. I know that I ought to feel the solemnity of the occasion, but it is all the reverse. On the contrary, in the crowd, and in the f£te, in the merry circle, I am most ready to have a long face, to feel a great vacuity, and to be deeply impressed with the emptiness of the world. Amongst other memorabilia of this siege, witness the following:

AD J. W. A. HEXAMETR. 5.

Crede mihi, juvenis docilis, me maxime taedet

Audire segrotum esse virum, tarn longe celebrem.

Pulvcribus (quid tu Anglice vocas?) te cumularint,

Et medicus, vencranda matcrque, Ancliza, nigcr Ned.

Nunc spero finemque, quiciu tibi sero dedcrunt. J. A. A.

PRINCETON, October 27, 1824.

I am safely arrived at home, and find myself surrounded by all those peaceful enjoyments which one never relishes so much as after a short absence. I have little to communicate to you in the way of news or adventure. My passage in the steamboat was like most other steamboat passages, tedious and uninteresting; enlivened a little, however, by the company of two or three Spanish Americans, with one of whom, a young fellow from Cuba, I contrived to scrape an acquaintance. He was going to Mr. Brown’s school at Lawrcnccville. He informed me, probably erroneously, that it was the purpose of the Colombians to blockade Havana within three weeks. I have read “Redwood,” and am much pleased with it. I think it may well rank with the Pilot and Pioneers. As a novel, it undoubtedly excels either, the style is chaste and beautiful, and the conversations as natural as any 1 have seen. Yet in description of scenery it is much inferior to Cooper’s works. I still think that it scarcely merits the wonderful encomiums of the British Critics. I can assure you that Princeton is an exceedingly dull place in vacation, and I am forced to study with all my might as a refuge from ennui. I am looking between the covers of some Italian books, and in tend to revise my German. It seems to me that ‘Walsh’s Gazette is very barren of any thing literary. I wish you would take up your pen. I know you will retort the request and therefore have my answer ready. I have thought of it repeatedly, and invoked the Muse, demon or what not, until I am. despairing of ever again being in a writing mood. Surely there is nothing more thoroughly beyond the reach of a man’s volitions (Dr. Johnson to the contrary notwithstanding) than the ability to write, not verses merely, but prose. I can think of no subject, and when I get a subject, I can engender no ideas.

NASSAU HALL, November 17, 1824.

I am now safely lodged in my cell in College, unmolested by the shrieks of children, or any form of domestic broils. And never did I feel so unspeakably listless, and insufferably lazy, us at this present time. Think yourself favoured if you get from me any thing like an intelligible or coherent letter. There is as yet no Freshman class, and I have but one class to instruct, and that upon a subject which I have attended to before, so that my labours are greatly diminished, and my diligence is inversely as my leisure. I have as yet done nothing like real and regular study. I have read Chaucer until 1 was tired, and then Jeremy Taylor, and then Brown’s Philosophy, that poem under the guise of Metaphysics, and then taken a nap, or ruminated over the coals of a hickory fire, or scribbled somewhat of crude nonsense in my Book of Scraps, and thus pass my days. 1 must try to give you my notions of these several books. With Chaucer I have been highly gratified — excepting of course those grossly indelicate passages which should never have seen the light. There is a wonderful degree of natural incident, and simple, accurate description in his poems. Some of his tales are highly amusing, and some very tender and pathetic. The Kmglites tale is an admirable Horn aunt, full of delightful strokes of native feeling. The Nonne’s Prcestes tale is an admirable piece of humour, in which a cock and hen moralize in wondrous manner. The second Nonne’s tale is a highly wrought Catholic legend, yet sweet and moving. The Priorcsse’s tale, has some passages of great beauty. The little Christian martyr, walking through the canton of the Jews, sings loudly:

“As I have said, thurghout the Jeweric
This litcl child, as he came to and fro,
Ful vnerily than wold he sing and crie
0 Alma Rcdcmptoris! ever mo.
The svvetcnesse hath his herte persed so
Of Cristesmoder, that to her to pray
He cannot stint of singing by the way.”

As to the dialect, though perplexing at first, it soon becomes familiar. The Sermons of Bishop Taylor have been ranked among the finest prosaic specimens of imaginative writing. I never read any works which exhibit such an unrippled flow of easy, luxuriant thoughts, and rich illustration and similitude. There is nothing in modern writing like him. Irving reminds one of him. And by the way, I have had with me a friend just from Europe who heard both Chalmers and Irving. He gives the former greatly the preference. Brown’s Philosophy you ought certainly to read forthwith, if it were only as a specimen of magnificent writing. He unites qualities which rarely meet in one individual; clearness of thought, and patience of analytic investigation, and strong unbiassed judgment, with the most rich imagination and the purest fund of eloquent and appropriate language. I do not envy the taste of the man who would lay down his work for any novel that ever was written. Pent up as I am within these walls, and chained still more closely by ennui, I seldom exert myself so much as to visit in the town. There is a club, consisting of all the literary gentlemen and clergymen of the place, which I have the privilege of attending, but this is not just the thing. The Round Table, too, has its weekly meetings, but the social circle I have not. There are many things which seem to conspire to make me an eremite. One of the principal temptations is the great facilities afforded to me for reading, as it regards leisure as well as books. Our libraries are abundant and always accessible. How it is with you I do not know; but I find it hard to prevent the dribbling away of much of my time upon periodical works and literary journals. We counted thirty journals the other day, taken by the individuals of the faculty. Our college library takes the four principal reviews, many scientific journals, &c. &c. I lounged away an hour this morning over the prize essays in the Cambridge Classical Journal, instead of studying Mathematics. It is a purpose (half-matured indeed) of mine to write a series of essays for Walsh, upon modern Latin poetry. The field is one comparatively novel, giving an opportunity for some research, some historical, biographical, and critical investigation, and one which to scholars I should suppose would prove interesting. What think you of it 1 I suppose you have read “Butler’s Reminiscences.” The book highly delighted me a year ago, and I see that you have had a very new edition of it in your city. The rules which he mentions as having guided his literary pursuits are admirable. I have had some addition made to my labours this afternoon by the arrival of a Freshman, which with a couple of private scholars in Mathematics will just about double my engagements.

NASSAU HALL, December 6, 1824.

I have not opened Blackstone since I saw you. The necessity of a unity in my pursuits has determined me to confine myself to theological reading — at least to the allied subjects.

I am glad that you have taken Brown in hand, the second volume I admire most, especially his remarks on, and indeed his whole theory of simple suggestion. His ideas upon virtue also pleased me very much. The lectures upon the emotions I thought less satisfactory than the rest of the work. After all, my ideas of the practical importance of metaphysics are very low. The only part of Brown which I should think absolutely useful, is the latter half of the third volume. I am, nevertheless, fond of the science; it is never dull to me. I have read no works on the subject which please me more than the articles Logic, Metaphysics, and Moral Philosophy, in the New Edinburgh Encyclopaedia, written by Gordon of Edinburgh to whom Irving dedicates, — also a review of Stewart’s Dissertations several years ago, in the Quarterly. — It was Brown’s Cause and Effect which Fisher reviewed. He promised a review of the

1 Professor Fisher of Yale College, in the “Christian Spectator” of New Haven.

Lectures, but died before its completion. Brown’s disquisitions upon touch are by no means satisfactory to me, although in the particular point of which you speak, I should think him correct. I have just concluded “Haly burton’s rational inquiry into the principles of the Deists “; a heavy work, but one which displays in a masterly manner the nakedness of the Deistical creed. I am about to commence reading Edwards on the Will, a work of which some parts formerly had greatly pleased me, and which Calvinists always refer to as triumphantly decisive on their side. Chalmers, in one of his late works, mentions Edwards as the greatest of all metaphysicians; and Dugald Stewart is said to have declared that he was afraid to finish this work, lest he should become fatalist. Have you ever read Berkeley’s Minute Philosopher 1 I recommend it as one of the most interesting books I ever read.

By the modern latin poets, I mean all such moderns as have written latin poetry, such as Vida, Casimir, Buchanan, ITcinsius, Milton, &c., &c. This project I must of necessity abandon, as I have not the works of any of these excepting Buchanan. I am now almost ashamed to propose any thing more. I hope, how ever, ere long to transmit some sheets to you. My present monastic seclusion is truly delightful to me; uninterrupted leisure, and every facility for study, make it in all things such a situation as it would be criminal in me not to be satisfied with. Such, how ever, is the tendency of man to discontent, that I am continually looking forward to something in prospect; the ministry, settlement, actual labour, &c., &c., although I am firmly convinced, when I think seriously on the subject, that I shall never in this world have better means for happiness.

In French, I have lately read some of Voltaire’s silly romances, Ulngenu and La Princesse de Babylon; some of Les Oraisons funebres de Bossuet, and Sermons de Massillon. The last of these are my favourite. I have read some of Bourdaloue and La Flechiere, but they do not please me. I dare not promise myself the pleasure of a visit to Philadelphia within less time than four months. Ilandcll’s Messiah would be no slight inducement. Spring may have its charms, but winter is the season in which I delight. It is not merely because I always enjoy much better health, but because of the numerous domestic and social enjoyments of this comfortable season. And whether sitting among the lively circle at our fireside at home, or as I now do, by my own solitary but cheerful blaze, with my table spread, my candle lighted, my elbow chair adjusted, I feel nearer to contentment than in any other situation. When the nights arc clear, I generally take a solitary walk about ten o’clock; this stirs up one’s romantic feelings, braces the nerves, quickens tho pulse, and prepares for a sweet sleep and pleasant dreams. As you may suppose, I am cast entirely upon my own resources for entertainment; my visits at home are necessarily flying calls, and my books and pen furnish most of my amusement. After hard study, Shakespeare or Horace or the Waverleys while away an hour.

NASSAU HALL, December 24, 1824.

We have had some serious disturbances in the college, originating in a rupture between the two societies, and which, we were apprehensive, would end in a battle-royal; we have how ever seen the conclusion of it, and are in peace. There is some thing wonderfully inflammable in the nature of young men, which is fostered and promoted by the manner of living together, here adopted. A feeling of resentment or indignation communicates itself like electricity, and what I most wonder at, is that we have not more riots. Mr. Hodge’s new work will appear on the first of next month. I have been hard at work for some days, translating some German-latin for him. I am endeavouring as much as I can to concentrate my efforts towards a direct preparation for the active services of the pulpit and congregation, reading theology, and trying to write sermons. I tried my abilities at preaching the other night at the preaching society of the Seminary, in presence of most of the ladies of Princeton. It was the first regular sermon I ever wrote. I received a very sweet aftvctionate letter, not long ago from Mr. Summerfield; he is stationed at Baltimore for the winter. There is a Christian sim plicity about all that this man says and does, which greatly charms me. Are Indian rubber shoes for ladies to be got in your city, and at what price 1 1 My present course of reading is not of such a nature as would be likely to interest you in the recital. Edwards on the Will, I have concluded, with great admiration of the author’s profundity and acuteness, and yet with the opinion that he is unguarded in his use of language, and that his book is liable to great misrepresentation.

I am now at the Theses de Thcologia Natural by Alfonzo Turretine of Geneva, a successor of Calvin, but an Arminian, an elegant and learned writer.

NASSAU HALL, January 11, 1825.

To be busy, is to be happy; thus says my experience; and yet this forenoon is drawing to a close without my having done more than to “clear my decks for action,” as the sailors say.

1 1 let this item stand for the sake of noting the date at which the article inquired for was still a novelty.

And herein I find the advantage of a strict methodical division of time, which precludes the tedious discussion of that most momentous of all questions, “What shall I do next?” Wesley’s rule is a capital one: “Have a time for every thing, and do every thing at its time.” Such have been my meditations upon the loss of this morning. And now, to your letter. Dugald Stewart’s dissertations I have read with much satisfaction. You will find that the Quarterly abuses his work, as much as the Edinburgh praises it; in this, as in most cases, I think veritas in medio jacet. I have not read Playfair’s dissertation, although my father estimates it much more highly than Stewart’s. I suspect

that the rumours respecting have their origin in his being

what is called a Hopkinsian, i. e. a New England Calvinist. One of the main disputes among our clergy has reference to the question, “Whether Christ died for all men, or only for those who believe,” and which in my opinion is a mere logomachy.

Did you read the representation made to Congress by Mr. Benton, respecting the inland trade with Mexico? It interested me very much, as all does which relates to our communication with Spanish America. I should have no objection to take an exploring tour upon that route. In looking forward upon my future course in life, I am often filled writh great anxiety. There is more in our profession to give occasion to this than in others. Physicians and lawyers can generally make election of a situation for life; they need wait for no caucusing of old women, and no contested calls. They are not liable to be tossed from Dan to Becrsheba without a settlement, or to submit to the indignity of setting up as candidates, and then being refused. For instance, I have not the most remote notion of my future settlement, whether I shall pitch my tent in a city or a desert, in New York or Missouri, in France or Paraguay. In truth, all that reliance upon Providence which we profess is thus brought to the test; and perhaps viewed in this light it is a useful discipline. You may think it both affected and fanatical, but I certainly see very little in this world worth living for, except to be public benefactors. This is not the result of any peculiar exercises, but arises from my daily experience of this fact, that earthly enjoyments excite, but cannot gratify; that I am daily pursuing some expected good, of which I am daily disappointed. The labours of the ministry excite most of my wishes and desires; and I confess, that to serve God in the Gospel of his Son, is the only desirable thing which I have in view. Yet I find myself daily entering with ardour upon the same pursuits which have already deludM me a thousand times. There is little new among us. An Atheneum is in projection, and will probably succeed. We have an anatomical lecture, in addition to our other literary exercises. The first number of Mr. Hodge’s new work is issued, and has a fine appearance. I am also almost ashamed to tell you that we are brooding again upon the addled scheme of a Princeton newspaper; we have some hope that it may yet succeed. As to my reading, I have despatched Butler’s Analogy, an immortal work for its power of argument and depth of original thought; also Dr. Hartley’s Evidences of Christianity, decidedly the best work on the subject which I have seen, and contained in the 5th volume of Watson’s tracts. Either of these books would make you a good Sunday’s entertainment. I generally keep a volume of the British poets upon my table, to read “between meals.” With all my attention, I am unable to see any thing in Dryden to raise him to the eminence which he has attained. His versification is undoubtedly fine, and he occasionally flashes out into exquisite elegance, but in general he is one of the dullest of poets. His prose, I think, cannot be too much extolled. He, as well as Milton, Cowper, and Cowley, give the lie to the saying (- that no poet can write prose.” Appearances seem to indicate that all our fears are to be realized with regard to the election of General Jackson. I suppose, in that case, we must try how loyally we can support his administration. Be it known to you that I have not yet relinquished that deplorable habit of smoking the weed. I have an idea that it suits my constitution very well; and under cover of such a notion as that, a man may do any thing.

FROM MY CELL, NASSAU HALL, Febniary 26, 1825. The success of John Q. Adams has pleased me as much as it can have done you. As to William, when he could no longer disbelieve the report, he left his beard to grow to a lugubrious length in token of his chagrin. My only fear is that the tranquil and equitable administration of our President will be somewhat ennuyante. I am, like other scribblers, well enough pleased with the reception of my essay.2 It is one of those things which attracts some attention among the good folks of Princeton, and it is amusing to hear their various conjectures as to the author. — Byron, (to follow the items of your letter) is an author whose imagination and genius command my respect, and whose principles call forth my detestation. With all his powers, how ever, he is often pitiful and grovelling. Childe Harold, in my

1 Notwithstanding this salvo, the habit proved seriously” deplorable,1’ when his health compelled him to relinquish it.

2 An article in the National Gazette.

VOL. i. — 4 view, stands far above the rest of his poems, and is the only one which will deserve the name of a classic. He seems to have been the victim of a scepticism which rather gave scope to his unhappy feelings and his perverted sensibility, than encouraged him in loose and merry libertinism. I have sometimes fancied that in his gayest passages I could discern the forced smile of a man whose sins were a heavy burden. There is no talk small or great in this corner of the world. Dr. Romeyn is dead — very suddenly. Dr. Milledollcr is to succeed Dr. Livingston in the Theological chair at New Brunswick. Upon the 22d I had the pleasure of being fastened into my room at 2 A. M. and hearing the bell rung, horns blown, and the like noises for a season. I wish I had something interesting to send down to you, but there is an entire dearth. There is a court lately instituted among the students which affords them a good deal of talk and amusement. Addison acts as Clerk.

Have you ever read Madame de Stael’s Germany? She has been well denominated par excellence the genius of her age. It is a work full of deep thoughts which, wonderful to tell, strike you as true and yet as new acquaintances. It is a most pleasing exercise to the mind to be engaged in the perusal of such a book. She wanders continually from her subject, but ever with her reader’s full consent. I read her essay on the “influence of literature on society” with less pleasure. Anatomy — This has been my amusement for some time; with the assistance of some dry bones, and some elegant engravings by Lizars of Edinburgh, I have obtained a pretty good insight into Osteology. I should like the opportunity of attending a few dissections.

You talk about a sermon. What sermon? Well: let it be any sermon. Perhaps you mean one of my sermons; permit me to say that I am afraid it would do you very little good. My thoughts are so inefficient with regard to my own habits and practices, that I have very little hope that they will be more effectual when consigned to paper. Nothing to which I put my hand ever dissatisfies me so much as sermon writing. I am enough chagrined after every effort of this kind to throw the thing in the fire. Whatever complacency I may feel in any thing else, my sermons are truly mortifying to me. The ideas seem of the most unspeakably trite and shallow kind. As a sermon, you could not be pleased with one of mine. Let me recommend you to one Chalmers, or to good old Davies: as my composition you cannot need it, after having so full a specimen of all that I can do in that department. I could fall to work now and finish the sheet with an exhortation; and if I thought that I could induce you by it to come to the rational determination of seeking an interest in that salvation which you must know to bo paramount in its claims to all other things, I would gladly do so; but after all the unanswerable arguments of Dr. Wilson, and all the pungent appeals of Mr. Skinner, what could I say? Why has religion crept out of our letters so entirely? Perhaps it is my fault. I am indeed glad that we have got clear of polemics, but I am by no means satisfied in conscience at letting the whole matter rest. You surely know me well enough to give mo notice when my advances on this subject are unpleasant, and with this safeguard I wish you would let me know how far your resolutions have been matured by all the excellent instructions which you have from the pulpit. Like the other gifts of God, religion is put mediately in our power; and while the established means are neglected, we must stand self-convicted. Let me beg your devout attention to these things.

I received a letter the other day from an old friend, who is very calmly awaiting death with the consumption. In him, as in many others, I have an instance of the power of religion to despoil death of his terrors. It is perhaps foolish to express such unfounded anticipations, but I have long looked forward to an early death, and in truth I see no reason to deprecate it, unless it be, that I might act a more faithful part in future.

NASSAU HALL, March 22, 1825.

I preached another sermon last night, [a Seminary exercise,] with as little satisfaction to myself as ever I experienced. I do sincerely hope that I shall conjure up a little more life when I come to the real work. And now to say a little upon the very interesting topic which has often entered into our correspondence, I mean the matter of personal piety, permit me to say that you are mistaken if you suppose that I will under present circumstances exhort you to a mere use of means, however assiduous and sincere, as the mode of securing salvation. I will not say to you as a minister of your city once said, “Go on, persevere, be encouraged, I have known a woman seek Christ six and thirty years, and at last find him.” No: this I consider at once imscriptural and cruel. I say, repent and believe. Do it now: delay not a moment; and instead of being encouraged, be alarmed at the awful truth, that every day you remain impenitent your burden of guilt, and your lot of wrath increases. Without faith it is impossible to please him; and whatever you do before repentance is odious in his sight. Though you should weep tears of blood, and macerate your body by prayer and fasting, nothing’would rescue you from the curse until you submit to God. Compare this statement with Scripture, and “judge ye what is right.” Do you say that you cannot pray aright, &c.? Let me quote from a work of the excellent Andrew Fuller a passage in point: “What shall we say then 1 Seeing he cannot repent, cannot find it in his heart to endeavour to repent, cannot pray sincerely for a heart to make such an endeavour; — shall we deny his assertions, (viz. of inability,) and tell him he is not so wicked as he makes himself? This might be more than we should be able to maintain. Or shall we allow them, and acquit him of obligation ] Rather, ought we not to return to the place where we set out, admonishing him as the Scriptures do, to repent and believe the gospel; declaring to him that what he calls his inability is his sin and shame; and warning him against the idea of its availing him another day.” I can fancy you rising in revolt against such doctrine: I remember when my heart was stoutly and bitterly set against it; and yet no sooner had I gained any knowledge of the truth and of my own heart, than I was convinced that nothing prevented my submitting to the righteousness of God, but a wilful, wicked, stubborn aversion to his most holy law, and to the humbling terms of salvation. I know that I can in no way evince the sincerity of my friendship more, than by dealing thus plainly with you. I do greatly fear that your present views will lead you to a kind of hardened indifference which naturally grows more and more hopeless, and is but the prelude to eternal death. The repentance I urge (/xeravoia, a change of mind) is a solemn and cordial determination of soul, to renounce sin as a thing odious, loathsome, and damning, and to embrace the service of God as infinitely excellent and desirable. I entreat you to make this most reasonable of all determinations. Make it this very day. What but a wilful enmity to God’s holiness can induce you to delay 1 How can you venture, deliberately, to put off the solemn dedication of your heart to God even until to-morrow?

NASSAU HALL, April 2, 1825.

You are right in your supposition that ministerial functions will suit me better than the tedious business of teaching. I say this with great pathos, as our semi-annual examination commences on Tuesday next. Waiving the considerations of duty and religion, the active labours of preaching, &c., will be to mo peculiarly interesting; and I trust that while I live, I shall be enabled to give myself “wholly to these things,” according to the Apostolic injunction.

Law’s “Call’” is a book read by vast numbers of people. It

1 He spent part of the vacation which followed, in a tour to Niagara.

is a sine qud non among the Methodists; and while there is much in it to which I must except, I consider it a beautiful specimen of moderated asceticism. Gibbon says of the author, that he preached not a word more than he practised. Since you are dipping into practical works, let me recommend the following to be put on your catalogue, all of which arc excellent, though far inferior to Law in style. Baxter’s “Call to the Unconverted; Edwards’ “Sermons,” (Pres. Jonathan,) such as are addressed to the unconverted; Davies’s ibid.; and “The Life of God in the Soul of Man,” by Scougal, a book which was blessed to the conversion of Whitefield. Let me suggest, too, the propriety of allotting a certain portion of time for such reading, and adhering rigidly to your plan. We need every constraint to pin our minds down to a subject naturally unpleasant. Our [Princeton] paper, or, as it is pompously yclept, the “American Journal,” de omnibus rebus, et quibusdam aliis, has commenced its course. To-morrow, if a cold the twin of that incubus I had last spring will permit me, I hope to sit down at the table of the Lord in commemoration of his death. We expect an addition of nine or ten new members. With proper sentiments and affections, such seasons cannot fail to be among the happiest and most sacred of a man’s life. Such they have sometimes been to me, and oh that you would cast in your lot with us, and taste and see that the Lord is gracious. You arc undoubtedly convinced that your defect is a defect of heart, and not of understanding; that you view divine truth in what Bacon calls “a dry light.” Now to remedy this let me exhort you to force your mind to the solemn and daily contemplation of those subjects which seem most calculated to excite tender emotion, viz., your aggravated sins, the mercy and love of Christ, &c., &c. This contemplation is best of all attained in prayer, therefore cry mightily unto God for a “new heart” and a “right spirit “; bearing in mind all the while that your solemn and tremendous obligation to keep the whole law is no whit diminished, and that you do nothing satisfactory to God until you believe in Him who has kept the whole law for you.

NASSAU HALL, May 21, 1825.

I have just come from a room full of laughing girls, who had most of the accomplishments which make girls interesting — laughing, simpering, assenting, languishing, bridling, blushing, capering, &c., &c., to the end of the chapter de laqueis femininis: yet I return to my room with as deep a shade — not on my brow, (for there my bitterest thoughts seldom wear any wrinkles,) but over my mind. But why do I tell you this — except to indulge that strange egotism which talks of self, and seeks for sympathy where it is least deserved. The bloom of the opening summer has less charms than usual for me, and I am denied even the comfort of a fireside, and a friend, where to unveil my strange — and you will say — irrational gloom. I can easily imagine to myself the clusters of black coats, who clog your streets, [the General Assembly,] and the crowds with itching ears who run after a favourite preacher. To me, Philadelphia would be doubly dull at this crisis; I should choose to make my visits at a more quiet season; and if matters and things go on smoothly, I flatter myself with the expectation of spending some Sunday with you, during the ensuing summer.

I have exchanged mathematics for the classics, in which it has now become my duty to instruct. Horace has usurped the place of Euclid, and I have devolved the xs and ys to my friend Aikman. As far as mere case is concerned, it would have been much more agreeable to have stuck to the old track, which a year’s toil had made familiar.

NASSAU HALL, May 28, 1825.

Niagara marks an epoch in my history. Its thunders will always rise in rny recollection when sublimity is mentioned. I have said, and like to say little about it, because I find all words which lean use utterly inadequate to convey my ideas. I have seen many drawings, and read many descriptions of Niagara, but nothing produces any thing like the true impression, except a little morceau of poetry [by Brainard] you once sent me, and the description by liowison in a back volume of Blackwood.

You seem desperately ennuyb. Read Gibbon’s autobiography again; it rouses me like a bugle: or Boswell’s Johnson, or Butler’s Reminiscences: or sit down to hard study. Add a few grains of mathematics, and a quant, stiff, of Lee’s Pills — and you are a sound man.

I keep myself alive by constant delving: four or five hours a day at languages; relieved by a little Biography, and a little Mineralogy, with which last study I have been amusing myself a little. Any thing which you can communicate upon the subject will be interesting. No scientific book has ever interested me more than the Geological Essay of Cuvier.

Did I mention to you the pleasing acquisition I have made of a new acquaintance in Lieut. David Hunter, U. S. A., of Fort Snelling, near the Ealls of St. Anthony 1 lie is the most agreeable soldier I know. We met at Gen. Porter’s, Black Rock, and travelled in company. He has resided nearly three years, 700 miles from any permanent white settlement, among the Sioux

1 The late Rev. Alexander Aikman.

Indians. From him I learnt more of that region than I have ever got elsewhere. I have a huge desire to cross the ocean, “but when, or where?” — “Audax omnia perpeti, Gens humana ruit per vetitum.”

NASSAU HALL, Wednesday, June 8, 1825.

For a month or two my mind has been in a state of painful vacillation between the wish to leave my present situation in autumn, and my desire to prolong my course of study, in compliance with the wishes of my father and friends. The peculiar circumstances of our profession render the future a gloomy void. In Canada or Missouri, in Maine or Florida, I may be found three years hence — but in which of these directions I shall go, no human soul can form any reasonable conjecture. For myself — as to situation, I am perfectly indifferent; always provided that I escape a large city. I am not averse to commencing with a Virginia Mission, though I have no idea of ever settling there. I should greatly prefer a high northern latitude; yet even there the summer (to me the trying season) might be intensely hot. I am too lazy ever to be a profound preacher; too desultory in my studies to secure rigid mental discipline; too whimsical to be contented; too cool and sleepy to be popular; too cautious to be efficient. With these rare qualifications, I can swim down the stream of life as well in one bark as another. To see me after dinner, gazing drowsily out of my window, with a book, mayhap upside down, or lounging among the silent walks of the vicinity, with my colleagues, — one would scarcely prognosticate much with regard to my future usefulness. I have so long acted on that delectable adage of Shakespeare’s, — “No profit grows where is no pleasure taken,” — that I suffer my days and nights to flit away with scarce a memorial left in my memory or under standing. Writing is an unfailing amusement; but as to writing about Niagara, I should just as soon think of writing upon Milton’s Paradise Lost. All my writing, too, goes now into our own journal. My principal rambles at Niagara were on the Canada side. Under the sheet of water at Table Rock, I was silly enough to go some distance with no increase of satisfaction. The Niagara River was high at the time, though probably not at its maximum. I have been informed, however, that an increase of wrater, by making the inequalities of the rock less, diminishes the sublimity of the cataract. Brock’s Monument I thought a pitiful thing — by no means equal to your shot tower.

PRINCETON, June 21, 1825. Let me, for want of something better, tell you what I have been doing this morning. At a quarter before 5 o’clock, skipped out of bed with uncommon alacrity, and set out upon an exploring expedition in company with my good friend, Prof. Halsey, and Mr. Finch, member of the Brummagem Geological Society, a Henglishman, and a natural Istorian. Through lanes, and woods, and marshes, and meadows we made our way to a stream called Pretty Brook, alias Petty’s Brook, which is the principal branch of Stony Brook. We traced this stream a mile or two, catching mussels, terrapins, bull-frogs, et hoc genus omne, picking weeds and flowers to which I found sesquipedalian names attached, examining the “red sandstone formation” (observe my proficiency) upon which Princeton is situated, and wading through puddles, and rivulets, until my feet were soaking. To variegate the scene, we went in to bathe in a mill-pond, — swam for about forty-five minutes, and taking up our baggage, reached the college at 9 o’clock. Sipped six cups of tea with the professor, looked very knowingly over a new invoice of minerals, and found myself at 10 in No. 25, where I now sit wafting every moment the three Freshmen. Having despatched a passage of the Anabasis, (I use the word in the double sense of finishing and murdering,) I proceed to answer your letter. As to inducements [to remain in Tutorship] they are many. I cannot ask more retirement, pleasanter company, greater literary and religious advantages, access to books, contiguity to the cities, competent support, good air — in fine, all externals that can make a man contented, than I have now, and have too, in the very bosom of our own family, and amid my most pleasing early recollections. As it respects the money matters, with my present $400, board, fuel, servants, library, &c., I am in a better situation than many ministers who have a wife and family to boot. In truth, nothing but a deep conviction of duty will take me from Princeton — my second birth-place — the birth-place of all within me that can distinguish me from a mere animal. The year just closed, has been the happiest, beyond comparison, in my life.

I have been turning my attention towards Mineralogy and Geology as a matter of amusement. I wish you would do the same; it wrould give us something to talk about, render travelling more interesting, and keep us alive in the warm months. You have great facilities, and the Schuylkill minerals are noted. We might accommodate one another by an exchange of specimens, though, by the by, I have none to barter. Some pieces of Tale and Mica from your vicinity would please me. Is there such a place as the Adelphi Mills — some such name, four miles from Philadelphia? I am told that there are fine specimens of graphic granite there, &c., &c. I have just read in addition to

Cuvier. Tlay den’s Geological Essays, am digging into Cleavcland, omitting for the present his Crystallography, and comparing the minerals here -with his descriptions. I hate to be alone, and want your countenance. We have lately received for our Mincralogical cabinet a box of Italian specimens, presented by R. Lenox, Esq., of N. Y. They contain, besides volcanic productions, many beautiful petrifactions of fish, perfectly preserved, and of flowers so distinct, that you would think them artificial castings; also an extensive hortus siccus of Italian flowers. Mr. TIalsey has already added about 250 articles to the cabinet, and is every day turning in something new. We expect to get Dr. Ilosack’s likeness to adorn the room where his donations are deposited. He is one of the few Alumni who remember Alma Mater.

Summerfield has indeed gone to his rest; for truly I never doubted less with regard to any man’s salvation. He bore the insignia of a crucified Saviour too manifestly and constantly, to leave any doubt as to his union with him. I have two letters from him which I prize, as you may suppose, with a reverence and affection most peculiar. In my view of his character, his public performances, remarkable as they were, form a part far less prominent than his private manners, virtues, and Christian amiability. I never expect to sec his like.

PRINCETON, July 4, 1825.

On this day of tumult and outrageous mirth, I am glad of an opportunity to escape, and have a little discourse with you, even on paper. I confess that I have not patriotism enough to get drunk on this joyful anniversary, or to take pleasure in seeing others so; or discernment enough to trace the connection between the exultation of freemen, and the squibs, cannons, and brutal sports of a mad populace. You have, however, a situation infinitely more favourable for speculations of this nature.

The you mention cannot be from Kentucky — we never had

such a man. If it is from, a lank, thin, limber-kneed

man, with a face just like Voltaire, (in Lavatcr,) and a voice which, in prayer, preserves an unvaried monotone — I know the man; staunch in his orthodoxy, a born Polemic, yet, unless changed, as void of taste as of politeness; yet pious, zealous, harsh, imprudent, studious. I have never been so fully sensible of the beauty of Sir William Jones’s style, as in a late perusal of his anniversary addresses to the Asiatic Society — a series of learned and interesting discourses, worthy of the character of that great man. An old Seminary friend, Theodore D. Woulsov, the profoundest classic I ever knew, is about to sail for Europe: he has VOL. i. — 4* been two years tutor in Yale, [afterwards President.] Waterbury is going on a Bible Society agency through New England. Christmas is married to Miss Jones of New York. Your humble servant is busy in preparing for an ordeal before the presbytery of New Brunswick at their August meeting. I hope, as 1 have already told you, I believe, to pay a visit this autumn to my native State, to climb the blue mountains upon which my eyes were turned almost as soon as they were opened upon any thing, to see friends at the head of families, who were infants when I was last among them, and to search for the graves of my ancestors, and the spots where their youthful days were passed.

My dreams of a transatlantic pilgrimage still float, almost daily, in my disordered imagination. My thoughts begin to rove, and before I know what I am doing, I find myself at London, Oxford, Gottingen, Florence, Constantinople, Alexandria, or Jerusalem. What is to be done with such a truant fancy 1 I fear that in a paroxysm I shall beg Southard [Secretary of the Navy] to give me a chaplaincy on some armed vessel — bah! what am I talking about? I shall be sufficiently schooled out of these vagaries by one year’s labour in the backwoods.

Pray can you recommend any of the steel pens which are advertised? I shall want such a utensil in travelling. On Friday last 3-4 carriages (stage coaches and hacks) passed through Princeton on their way to New York. What mania possesses your citizens? Hogan, the Ex-Catholic, is building a mansion (on dit) near Trenton. He came on Sunday, a few weeks ago, to Chief Justice Ewing, and requested him to sign some instrument of writing which he brought. Mr. Ewing told him that it was not his custom to transact secular business on the Lord’s day, and that it would be moreover invalid, and dismissed the pious Greek priest until a more convenient season.

PRINCETON*, July 16, 1825.

The Guest [Lafayette] spent last night in this place. A number of ladies were presented to him, and a supper, the best our village could afford, provided. He seemed much fatigued, and retired as soon as possible. This morning early he set out for Point Breeze to break his fast with M. le Comte de Survilliers. There is very little afloat in the way of literature which has much interested me. I have been reading “Townley’s Illustrations of Biblical Literature,” 3 vols., Svo; a work which for solid entertainment I can most heartily recommend. I was led

1 Hognn was a Roman Catholic priest in Philadelphia, who became notorious by his resistance to the authority of his bishop, which led to a public and bloody collision between the partisans of each.

from the title to expect nothing amusing, but have become almost an antiquary by reading it. Indeed, I have always been conscious of a propensity to look over old books, relics, and monuments. I was very much gratified in ransacking an obscure corner of our Library, to find two little manuscript common-place books of Dr. Witherspoon, containing various memoranda in his own handwriting, skeletons of sermons, &c.

My Grandfather, James “Wad del, once preached in a little brick church in Orange county, Va.; his predecessor was one Mungo Marshall, whose tombstone was erected near the church. At this time, there is not one brick of the edifice upon another; and my mother brought me a fragment of the tomb, which the villanous wagoners have broken to pieces. This is very near the spot of my nativity.

PRINCETON, August G, 1825.

I feel raised from the dead by the favourable change in the temperature; during the reign of that scorching heat, I could scarcely be said to live. After all possible stripping, ventilation, and refrigeration, I could only succeed in gasping and blowing over a book. A gentleman of your city who has spent the last year principally in the tropical parts of South America, told me this morning, that in lat. 4° 57’ North, he suffered nothing equal to the last attack of hot weather.

I see many notices of new works, but have seen and read none of them. Indeed, the nearer I approach the actual labours of the ministry, the more deeply am I impressed with the importance of giving myself wholly to its great concerns. Life is so short, my knowledge of subjects strictly belonging to my calling so slender, the work so great, and opposition so varied and strenuous, that I can scarcely forgive myself for wandering among a thousand things interesting, indeed, and instructive, but then irrelative to the grand scope of my ministrations. Putting pastorum for vatum, I may appropriate the lines of Horace,

Denique sit quid vis simplex duntaxat ct unum.
Maxima pars vatum, (pater et juvcnes patri digni,)
Decipimur specie recti.

I am willing deliberately to sacrifice the character of a man of science, of taste, of varied and elegant accomplishments, with all its ease, honours, and emoluments, for that of a “man of God thoroughly furnished unto all good works” — a character which is to be sought in the study of the sacred volume. In the recesses of the mountains I shall probably be immured, where ardent piety and sound theology will be the qualifications most in request. The old copy-book adage contains volumes of meaning, Time is short, but Art is long: and the one department of Art, which under God I intend to devote myself to, is the art of iishing for men.

I was apprehended on Tuesday last by the Reverend Presbytery of New Brunswick, and kept under arrest four hours; during which time I was put to the question, regarding my knowledge of Ecclesiastical History, Theology, and Hebrew — and made to read two exercises upon passages of Scripture previously appointed.

On Monday, 8th instant, the examination of the Senior class [college] takes place, which continues a week — more or less. After that time six weeks of less anxiety ensue before the commencement.

I suppose entering upon the cares of this world, and departing from your relatives and home, is a thing which you put far away. No man need desire it. It begins to assume a serious aspect to me. Yet the cause in which I go forth is one which ensures me every encouragement. Never for a moment have I regretted that religion has been my choice, or that the ministry is to be my profession. My sole regret is that I have manifested so little devotion in the cause, and spent no more time and labour in forming a character suitable to the work. With regard to the whole matter, I can testify that the greatest happiness I have ever enjoyed has been in the exercise of religious feelings; and that all other sources of pleasure have in the end proved worse than nothing. I regret, therefore, that you have never made the serious and sincere resolution to renounce all worldly things — as a portion — and to devote yourself to God. I know, too, that difficulties must increase, and that five years hence, unless a callous and confirmed indifference shall preclude all such considerations, you will confess, if God has not renewed your heart, that you are tenfold more unable than now to obtain a proper spirit. I can say nothing new. But let me entreat you, as one not without some experience in these things, to have recourse to those means so often urged upon you; and above all, in view of your confessed alienation from God, to relinquish sin, and embrace the religion of the cross. You know that I speak what is reasonable; that your acts may be such, is my earnest prayer.

PRINCETON, August 21, 1825.

Since my examination I have found time to turn over the “History of the French Church” by Chas. Butler — a very entertaining collection of biographical and historical notices. For simple chasteness and perspicuity of style, perfect transparency,

I do not know his equal; and in sketches of character, I cannot but consider him a master. Perhaps his subjects prepossess me in his favour. Biography has always been my favourite read ing: in this I include all such developments of manners and mind as one finds in correspondence, in anecdotes, as well as funned characters. No kind of study so excites my enthusiasm. One, example is more to me than discourses innumerable. This I lind in the Scriptures forcibly exemplified. The history of wars and revolutions, and discoveries, are eminently dull to me, except so far as I find in them individual traits of character portrayed. The history of opinion, and of mind, is all that takes much hold of my feelings. For this reason, I never could join in the enthusiastic admiration, common to most learned men, of Gibbon, and Hume, and Robertson; while the histories of lloscoe, and Middleton, and even the Biographical dictionary, are delightful. 1 am sure that no works have had so much influence upon my religious feelings, as those which give the lives of pious men. The memoirs of Martyn and Brainerd are my continual advisers. I have this month read with high satisfaction the Memoirs of Andrew Fuller, and Samuel Pearce, of the Baptist church. The latter of these had a soul of heavenly mould; and the man who can fail to love, when he reads his life, can have little sense of the beauty of holiness. Is there any thing in the Philadelphia library which would be of advantage in studying extensively the Ecclesiastical History of the Protestant Churches in Europe, during the eighteenth century 1 I should feel thankful for the names of a few books. What is there that will give one a tolerable idea of South America, — its present state, — geographical divisions, — the revolutions, — their rise, progress, and issue? 1 am always alive to this subject.

1 should feign if I did not say, that I do earnestly desire to see you act with decision upon those religious truths which you profess to believe. Instruction, it would be very silly for me to attempt. You already anticipate all that I would say. You know the connexion between means and end. You know the power of truth. You believe the peculiar power of God’s truth as revealed in the Bible. You know the efficiency of prayer and reflection. Now one word: If you fail through any defect, how ever small, in the use of these — all apology is shut out. Let me recommend the “Force of Truth,” by Scott — and the life of Brainerd.

PRINCETON, September 12, 1825.

Nothing in our correspondence lately has given me more satisfaction than the resolution you express in your last, with respect to desultory reading. This bane of real study, (hand inecrtus loquor,y is opposed no less to the true enjoyment of letters, than to deep proficiency. There must be a stretch of mind to give the highest intellectual pleasure; and continuance at one department of study is necessary, if we. would engender that happy enthusiasm which ensures success. None of my studies have afforded me more gratification than those which I have pursued with a strict method, and with an attention almost undivided to my peculiar branches. I have merely looked at Hopkinson’s defence. To confess the truth, I am unable to lash myself into any warmth of interest in these details: it would be quite as refreshing to me, to peruse the commodore’s log-book. I rejoice, however, in his acquittal. My reading has of late been purely theological, if I except a little dipping into some of the unequalled descriptions of the “Faery Qucene.” “Horsley’s Tracts against Priestly,” 1 thought the most triumphant confutation I had ever read, until I fell upon “Magee on the Atonement,” which I may safely declare gave me as much delight as any book I have ever seen, of a speculative kind. The nakedness of Unitarianism is there exposed with the most invincible argument, and the keenest satire. “Outram on Sacrifices,” “Sermons de Durand and Bourdaloue,” “Claude sur la Composition,” &c., have taken up some of my time. I was at a friend’s house the other day, where I heard a young lady from New York sing in exquisite style, “Like the gloom of night retiring;”

you may be sure that my mind reverted to the soiree in

Street. I soon go beyond the reach of music, among the mountain tops of Virginia, except such music as the north wind plays among the recesses of the hills. Look upon the map of Virginia at the smooth face of the counties Bath, Greenbrier, and Mon roe, and you will see how I shall be cradled among the cliffs. Is there any fast, festival, or high day in any of your Popish places in the city, shortly? I have as you know a great hankering after such things: and I have been so lamentably disappointed in my various attempts to hear Harold preach, that I feel willing almost to travel forty miles if I had the certainty of so doing.2 Apropos of Popery. My good friend and correspondent, Etienne Frontis, formerly of the Seminary, is now preaching in Monroe county, Michigan. He gave notice a few weeks ago that he would preach in French. The priests took the alarm, and threatened excommunication to any who should

1 Of Commodore Stewart, then before a court-martial.

2 Dr. Harold was for many years the most prominent Roman Catholic clergyman in Philadelphia; and not only as an orator, but as a polished gentleman.

go near the heretic. On Sunday morning the Priest, (Bellami,) who is just from France and knows not a word of English, preached on the subject; said the Protestants were divided into hundreds of sects, used a corrupt and false Bible, and that no good Catholic would go. Frontis made his discourse almost entirely from Scripture quotations, using the Catholic authorized version of De Sacy. Twenty of the Catholics heard him. The next Sunday Bellami said it was a pack of lies, that he was mi ministre de demon, and the like gentle expressions, and excommunicated five persons. In the evening, at vespers, he looked round, and saw one of these men in his usual place; he threw off his vestments, and called on the people to turn out the heretic. “Turn him out yourself,” said a loud voice from the crowd. Two men pulled off their coats to assist the priest, but the culprit, who had hitherto requested them not to interrupt his devotions, put himself into an attitude of carnal defence, and threatened to knock down the first who should touch him. None ventured on so stubborn a heretic. This excommunication was done by order of the Bishop Richard, who lives at Detroit, is a Jesuit, and a member of Congress from that territory.

I find it rather difficult to obey you with regard to disbelieving all reports of the yellow fever. We have some stories quite plausible of the existence of that malady in your city. How ever, I trust it will prove false. There have certainly been several cases in New Jersey, and at Bristol. It requires, I believe, some rare symptoms to indicate yellow fever to your Board of Health.