Letters While Editor of The Presbyterian, 1833

AFTER weather of May, one is hardly prepared for the rigours of such a day as this. I am myself fond of cold weather, but have been more indisposed this winter than usual. This has been the sole cause of my avoiding the city for a time. You intimate that you are going to draw in from the Journal, and give yourself more to book-making. I a little regret this; though, by experiment, I know that you will write books better and more of them, in consequence of having the paper as a stated employment, than if you totally gave yourself up to authorship. Next to preaching, there is no employment I should relish more, than writing books for the Union. I think you have peculiar tact as an editor, of which I feel myself more devoid than I had thought.

To you, I need not say any thing of the unspeakable and increasing joys of Christian wedlock; joys which become purer and more exquisite as they lose the adventitious glare of early romance; joys which are increased by affliction, and raised by religion to the very summit of terrestrial blessings. You will not refuse the counsel, though it may be very familiar, when I urge on you to begin, as soon as possible, with the freest, confidential, mutual, unbosoming on the subject of personal experience. I hear many husbands and wives complaining of a shyness here.

For the last three or four months, there has been a wonder-

1 During the year of his employment as editor, he spent so much time in Philadelphia, that our frequent personal intercourse precluded the usual frequency of correspondence. In the course of this year he preached thirteen times in Trenton, sixteen times in Philadelphia, and fifteen times in Princeton and its neighbourhood.

204 WHILE EDITOR OF THE PRESBYTERIAN.

ful work of grace (so I must call it, notwithstanding blemishes) in the Methodist Church here. I think 150 have been supposedly converted. It goes on uniformly, and some of the changes are surprising. While our other churches suffer, I am persuaded the cause of Christ gains. Such zeal I never saw. They seem disposed to attempt the conversion of every soul in Trenton. God grant them success. I cannot but say that God is with them of a truth, though we have lost a number of hearers. It is not the minister, but the private members who have been instrumental in this.

TRENTON, January 17, 1833.

You will have seen in the Presbyterian, No. 1 of Dr. Miller’s letters; and, I doubt not, you approve its spirit. It is a sincere attempt at pacification; and, like all such attempts, will displease the extremes. I have nearly finished the Life of Nicholas Ferrar, a wonderful man of the reigns of James and Charles I. There is one scruple which your committee may have about it: his piety, which was eminent, exhibits itself very much in attachment to his king, his church, fasts, feasts, liturgies, &c. I preached last night, with much comfort, from Psalm lxxvii. 7, “Will the Lord cast off forever?” — Answer 1. No. His attributes forbid the thought, 2. No. His gift of Christ forbids: “He that spared not his own Son,” &c. 8. No. His dealings towards the church forbid. 4. No. His dealings in time past to us forbid. 5. No. His special promises forbid. Application: 1. To have this safety we must have interest in Christ. 2. To enjoy the comfort of this, we must have a good persuasion of our interest. 3. To be raised in triumph above all despondency, we must have the full assurance of hope. May such blessings be ours! I am reading a file of the London Gazette, 1682-7.

TRENTON, February 1, 1833.

I had commenced the Life of Elijah, and made some considerable mental preparation, and written some twenty pages; but I hereby decline it, as the author in whose hands it is, is immeasurably above me in this style. I say this ex animo. I will, Deo volente, go to work upon Bunyan. I have Southey’s life of him, but want some other. Ferrar is done, and awaits an opportunity. I am not sanguine about it, and shall be neither surprised nor mortified if it is rejected. It has these grand faults: It is meager in dates and consecutiveness; it is too much padded out with remark, and it is too ascetic for the age.

1 This work was published by a bookseller of Philadelphia.

Yet it is a little morsel of history, entirely unique; and would be read with much interest. A French gentleman lately told me it was considered a vulgarism to write as capitals the L and X>, in such names as V Enfant, cTArvieux, &c.; unless at the beginning of a sentence. Perhaps I shall begin my “Mother’s Book,” before Bunyan. Scripture biography I am conscious of no talent for; my life of Elijah would have been an experiment. I am at a Jane-Scott-” isclie” l book about the Bible. I do not at all satisfy myself in it. I have a favourite plan which I wish to execute, whether the Union should patronize it or not — Conversations on the Life of Christ. This I shall begin without delay.2

I shall be glad to publish your remarks on catechisms, re serving to myself the usual right of stricture. Your argument goes to prove that catechising is not conducted in the right manner. The piece in the Repertory does not give due credit to the Union questions, and appears to assume that “the present system” is identical with the old parrot-system. You ought to correct this impression. Yet I think, Gall’s plan is the right one. I even find great benefit to myself from reading the New Testament with his dissecting Helps. I wish I had access to his publications; I have seen only those republished here. I think I could concoct out of them something useful.

I find no employment so delightful to me, as writing little books. I am determined not to put my name on them, and I even doubt whether I shall ever agree to say “by the author of so and so.” You will perceive that Mr. Ferrar established a bona fide Sunday School in 1626. I have no doubt that Paul had one at Corinth and Ephesus.

PRINCETON, August 7, 1833.

Princeton has never been freer from disease than for two months. I found the air restorative on the first draught of it, and the society still more so. I have recently seen some astonishing experiments, original with Prof. Henry, in further proof of the identity of magnetism and galvanism. He has made the strongest magnet ever seen, and has one nearly complete which will sustain 5,000 Ibs. when charged from a voltaic battery.

I have tried to glean [” Biblical antiquities “] but cannot promise you any thing regular, as I dare not apply myself, and yet have a mass of matter constantly demanded by the two daughters of the horse-leech, the Presbyterian and Repertory. You must let me off with occasional contributions in no regular series.

1 “Jane Scott,” on prayer, was one of his own Sunday School books. “The Only Son” was another of his writings about this time, (224 pages.)

2 His series under this head appeared in the Journal.

I am endeavouring to find out the precise and complete history of the Missionary Concert, [Monthly Prayer ;] have you any references on that subject, which can be useful to me? This village still increases; some half-dozen handsome houses are building, besides the new College, the Seminary Chapel, and the Episcopal

Church. Bishop is, in my poor judgment, a puerile and

namby-pamby writer. See his published discourse over the corner-stone of the Church here.

I am really pained at heart about my late poor charge. They are dividing, dwindling, and scattering; cannot agree in any one; and though the place is rapidly growing, and soon to grow yet more, the congregation decays. Their appeals to me produce an effect which you can never know, until you have have broken the peculiar cords which unite a pastor and flock. There was one case of undeniable Cholera Maligna here, but it was like a bolt of lightning, without precursor or consequent.

Aug. “li. — As I have at this present 20 grains of calomel in my carcase, you will not expect me to be very hilarious. I had been much better, but am suffering almost all the time with a severe rheumatism in my game leg. Dr. Miller’s son [Samuel]

took part of the first honour yesterday. I forgot to say that

called on Lee at Cambridge, and was taken by him to the library, and saw the celebrated Beza MS., and Beza’s autograph letter; also Burckhardt’s Arabic MSS. at Edinburgh, (which he glorifies amazingly.) He bought a book at BlackwoocCs, and took his last cup of coffee at Ambrose’s.

I am, in extreme haste, your nauseous friend.

PRINCETON, November 4, 1833.

You perhaps know that I am not in favour of a separate Sunday School Society. But I am not sure but that to prevent such an organization, it will be needful to concede a separate Society, for printing our sectarian characteristics. Further than this, I am not willing to advocate any thing. I do not understand you as complaining of my inserting “Consistency “; but if any one should complain, I can only say, that the question is be coming common, is discussed in our judicatories, and that wre ought to have a fair understanding about it. Moreover, I sincerely wish some Presbyterian friend of the A. S. U. would come out in the Presbyterian. I assure you of a fair hearing, for any reasonable time and space.

‘You, no doubt, have heard more than I, of the synodical pro-

1 His successor, the Rev. John W. Yeomans, was installed October 7, 1834, on which occasion Mr. Alexander preached.

ceeding touching your Presbytery. Non nostri tantas componere lites! Of the technical and ecclesiastical correctness of what the synod has done, I entertain no doubt, and of the antipresbyterial tendency of the affinity system, I have as little; but I greatly question the wisdom of this new measure. One thing is plain enough. Two who are so little agreed as the old and new side, cannot long walk together. I look for a rupture with much certainty, and rebus sic stantibus, could not mourn over it, if it were possible to divide upon the principles of our book. New students are coming into the Seminary and College; two young men have walked from Tennessee, carrying all their clothes in their packs. Such men are worth helping; such men do the work of the Church. I mean to help you about the Journal, but must wait till I get a stove in my study; for, be it known to you, that I write these presents in a room, where my wife, two children, and a nurse, are all discoursing.

1 Mr. Alexander’s connexion with “The Presbyterian” continued from November, 1832, until the close of the volume for 1833. Before the end of the year, however, he accepted the appointment of Professor of Rhetoric and Beiles-Lettres in the College of New Jersey, and entered upon its duties.