Letters While Professor in the College of New Jersey, 1833–1844

Princeton, December 12, 1833.

In answer to yours of the 29th ult., I have very little to say in the way of news; it is you who are now in the centre, while I am far off from the “stir and smoke of this dim spot, which men call earth;” not, however, in my affections and habits, as I should desire to be. What you say, and what I have elsewhere heard, concerning the Catholic disputation, is mortifying and humiliating. There was a time, before the rise of periodical literature, when oral disputes were necessary and useful; but I am inclined to think that, in the present state of society, the press is the proper engine, the most favourable to dispassionate investigation and fair conclusion. Dr. Swing’s Natural History will be a work of much labour, concisely and judiciously prepared. If I ever can run a little ahead of my proximate employments, I do really mean to journalize some more for you. What think you of my giving you, what I had projected for my own paper, a series of Letters to a Younger Brother? One appeared in the Presbyterian. It might be made into a book. But then I should insist on not confining myself to religious topics. The heads which I had drafted were: 1. Religion, under which, The Great Concern, Bible Reading, Prayer, Divine Worship, Benevolence is Piety, Filial Duty, Regard for Teachers, &c. 2. Studies; Memory, Languages, Books Recommended, Study for God. 3. Manners and Habits; Habits in General, Good Manners, Early Rising, Temperance, Recreations, Company, &c. 4. General Instruction. 5. Mis-

1 Dr. Francis A. Ewing, commemorated in the letter on page 201. The Natural History was published in 1835, and reviewed by Mr. Alexander in the Repertory of October of that year.

cellaneous. I am getting into my routine. Though my engagements are by no means numerous, yet having to deal with a number of acute fellows, I cannot avoid a considerable tension of mind. I attend the Seniors four times a week, on one of which occasions I spend about an hour in lecturing; the subject is Rhetoric and Composition. The Latin of the two higher classes is also consigned to me. At present, I have the Juniors five times a week on Tully’s Orator. I occasionally lecture to them. Attend prayers every evening, preach in my turn in the chapel, and every Lord’s day afternoon at Queenston. Every fortnight a literary club meets, viz.: Drs. Alexander, Miller, Carnahan, Howell, Maclean, and [B. II.] Rice; Professors Dod, Maclean, Henry, Jaeger, Alexander; Tutors S. Alexander, Hart, and Wilson. It is truly a delightful soiree. On alternate weeks a strictly Clerical association meets. On Monday, we have a stated faculty meeting, and in the evening a faculty prayer-meeting. On Tuesday evening a College prayer-meeting.. On Thursday evening Dr. Rice preaches. My College employments, with the Repertory and Presbyterian, make me a busy man, and I am far from being the less happy on this account. While I used to have your Cut-Book to give me texts, I used to be much more fertile in Sunday School scraps. Now it has occurred to me, that if I were to buy up several hundreds of the little French cuts, which they have for scraptables, and for transferring, and which they call Crogvis, &c., I should have abundance of hints. I might paste these little pictures into my MSS., and your wood-engraver could copy them. This may strike you as whimsical; but, seriously, I can do little or nothing without suggestions of this kind.

December 1G. — My letter still unfinished. But I do not know that a letter derives its chief value from being done at one lick. Do you know that John Proudfit is appointed Professor of Greek in the New York University? I have just been read ing a narrative by Robert Baxter, who was Irving’ s chief prophet, and who has recanted of the horrible delusions of the “Tongues,” &c. I formerly thought there wras more fraud than fanaticism, but this has convinced me that they are nearly crazy. Notwithstanding his recantation, Baxter is still regarded by Irving as having been truly inspired, but as having grieved the Spirit.

PRINCETON, January 23, 1834. I have been making a little book out of the remnant of cuts

1 He began his series of letters in the Sunday School Journal, January 1834, and continued them to twenty numbers, when they were collected in a volume.

for the Gleanings. It will be done in a day or two. I have a leetle book also, in the style of “Amelia Finley,” an attempt at the Socratic method. But the new labours of my station, especially writing lectures, must, for a time, stay my hand very much. Some of my chief pleasures are in writing for and talking with children.

PRINCETON, March 6, 1834.

We are all going on here much as usual. Indeed, there is a happy dearth of all news, except the sickening, dull, stale, and unprofitable reverberation of the monetary question. The burning of the Penn is awful indeed. Mitchelmore I knew well; he was a plain, honest Israelite, without guile, without pride, without one fiery or one bitter ingredient. He was an Englishman, and had been in Britain a Methodist exhorter. I doubt not he has been caught up to the Lord God of Elijah. Of the following particulars you may make such use as you choose: Mr. Wirt2 was long incog, as the author of the “British Spy;” and I do not know that the secret would have transpired, except from this circumstance: Wirt had caught from Dr. Waddel an enthusiastic admiration of Robert Boyle, as one of the first who had practically carried out the inductive principles of Bacon, and as eminently a Christian philosopher. In the “Spy” he made allusions to Boyle, whose works were then little read, and it was found that these works wrere scarcely ever taken out of the public library at Richmond except by Mr. Wirt. Nothing in the “Spy” attracted more attention than the account of Dr. Waddel. In June, 1830, I took advantage of a private interview, to ask Mr. Wirt how far the account might be taken as authentic history. He replied that there was no fiction, except in the grouping. He had thrown into one scene circumstances and discourses, which had in point of fact been scattered through various interviews. Yet he had heard all the sentiments from his lips; and on the retrospect he still considered Dr. W. as inferior to no man he had ever heard, in eloquence. For his day, Dr. W. was an eminently learned man. The contents of his library evince an acquaintance with all the learned languages, and the best works in science and literature which were then and there accessible. A few years ago I fell upon a MS. copy of the Minutes of the Old Hanover Presbytery, from wrhich I made the following gleanings: Dr. Waddel was licensed to

1 The steamboat William Penn was burnt on the Delaware March 4. The Rev. John Mitchelmore threw himself from the flames into the river, and was drowned.

2 The death of Mr. Wirt had lately taken place.

preach, April 2, 1761, at Tinkling Spring, Virginia. His sermons were from Philip, ii. 9, 10, and John v. 40, and his proba tionary lecture from Isa. lxi. 1-3. At the meeting of Presbytery, at the same place, October 7, 1761, there is the following minute, which needs no comment: “The following calls were put in to Presbytery for Mr. Waddel, viz., one from Upper Falling and the Peaks of Otter; one from Nutbush and Grapy Creek; one from Brown’s Meeting House and Jennings’ Gap; one from the Fork of James River in Augusta; and one from Halifax: none of which he thought fit to take under consideration.” Also a further minute, October 7, 1762: “Mr. Waddel accepts a call from Lancaster and Northumberland.” He was ordained at Prince Edward, June 16, 1762. On April 3d, 1774, he was called to Opaken and Cedar Creek. May 1st, 1776, he was called to Tinkling Spring. His decease was reported to Presbytery October 4, 1805. He departed this life September 17, 1805.

Much love to all yours, from me and mine. Excuse my
brevity, as I am not at ease.

PRINCETON, April 10, 1834.

I owe you an apology for disappointing you twice, in the communications to the paper. The truth is, I have been pressed above measure. First, I have a very oppressive catarrh; then our semi-annual examination lasted 8 days, 7 hoars a day, accompanied with other winding-up business; then I am labouring spasmodically to get something instanter for the Repertory; besides an engagement under which I lie to furnish something at once for Rev. John Breckinridge’s [Education] annual; and, finally, the New Jersey Lyceum has been meeting here and devolved a good deal of extra work on me.

Mr. and Mrs. Graves (of and for Bombay) have been spending a day with us. Mr. G. is a specimen of meek and affectionate Christianity, such as it does one good to see. The flame of missionary zeal rises considerably in the Seminary after every interview with such a man. The report here is, that the elections in New York have been accompanied with outrages; but we have no particulars. Let me know when any of my S. S. books are accepted. I have several small affairs on the anvil. After one session’s trial, I find my present situation more agreeable to the flesh, and, as yet, less incident to trials, than any in which I have previously been. My indisposition this week prevents my fulfilling a purpose of attending a protracted meeting in Queenston, where I preach every Lord’s day. The Seminary has just received a set of good old Mr. Simeon’s works (21 vols.) from tho author; altogether the most splendid London books, paper, binding, &c., I ever saw. You will do me a favour by mentioning to me, from time to time, such Hebrew books as you may see offered for sale; as I am particularly desirous to furnish myself with the best editions of Bibles and Lexicons. 1 am obliged to you for an occasional English paper; a repetition of the favour will renew my obligation; and so of any other papers, as I no longer pasture upon that sort of clover. Some of these days I mean to have a paper here; but nothing can be done till the Assembly has decided a question or two.

PRINCETON, June 3, 1834.

You must excuse me about the motto; like lapidary inscriptions, it requires a Parr to adjust it; and the delicate “nuances” of sententious, elliptical latinity are beyond my reach. In a delicate matter of the kind, I would apply to such a man as Schipper, but to no American. A new memoir of Calvin is published in Berlin, by Henry, Pastor of the French Church there. Calvin on the New Testament has gone through an immense 2d edition,

under Tholuck’s auspices. was told by Prof. Rheinwald

of Bonn, that while almost every system of opinion had been deduced from the Bible by the speculations of modern Germans, no one had been wild enough to dream of diocesan episcopacy, which (he said) had not one adherent in Protestant Germany, as being destitute of a vestige of authority. Our College is growing; we have now 185 students, and still some are coming. Of these about 60 are religious professors. On looking into Guericke, I am unable to find any thing but the following note, Guericke Kirchengeschicte, p. 1013: “Indeed, somewhat earlier than this, (that is than Gustavus Vasa’s mission to the Laplanders, in 1559, which he notes in the text as the first Protestant mission,) Calvin and the Church of Geneva had sent missionaries for Christians and heathen to Brasil; which undertaking, however, was soon relinquished.” It is a serious fact, that the Hegel-ians (the reigning philosophical sect in Germany) hold as their two fundamental axioms, that, (1) Esse et non-esse idem sunt; (2) Omnis veritas sui contradictionem continct!!! Fichte’s leading truth was “Ich bin Ich “!! There is no writer more execrated among the pious Germans than John Locke.

Dr. was much laughed at in London, for pronouncing

Quay as it is written: all the elite pronounce route as French, see Walker. A “fine man” is unintelligible in England; nfrne woman is a handsome one. Every one says fortnlte, see Walker. Chateaubriand is the Parisian style. Of course you will thank me for these dicta. I find progress [the verb] in Shakspcare, B. Jonson, and Quarles, but accented on penultimate.

In correcting sheets, be sure to resolve all the diphthongs in Latin: the old way oe and oe is going out of use in Europe. You use realize in an unauthorized sense, though I own the word is absolutely needed.

PRINCETON, June 23, 1834.
Amice amicissime,

I am pleased to see you quoting from the “Penny Magazine,” which happens to be my great hobby at this time. It is certainly the cheapest book in the world, and is full of entertainment without a line of trash. My father is quite enthusiastic about it. Nevertheless, it is lamentable that (negatively) it is so irreligious. You might extract something from every number. You will have Dr. Rauch and all the Germans on the back of you, for that irreverent article about Fichte and Hegel;” experto

crede Jacobo.” The review of is very paltry; with such

a subject, a dunce might have been severe. And what asinine

abortion of a critic (see the “Decline of Poetry” in )

has discovered that Wordsworth is dull and unpoetical, and

Darwin, (oh! oh! oh! ) a model!!! If ’s review is dead,

Walsh’s is mortified in some of its members.

PRINCETON, July 14, 1834.

I have passed the happiest summer thus far that I have known for years; let me record it as the gift of Providence. The greenness, the airiness, the fragrance, the healthfulncss, the over — over — overflowing of fruits, and the otherwise varied delightfulness of Princeton, have made up for the loss or want of many urbane luxuries. I am looking towards Long Branch for next week. I am endeavouring to get all the books I can, relating to the English Language and Literature — Anglo-Saxon, History of our Tongue, History of Literature in England, History of Poetry, including specimens of old English books. Now, do, I beg you, bear this in mind; memorandum such as you see or hear of; even buy, at my risk, when you see a rare bargain. My boys are in statu quo, save that the younger has acquired the English language, and amuses us by his sage discourse.

It is common in our papers to talk of Neander as a minister; he is a layman. I am reading old Fuller’s Church History of Britain with great delight; though the more prelatical he grows, the more do I grow puritanical. I regret that the British Church Establishment is going to fall down. The consequence, I fear, will be not increased piety, but the rampancy of fanaticism, latitudinarianism, and popery. Though I hold in derision the barefaced logical impositions of the prelatical argument, and hate the tyranny of the English Church, I reverence the antique sublimity of the structure. I feel [the awkwardness] of being a dissenter in England, but more the ridiculosity of wearing the cast-off clothes of British Churchism in America. I admire the past history of the Anglican Church, but in England as well as here, quantum mutatus ab illo! In theology and all clerical science and literature how shallow, how superficial!

Mr. and Mr. told me that the only organ of

their sort of Dissenters was the “Congregational Magazine;” that the “Evangelical” was a granny; that the “Eclectic” has played false to their cause; that the “Christian Advocate” was discountenanced by all sober disssenters as wickedly and roughly radical and Jacobinical; and that they encouraged a weekly paper, called “The Patriot,” of London, which they believed to be able, and sound to their cause.

Lately I have made friends with Coleridge, at least for a time, and am reading his “Aids” again with a peculiar sort of mystical pleasure.

has just left Princeton, having spent here some

twenty hours. He scrupled to eat with us, but gave us much of his company, which was very agreeable. I was deeply affected at the naivete with which this poor, childlike, Christless Jew, described the state of mind in which he is, and must needs be so long as he denies the Messiah; on the threshold, but with a vail over his heart which hides the way, the truth, and the life. Let us pray for his illumination; and I entreat you, without an approach to controversy, to encourage in him the development of those feelings of want, which may lead him to see Christianity to be the necessary complement of Judaism.

Price for me an instruction-book for the violoncello. Music is my main medicament just now.

PRINCETON, September 12, 1834.

You must not ask me who is the best sermon writer. If suddenly cornered, I should say Baxter. On second thought, Robert Hall. Then a mixture of Baxter, Barrow, and Taylor. I have Sherlock, but never become interested. Indeed, I scarcely read sermons.

I will go so far, as with more than ordinary earnestness, to recommend to you to get, own, put on your table, and study, a book with this title, “Letters Practical and Consolatory, designed to illustrate the nature and tendency of the Gospel, by David Russell, Minister of the Gospel, Dundee, 4th Ed., Edinburgh, 1830, 2 vols., 12mo.” Who this Eussell is I know not, probably a Scotch Dissenter; but I have read no human production which comes nearer my views of Calvinism: it is theol ogy without one shred of scholasticism; orthodoxy without one film of mystification; purity without one note of ecclesiastical harshness. I have so far reconsidered my former resolution, as to determine (as you have already let the cat out of the bag) to put on my Sunday School volumes hereafter, (by leave of Providence sparing and enabling me to write any more,) “By the author of Jane Scott, Hebrew Customs, Harvest, &c.” The Father’s Magazine has some good things in it; but why have a department and a pigeon-hole, and a magazine for every thing? Next we may look for an Old Maid’s Magazine — Barbers’ Department — Society for the illumination of back-cellars, with a travelling agent. Soberly, do not the Scriptures indicate a less cumbrous, more simple mode of propagating Christianity 1 Perhaps I judge ill because I am not in active life.

in immense haste (before breakfast!) thine.

PRINCETON, Sept. 17, 1834.

A very interesting letter has been received from Mrs. Missionary Thomson, formerly schoolmistress Hanna of this place. Suppose the American S. S. Union should send her, and the other missionaries in Palestine, each a copy of your chart of Jerusalem, and Geography maps, furnished with blank leaves, that from year to year they may correct the topography on the spot. After you and I are dead, the good work might still be going on.

On looking over my little works, I am brought back to my original judgment, that the best way is to write for the cuts, and not cut for the writing. Therefore let me have proofs of such cuts as you are willing to repeat in this way. I am afraid the Greek and English New Testament [in parallel columns] will

be misunderstood, and so scouted by Dr., if there is no

further explanation. He may take it into his noddle that some dunce has wished to help lazy or ignorant ministers; whereas it is meant for the most learned — a mechanical help, one page in stead of two distinct books. Say a word in the right ear, to this point.

With reference to English preachers, the best article I ever saw is in the first volume of the Edinburgh Presbyterian Review. The great defect in the Churchmen, even of their golden era, the 17th century, is Energy, including in that term both pungency and pathos. I can just now think of none ljut Barrow, who is powerful. Taylor is rich, and often pathetic, always brilliant and poetical, but never commanling. Those whom we (upon

English tradition) celebrate, while they are argumentative, instructive, sensible, and terse, are, to my feelings, tame. A mixture of Edwards and Da vies, who are all our own, would be a phoenix. Strange as it would seem to one who had not made the comparison, the French preachers have more addresses to the conscience, heart, and will, than any I ever saw in print. Bourdaloue is full of holy unction, Bossuet is Demosthenes in canonicals, and Massillon is the fusion of all great qualities into so perfect a mass that his powers are scarcely appreciated. The same thing leads, I think, to the undervaluing of R. Hall. This extreme elegance makes one suspect there is no strength, be cause there is no ruggedness. I have Sherlock, and know some fine places in him, but as a whole he does not take possession of me. Paley’s plain sermons are striking for their “good round about sense;” look at them for half an hour. Some of the late C. Wolfe’s sermons (” Not a Drum was heard, nor a Funeral Note “) surpass any modern English preachments for heart rending appeals — even of terror. Our American Episcopalians seem to me mere milk and water, even compared with the Christian Observer-school; which latter class, 1 verily believe, contains the very best men in England. Except on church-order, you never hear from our churchmen a sermon of square-hewn thought. Their best evangelical discourses which I have heard, arise no higher than John Newton’s or Mr. Jay’s. I ought to have named Cecil, who, if he had written sermons, would have been (what my father considers him) the most commanding serrnonizcr of his connexion, at that day. Of all styles of sermon izing, however, the most sneakingly mean, in my humble judgment, is that of which the [a periodical made up of sermons] is the representative: I speak of course of the majority of specimens. No exposition of Scripture in its scope and connexion, apart from which insulated verses may mean any thing, and are at best single rays of the spectrum, and not light: few even of these insulated texts; in default of the latter, not even any profound series of doctrinal statements; but mere paragraphs, about equal to the “Improvement” of an old sermon; false sententiousness; shallow illustration of what was before plain as day; every thing sacrificed to supposed pungency, and

baseless notation. Who, from all the volumes of the,

would get a solid structure of Scripture truth? And is not this what preaching should convey? And after all, this modern New England preaching is less moving, less reaching, less awakening, than that of the preceding age. Ca-ira! So much for your asking any thing ex cathedra.

PRINCETON, September 30, 1834.

I heartily regret that you have had [in Philadelphia] 25 deaths by cholera-morbus and cholera; Avertat Deus! The consecration of Trinity Church here was an uncommon effort; it lasted some four hours. Bishops White, Ives, and Doane present, and altogether twenty clergymen. Bishop W. preached an hour. The good old patriarch remained to commencement. On commencement evening, I drank tea with the three Bishops at [Professor A. B.] Dod’s, and have seldom had a pleasanter soiree. It was like being transported to a purer age, to talk with the primate, and I value the interview as unique; he was inimitably paternal

and really instructive. As to, he is an insufferable mix

of upstart Yankeeism, froth, affectation, and ludicrous vanity. Bishop Mcllvaine’s charge is a lovely paper. O si sic omnia! Read it for your own heart’s good. [J. S.] Hart and [Stephen] Alexander are made adjunct professors in our college. You can now come hither in the canal from Bordentown. Did I tell you that Dr. Hodge was writing a popular commentary on the Romans?

PRINCETON, October 31, 1834.

So Coleridge is gone! — the last of the Platonists. I both dislike and love his beautiful, dreamy philosophizings; and can not hear him either blamed or lauded. His poetry I never read, (i. e. Byronice redde.)

Tell Mr. Packard I can only promise to think about the Life of Jacob. Also say, that the prints, though exceedingly beautiful, are so much of a marine character, that I fear I shall have to return them to him, with my sincere thanks.

Let me beg you to take it as a prominent, perpetual object of selections, &c., for your Journal, to hold up the great truth, that the Bible is the book to educate the aye. Why not have it the chief thing in the family, in the school, in the academy, in the university? The day is coming; and if you and I can introduce the minutest corner of this wedge, we shall be benefactors of the race. I can amuse a child about the Bible; I can teach logic, rhetoric, ethics, and salvation from the Bible. May we not have a Bible School? Sow the seed, my dear friend, meekly, prayerfully; it must grow! A series of Lectures on Archaeology, including Geography, with a full apparatus of transparent maps, figures, landscapes, specimens of trees, fruits, stones, dresses, &c., &c., &c., might help on the great wheel several revolutions in our cities. Hold a protracted meeting of a

1 His “Life of Jacob and his son Joseph” was published by the Union in 1836, pp. 191.

VOL. I. 10 week, and have two or three sermons or lectures a day, (prepared long before,) on different points of Education, Bible exposition, Illustration, Juvenile training, Sunday Schools, &c., then print it. I want to write a volume, somewhat secular, after the fashion of “Uncle Philip,” [by Rev. Dr. Hawks,] teaching some physical principles, but interweaving religion. In a word, the book is to be one of excitement rather than instruction; intended to awaken a thirst for knowledge of all kinds.

PRINCETON, Nov 19, 1834.

What you say about is distressing to me, though not

wholly unexpected. 1 trust you are by this time relieved; if not, you know to whom we have given our dear children. It is a sweet Christian exercise for parents to give away their offspring daily, and daily to receive them as a fresh gift. Of a truth, I know something of like affliction; a daily burden, but tempered with hourly-dropping balm. I do not wish a hair’s weight of the

past to have been taken off. Mr. 1 have not seen, for he

does not come till next month. I am prepared to love him, always provided that he does not obtrude dispute about the apostolical succession. If he does, I am off. My life is too short to be spent on these “endless genealogies.” Politics have left me in the rear: where ignorance is bliss, ’tis folly to be wise. I believe we are tolerably well governed. By all means write “The Beloved Disciple.” Lardner will give you all you want, and reference to everybody else: you ought also to read St. John’s life in Butler’s “Lives of the Saints,” not the copy in 3 vols., but in 12 vols., 8vo. I concealed my name to my lullabies, for the very reason which leads the Moravian to exclude all adults, when he preaches to children. Mrs. Sigourney’s are poetic, but not baby-like, mine are baby-like, but not poetical. They are “Cherries are ripe,” also the tune; “Father and Mother ’tis time to arise;” “The A B C;” “Up in the Morning.” The ABC tune I adapted from a Ranz-des-Vaches. We have admitted fifty less or more to college, and an uncommonly large accession to the seminary. Professor Stephen Alexander has gone to Ebenezer, Ga., with a splendid telescope (made by Ultzschneider and Eraunhofer at Munich) to observe the central solar eclipse on the 30th inst. This eclipse is quite an American affair, and the European savans will look to us for the elements of astronomical correction, &c. Alexander is equal to Payne himself as an observer. The results will be given to your Philosophical Society. There will not be such another eclipse till 1869. Qu. Does this justify a Sabbath observation 1

With much whimsy, there are some eximious things in Simpson on Popular Education. I was already a full convert to the doctrine that babes ought to be taught, not books but things. Precocity is plainly a brain-disease. 1 am filled with enthusiasm about having the Bible more taught. Instead of a mere readinglook in schools, it must be taught, after the Sunday School fashion; geography, archaeology and all. All our girls must read the Greek Testament. I mean to teach a few on the plan of Locke. By an interlinear version any merchant’s clerk may learn Hebrew. Don’t tell this to the old-school grammarians. The Bible — the Bible — it is this which must save America. It is this which must save the church; not by spasmodic transitory attempts, on emergencies, but by being a perennial well head of divine truth. I talk of writing an introduction to the New Testament for you. I have finished about a dozen of the penny books ordered by Mr. Packard; having no suitable cuts, I have to describe what the cut should be. If I had a hundred little cuts, I could write two dozen in a twinkling. As it is, I fear some difficulty, and the works themselves will probably not suit Mr. P.’s ideal.

PRINCETON, November 23, 1834.

I have finished the baby-books; they wait for a bearer. Henry Clay left us to-day, but I could not intrust him with so great a charge. I saw him for some hour or so. I hope you will have a good touch of the rheumatism, so that you may never laugh at me again. Apropos, this strange influenza comes on with singular pains, and even temporary paralysis.

I am printing in the Trenton Emporium some letters to Gov. Vroom, on Education. I read a letter of [Rev. Mr. Nevins on the death of his wife] which for pathos, naivete, and unaffectedness, supasses any thing of the sort I ever saw. In one quality Nevins exceeds all men I know; he is frank and childlike without an eflbrt, and without knowing it.

PRINCETON, December 9, 1834.

I am, late at night, and in the sick room of my George, who has been dangerously ill, writing you a scrawl, as I have an opportunity to-morrow. Let me say a word now about some notions of about scriptural books, which impress me as

true and good, and are a little exemplified in his book. He talks thus to me: Don’t try to vary the Bible language too much; say what you will, it is most intelligible to children. Don’t try too

‘The result was “The Infant’s Library,” consisting of twenty-four of the smallest size in which any tiling in the shape of a book can be printed, and in the smallest language. It may be amusing to know that in 4k The Sabbath Breaker,” u James” and “Edward” represent himself and Mr. Kirk, in an incident of their boyhood, much to improve upon the Bible; let what you add be exegetical and brief. He says moreover, (and I own I never thought of it before, though it is specious,) that a thousand books may yet be woven out of the raw Bible material, with very little alteration of the text. Thus one may take all that relates to the archeology of Hebrew houses, and make a book of it; and that, mark me, not by casting the Scripture parts into the pigeon holes of formal artificial arrangement, but following the exact order of the Scripture story. Take one subject, and chase it through the whole canon. Doesn’t this merit a thought? I am engaged (meaning to work slowly, and scrap-wise) at a life of Christ — blessed theme! O that we may daily ponder on it! You will readily see how my thoughts course one another in the channel, which, but for Sunday Schools, would never have existed for me. I am a little wild on the subject of making the Bible the grand organ of mental and spiritual development. Suppose one knows the Bible, and from it as a centre radiates into the thousand subsidiary knowledges, will he not know all he needs? Will not you and I make this the rule for bringing up our children 1 Why may not our female friends be made to read the Greek Testament? I will engage to teach any of the poor things that lose their time on French, to read the New Testament in less time. Why does not Dr. Ely take the beautiful scriptural motto for his Philadelphia!! — f] </><AaSeA<£ia /xei/f ro! 1 I am deep in Mrs. [Hannah] More’s life; a lovely book, from which I augur great things for evangelical religion. I preach every Sunday to a dear little flock of poor people, in Queenston, where I think the Spirit of the Lord is not altogether absent. Yesterday, alas! I witnessed, in a Magdalen, (if the name is not a libel on Christ’s friend,) something very like death-bed despair. I ought to be a very thankful man, for, with “manifold temptations,” I am as happy in my present site, as a miserable sinner ought to expect. I am very sure that some of us do not discipline the flesh enough in our prosperity, by voluntary abstinence from many things which are lawful but inexpedient. Paul talks (in Greek terms of force) of bringing under and subjecting the body. Might we not sometimes fast1? Might we not curtail expenses and retrench style? Alight we not risk a little worldly sneer for being nearer the primitive model? May we not hope for more uncommon manifestations, when we make more uncommon sacrifices to walk in Christ’s steps’? Austin says sweetly, Nudus nudum. sequor Christum. I more and more sicken at human dilutions of the Word, and love the taste of the fresh fountain. Good night.

1 “Let brotherly love (Philadelphia) continue.”

PRINCETON, December 10, 1834.

I hope your map and manual will mark an epoch — you know every thing nowadays marks an epoch — and will open many eyes to the wants of the world. I own, though I have often studied the map gospel-wise, I never had so impressive a view. Every one wrho sees it is so struck. Apropos, I find it good to use a small atlas as a prayer-book; it defines, systematizes, and

condenses one’s desires. I have read large portions of

with great care. I am surprised that he should stereotype such a work; it seems to shut the door against all future retractation, which, if I understand him, is inconsistent with his views of theological perfectibility. I am horrified with meeting in his remarks the self-same rationalistic canon of interpretation which has dethroned Christ in German divinity; I mean what is involved in the concession that David’s imprecations may be wicked imprecations. Then, ex cequali, as the Germans argue, Paul’s deductions may be foolish deductions. This I regard as far worse than specific aberrations even into heretical doctrines; for it unsettles the base of all doctrines. I doubt not this evil seed will soon germinate. The caricature of imputation is disingenuous. Pray by whom has the old doctrine, as he states it, been held 1 The reader will understand him, “by old Calvinists.” It has been in terms disavowed by every successive theologian of eminence. Edwards has never been regarded as an interpreter of our doctrines. The view given in the Repertory for 1830, p. 425, I pledge myself to substantiate, if it were proper, from Turretin, Witsius, Owen, Dr. Mason, and our Princeton lectures; and these may be assumed as saying what Calvinism is, whether it be in itself right or wrong. The nonsense which pretends to refute, is not imputation, but its exact reverse. After many years suffering torments of doubt about Romans 5th, I left all commentaries and confined myself to the Greek text, with a lexicon, (I do not mean a New Testament lexicon, which is merely a comment arranged alphabetically,) and my opinion of that glorious passage I regard as a key to the whole Pauline system.

Your “Harvey Boys” I think excellent for the end in view. The plural of wharf, however, in spite of Philadclphians, is wharfs not wharves. I hereby give notice to your committee, that I have in good progress a book of dialogues, intended, 1, to make the Bible an object of interest; 2, to explain its form, divisions, books, chapters, verses, &c.; 3, to show how to study

1 A map, designating by colours and marks the state of the world as to the progress of Christianity, with a manual of missionary doctrine and statistics.

it; — in a word, an Introduction to the Bible. The continued affliction of your little girl excites our sympathy. When God sees that the trial has done its work, he will remove it; until then let patience have its perfect wrork. I think I rejoice that the Lord reigneth, and that the angels of these little ones do behold the face of our Father who is in heaven. I hope no changes in your employments will take you away from the ser vice of these little ones. Many who are in it are incompetent or unfaithful. Let us seek to be made wise and directed.

Monday, Dec. 12. — The lowest degree of cold here, by Professor Henry’s standard thermometer, wras — 11°. In Albany, you see it was 32 °! Surely one had better go to Pekin than to New Orleans. I should regard [Rev. Joel] Parker as more of a martyr than any of our missionaries. Your [Missionary] chart hangs in full view of my bed, and I hope many of my nightly and morning thoughts will take their direction from it. No publication of the year so permanently affects me. “Thy kingdom come!” Brewer of Smyrna is a noble fellow; he seems to me to lead the van in the Levant.

Read the 5Gth Psalm, with reference to Parker and the Orleans folk. The people of Nineveh shall rise up in the judgment with this generation, and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonas. I have a fearful belief, that the open rejection of God in his ministers, will call down temporal and marked judgments. Greatly as I differ from Joel Parker, I feel called upon to pray for him with affection. The Christians of Germany, i. e. the real Christians, are all (except Neander and his school) legitimatists, who regard the king as God’s earthly image, and hold the twofold command, Fear God and honor the king, as indivisible. They cannot abstract democracy from infidelity. This loyalty, in some of them, is very lovely. There is a family of Gerlachs, one high in office (Louis) at Halle, a privy-counsellor; one a professor and pastor (Otto) at Berlin; one a Major, and aid of the king. The first two are geniuses,

men of profound learning, and regards Louis as the greatest

man he met in Germany. I read much of their writing in

1 Mr. (now Dr.) Parker, in soliciting aid at the North for the erection of the church in New Orleans of which he was pastor, was reported to have spoken disparagingly of that city, and was threatened with violence if he should return to it. After sending proofs of the falseness of the allegation, Mr. Parker sailed for New Orleans; but such were the apprehensions of the captain and passengers, that he and his family were put on shore before reaching the city. A public meeting was assembled for the purpose of expelling the minister: Mr. Parker addressed the multitude in person; his friends rallied; the church on Lafayette Square was erected, and he retained his position with new efficiency.

Hengstenberg’s paper; and Dr. H. had lately a charming letter from Otto, who is at a commentary for the plebs. I laid down the “Zeitung” of April 23, to pen this, in which Louis v. Gerlach undertakes the maintenance of this thesis: “That Liberalism and Absolutism, though seeming opposites, may be traced to a common trunk, viz., the severance of the State from God.” Not so bad. “God (says he) is the sole source of all liberty. He is the sole, legitimate, supreme Sovereign. Therefore a prince who does not consider his lordship as God’s loan, who does not limit it by God’s law, and who places the highest source and principle of his rights, not in the divine will, but in some earthly end of state, (Staatszweck,) or who does not accord to his subjects the sacred rights given them of God, is a true Revolutionist. And a popular association, however democrati cally constituted, which makes their own will, or the will of the sovereign multitude, the highest state-law, is truly despotic” Now for a truly German sentence, from Ringseis. a Catholic, General-inedical-Counsellor of the king of Bavaria; the allusion is to the reigning philosophy of Hegel, who denies any personal God: “As in Philosophy and Theology, there has been substituted for one God in three persons, an impersonal Supreme Being, a moral world-government, or world-order; so in politics, there has been substituted for a personal lord of the country, uniting in himself all powers — the ghost of an abstract, hateless, loveless STATE!!”

I feel indignant at the piece by N. N. in the Boston Recorder, on Presbyterianism. If our church were to fall to pieces, Presbytery would not be touched; nay, nor if we were resolved into our separate presbyteries: even in this last case, we should be infinitely above the no-organization of Congregation alism. How indelicate such Yankee meddling! If we chose to turn the tables, how easy to twit them with the Unitarian defection; yet the latter are all Congregationalists. “Presbyterianism a failure!” Marry come up! We have existed a century under our present organization; and then look at the masses of Dutch and Scotch Presbyterians. It is as if the Hottentots who live in isolated sheds should sneer at the Tremont House, because mayhap its united chambers occasion some dirt or some inconvenience. What we have suffered, has been by the Congregationalism with which we are inoculated. Either system may stand by itself, but a mixture is pork and molasses, or cider and coifee.

PRINCETON, December 15, 1834.

More to disburden a throbbing and full heart, than to communicate much good, I write to you. I know you will feel a pang, when I tell you that this afternoon, at 3 o’clock, God was pleased to take away my little Archibald — our Benjamin, the son of our hopes. Blessed be God for all his mercies! Last evening he was as well as a child could be, to appearance. About 7 he began to show symptoms of croup, which gradually advanced, in spite of the most vigorous practice of our physician, who was with us almost from first to last, until he died in our arms. His last moments were sweet; he simply fell asleep, no pang, no distortion; he lies like a lovely smiling marble. He was two years four months old. Twenty hours’ illness! A little before his death he clasped his hands and said, “I want to say my prayers.” Judge what we feel. My dear friend, the tears I poured in torrents over his dying form were tears of joy — blessed be God for it! Never had I such faith of immortality. My wife and 1 yield with a composure, for which we can never be thankful enough, to the resumption of the precious gift. We have been in the practice of deliberately giving up our children to God, every day. O how I rejoiced in this, as I felt his last pulses, and found his precious hand turning to clay in mine.

We have too much caressed and prized this dear boy. Disappointed in our first, whom we held by a spider’s thread, we counted much upon Archibald. He was lovely, and precocious. In a moment we are blasted! But why do I repeat these things 1 Join us in giving thanks to God for the wonderful (I will not sny resignation, but) comfort we have. Join us in praising Him who can make us glory in tribulations also. Join us in prayer that we may be kept in faith. “Hold thou me up and I shall be safe.”

I wish to learn the lesson of this dispensation. I wish to be more entirely consecrated to the work of God. If God write us childless (an awful word now — once it seemed a trifle) I will try to find children in the Sunday School. O my friend! I have a dear child in heaven! Only a few hours in heaven! Is not this an honour — a joy — a triumph? let me then determine to lead a heavenly life here. When shall we “use this world as not abusing it “? When shall wo who have wives, live as though we had none 1 A little while and all these shadows will fly away, and we shall find ourselves amidst the realities of eternity. For some time previous to this dispensation, 1 have found myself under a leading to thoughts more serious than common; greater desires to cut off superfluous pursuits, to take up unaccustomed crosses, and to cultivate humble love. Alas! how little have I succeeded in doing so.

I cannot well say much on other topics. Remember me
and mine at the throne of grace.

PRINCETON, February 17, 1835.

Tell Mr. Packard I and the rest of us think very highly of “Ann Conover” [a book for female, domestics]: one great excellence it hath, the talk is “real talk” without provincialism.

Among the thousand and one things I have in my plans, is the Apprentice, a book for ditto. I endeavour to have as many plans as I can: thereby I find work for all moods of mind. Mr. P. sent me a book which Dr. Julius left with him. It is a sensible and pious book, but purely German, and not suited to our meridian. There are gross passages about the vices of boys, and that which relates to intellectual and moral culture is only a moiety. The spirit of the work is good, and there are beautiful passages; it might be very useful among the German population; but I do not find a single chapter which would merit translation as it is. I have selected 20 texts for baby sermons, to publish with my name. I wish my first ‘onymous work to be one which shall have nought to do with literary ambition. O how much better I love my nursery-work, than my rhetoric! I feel pleased to think that the truth we are throwing so widely among the nation of children, cannot all die. AYhile many things are against us, God’s truth will not perish.

Feb. 19. — I am still in the house writh my throat and palate; which I turn to some little account in the way of Sunday School writing. The absorbing power of composition makes it a great solace when one is unwell. I doubt whether Baxter or Hannah More would have scribbled so much if they had not been val etudinarians. (yff3” Put a paragraph into your paper, recommending to some writer a book expressly intended for Factory Children. There are many thousands of these in the United States, and they are cut off from instruction and home influence, and exposed to numberless corruptions. I witnessed this in Trenton, but it must be immensely worse in Lowell, Paterson, &c., &c. The person who docs this should be intimately acquainted with the factory system. But for want of this knowledge, I would set

about it myself. I agree with you fully about. At

times I am almost converted to the extreme doctrine of “no controversy.” We are too anxious lest God should not maintain his own truth. I know no cause why we may not devote ourselves to other work. In my sorrows I think I could make a us; fid little pocket volume for bereaved parents, but I am held back by the belief that nobody wTill publish for me but the S. S. Union, and your committee would not adopt a book so exclusively for adults.

PRINCETON, March 21, 1835.

I saw in one of the Catholic Journals that the highest honours of the De Propaganda Fide were awarded to a young Kentuckian named Martin J. Spalding; * and shortly after, that he had coma home as a priest. He is at Bardstown, and I lately saw a letter from him to an old schoolmate in this place, which is one of the finest, adroitest, and most learned defences of popery I ever read. If, instead of reviling the Catholics, we would surpass them in schools, in personal charities, in persevering missions, and in the preparation of our ministers, I believe we should make more head against them. Every day I live I become more sick of controversy; I cannot persuade myself that the Church was meant to be kept always in hot water. As to our own church a split seems to be inevitable. 1 honour the men who seem to be labouring directly for the conversion of souls. In closing our long session at College, it is matter of gratitude that with nearly two hundred students, we have had no occasion for rigorous discipline, no suspensions, and no disorders beyond the merest boyish pranks. I sigh, however, when I think how far we are from the state of revival which is said to exist in Jefferson and Dartmouth. Nothing short of this can effect what I should desire.

PRINCETON, April 1Y, 1835.

A hurt finger makes me write with some deliberation, so you must not mistake my calligraphy for that of another. This letter begins without object, but perhaps may amuse you as well as if it were divided into heads. To-morrow, Deo volente, I go with my little family to Trenton. I appreciate the kindness of your invitation, but our journeying is attended necessarily with so many arrangements, and so much sickroom apparatus, that Trenton is our ultima Thule. I may run down and see you. Among many reasons for gratitude, one is the service of a good servant. We have a young girl for child’s-nurse, who for more than a year has been with us constantly, and in whom we have never discovered any faults at all. She is a plant of the Sunday School, and is in my opinion quite a prodigy, for parts and acquisitions. Our boys have become wonderful zoologists. We had two raccoons domesticated during the winter. One eloped after a few days, the second stayed six months, and then fled also. A hare lived in the cellar a week or two, and then forsook civilization in disgust. An opossum died under our hands; and, last of all, a most dignified owl broke gaol and escaped within a week past. I shall miss Walsh very much if he goes abroad, for his pithy paragraphs have become a necessary condiment. * * * But what mercy is there in the Fanaticism of the

1 Bishop of the diocese of Louisville since September, 1848.

Symbol? O for a cycle of peace! O for a breathing spell from these unnatural contentions! I feel as if I could join with any who would humbly unite in direct and kind efforts to save sinners and relieve human misery. Cannot a poor believer go along in his pilgrimage heavenward, without being always on military duty? At judgment I heartily believe that some heresies of heart and temper will be charged as worse than heavy doctrinal errors. To you I may say this, because you understand me as holding, not merely that the tenets of our church are true, but that they are very important. But I see how easy it is to “hold the truth” in rancour, and hate, which is the grand error of depraved human nature; yea, and of diabolism itself. I regret to see that Mr., in his Lectures, betrays throughout a polemical attitude, and evidently is fuller of animosity against the foes of revival-measures, than of direct zeal for the

saving of souls. Is this not a common error 1 ’s day is

probably over, as Nettleton’s was, and for the same cause; thus Moses could not enter the land; but where are our J oshuas? Sometimes there seems to me to be an opening just now for a united attempt to awaken religious feeling in the churches, with out the shibboleths of measures. Surely too much has been made of these measures, both pro and contra. But my preachment is already too long, as my practice is so defective. Nevertheless, I believe my happiest hours are spent on Sunday afternoons in labouring among my little charge [the congregation of colored persons]. I am humbled when I think how little effect results from my discourses. I write at a table with three chattering girls, and my thoughts ramble.

PRINCETON, June 3, 1835.

I should have concluded that you were still at the Pittsburg

furnace, had not incidentally mentioned your return.

The vacation slipped away strangely without my seeing you, and when I heard you were gone westward, I thought it not worth while to make my visit to the city. For some weeks I have two recitations a day, and the only absence I can expect is a trip to New York, which I make to-morrow, to preach for Dr. Spring’s people. We have 215 in college, and consequently have divided several of the classes, thus exactly doubling our labours. Look at two articles of Professor Henry’s, in the late number of the Transactions of the American Philosophical Society. He and Faraday of London seem to have hit on the same discovery simultaneously.

My little boy is better than we have seen him for a year or two. Though he is on his back all the time, he is, through Divine mercy, exquisitely happy. I was not pleased with the spirit of the Colonization meetings in New York. I am tending towards a middle ground which neither party will allow: i. e. I abhor slavery, and think the public mind should be enlightened, and every lawful means immediately taken for an eventual and speedy abolition; but I also approve of the plan of Colonization, on grounds altogether distinct from the question of slavery. Thus I open my mind to the full, legitimate impressions of all the anti-slavery arguments. I have seldom heard a man so powerfully eloquent as G. Thompson, though he is hot-headed, arrogant, and imprudent in excess.

PRINCETON, July 2, 1835.

I am in my room, and have been in my bed, with a quite severe attack ofYever. After being blooded profusely, both in arm and jugular, physicked and dieted; and after having a hammering in my head as if the Cyclops had transferred their anvil to my brain-pan, I am now free from symptoms of disease, though haggard, weak, and thin. Perhaps I may exhibit my anatomy at No. 110 South 8th street before many days. I scarcely know why I am spared, unless in infinite mercy, that I may make my calling and election sure. What you say of scarcely surprises me; I had somehow got the notion that he was (to use a

word of my quondam sexton) “a notionable man.”

made great misstatements in his speech about the duties of the professors here. They have no clay without a lecture, and they are employed almost every evening;’, besides, they do not constantly repeat the old lectures. I know not a busier man in the world than my old father. And half of every day is spent in talking with students privately. True, he does not chase them from room to room, or run through the roll, but he never chains up his gate, or pleads any business to exclude any one, at any hour.

Much that you say of ministers and their ways is, no doubt, true. I dissent, however, from one of your statements of fact. I do not believe that ministers herd too much together; if they were more together, it would be better. In such a place as Princeton, where we are aggregated in a literary capacity, it may be the case, yet how is the fact even here? Dr. Rice probably talks ten times writh lay-people for once that he talks with a preacher. In Trenton I consorted five hundred times with laics, for every once with a clerk. And in Charlotte, the ratio was, I doubt not, 1000 to 1.

PRINCETON, August 11, 1835.

Not only do busiest men do the most, but our busiest times are those in which w work most extra. So it has been. At

Saratoga, of all places in the world, I could not find time to write to you; and to-day, in the busiest week of the year, viz., that of our final examination, lo! I am inditing a missive. 1 was nineteen days at the Springs. All the time comfortable; health bettered, spirits prime, flesh not increased, beauty ditto, lace nigrified three shades, nose germinal, ruddy, &c., &c. N. B. 1 plucked up courage to take a shower-bath, and with more decided good than I ever had from any remedial process. I saw “all the world and his mother “at the Springs. Inter alios et alias; Rev. Dr. Lyell, Rev. Hugh Smith, Van Buren, Cambrelenir, Gov. Wolf, Gov. Marcy, Dr. Prouclfit, Prof. Alonzo Potter, Sir “Win. Barnaby, Governor of Bermuda, General Nelson of Trinidad, Roberts Vaux, Perdicaris, Miomotsky, Pres. Wayland, Mr. Pierpoint, Major Jack Downing of Ncvr York, Mrs. Bradstreet, (the female lawyer,) Dr. Cox of England, T. P. H, (Temperance agent, fou on the wine question:

N. B. Temperance Ship spoken at Albany, high and dry on the Wine-bank; crew drunk or crazy; mutiny below hatches, headed by one Delavan; pilots afraid to venture out, as the vessel has careened and threatens to go down under a heavy sea from Stuart’s cove,) S. V. S. WTilder, Lane, (one of the founders of the Seminary of that ilk,) Signore Fabi and Garenghi of the Opera, pictures of Adam and Eve, which — — , in my hearing, solemnly recommended in a sermon.

Here are a few ana. He is vehemently against the

present Temperance-society freaks: “When men grow wiser than the Bible, I am off. I go the whole figure: if Christ did not so foresee the present as to make a sufficient rule for our times, I shut the lids of my Bible; it is henceforth no Bible for me.” Of Coleridge: “I do not understand him; bright fogs.; some few rays of truth beyond the vulgar seem to have impinged on his mind, but after several reflections, so as to be seen in a wrong place. We want a metaphysic which shall settle things. Among us all opinion is in flux; nothing arrived at; settled truth is our object. What I long to see accomplished is, that we should come to conclusions about something, and hold them fast; to leave out of view what Germans or what Britons think of this or that, and march up in manly sort to some points of truth. That is the intellect for me which settles things; makes dark things clear, and undefined things definite: so does not Coleridge. I judge of teaching “by fruits. The fruits of Colcridgcism, where I have seen it, are extravagancies. If there is a Metaphysic, it must be very clear: the true system must of necessity be a plain one. What point has Coleridge cleared 1” I hope you are not suffering with the heat. Come up, come up, and breathe a little vapor from good mother earth, whom you have interred under a world of .flaming bricks in your great Babel. Love to Mrs., misses, and master.

COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY, August 28, 1835.

The “Life of Kilpin,” by the American Tract Society, is one of the loveliest Sunday School books I have ever read. It will furnish you some grand excerpts for the Journal; especially are his sermons to children grand, according to my notion. And the appended memoir of his son, is one of the most wonderful juvenile biographies. Kead it incontinently.

When you next propose an excursion anywhither, do me the honour to ask me to go along. I can never do such things of my own motion, greatly as I need travelling, and I am so liable to sudden attacks of severe disorder, that I am scarcely fit to travel alone. Todd’s “Student’s Manual” is a good book; I wish every College student had one.

I have myself, in reading Owen, marked some sixty passages, repudiating the objectionable imputation [as charged against strict Calvinists] in every form of diction which he could use. This is only important to defend us from the charge of not agreeing with our standards, i. e. simply a point of doctrinehistory, (Dogmengeschichte.) It strikes me as remarkable that

neither W nor B, has the slightest metaphysical

acumen; F has less, if there can be a negative quantity;

and B less still!! I think none the less of them, except

that they do not stick to their last. M, E, and

L, are the true hair-splitting metaphysicians; and all

three do more harm than good. Jenkyn (on atonement) seems to make conscience of forming his system without any reference to exegesis, the only basis of a true theology. I cannot but view his atonement as none at all. He says the “Eden experiment has failed, the Sinai experiment has failed” — quere: what becomes of you and me, if the Calvary experiment fail?

August 25. — A box from Germany; beautiful editions of Calvin on New Testament; Vulgate, by Van Ess; Neander’s history, as far as Charlemagne; another massive volume of the arch-geographer Ritter; I have Tholuck’s University sermons, etc. Apropos of geography, Neander has supervised and had engraved a capital map of all places mentioned in the New Testament and the early fathers. You will see it at the end of his history of the “Planting of Christianity.” On Sunday night, died, at Englishtown, in the sweet peace of the gospel, Ira Condict Gulick, a promising, gifted, and exemplary member of the Sophomore class. It was his dying request that a discourse should be delivered by President Carnahan, from Ecc. xii. 1: “Remem ber now thy Creator,” &c. His funeral was attended by the members of the Sophomore class, in number sixty-five. Mr. G. was a younger brother of the Rev. Peter J. Guliek of the Sandwich mission. Onderdonk’s theory, i. e. that the New Testament contains plain notices of a regular, successive, three fold ordination of the apostles, outrages my common sense more than Stuart’s wine theory. In each case a desperate preconception is taken to the Bible to find support there, per fas et nefas. The spread of my little books is pleasing to my mind, as it flatters my hope of not dying without leaving some few souls the better for my having been born. Rejoice, my friend, in the station you hold; never let the truth grow stale in your estimation, that what we do for infants, we do for the best interests of man, in the most hopeful way. I go, God willing, to New York, on the 29th to preach at the Brick Church. I have been reading Tholuck’s Sermons; they have some passages equal in eloquence, unction, and pungency, to any thing I know.

PRINCETON, September 4, 1835.

I was in New York about the bursting of the Lunar bubble. Thousands were taken in, even savans; notwithstanding the internal evidence against it. For it seems very plain that no light, however intense, cast upon the spectrum or image of the telescope, can add any clearness to this image; inasmuch as such light, however intense, comes not from the moon, (therefore can tell us nothing new about her,) but from the hydro-oxygen flame, and the canvas. It is like throwing a flood of light on a shadow, in order to see the substance. Night before last, I looked at the moon through our Fraunhofer, and I saw the annular mountains

as clearly as you see these marks but no griffins,

gorgons, or chimaeras. I dined at an eating house, on the next

chair to.; he looks wan and eye-sunken. Not for an

instant do I doubt either his piety or his ignorance. The new regions of New York city are lordly, and I have seen nothing approaching them. I spent a grand evening with [Chancellor] Kent. Ask me about it, when we meet. On Sunday, I hope to preach to the children of a rural district, and to parents; also catechize. I chatted a little with Joshua Leavitt; he groweth fat. The late fire burnt round the three Dutch parsonages, and almost took the Bible House, which was on fire several times. Fanshaw, next day, gave $500 to Mariners’

1 A long and grave report in one of the newspapers of pretended telescopic discoveries.

Church, which he had offered as premium of insurance, just before wind changed, and saved his furniture. Same day, Phelps, Starr, (Bible-binder,) and A. Tappan, gave each a thou sand to same object. Fanatic or not, New York religion is the #oahead system. O for a good 8vo on Money, the God of Americans; its use, its abuse, how far right to make haste to be rich, whether we can get too much honestly, about giving, about luxury, surplusage, legacies, &c., — a noble theme, and a layman must do it.

PRINCETON, September 23, 1835.

My present belief is, that it will be my duty not to go to Virginia, as I had intended. The case is thus: my good father and mother, after so long a time, and doubtless for the last time together, are going to see the land of their nativity, their youth,

their marriage. They will take, and so my wife will

become prima donna here. My father is quite full of a plan for hawking your books about the country; he even talks of buying a complete set for himself. I wish you would be liberal enough to give me a fine selection of your [S. S. Union] works to send to Rev. Prof. Otto von Gerlach of Berlin; it would insert the wedge in Prussia. Do you know that my grand difficulty in making baby books has been that of getting few

enough words in a page? Well, has invented the

method of ruling his page like a multiplication-table, with just squares enough for the complement. This is measured prose with a witness! I have been wearing myself down with the examination this afternoon, and am almost broken-winded. Happily it is my last duty of the pedagogical sort for the academical year. We have a student in the Seminary, who is the son of Lord Brougham’s half sister, and the grandson of Lord Rothsay. How pleasing it would be, if we could be all the time engaged in labours for the conversion of souls, and the exaltation of the Bible! When we talk of the scriptural plan of missions to the heathen, ought we not to look especially at the plan of Paul, the Apostle of the Gentiles? You will discern my hand in the New York Observer; pray, do not be jealous, as I do not mean to forsake you. I am almost a convert to the German notion of a Spirit of the Age, independent of communication, breaking forth in simultaneous manifestation. Look at the reigning mobs; convent -burnings in Spain, and commotions even in quiet Berlin. I am taking hold again of my book of introduction to the Scripture, which has lain by several months; I hope to do something at my 10th chapter this week. The researches are laborious and long, though the results will seem very small and simple. Quere: may we not receive a hallowing impression, though vague and unrepresentable in words, from portions of Scripture which we do not understand, such as Ezekiel, Canticles, or Revelation 1 and may not this be a part of their intention 1 This struck me mightily last night, while reading some picturesque passages in the original Apocalypse. Here is a sentence from a sermon of Tholuck: “Not only to us is that unseen One nigh, who rules these lips while I speak to you, but over all existences doth he reign and influence; as well the comet in its orbit, as the small worm that crawls in dust, hath he folded in the broad shadow of his mantle. ‘Do I not fill heaven and earth 1 ’ saith the Lord in our text. ‘If I ascend into heaven thou art there, if I make my bed in hell, be hold thou art there.’ “Again:” A voice rings in thine ears, My child, why hast thou not sought me 1 Yea, from infancy up, first when thou wast sitting in thy mother’s embrace, while she told thee the story of the dear Redeemer, and then in thy boyhood, when in starry nights thou gazedst on the grandeur of thy heavenly Father’s mansions, and thine eyes shed drops of thankfulness, that among all his million worlds he forgot not thee, poor child; and then in thy youth, when sin conflicted sorely with thee, and thou learn edst the truth, ’ he that trusteth in his own heart is a fool; ’ everywhere and all the way, has thy Father’s voice cried to thee: ‘Wherefore seekest thou me not, for I am still thy Father.’ “— How Madame de Stael depicts Lucian in one word, u il est le Voltaire de 1’antiquite.” We are making ready for our feast of tabernacles [commencement]. A German rationalist, resident formerly, perhaps now, in Illinois, has vilified your Union books, in a book of travels, at Hamburg. The worst he can say is that they are too evangelical.

As you have a little touch of Anglomania, let me recommend to you to buy Tanner’s second map of England separately, and have a linen back pasted on it. It is a delightful companion to one’s English reading. I have seen nothing like it.

PRINCETON, November 3, 1835.

I have just come from the funeral of Dr. Ilowell, the best physician and one of the best friends I ever knew; and never has there been so sincere a mourning general in our village. The Church was verily a Bochim. The Dr. was signally a gentleman and a man of science. His integrity, his generosity, his public spirit, his delicacy, and his sensibility, were uncommon. He was a model of uncalculating liberality and chivalrous honour; and all his failings were the running over at the brim of these virtues. Though bred a hickory quaker, he was growing in religious knowledge, and has given, to my mind, unequivocal evidence of faith in Christ during his late trials. His son William preceded him a few weeks; his eldest daughter lies ill now; his second daughter is slowly recovering; his wife has had the early symptoms [typhus fever], as has his eldest son. Such a house of grief I never saw, and it has fallen chiefly on me to minister to these minds diseased. Out of this one house I know of no cases of the complaint in the place. We hear from my parents that they are well and prosperous in their way through Virginia. You have seen the Life of Dr. Rice 1 It interests me, of course, but I lament the publicity given to many foibles of men still alive. I rejoice that Wordsworth is publishing in Philadelphia; heartily and religiously do I believe that our money-loving and gain-reckoning generation would be profited by the leaven of the Coleridge and Wordsworth philosophical poesy, even though this has its whimsies. Newark is a wonderful place now; pop. 20,000, exported manufactures this year $8,000,000. Of young men between 15 and 25, four to five thousand. I never had such an audience as there, on the 25th; I preached at the invitation of the Young Men’s Society. The Churches there are all alive, and the place is a little, sublimated New York. I called on Col. Stone [editor of “Commercial Advertiser”] in New York, in his den, and found him courtly and facete. In the progress of mobs, I see every thing portentous; worse this, by far, than abolition. And though I conceive the anti-slavers to be rash and pragmatical, yet I think the arrogance of the South is palpably their worst policy. This wedge is in, and drives deeper year by year. And I rejoice that you and I are not laden with negro souls and bodies. Amazingly orthodox as I am, I own I should relish a little breathing spell; at least a trial, whether some of the sheep could not be fed to a certain degree, even though the shepherds did not play at quarterstaff over their heads. However, my head is not wise on these great points. Let me hear about any apostolic blows and knocks that you wot of. Bush is making a lexicon. Who

is Nehemiah 1 I suppose he comes of the family of the

Peleg Pecks, and Chenaniah Coffins, and Remembrance Reids,

whose names, in the Review, show forth the glory of the

anti-anonymous system. Adieu. Thine particularly.

PRINCETON, November 27, 1835.

Horace Binney’s eulogy [on Chief Justice Tilghman] is Attic The introduction and a few sentences here and there are too antithetical, so as to be both stiff and obscure; otherwise it looks to me like a piece of severe rhetoric worthy of Athens. I have wanted to ask you, for some time, this question: Though you publish many Scripture biographies, and though they are taken out of the libraries, as is every thing else, yet are they really perused, sought after, delighted in 1 In this I feel interested. As an antiquary (N. B. Johnson uses the noun “antiquarian” in

Pref. to Diet.) I have a grand treat just now. brought me

from Virginia a load of MSS., letters of old Dr. Wadclel, pieces of sermons, numerous skeletons, and letters to him. He ordered all his papers to be burned before his death; these escaped casually. Also a MS. Diary of Col. James Gordon, my mother’s maternal grandfather, the first of the line in Virginia. The family was Scotch, but he came from Ireland to Lancaster Co., Virginia. Look at the singularly fine commercial site of that county. He was a merchant in direct trade with England, and I read of ships arriving every day. He was a Presbyterian among hundreds of Episcopalians, and in constant feuds with the fox-hunting parsons. Every few pages, I read of Whitefield, Davies, Todd, and Waddel. Date 1759-’G5. Some historical dates may be fixed by this.

I breed so many plans which cannot be accomplished in one brief lifetime, especially of books, that I have sometimes half a mind to send you a half dozen or so of skeletons, that you may get them fitted up with flesh and skin. One of the best classical scholars I know was never at school till he entered College, but was taught wholly by his grandmother!

PRINCETON, December 17, 1835.

I think it my duty to decline the invitation so kindly given me by (you say not whom else) you, to preach to the teachers, &c.; on the sole ground, that I cannot take the time or strength to make a discourse. I am particularly full of writing; I have been a full month kept from any other writing by preparing for the Repertory. I have lectures to write, and preach at least every Sunday, besides preparing four chapters for Bible classes each week, and conducting two private classes in belles-lettres in addition to my official task, and my constant private instruction of two boys in my study. I have just done a most lengthy investigation of the Servctus affair, in which I have wearied through some thousand of pages.8 The collateral information I have thus got of Calvin’s character, is very delightful. You

1 He afterwards consented to perform the service, but was stopped by a snow-storm on the journey to Philadelphia.

2 He gave au article on the life of Servetus in the Repertory for January, 1836.

would bo greatly pleased with the 3d vol. of Scott’s Continuation of Milner; read an English copy by all manner of means.

PRINCETON, February 2, 1836.

I bless God for that part of my imperfect education which resides in good systems, and wish every student could read ten where our young men now read one. I should somewhat doubt the expediency of a Sunday School Memoir of Zinzendorf. On the whole, I think he was a good man, but his character is very tick lish. He passed through very evil report, and probably, from his being so often and so unfavourably mentioned in Wesley’s Journals, lies under a traditionary prejudice among Methodists. He came near the brink of very gross Arminianism, and his early hymns were so carnal in their expression, that they have been left out. Aaron Burr has been dying some months, and his grave bespoken here, but he hangs on. He has given our College a portrait of his father, the President, by J. S. Copley, the father of Lord Lyndhurst. The latter part of the last Report of the A. B. C. F. Missions is capitally written. Don’t take these for words of course, but read the few last pages. I have never been so filled with the reality of increase in missionary zeal, as in comparing several successive reports. Try this experiment. Take the reports of the Board, and compare the “reading part,” the plans, the appeals to the church, from the first to the last. What an amazing difference! What an increase of light, of courage, of large plan, of hope! How much higher the standard of duty, as it regards the Church and individuals! I have never been able to rid my mind of an impression, that matters will not come right, in the work of evangelism, till we see men setting out u on their own hook “(as to destination and support) in the missionary enterprise; staking all, relying on God, and penetrating deserts or hostile kingdoms, after the apostolical manner. Perhaps this is fanatical. If we are as much on the alert in a French war, as we seem to have been with regard to the Seminoles, shall we not be in a fine posture of defence 1 Suppose, as has been said, the fleet of King Philippe should pounce on Pensacola, how much of the South might be ravaged by him, and the savages, before our redoubtable army could be created! I am against war, in any and every one of the contingencies mentioned. “Will honour set a leg 1” Yet I am far from being a Quaker on the general question; for I would (i<;ht the Seminoles, tooth and nail. My palate has, for a year or two, been growing so (perhaps under some mistaken idea of increasing my taste) that I begin to think of having it docked.

PRINCETON, March 10, 1836.

We learn by tradition, that the crust of our earth was once of the nature of soil, but from all appearances snow is the real substance at present. Since my futile attempt to get to you, I have taken one or two voluntary sleigh-rides, with which I am abundantly satisfied for the winter. Through great favour of Providence, our large family, including myself, have enjoyed a remarkable exemption from disease during the rigours of the season. My wife and children in particular have been very well, and we are the more able to value the blessing, from having had so much experience the other way. I learn there is a great revival in Yale College, which began on the day of prayer, as several revivals there have done. There are very pleasing indications in my late charge in Trenton. Do you observe that the new Master of the Rolls is brother of good Edward Bickersteth, and the new Lord Chancellor son of II. More’s witty old correspondent, Sir W. W. Pepys? This looks well. It looks as if Providence was not forsaking a country, when the seed of the righteous are exalted. The legal decision of Chief Justice Savage about the Trades Unions, strikes me as important. Every thing nowadays seems to betoken the triumph, at least for a season, of ignorance, violence, agrarianism, and the canaille; and the worst is, that when a country comes out of this fit, it usually falls into that of despotism. The excesses of the Temperance advocates have brought me to a serious question, whether the whole pledge system is not wrong.

PRINCETON, April 14, 1836.

I have read the address of Mr. Barnes’s congregation. The only import ant item is the statement of doctrinal questions. If this has any meaning, it plainly is, that the doctrines which Mr. Barnes is required to hold, which Synod holds, and for not holding which Mr. B. is suspended, are, inter alia: 1. That God made a formal and express covenant, &c. 2. That Adam’s sin is my personal sin. 3. That Christ’s sufferings are the precise sufferings. 4. That Christ’s righteousness becomes my personal righteousness. 5. That man is involuntary in (actual) sin. You know I dissent from the decision of the Synod, but the above rcprcseii’ tation shocks me. For, 1. Mr. Barnes was never required to maintain any such doctrine. 2. These are not the points alleged. 3. I never heard of a member of Synod who held any one of them. 4. I pledge my character, that no man in America can be found who pretends to hold any two of them. We have a lovely day after yesterday’s storm. Our session is now closed, and I am only waiting for a little fixment in order to set out on my

Virginia trip, which I expect to do on Tuesday next. Our trustees have made Jaeger professor of French, in place of Hargous, resigned. I have read “Good’s Better Covenant,” published by Hooker, with high interest, and I hope profit. The book justifies all [Bishop] Mcllvaine’s laudation; a lovely work. Hug’s Introduction to the New Testament is translated at Andover; if well done, it will be worth possessing, being the best book on the subject, by a very learned Roman Catholic. Our little bookseller here will send a few copies of my “Gift” [to the Afflicted]. I have been writing a series of six articles on “Civic and Rural Decoration,” in a Newark paper, of which I send you the only number I have. By the Christian Observer I perceive that the Churchmen of England are again agitating the question about an emendation of the Liturgy, much as in the reign of William III. To this they seem to be driven by fear of the radicals. Among a new importation from London, I see a new life of Watts, by one Milner. The first volume of the Church of Scotland Magazine is mainly occupied in defending establishments, and abusing Colton and America. Maria Monk [a professed convert from Popery] is again dragged out in all her feculence and purulence in the newly risen “Protestant Vindicator,” which I hoped had gone to its own place. You probably see by the papers what a hoax there has been about Miss Frederica Misca, who turns out, instead of a German baroness, to be a Pennsylvania huckster.

PRINCETON, May 30, 1836.

For six weeks, nearly, I have laboured under a terrible cough, giving me sore trouble at night, and from its continuance quite threatening. The doctors have repeatedly told me that I must expect to suffer in this way, as long as my uvula or, pen dulous palate dragged on my tongue, as it has done for eighteen months past. Yesterday I had the tip end nipped off; but this seeming insufficient, I have to-day submitted to the excision of an additional lump of some size. After having thus lost my palate, I am, as you may readily suppose, disqualified for lecturing on Taste, and am snugly confined to my room, until such time as I may be relieved. My father is in Baltimore, and has been in Washington, where he saw Jackson and Van Buren. He speaks of the disorder in the House of Representatives as exceeding any thing he ever witnessed. I saw something of the same, and could not but call to mind the charges made against our General Assembly, by ignorant or peevish persons, as being more unruly than secular bodies of equal size. I always considered it as false in fact, and it is to be also considered that the Assembly has but a fortnight in which to bring into order men of every section, some of whom have never before been in any deliberative body. So has covered his retreat by a book,

in which, I dare say, deserter-like, he abuses those he has left. This has become the mode; indeed, is it not in human nature ] I am reminded of a sentence of Parr’s: “Proselytes, after a few misgivings, soon glow with the real or pretended fervor of zealots. In order to obtain protection against the indignation of the persons, whom they have deserted, they adopt every prejudice, inflame every passion, and minister indiscriminately to every good and every bad purpose of the party to whom they have delivered over their interests and their honour.”

Our college has opened with a larger accession than is common at the season. The eastern storm has been so long and close since my return, that I can hardly tell how our northern country looks. It seems to me, in looking over the history of the church, that the real progress of religion has been in a very small degree dependent on the spread or permanency of any external form of polity. The external form has shot out great branches, and taken root, while at the same time the spirit of religion has become almost extinct; witness the Romish church, the Anglican church under Queen Anne, and in Virginia. The external form has, on the other hand, been violated and trampled on, while the spirit of religion, taking a large view, has made immense progress; witness the early Reformation; the Moravian offset from Lutheranism, and the Wesley an Reformation in England. This thought runs beautifully through the whole of Neander’s Church History. He looks for the unity of the church in something internal. Hurlbut of your city has furnished an admirable selection of Cicero’s letters, with notes. In all classical antiquity, so far as I have any glimpses, there is no better read ing for youth, as I am sure in all pagan history there is no better character. This I say the more readily after a careful perusal of his familiar epistles. Democracy and I are less and less friends every day I live. Yet nothing else would do for a country like ours. It must be several ages yet before we have a noblesse, or a literary caste; and until we have, nominal aristocracy would be as ridiculous as the “Due de Limonade,” &c., of St. Domingo.

PRINCETON, June 13, 1836.

Having been doctored for a time under misprision of whoopins or chin-cough, I am at length duly convicted, having caught it of Mr. Carrington’s children, and conveyed it to my own. During the intervals I feel quite well, but at the paroxysms I have the feeling of being choked to death, and that sometimes for a minute. I shall always have a sincere pity for children under this visitation. As to the operation on my palate, it is so plain a one that if I could have seen and reached the spot, I should not have scrupled to do it for myself. It is now well. Reperusing the life of Hannah More; with more admiration and instruction than before. Truly the circle in which she moved was brilliant and great, beyond compare; but look ye, when you or I talk of emigrating to England, let us never forget that we could never gain access to that aristocratic class. The caste would forever exclude us, and our Americanism would be semi-barbarism. And therefore I should prefer the upper circle here, to the English middlings, who cringe and truckle with a servility which no

American could endure. I have looked over ’s sermon on

sects, which seems to me to contain an infinite deal of nothing. I have in vain tried to deduce from it any one practical canon, which is not already acted on. The best reply to it would be an article I once read in the Vermont “Chronicle,” entitled “Hypostasization,” or some such hard word, showing that when we broke all the sectarian vessels, we spilled all the Christian liquor at the same time. Romish unity 1 can understand, but the unity which is to arise from the compromise and suppression of every thing peculiar, I cannot understand; and if there were a society on the principle that no sectarian proclivities of doctrine should be

preached, which suggests to be a good principle for

preaching, I should abhor it little less than I do the Pope’s church. Indeed, it is only the liberty of declaring within each separate pale the supposed truths of the gospel, in their length and breadth, which for a moment reconciles me to the compromise of the Sunday School Union, or the Tract Society. The stars in their courses seem to fight against the Marion [college, &c., in Missouri] humbug; indictment, inundation, murder, flogging, lynching. I ween some of the stockholders begin to be reminded of the South Sea bubble.

It occurs to me that a tract might be written in the dialogue form, after the model of H. More’s Village Politics, against the Trades Unions; but how could it be circulated 1 Females and ladies have ousted the noble old word woman. Fanny Komble laughs at old Riker for having called her a female. N. B. All negro wenches are ladies. “I met two males with white hats;” how does that sound? I wish this new dictionary of Richard son’s could be held up as a shield against the barbarous missiles

of Noah Webster. writes from London that his health

is greatly amended, and that for a guinea a day he has worse fare than his mother’s upper servants. In one respect I am glad he has gone; he is an American who will not sink or mask any one peculiarity out of fear of John Bull, and who will beard our impertinent English critics even in Exeter Hall. He has more over strength of mind and vigorous eloquence. When I was in Washington I saw some moulds for statues by a pupil of Thorwaldsen, from Rome, and also busts, by him of Clay, Jackson, Southard, &c. They were very striking. East wind and raw weather again. Farmers say we shall have no small grain. Happy land is ours where famine has never come!

PRINCETON, July 10, 1836.

Princeton is now in a state of Anglican viridity, enough to cure half the people “in populous city pent.” I have a shuddering, 1 hope not superstitious, about Girard College. Its corner stone lies on the credit of Christ’s ministers, and thus (Luke x. 16) on the honour of Christ. Institutions, having no immortal souls, are punished in this life, and therefore I do confidently forebode some signal frown of Providence on that institution. Yet I speak hesitatingly, for e contra — shall we leave it to be the prey and organ of the devil and his angels 1 We are all too apt, however, to give an undue weight to selfish considerations in making our election of our lot, and our satisfaction of mind is therefore all the greater when we can feel that we choose the humbler and thornier path for Christ’s sake. Having been repeatedly called to this anxious sort of inquiry, I have come to this result: that when we pray for guidance, we receive it, but do not always know, even when we take the decisive step, that it is just the right thing; we leap, so to speak, in the dark, or in the best light we have, and then find ourselves on solid ground, and are ultimately convinced that what we did was “of the Lord.”

PRINCETON, Aug. 23, 1836.

Your absence from the city detracted somewhat from my usual satisfactions, and during the only secular hour which I had to bestow on the Union, both the worshipful secretaries were absent. I saw Mr. Packard in perspective at the 10th church [from the pulpit] but had no “speech of him.”

I had never heard, until your last, of any opposition to your Union from the Boston Recorder. It may be observed, however, that the eastern folk are great friends of all national societies

which centre at Boston. Some years ago and had a

controversy, as to whether the Massachusetts Missionary Society should be swallowed up by the American Home Missionary Society. It cannot be long before the Episcopalians will have

1 The will of Girard excluded clergymen from the College, even as transient visitors.

VOL I. 11 to desist from their taunts at non-prelatical sects for their discord. In Bishop White they have lost a great balance-wheel. They may look for troubles at home. Witness the lamentable feud between their Goliath, Dr. G and Bp. S, the quarrel between McC and his late vestry, the erratic proceedings

of C — ‘• — , and the despotism of D.

You will perhaps smile when I tell you that I have been taking some lessons in drawing. This I have done with special reference to making pictures for some of my projected books. Having had to supply Prof. Maclean’s place in part, during his absence, I do scarcely any thing else in my study but pore over Greek tragedy; an employment which I find irksome, except that I am enlivened by the hope of gaining a more accurate knowledge of New Testament grammar.

If you will look into Walker, you will discover that half our good speakers mispronounce the following words: “access, recess, exhaust, transient, transition, relaxation, exhortation, isolate, enthusiasm, ecclesiastical.” I have read no traveller’s account more graphic or satisfactory than R. J. Breckinridge’s letters from England in his Baltimore magazine. On the 20th inst. a young Irish maid, being phrenetic, precipitated herself from the garret window to the ground, and was not seriously injured, though she continues crazy. I have seen a recent letter from Tholuck, in which that good man writes despondingly about the state of evangelical religion in Germany. We are expecting every day a large importation of new German books. The old king of Prussia is crazy. The heir apparent is a pious man, and vehemently opposed to the Neologists. I hope WTC shall have no more stupid Hobys from England to act as spies on their return. Suppose we should pursue a similar course with regard to their

treatment of the wild Irish; or that B should wage a crusade

against their marine-impressment, or their tithe-laws.

I believe you are an honorary member of the Am. Whig Society of our college. Among our improvements here, we propose to erect two separate edifices for the accommodation of the two literary societies. A subscription to this end is going about among our graduates. You may mention it publicly or privately upon any suitable occasion. It is a fine idea o Vitringa’s that Isaiah, in the passage, “doves to their windows,” alludes to merchant vessels returning with outspread sails to their ports. I have this day finished the critical study of the Phoenissos of Euripides, and am disposed to accord to that great poet the praise which is commonly given for his ingenuity, correctness, and tragic pathos. Take some occasion to brush up your French by reading the letters of Archbishop Fenelon. Surely there have lived few more holy men upon our globe. It is pleasing under the worst forms of church opinion to discover the undeniable operations of the Holy Spirit.

PRINCETON, Aug. 26, 1836.

I agree to every word you say about memoirs. In the case of -, for instance, a dear and honored friend of mine, I can see no demand for a biography. Diaries are often mere diar rhoeas or defecations of a man’s most troubled and worst thoughts. 1 have been so fully employed as to be unable to lay a finger to any Sunday School job for several months. There are some archaeological pictures which I will endeavour to copy for you as soon as may be. It is also in my earnest intention to give you somewhat for the “Youth’s Friend,” [a monthly magazine.] My present attitude about Temperance is this: I regard the teetotalers as the only consistent society, but have some slight scruples about the whole principle, when I look at its abuses and corollaries. Do you ever see a foot-stove in a church nowadays? I remember when they were almost as indispensable in winter, as fans are in summer.

If the principle of infinite series can be exemplified in practice, it will be in the case of the - ’s French correspondent. Arminius’s motto was Bona conscientia paradisus; Calvin’s, Prompte et sincere; Erasmus’s, Cedo nulli. I expect to preach to the children at Kingston, at their Sunday School Anniversary next Sunday.

PRINCETON, Sept. 24, 1836.

I am sorry that you are so confirmed a cockney as to be unfit for travel. My case differs from yours; for a week before I set out any whither, I am in a perfect tremor and feeze, but after about forty miles I become entirely nonchalant, and feel as if I could journey a year. You alarm me about your water-drinking propensity. Blessed sir! have you not read Dr. - ’s hydrophobic stricture, thereanent? See “Permanent Documents,” appendix, p. 25. Are you ignorant that “water dilutes the gas tric juice,” and is a species of intemperance? Little as I meddle in politics, or believe in panics, I am alarmed at the unexampled audacity of the 19 Van Buren electors of Maryland. It seems to have come to this, that when the wagon of state goes in a road unpleasant to a minority of passengers, they may be allowed to

1 His correspondent had remarked, that it seemed to be understood in the religious world, that every one who had kept a diary or written letters, must have his biography written.

OF

’ remove all the linch-pins and cut the traces. Take this in ctmnexion with Dallas’s doctrine that conventions may annul compacts, and we have the spectre of anarchy and civil war before us. I fear things must be worse before they are better. Yet how natural is Hezekiah’s selfishness, “There shall be peace and truth in my days.” I join you in lamentation on the desert state of our religious field. Perhaps the remedy is to be sought in striving to build up individual piety, with less confidence in the omnipotence of associations, unions, and polity. The more we talk and plan, the more we seem to diifer. Eenelon has some truth in his advice: “Parlez a Dieu pour la paix de 1’eglise, et ne parlez point aux hommes.” At [Aaron] Burr’s burial, we had as pall-bearers, Judge Edwards, General Swartwout, sen.,

who was Burr’s second in the duel, and, who has also

killed his man. Dr., in rallying Dr. Rice about assisting

at the rites, said a good text would have been “By this time he stinketh.” I have been this morning to see the eldest son of our late physician [Dr. Howell] dying, as I believe. I trust he is departing in faith. His little sister lies only not as ill as he. My

little private scholar is also very sick; all in the same house.

Offer one hearty prayer for these afflicted people. I never knew such a case. All the cases I know of are in this one house, yet it is new, high, ventilated, sweet and clean. Entre nous — I have been sounded to discover whether I would be president of South Hanover College; now if you will be a good boy, and sign the Act and Testimony, and return to the ways of your father’s father, I will make you vice-president. You will not need webbed-feet, like the Marionites. I certify that the college is above high-water mark. I attended a pleasing Sunday School Anniversary last Sunday at Cranbury; a church full of children. Henry is a true man to the cause.

PRINCETON, October, 1836.

Your favour of last week I found on my return from Newark, where I had been spending a week very delightfully. While there I fell into conversation with one of the leading politicians of New Jersey, a professor of religion, who took the following ground against Sunday Schools, a ground quite new to me: He holds that it is the duty of the Christian public to institute as fast as possible a system of schools all over the land, which shall teach religion as well as learning. Every thing which delays this, or which is short of this, he deprecates. He therefore regards the energies of the church as wasted upon the endeavour to teach a portion of the children a mere thirtieth of their time. The effort which carries forward the Sunday School enterprise would almost accomplish the other. The man is sincere and enthusiast!^ and I give you his views in all their strength.

We are to have two of Dr. King’s Greeks in college. They are intelligent fellows; one of them a noble specimen. They read the Attic Greek works with scarcely any difficulty. I wish you would visit Newark on your Sunday School business. I know no such place out of New England. Within the last month they have raised in the Presbyterian churches there a little less than $12,000, for public objects. Among the rest $3,500 for a new African church, of which not a cent was given by Abolitionists.

PRINCETON, Nov. 13, 1836. I am sensibly affected by the peril and the escape of

and unite with you in giving thanks. No doubt, you already feel the lesson to be better than many volumes, and many sermons. You will probably never lose the benefit of these softening and humanizing scenes. “By these things men live, and in all these things is the life of the spirit.” And do not charge me with meaning to take an ungenerous advantage of you in an argument, when I say with earnest conviction, that such experiences better fit a man for feeding Christ’s sheep, than even the ascetic devotions of a bachelor. If I have ever made any “proof” of my “ministry,” it has been in the house of mourning, and by means of knowledge learned in the same. The thought has occurred to me, that the angels, although perfect in holiness, cannot have that perfection of holiness which saints have, inasmuch as they have never known the discipline of tears. They cannot know what it is to bleed with a wife or a child. And analogously, how much is contained in that character of our high-priest, that he was “tempted in all points like as we are.” My thoughts run more naturally in this strain, because we have two sick children.

PRINCETON, Nov. 29, 1836.

I will try to write the questions on Hebrews; but have you considered how large a book it will make? Among perverted texts, none suffer more than 2 Cor. v. 11. “Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord we persuade men.” Very pretty theories are spun out of it. But look at the Greek, TOV <j>6£ov TOV KvpLov — it is the unvarying expression for the fear of the Lord, or true religion, everywhere else so translated; and why not here also, as well as in Acts ix. 31 1 Out of many instances in the LXX., take these at random: Job xxviii. 28. Psalm xxxiv. 11. Isa. xi. 3. Proverbs xxiii. 17; i. 7; ij. 5; viii. 13. Our college is full; we have admitted 62. The junior class has 86. If you ever see a paper called the Newark Daily Advertiser, you will recognize two old friends — C. S. A. every day; and your humble servant every two or three days, under the title Literary Trifles. Mr. Walsh had one gross error in his English, which I am sorry to see his successor imitates. It is saying “I doubt that” for “I doubt whether.” Not only is the latter the authorized phrase, but it has a different meaning. In old English, I doubt that he will fail means, I fear, or suspect that he will fail. The adverb “whether” is exactly suited to express the libration of the mind between alternatives which doubt imports.

PRINCETON, Dec. 27, 1836.

Last night, after returning from Brunswick, where I had been for three days, I received the paper you sent me, containing the news of your bereavement. May the Lord make it an abundantly useful dispensation! I might dwell on the fact that the increasing afflictions of your child made it desirable that she might be transplanted to a more genial climate, if I did not know how little this consideration has to do with our affections, or if I had not learned by experience that the feeblest is always the darling of the parent’s heart. A better rest for your mind will be found in considerations purely evangelical, and connected with the covenant of grace. This stroke is a part of the gospel compact. It has been, I doubt not, sent, and sent at this time, with a specialty of purpose, as to your sanctification and salvation. In the belief of this, I am less disposed to suggest topics for your consideration, than to direct you to listen to that voice of the Spirit which accompanies the stroke. If you carefully observe what great truths of Christianity are at this time most weighty on your soul, or most precious, you will find it good to note these, and treasure them up for future contemplation and practice. In these seasons of night we are permitted to discern those stars which are hidden by the glare of day. Such sins also as now weigh upon your conscience may be those which the dispensation is intended to cut away. After all, it is safest to put the word of God into your hands, and to leave you to imbibe those truths for which your heart shall manifest the greatest affinity. “I will hear what God the Lord will speak.”

Such are my pressing engagements, viz.: 14 hours of lecture and recitation a week, besides Bible-class, preaching, and Repertory, that I scarcely foresee a time when I can really fall to work upon the Questions.

Did I say to you that we have here a very interesting Italian gentleman named Borsieri? Ho was 15 years imprisoned in the fortress of Spielberg, in Moravia, for conspiracy against the Austrian domination over Lombardy. He is several times mentioned in the celebrated Memoirs of Silvio Pellico, as an intimate friend of the latter. He is a man of great accomplishment, speaking Latin, French, and German, but he has very little English.

TRENTON, January 7, 1837.

My father is strongly inclined to the opinion, that your Union should have an agent at Calcutta, for the purpose of circulating your books and plans throughout British India.

[After speaking of the perils of ministers under the temptations of money.] Truly and unaffectedly I am alarmed at these things, and most of all alarmed at what I discern in myself, of desires for more ease, style, and luxury than is compatible with the sincere preaching of self-denial. It is in vain for us to cry out against the luxury of Popish priests, in the face of such things. I believe, that the majority of Popish priests are poor and live low. It is also vain for us to prate about the self-denials of the ministry.

I am more and more pleased with Mr. [John W.] Williams’s redaction of the [Philadelphia] National Gazette. Sometimes he is prolix and not enough degage, but always sober and generally elegant. As a litterateur he must certainly take the highest rank.2 I purpose to send a piece from the Italian to his paper, if I can get a breathing- spell. Since I wrote my [” Jacob and “] “Joseph,” I have met with a good suggestion in Josephus. Why did Joseph demand Benjamin to be brought down to Egypt 1 It is a question not easily answered. Josephus supposes it was because from his own experience of their cruelty, Joseph feared they had made way with Benjamin, as they had wished to do with himself. And also that he put the cup into Benjamin’s sack in order to make trial of his brethren, whether they would stand by Benjamin, when he should be accused of stealing the cup, or whether they would abandon him to his fate.

1 Large supplies of the publications of the Society had already been sent to India upon the orders of British and American missionaries. Mr. C. E. Trevelyan, in the civil service of the Government at Calcutta, was specially zealous in this work, and several of the original books of the Union were translated into Hindoostanee.

2 Mr. Williams also succeeded Mr. Walsh in sharing the editorial charge of the American Quarterly Review; but his promising career was cut off by his death at an early age, in August, 1837.

PRINCETON, March 10, 1837.

From the inconvenience of having two habitats, [College and dwelling,] your last favour is not within my reach, and I must rather ask than answer. Serious and numerous engagements have so fractured my days that I could not feel free to bestow any of my horse subccsivas on the luxury of letter-writing. I have been at Trenton assisting at the sessions of our law-makers, and witnessing their squabbles on the surplus revenue [of the United States] which is producing the same sort of scramble and fight that ensues upon a largess of coppers among a group of sweeps. The worser side has the best of the battle, and the principal, not

the mere interest, is to be distributed, like the body of a

you wot of, [Judges xix. 29,] and with about as much chance of being ever reintegrated. Trenton will probably double its

trade and population next year. is the most elegant

builder of a sermon, qua talis, within my knowledge. I found great satisfaction in going to see some of my old parishioners in their affliction. One of these is James Pollock,1 a Scotchman from Ayrshire, a poor dyer, and a broken-down invalid, but rich in faith and intellectual resources. For nine weeks he had suffered anguish from calculi, having spasms which, as he said, would certainly have killed him if they had followed one another on successive days; he was under salivation when I saw him, though he was dressed and sitting in his chair. I wish I could give you some idea of this man’s manner and discourse. His face was illuminated by a fire of Christian animation beyond any thing I ever saw, and he poured forth, in the very broadest Scotch dialect, the strongest Calvinism of Paul, every point of which seemed in his soul to be turned into rich experience. Pollock is the best theologian, and the best master of church history, I know, out of the clerical profession; nor in it do I know five whom I consider his superiors. He declared to me that under agonies of bodily pain his views of Christ and of the sovereign, distinguishing grace of the plan of salvation, had wholly neutral ized his sense of suffering. This man’s stern and holy enthusiasm is felt with amazing influence in the factory to which he is attached. Though very poor, he overawes and prevents the profaneness, drinking, and scoffing, which are always ready to break out in such places. My tears are not easily come at, but 1 was childishly overcome in listening to his Chalmerian discourse. Jf I ever saw a native genius, or a glorius Covenanter, it is in the person of James Pollock. A second visit I paid to a widow

1 Mr. Pollock is mentioned before on page 199. He died December, 1856, at the age of 73.

in her 81st year, who declared to me that she had seen no moment since I last met with her, in which she did not joyfully await the summons of Christ. And when I asked her how she viewed her own doings, she absolutely burst into tears, as she disclaimed all righteousness of her own. I declare to you my satisfaction and strengthening of faith from these two cases. Let the infidel solve the problem: How, at an age, and amidst pains and sicknesses, which naturally cause despondency, and subdue hope, the fear of the direst of human ills is swallowed up in Christian expectation 1

I have not for weeks done any thing at the questions on Hebrews, and see no chance of resuming them for a month or two. It is, for years, my canon, to do no writing or serious study by night; and you may imagine my days from the following schedule: 9. A.M., at- my study, with two boys, Livy and Mair, correct exercises, and overlook their Algebra; meantime preparing for class, and writing for Repertory. 11. A.M. Lecture or Recitation. 12 — 1£ exercise and college business; 2, at study as above. Hear Xenophon. Class at 3-J. Prayers at 5. All days alike. I have not yet told you that the Assembly’s Board of Education and Missions, have nominated me their speaker at certain palavers to be holden in May, at Natchez, Louis ville, Pittsburg, &c. If the Lord will, I shall set out soon after April 10th. The Natchez meeting, which comes first, falls in the first week in May. Rev. V. Chester goes along. He intimated that your Board wished a representative, but however much I should love to serve you, I think it would hurt all three to have an individual acting for the Co. Charles Matthews, I believe, used to enact some fourteen characters in one night, but poor I shall scarcely have vim enough for one. Now, if you will but accompany, we may hope for a happy, useful journey; and perhaps we may never again have the chance of seeing the mighty lap of this Occidental virgin world.

No conviction of my soul gains more strength than that our great study should be The Bible. I reproach my butterfly mind every night, for her idle excursions. Yet one consolation I certainly find: though I am much away from my Bible, as I am much away from my wife and boys, yet when I do get back, I feel that I love them mightily. O how! how! how shall we check the waste of mind upon the ever-increasing frivolities of literature! Literature needs a Deluge. “We are antediluvians in this regard. Is God about to banish our impertinent rivalry of his book, by sweeping our books away? by war, discord, or other calamity? I hope not. Let me begin reform at home. I am ashamed of piddling all my days among periodical scraps,

25 ‘) WHILE PEOFESSOB IN PRINCETON COLLEGE.

and short-lived nothings, while whole tracts of Scripture remain unexplored. Query. What would John, Paul, or Peter, if arisen in our day, do in the premises “? I am sick at heart of a book-and-paper surfeit. I wish I could get some remedy.

PRINCETON, April 3, 1837.

On Saturday, 25th ult., I went to New York to preach for [Rev. George] Potts. It was my intention to stay some days, in order to purchase a little furniture for housekeeping, which we are about to attempt: (Apropos of which we cordially join in tendering to you and yours such things as we have, now, henceforth, and forever. Make my ‘best speech in the premises

to;) but a grievous assault of [pain] disconcerted me, and

I was fain to come home. My employers have so fixed the anniversaries at the West (at Louisville on the 24th and Pittsburg a week later) that the trip seems hardly worth making; and if I do not get better, I shall not dare to go at all. In that event, I shall hope to spend a little time in my old Philadclphian haunts. I heard and [two celebrated

“revivalists “] in New York. The former has taken all the wind out of the latter’s sails, as to revivals. The Broadway Tabernacle is the noblest house for a great auditory that ever I saw. Perhaps 2,500 filled the seats on Sunday week at night.

is on the cool, metaphysical tack; but the mad bull will

butt and bellow sometimes. The sermon was an odious caricature of old Hopkinsian divinity, such as ferments in the head of an ill-trained but vigorous mind, and throws up a scum of crudities. “Government,” “Government,” “Government,” nothing but government — till I began to feel as if the Creator was but a secondary administrator, put to hard shifts to save appearances.

It was a sermon well adapted to make, e. g.” I suppose

all the united malice of all the devils in hell would not keep a poor sinner in hell to all eternity. O no. None but God can have firmness enough to do that, &c.” These were his words so far as I remember.

As to, the account of him in the, is far below

the reality. His manner is drunken, he adores his person, and

perpetually protrudes “Mr.,” as he suburbanically calls

himself. His ordinary compellation of the hearer is “Mister I” He is profane to an extreme in foisting in the divine names merely to point a phrase, as “the vilest infidel under God’s heaven;” the “greatest mind God Almighty ever made;” and all this in the tone of a Yankee bar-keeper. I heard no false doctrine from him. You see the Literary and Theological lieview goes beyond us [Repertory] on Voluntary Associations.

M is in a feud with his S. S. Superintendent, an abolition ist, who refuses to be amenable to M. and turns the S. S. into an anti-slavery association. All the pastors complain of a tendency to such jarring. If such should really be the tendency of the present arrangements, the sooner we alter them the better -9 for I am high-church enough to abandon any thing which disturbs our divinely constituted relations of ruler and ruled. I wish you could see your way clear to have some of your [Union] books translated into Italian, for the Levant, where the language is extensively used. If you could, we have here a highly accomplished Italian, for many years fellow-prisoner of Silvio Pellico, and of Comte Confalonieri, who could do such work under my inspection. He is a Milanese, named Pietro Borsieri.

PRINCETON, April 29, 1837.

During my vacation, I have been absent, first for a week at Newark; for a day or two, then, at Trenton; and lastly for a day or two at Bound Brook, Somerset, where our Presbytery met. This, with the accumulated cares of raking together a little furniture, has kept me from much study-work or correspondence. We have not yet got into our house, partly from want of things, but chiefly from the delay of a servante whom we have engaged. I am living in the back-parlor, however, which I have to take as a study, or else have no room for my friends, which is after all the great charm of one’s own house. Mrs. Samuel Bayard died last week in Westmoreland, Va., at the late residence of Mrs. Washington; who, by-the-bye, died a

year or two ago, here, at the residence of Mr. Bayard.

stopped for a few days. I was here only part of the time. He gave many interesting accounts. Thinks it likely that the High Church tories of the Church and the Kirk, finding that the Catholic adhesion to the liberal side must ruin the conservative interest, will consent to give Ireland a Catholic, establishment; in consequence of which, the three established churches can trample down the Whigs, &c. He says there is more piety in proportion to the population in the Canton de Vaud, than in any part of the world. There is English preaching at seven places in Paris. At our Presbytery we appointed Dr. Alexander and Mr. Yeomans as commissioners, [to General Assembly ;] and Messrs. [I. V.] Brown and Shafer with two elders as delegates to the Convention, [preliminary to Assembly.] I see but one plan, and that I have often stated to you: Reduce the Church to its constituent Presbyteries. These are all that are essential to the notion of a Presbyterian Church. These may coalesce as they see fit.

PRINCETON, May 23, 1837.

You are enough acquainted with my penchant for “laid” or other non-porous writing paper to be able to buy me a parcel. I prefer the old-fashioned and old drab, or white, to the blue, and abominate the machine paper, which looks mottled when held up to the light.

But I write expressly to demand of you the reason why you have not sent me, as in duty bound, a Daily Bulletin of the Sanhedrin: yea a dally letter, full of facts, number of votes, and pungencies, &c. Prithee begin, and honour at sight this bill for one epistle per diem while the General Assembly is sitting. I suppose you have divided the Church, and excommunicated New England, while I have been sowing my beet seed, and blistering my puny fingers with spade and hoe. Know ye, however, that wre gardeners of Jersey contemn all the prettinesses of your civic parterres and flower beds, and go for massy hills of corn, unsightly ridges of potatoes, and stupendous poles of nodding hop-vines. Come up and behold a second Cato the Censor, another Cincinnatus, a great experimenter in the union of leeks and letters; come and taste of my rhubarb pies, (the only esculent I yet boast,) my embryo radishes, my beans just up, my parsley and sage not up at all, and my nasturtions not pickled nor planted.

College has opened. Prospects better than we feared. My daily duties forbid my going to the Assembly.

I passed some days at New Brunswick, where there is a great revival in three several places, viz., the Baptist Church, the Presbyterian Church, and the Free Church.

PRINCETON, June 14, 1837.

I could not get down to the city, because when I was not teaching, I felt constrained to be in New Brunswick, to aid Bro. [Jos. II.] Jones, one of my most intimate brethren, for whom I have within ten days preached six sermons, and attended as many meetings more. That ultra old school town is shaken by a great awakening, still in blessed progress. In the Baptist Church 109 have been baptized; others inquiring. In the Dutch Church (Dr. S. B. How’s) 35 have been admitted; perhaps as many more awakened. In Jones’s Church, some 70 entertain the Christian hope, and about 80 are awakened. In Rutgers College, out of 80 youths, 68 are thought to have believed in Christ.

1 According to the “Outline of a Work of Grace,” published by Dr. Jones in 1839, the whole number received into the communion of the Presbyterian Church was 149; the aggregate of admission into all the churches about 600.

David Abeel, the missionary, lives there; labouring beyond his strength, for he has come back from St. Croix, I fear, to die with his aged parents. After so many years of preaching with comparatively little visible effect, it was a gratifying and unspeakably gracious favour conferred on me, to allow me to witness some remarkable instances of apparent fruits. And still more, the whole tenour of this revival has been very pleasing to me, as confirming that high Calvinistic view of the gratuity of salvation, and the efficacy of the “gospel,” as contradistinguished from “obligation,” in which I grow day by day more exclusively rooted. I dare say my creed, if written out in full, would be condemned by many an Arminian, and many a New England Calvinist, or Antinomian, but it meets me unavoidably in every page of Paul. David Abeel is, I suppose, quite as good a man as Henry Marty n; indeed, so heavenly is his temper, that I feel a presentiment while in his company, that he is “ready to be offered.” I could wish and pray otherwise. The effect his labours have had on the Dutch Church, are such (in missionary matters) as I have never seen from the labours of one individual. Twice he lias been ready to re-embark for China, and both times brought to death’s door. If he have a reprieve, he will make another attempt before long.

We have about 220 on our College roll. Dr. Nesbit’s library is secured for the Seminary, so long as they teach orthodoxy.

NEW BRUNSWICK, July 13, 1837.

Last week I was at Bound Brook, on the Raritan, at a special meeting. The revival of religion has extended thither, to the flock of the Rev. Mr. Rodgers. About a hundred are inquiring. On Monday I took a drive of 46 miles, from Princeton to Somerville, thence down the Raritan to this city, and so home. The county of Somerset, in the parts through which I passed, is wholly settled by the Dutch; you know their neatness, thrift, and morality are proverbial. I never saw the country look so enchanting. The dense masses of herbage and forest are luxuriant in consequence of the rains, and every sort of crop promising beyond all previous supposition. The grass, oats, rye, flax, and wheat are excellent, and the corn better thereabouts than in any other region within my knowledge. Those who are accustomed to pass through the sands of lower Jersey have no conception of the beauty, fertility, and picturesqueness of the middle and upper counties. The Dutch farms realize the ideal of rural

1 Dr. Abeel returned to China in October, 1838, but was driven home by his declining health in January 1845, and died at Albany, September 4, 1846.

comfort. It is “a land of hills and valleys, and drinketh water of the rain of heaven.”

Yesterday I came hither; my third visit to this revived church. The work of the Lord is still advancing here, though the phase of divine influence is somewhat varied. As might be expected, the number of awakenings is smaller; but some of the most remarkable conversions have occurred within a day or two; including several professional men, and other persons of great influence. The Baptists have immersed a hundred and fifty. The Dutch number some 50 — 70 converts; the Presbyterians 130 — 150. The Methodists have a great excitement. All the students of Rutgers College but five or six are now hope fully pious. I perceive no one thing in the Presbyterian church which is undesirable, nor any flagging in the prayers or efforts of pastor or people. In the Sunday School the state of feeling is more full of promise than it has been at any time. All day, and much of the night, Mr. Jones is engaged with inquirers. Over the river, in Piscataway, and Metutchen, also in Plainfield, and (somewhat) in Rahway, there is revival. These influences, except in the case of Bound Brook, have been most extensive among the Baptists. There has been here no veiling or modify ing of high Calvinistic tenets, in order to keep the sinner under the yoke of obligation, or to precipitate the resolved efforts of his own soul, as abstracted from Divine power. The doctrines which have been blessed are the “primer doctrines,” taught in the old way, and in old phraseology. Indeed I may say of the preaching, what Brainerd says of that which was used to awaken his Indians: “It has been from first to last a strain of gospel invitation.”

COLLEGE, August 10, 1837.

What you say about a good penny paper, is most true, and has often occurred to me; only for weekly, I should certainly read daily. Some capital is needed to set such a thing on foot, but I am sure no book or magazine which could be issued from the press would have so wide an influence. The pious laymen of Philadelphia ought not to rest until the thing is done. So William IV. is dead, and a virgin once more on the chief throne of the world. If poets were not extinct, here would be a tempting subject. I hope I shall never so for undervalue charity as not to lament the false fire kindled in church controversies; but I comfort myself with the thoughts, that what we love we always contend for; that the most flourishing seasons for piety have been those of the most active debates: witness the days of Augustin, of Luther, of the English Nonconformists; that the conservative principle of Protestantism is discussion of all points; and that the friction of debate is temporary, while the gain on the side of truth is permanent. I am sure there has been no age in which controvertists have been more polite towards one another than

the present. My is so little of a Philadelphia lady, that 1

believe in my heart she has as few thoughts about old and new school, as about the Sunnites and Shiites of the Mohammedan “persuasion.” Abeel is coming to spend some days with me; his health is slowly failing.

The life of Scott [Lockhart’s life of Sir Walter] is a capital book indeed. One sees how much may be accomplished by assiduity. Another good lesson is the danger of involving one’s self in pecuniary connexions with “the trade.” The last days of July I passed in Trenton with my little family. I must say that all my recollections of that homely town are soft and pleasant; and when we go there, we are made welcome by a circle of hearty friends. A book ought to be written with this title: “The Aged Christian’s Book: printed in large type for the convenience of old persons.” It should be in the largest character attainable. Such topics as these: The Trials of Old Age; The Temptations of Old Age; The Duties of Old Age; The Consolations of Old Age, &c., &c. It should be a large book, with little matter in it. Why has no Tract Society thought of such a thing? My little introduction to the Bible can soon be finished, as I find I shall have to exclude a large amount of matter, hinting in the preface that the same may be wrought into a second volume, or work. It will not greatly exceed in matter, if at all, one volume of Nevin’s Antiquities. Hereafter I must confine myself to my former description of books — I mean those which can be written currente calamo, requiring no consultation and research; for unless I can make my Sunday School labours a sort of recreation, it is impossible for me to persevere in them. By this time you will have seen what we have been doing in the Repertory. Some of our theologians consider the metaphysical argument of the paper on Beecher [Dr. Lyman Beecher’s “Views in Theology”] as unsurpassed for acumen, philosophical lore, and rigid ratiocination, by any thing which has appeared in our cycle. The writer is certainly a man of extraordinary versatility; as much at home among the poets and the schoolmen as the mathematicians. There are occasions on which I feel a distrust for all books but the Bible, as feeling that the best communications of men come to me modified by the discipline of a sect or the idiosyncrasy of an individual. The liquor has the tang of the cask. This I feel most as it regards books of experimental religion; sometimes turning over successively the stirring or tender productions of Catholics, Methodists, Moravians, and Presbyterians, and then resorting at last to the infallible source of all. I am more and more persuaded that the practice of preaching on a single text has greatly impaired the influence of the pulpit. The diabolical Voltaire spoke truth for once when he said:” En effet, parler long-temps sur une citation d’une ligne ou deux, se fatiguer a compasser tout son discours sur cette ligne, un tel travail parait un jeu peu digne de la gravite de ce ministere. Le texte devient une espece de devise, ou plutot d’enigme, que le

discours developpe C’est dans la decadence des lettres

qu’il commenga, et le temps 1’a consacre.” (Louis XIV., t. iii., c. 32.)

The one great rule for Bible-study appears to me to be this: Read the text — the text — the text. Read it over and over, over and over. Read continually and largely. Thus while particulars become impressed by repetition, we do not lose the general connexion. No men ever lived, me judice, who knew the tenth part as much of the contents of the Bible as the Puritans, and thus it was they read it. They were never without their little Bibles. Among them I regard Charnock as far the most wonderful in this regard, and Flavel next. To my taste Flavel is the most uniformly interesting, engaging, and refreshing writer on religion, ancient or modern. I always feel that 1 am talking with a Christian, fresh and ruddy, in perfect health and spirits, with no cloud or megrim, and with every power available at the moment.

Mr. Poinsett has offered Prof. Dod the West Point professorship of Ethics, with the Chaplaincy. I do not suppose he will very seriously entertain the proposition. Our final Examination is drawing towards a close; it is a work plenum sudoris in this weather. The library of old Dr. Nesbit has come to the Seminary. It is chiefly of books in the modern languages.

PRINCETON, Sept. 21, 1837.

Since I last corresponded with you, I have had a return of illness, something between cholera morbus and dysentery, which confined me to my bed. I am convalescent, though still in my room. I have just made up into a parcel my MS. of the Juvenile Introduction to the Bible, which I have had on hand for the last three years. It contains about 59,000 words; from which a calculation may be made. Look over the table of contents, and read a chapter, so as to get some idea of the plan. There is nothing in it to offend any sect of Protestant Christians, except that the Quakers may take exception to my calling the Scriptures (as they do themselves) the Word of God. I flatter myself that it contains much information, which will bo new to many who are neither children nor youth; and I pray that it may recommend the most delightful and blessed of all books to many a new reader. We had six lectures from Mr. Wolff, [Rev. Joseph Wolff, a Christian Jew,] of which I heard three. He was very interesting in private. What amazes me is, how a man, purblind and simple as a babe, who can scarcely take care of himself for two squares, should have traversed so much of the earth.

I have been considering the small ness of the benefit which we are content to derive from our ordinary afflictions. For instance: you and I have been sick lately; what good has it done our souls? Are we more heavenly-minded, and better fitted for communion with God 1 “Yes, yes,” we are ready to reply, “but these are small afflictions, to which I scarcely look for any advantage.” Thus we seem to render great trials necessary; whereas, I suppose, every disquietude we meet ought to be received as a message from God.

Our commencement is in danger of being frustrated, in some measure. The Whig members of the graduating class have all refused to speak, in consequence of a supposition that the faculty had slighted their Society in the award of honours; especially the Valedictory. There is a mighty storm in our teapot.

What do you think of a Sunday School Book called the Farmer’s Boy, or some such title, of some length, intended to be a manual for young fellows in the country, connecting all agricultural operations with the corresponding Biblical facts, and giving a spiritual, but natural turn, to the works and changes of the husbandman? I meditate something of this sort. The church in this village is at length sufficiently finished to admit of worship in it. The Tract Society have issued a tract, called “The Child a Hundred Years old!” Some of the old commentators did indeed give this ultra-spiritual and ultra-natural turn to Isaiah lxv. 20; but the passage, as half a glance reveals, is a promise of longevity in the New Jerusalem; the “new heavens and new earth.” Our version does not keep up the parallelism of the original, which is thus: “The child, a hundred years old, shall die; the sinner, a hundred years old, shall be accursed,” «. e. as I take it, “Such shall be the longevity, that he who dies at 100, shall be regarded as a mere child, nay, as being cut off prematurely for his sins, accursed.” Read the context. N. B. I am pretty much convinced by Dr. Burnet’s work, that the final conflagration will destroy our world, only as the deluge did. Peter intimates that the present earth is a “new earth,” in relation to what he calls the “world that then was.” If he says of the present world that it shall be “burnt up,” he also says of the antediluvian world, that it “perished.” And he adds “Nevertheless we look for new heavens and a new earth.” (2 Peter iii. 13.) Read Chalmers’s Sermon on the New Heavens and New Earth. I am also inclined to think the common notions of the Millennium as inconsistent with the Scriptures, which always represent the Judgment as bursting suddenly on the world; pressing this with a moral bearing, to alarm our fears; which can have no effect, when we believe in an interval before the Judgment, of full a thousand years. Do not regard me as demented, but look at these two subjects in the light of mere Scripture, and candidly sit down without book, and write down your answer to the following question: On what clear scriptural grounds do I entertain the common notion, that things will ripen into a glorious period of just a thousand years?

COLLEGE N. J., November 17, 1837.

Vide several of my rhyming experiments in the Newark Daily, under the signature of Cleon. I am afraid you could not get the stereotype classics [197 volumes, Leipsic] at the low

1 1 insert one specimen.

THE AKM-CHAIE. Now let the curtain drop; the day With mixing cares has passed away: The grate is brilliant, and the light From shaded lamps shows softly bright. Wheel round the table, and prepare The spacious, slumber-tempting chair. But yield not yet to slumber’s power; Sacred to wisdom be the hour. Here, in the genial warmth reclining, Rest and activity combining, The wearied frame may seek repose While the rapt soul with pleasure glows. Spread forth the books, a well-kept store, Select, though few; I ask no more Than these, to guide my flight sublime, The master-pieces of all time. Through these while musing I descry The forms of sage philosophy; Great ancients come in shadowy mien. To people the ideal scene. I soar with Plato; or I fight The battles of the Stagirite. With Xenophon serene I flow, Or cull from each, with Cicero. Or if blest Poesy invite To mingle in her mystic rite, terms at which they are furnished to us. Neither would I recommend to you to get the whole set; there are many of them which you would never want. The course which I have pursued has been to buy about seventy volumes, including the chief books in Greek, and in Latin prose, and then I have the whole of the Latin poets in one volume, which cost me five dollars. Old Taiichnitz, the great Leipsic publisher, was an enemy of evangelical religion, and disinherited his son Karl, for being a pietist. The latter became a Baptist preacher and missionary; but within a very short time the old man died intestate, and the whole of his vast resources and establishment has fallen to his son, who is sincerely bent upon the promotion of true piety.

I hear the hoary blind man sing

Till Troy-plains with the war-clang ring;

Or quaff the chaste exuberance

Of tragic Greeks in choral dance.

Then Maro, silver bard, beguiles,

Or love-sick Ovid spreads his wiles,

Or Flaccus through the thyrsus smiles.

Nor, pedant, would I all despise
What moderns have of great or wise;
Dante, tremendous in his dreams;
Or Ariosto’s wayward streams;
Or Tasso’s tale of knightly fire,
Or Petrarch weeping o’er the lyre.
Thy page, Cervantes, shall dispel
The vapours from their haunted cell;
And keen Le Sage and gay Moliere
The mask from every passion tear.

But who shall venture to rehearse
The mighty band, in prose or verse,
Of mother Britain, and fair France,
Whose genius might the soul entrance?
A taste of these might well beguile
The speeding hours, till daylight smile.
But limbs grow dull, and eyes grow dim,
A respite now for eye and limb:
Stir up the fire, the volume close,
A moment this for choice repose.
Safe from the blast of rough November,
Silent I many a friend remember,
Whose presence might the midnight brighten,
When, hark! — the moment’s load to lighten,
A well-known knock — wide flies the door — Of musing and of books no more;
The friend of many a year drops in,
And converse grave, or jocund din
Completes the joy, and quells the care,
Till, satiate e’en with richest fare,
I nod upon the elbow chair.

ITengstenberg, in reviewing, ridicules his determining

the acceptation of a word in a certain place, by counting up the passages where it occurs in that sense; but says, this may answer very well in a country where they can enumerate to a fraction the converted and the half converted. In the Christian Observer for Feb. 1830, p. 97, is a piece of Mr. Wolff’s, wherein he saith, “the Son of Man will come again in the clouds of heaven, in the year 1847, and govern in person as man and God in the literal city of Jerusalem. ... I, Joseph Wolff, shall see with my own eyes, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, in their glorified bodies,” &c. I think it a happy interpretation of Wolff’s, wrhere he makes the word yeyea, “generation,” mean the Jewish race: “this race shall not pass away” (i. e. be merged in other nations) until all these things be accomplished. Matt. xxiv. 34. He wishes to be captured by the Indians. Professor Henry has returned. In England he was caressed like a brother, everywhere, and by all the savans. The British Association passed a special vote of thanks to him, and three other foreigners. Our college was never so full. We have already admitted about 70. Among these are two room-mates named “Cake” and “Pitcher.” Your mention of Neshamony reminds me of the tasteful change of that euphonious Indian name to “Hartsville Cross roads.” So, in our own presbytery, what was whilom Assampink is now “Dutch Neck.” We have a new and handsome church edifice. While it was building the negroes worshipped apart, in a little place of their own. The majority of the pew-holders wish them to remain as a separate congregation. By-the-bye, we are said to have a larger proportion of blacks in our population, than any town in the free States. If they come back, they will take up about half the gallery. There are about 80 black communicants. I am clear that in a church of Jesus Christ, there is neither black nor white; and that we have no right to consider the accident of colour in any degree. Yet I think the blacks very unwise in insisting on such a privilege now. Some years ago there would not have been the slightest difficulty in admitting them, but in consequence of the abolition movements the prejudice of the lower classes of whites against the blacks has become exorbitant and inhuman. We have a copy of the celebrated “Oxford (semi-papal) Tracts.” One of them is on the excellencies of the Romish Breviary; which, by the way, i. e. the Breviary, I am now, for the first time, reading. It contains some delightful prayers and hymns, in a mass of putrid martyrology and idolatry. There is something graceful and melodious in the following collect, in the Christmas service: “Concede, quaesumus, omnipotens Deus, ut nos Unigeniti tui nova per carnem nativitas liberet, quos sub peccati jugo vetustaservitus tenet. Per cundem Dominum. Amen.” There is scarcely an Orthodox Quaker in our region who has not joined either our church or the Episcopalian; mostly the latter. I heard Daniel Webster make a great speech, sub dio, in Newark. The gaoler of our State’s Prison is a pious Methodist, and every Sabbath enters every cell and talks on religion with each prisoner. Cottle says that for a very long time Coleridge used a pint of laudanum a day, and sometimes even a quart.

PRINCETON, January 9, 1838.

I wish you and yours a most happy new year, in the enjoyment of every blessing of Providence and grace. The weather is such as might tempt one to suspect that we need another rec tification of our calendar, like the Julian and Gregorian. The

trial of is an ecclesiastico-juridical curiosity. Never

before were the shades of guilt, criminality, and guilt “without criminality” so nicely appreciated. I would suggest the use of decimal fractions, in the next award of the kind. Or rather some negative algebraical quantities must have been employed to render the amount of such verdicts = an entire acquittal.

No one groans more than I under the abuses of extempore prayer. How much time is lost, how much weariness produced, by periphrastic introductions, diffuse dilutions, and vain repetitions. Many pulpit prayers are largely made up of passages evidently meant to impress truth on the auditor. Whole strains of this sort: “O Lord, may sinners feel that time is short; that this is the only season for repentance; and that unless they believe, &c., &c.” A man might thus tell his Maker what to make sinners feel through the whole extent of the catechism: “May we feel that our chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him for ever.” 1 I nauseate all such perversions. Still I never could submit to one stereotype form for every day of my life. I should be pleased to have a few forms, varying, we may say through a month, expressing those things which we are to pray for always, with license to use a short extemporaneous prayer

1 In another letter he had made the following criticism on a prayer in a Sunday-school book: “The prayer at the end labours under a fault very common — the abuse of the auxiliary ’ may.’ Compare this form with similar petitions in the Psalms. In some public prayers I hear the petition turned into a veritable interrogation by the awkward use of ’ may ’ with a negative thus ‘May we not find this an unprofitable meeting! (?) ‘Direct petition, in the supplicatory imperative is best: thus ‘create within me a clean heart.’ It has sometimes occurred to me that the length of prayers is greatly increased by the pleonasms of mere form, as ‘Do thou grant,” Do thou bless,’ * We beseech,’ (fifty times.)”

besides: this is exactly the Lutheran method. I fear we shall get into trouble with John Bull about this rascally Canada affair; especially since the steamboat business, [burning of the Caroline.] We have for years been too self-satisfied with our peaceful security. has been here; he is very full of information about the adyta of the English Universities. He says their professors, as a general rule, do nothing at all, unless they have churches; nor are they expected to do any thing, except in the way of book-making and general influence; nor do they receive any salaries, except a mere pittance. He visited most of the great chartered schools. By-the-bye, he is the most erudite classical scholar within my acquaintance, though not possessing an ingenium vegetum, or very great energy. If you see, some time hence in the Newark paper, a rhyming squib, intituled “American Titles of Honour,” and signed with my finals, you may know where it comes from.2 1 find much comfort thus far

1 Every one who has heard the prayers of the letter-writer will be thankful that he did not avail himself of a privilege which is not denied to the conductors of the public worship of our Church.

a [For the Newark Daily Advertiser.]
AMEEICAN TITLES OF HONOUR.
The lust of greatness is a sturdy stock,
Which springs indigenous in every soil;
Though every twig and spreading branch you dock,
The trunk puts forth new shoots to mock your toil:
So when our sires, with democratic zeal,
Plucked off each garter, and put out each star,
And, mad to equalize the common weal,
On quartered shields and coronets made war,
‘Twas but the lopping of the hydra’s head,
And rage for honours was asleep, not dead.

Roam where you please our plain republic o’er,

A host of titled worthies you shall meet:

Judges and Presidents beset your door,

And Squires and Governors walk every street.

The mode spreads bravely: we may hope, ere long,

To leave rude “Mister” to raw lads at school,

Till every yeoman of the civic throng

Shall have his trade for title by fair rule:

Then Stage-man Stokes shall call on Lawyer Lee,

And Barber Boggs ask Butcher Brown to tea.

Captains, once known in harness on the field, Now swarm in steamboats, oyster-craft, and inns, While city troops their bloodless laurels yield To scores of Generals, all plumes and grins. The civic crown, too, hath its grave possessors, Doctors in Physick, Law, Divinity; in preaching to my Africans. The house is crowded by decorous and attentive people, and it seems a little like being a missionary. Then one can enjoy, a total “abandon,” and use every mode of address or illustration, without the dread of blundering. Strange as it may seem, I have already met with some insult, as the preacher to the blacks, in returning from their place of worship: it was from some of the lowest of the white canaille. One case of very powerful awakening has occurred under my unworthy labours. Every new perusal of the prophecies brings me more and more to the conclusion, that commentators have undertaken to explain too much as already past. Thus the 39th and 40th of Ezekiel, about Gog and Magog, seem to me to contain expressions far too sublime to have their accomplishment in the invasions of Antiochus, &c. I look somewhat confidently for a real restoration of Israel to their own land. Considering the part that our Continent occupies in the unfolding history of the church and the world, might not one judge a priori that it would have some place in the book of prophecy? Yet I do not know that any discovery of this kind has been made. The grand

fault of ’s style I cannot otherwise express than by saying

it is the exact antipodes of quaintness. It is in its ultimatum in Dr. J. P. Wilson and Bishop White. It arises, I suppose, from a dread of antithesis and conceited balance in period, and the result is a certain approach to lameness in the gait, and listlessness in the air, of his periods.

The little Swedish translation of my whisky book gives me great joy and encouragement.

PRINCETON, March ult. 1838.

We have had spring and winter since I saw you. The last spell of cold has been especially biting. The 6th No. of [Sir

Bishops and Deacons, Provosts and Professors,
No more forego their title than their fee.
A powdered Count is teaching us to dance,
While Marquises are plain “Monsieurs,” in France.

Peace reigns on every hand, yet warlike signs
Hang out in half the names of half the nation;
For scarce a loafer on his bulk reclines
Who boasts not of some martial appellation.
Militia Ensigns keep your Cash and Journal,
And gay lieutenants kindly cart your coal;
Your next-door tailor is a whiskered Colonel,
And Majors count your ballots at the poll.
Till oft perplexed by doubting claims you stare,
Nor well can choose ‘twixt Adjutant and Mayor.

S. L. R.

1 “The Glass of Whisky,” one of the series of “The Infant’s Library.”

Walter] Scott’s Life surpasses all in interest — to my feelings — chiefly because it has so much of his diary, and relates so much about his afflictions. I lament that drinking and cursing are henceforward to be associated, in the minds of the young, with such a genius and such a gentleman; and that amid all his sorrows he seems to have received not one ray of divine light. His diary contains some grand hints about modes of composition. We have a most promising young man now a tutor here, for whom I wish I could find a good place. His name is Moffat; once a shepherd’s boy in Glencree, [Scotland.] His linguistical attainments are extraordinary, in languages both ancient and

modern. He is B. A. of our college. Good Joseph W f,

it appears, has got back to England. The wonder is how a man so little endowed with worldly wisdom can make his way at all.

When he came here, he went first to ’s, where he lodged.

That evening he wras to preach. He had on a shirt which was

absolutely japanned with dirt. said to him,” Mr. W.,

as you expect to appear in public to-night, perhaps you would like to make some change in your dress?” Mr. W. looked down, surveying his filthy raiment, and answered, “O no, I believe I shall need nothing of that kind.” After a suitable delay,

said again,” Mr. W., it will put us to no trouble; your

room is ready, your valise there; you will find water, &c.”

W looked hastily in the glass, and said, “I thank you, I

think I shall do as I am.” became alarmed at his unseemliness, and at length said, “Mr. W., your mind is so occupied with greater things, that you are naturally indifferent about, &c., &c.; let me suggest the propriety of your changing, &c., &c.” Mr. W. went up stairs, stayed some time, and came down precisely in statu quo!, almost baffled, said” It seems to

me, Mr. W., that you have not succeeded in changing your apparel.” “O yes, yes,” said W., “have I not? let me see; perhaps I forgot to do it. Yes, sure enough, I was thinking of some thing else.” Up he goes again, and finally endues a white

coloured shirt. On coming down he said to Mrs.,” Madam,

will you have the goodness to go up, and pack up my portmanteau? it is a thing I never could do in my life.” He next borrowed a white handkerchief of, with which shortly after

he dried the ink of a very blotted sheet which he had written, saying, “This I learned in India — this I learned in India!” If you think this a very foolish story, remember that you read it

1 The catalogue of “our College” shows that places have been found for the accomplished tutor. After filling classical professorships in Lafayette College and Miami University, the Rev. Dr. Moffat has had in the College of New Jersey, since 1852, the chair of Greek, or Latin, with History.

on All-Fools’ Day. There is a Dutch adage which likeneth March to a lion, and says, “he shaketh his tail;” from atmospheric appearances he is minded to give us a few wags more before he goes out. Eleven days more will complete our long term: I can’t say that I am very fond of vacations; I have not money to travel, and I love home perhaps too much. I am afraid Dr. Swing’s tune will not enrich him; yet it is very good, and we ought to encourage every issue of religious music, especially from the music stores. In point of harmony it is exact and technically classical. The melody is scarcely popular enough.

TRENTON, May 11, 1838.

I came hither with hen and chicks, on Tuesday; but getting wet and cold on the way, I have been in a quasi colic for some days. Unless I run down to see you on Monday, I shall expect to be here until the 17th.

With regard to ’s dubitations about the Girard College, I am not as clear as 1 could desire. The two grand points strike me as being these: 1. Is connexion with such an establishment right 1 2. Is it likely to bo permanent 1 Formerly I was inclined to say No, to the first; at present, I am undecided. There is very great force in the suggestion that we ought not to leave this engine in the devil’s hands, no not for an hour; and

that may retire, if disappointed. I incline to say to him,

Accept the offer. It is a wonderful providence that a machine contrived against religion should thus be put within the direction of Christian men: the counsel of Ahithophel is seemingly turned into foolishness. You can tell, better than I, whether the power is like to abide in the same hands, and whether there is a probability of ’s holding the place for a number of years.

Our Jersey folks have a custom of uniting in clubs for the purchase of clams, a load at a time, thus getting them at wholesale prices: these are called clam-classes. The time appears to have come, when the spirit of the age demands a special effort, for the formation of a great national universal clam-class; and a convention for that purpose will be holden on the 31st of June, at Little Egg Harbor. The Hon. Mr. Buckingham (M. P.) has kindly consented to appear on that occasion, when odes will

be sung composed for the occasion by Mrs. and. It

is proposed to issue a paper called the American Clam Reporter.

PRINCETON, July 5, 1838.

Just ‘look what a blot that is! But this is nothing “inter amicos,” and as Corporal Nym saith, “things must be as they VOL. i. — 12 may.” So two New Yorkers (both whilom Philadelphians)

have gone over sea: S and P. The latter promised me

not to chew tobacco in “the presence.” Are there ten men in Philadelphia, barring schoolmasters, who know that the penult

tof the name of the city] is long 1 A friend in the Sandwich slands writes, that forty feet square will support a native all the year round. I gained some clearer conceptions from his saying, “Each of the islands is the top of a submarine mountain.” The same writer (a man of sense and veracity) adds, “there is probably no country, small or great, in which there is less visible immorality, in proportion to the population.”

I am reading Prescott’s Ferdinand and Isabella. There is no American work of which, as it regards fame of letters, I wrould rather be the author. So far as I have gone, he gives the Papishes their own. See, in the May Blackwood, a most funny thing, “Father Tom and the Pope.” Dr. [John] Breckinridge has determined to accept his appointment as general agent of the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions. I think I have never suffered so little from heat as this summer; yet I feel that the last two days have been particularly hot. It is now 9 A.M. and in my study the mercury stands at 81°; yesterday, in a hotter place, but shady, it was at noon 96°. The country has, however, been in beautiful foliage and refreshed with many little rains. “The 9th Bridgewater Treatise” by C. Babbage, is a fragment of wonderful genius. By recourse to the “Newark Daily” you will see some able papers, by a great political economist, on Trades Unions, [Charles Quill.] I am persuaded that it is our duty as Christian patriots, to encourage husbandry, and discourage overgrown manufactures. God has spread a wide country before us, yet thousands are herding in our factory towns, under influences ruinous to body and soul. These bloated establishments invite and receive some of the grandest villains of the old country. All our manufacturing towns are in an abnormal state. The policy engendered in these communities is necessarily agrarian; and the human race deteriorates, physically. I feel it to be incumbent on my self to say all I can for emigration to the West; and for the same reason I have come to look on a high protective Tariff as a great sin.

PRINCETON, July 30, 1838.

There is some difference between being moved, and being fixed, or I should say we were established in our new place. I believe you know its whereabout. Every object is painfully commemorative of its late beautiful owner: we even have her

1 The house which had been occupied by the Rev. Dr. John Breckinridge.

1833 — 1844. 2GT

flowers; and the magnolia which stands near our back-door, it was almost the last of her worldly deeds to have planted. The house is far too large for my family or furniture; but the terms were such as I felt no right to decline, especially as by acceding

to them, I should be doing all I could for, and at the

same time introduce my own children to better air, amplei space, and goodlier prospects. The walk to College, in the hot season, is dreadful even to my imagination; how I shall endure it, I know not: but I am somewhat satisfied that I have come hither without self-seeking — and the Lord will provide.

And now let me proceed to say, my dear friend, how much happiness you will give us, if you will come and rusticate with us. If you will become uncivic for a while, so far as to forego Schuylkill water, butter, baths, trottoir, and omnibi, and com mute the same for sunrises, sunsets, dirt, dust, chickens, corn, tomatoes, prospects, breezes, sweat and disorder — you may find yourself all the better. I give you my first invitation, as you are my earliest friend, (how good a one, let our biographers determine:) and entertains towards you precisely analogous tempers.

Our final examination begins August 6th, during which I shall be much occupied, for about ten days. We have been two days in our present residence, and are thus far well-pleased, except with the amazing increase of houfeewifeship. It is something of a job to keep out of mischief three cats, one dog, forty fowls, and mice ad libitum; the latter having declared independence during the late troubles and vacancy. My books I have not yet moved; but I have Wilberforce’s Life, (5 vols.,) “John Murray, Albemarle Street,” to read on the back-piazza, which looks to the sunsetting. The drought is such just here, (for around our village showers have been frequent,) that the pastures are like a sheaf of dry straw; hence, milk, in which I expected much delectation, is scanty. My corn is tall, but likely to bear little; potatoes will fail utterly, unless it rain; tomato-vines crisp as macaroons; yet, blessed be God, we have plenty of water as yet. Some recent mortification and trials of pride have, I think, done me good, and led me to meditate on my undue care about the opinion of fellow-worms. O if we could more crucify that old man. and vivify that new!

A call from yourself and boy, would be apropos at any moment; when you bring the rest, you had better come after our examination, which (to all intents) ends August loth. In Doth these statements I use absolute frankness, meaning you and yours to take my invitation in the rustic and old-time sense,

1 He reviewed this work in the Repertory, October, 1838.

without discount. Many thanks for English papers. They are always treats. I suffer from Anglomanie.

PRINCETON, July 30, 1838.

Hortation seems to me to be the pulpit-error of the age, which has emasculated the church.

Of Charles Quill as followeth: I never arranged the topics for publication, and so far as I remember, never dreamed of such a thing until it was suggested by some one. I am indifferent about it now. I will give anybody the right of a first edition for fifty copies, provided that it be printed under typographical inspection of yourself, J. A. A., or myself. No book of mine, with my consent, shall be clad in the dirty shirt of [Noah] Websterism. Wilberforce’s Diary, from the extracts given, must have been honest indeed. It is new to have the private exercises of a great statesman, (bosom friend of the greatest minister England ever had,) while in the very heat of parlia mentary debate. I think him from this reading (of two volumes) a greater and a better man than I supposed, but how narrow a churchman, how ignorant an anti-Calvinist! Perhaps

he gets better. I regard the last volume of the as a

religious imposture: has crammed the garbage of craniology

down our throats under cover of Paul and Peter’s milk and meat. We are disgraced by the special pleading of [the Presbyterian Church case in the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.] I am sure we are right, but I am afraid God means to strip us of our worldly goods.

In this matter of preaching, with which I began, I feel quite earnest, as believing that most of my earlier sermons were constructed on a wrong principle. I wrould be plain, but O, I wish I had fed my hearers with more truth, and given them less harangue.

Addison and I are taking lessons in barking, howling, and ventriloquism from an elocutionist named Bronson, and who with much stuff has also certain discoveries on which I thought I myself had hit — see last Repertory2 — but which he carries out so

1 In a postscript to this sentence, dated August 4, he adds: “Yesterday I heard my father preach to our students on Eccl. xii. 1, a text which I had handled a few weeks previous before the same hearers. I was never more humbled, nor more struck with my own past fault in this line. My discourse was all appeal; his was all argument, even bare and quite dialectic in places. My sermon was like a flash in the pan, and his like a ball lodged, lodged where to work afterwards.”

2 He refers to his own review of Gardiner’s “Music of Nature,” in the July Repertory.

as to convince me that the Laryngitis (erroneously called Bronchitis) is preventable.

CHARLOTTE Co., YA., October 13, 1838.

By the blessing of God we had a very prosperous journey hither, escaping all bad weather and mishaps. Unless a letter miscarry, you will read something from me in Kinney’s paper.

The associations of this region make me full ten years younger, especially as I have to be several hours of every day on horseback, which has always had a very exhilarating effect on me. The two contiguous plantations of Carrington and Mrs. Legrand contain about 6,000 acres, and afford abundant rides and walks without entering a public road. The little village has greatly improved, having new Baptist and Presbyterian churches, since my day; also a large girls’ school and a respectable boys’ ditto. The drought in this country almost destroyed many of the crops, especially the most indispensable, viz., corn. Late profuse rains have made the country very green, but are too late. The tobacco crop, though short, will be

answerably high priced. will make 200 dollars’ worth

of that article on one little island of less than two acres. I write this before breakfast, having had a happy stroll, this lovely frosty morning, over a most picturesque portion of the estate. Flocks of sheep on an almost boundless green, unenclosed, have a patriarchal look; and at this hour I can scarcely go abroad without hearing the mocking-bird. I do not remember, in my former residences here to have observed that this fowl sang in the autumn. Such, however, is the undeniable fact. I think I find the intelligence and refinement of this land altogether against Van Buren; and even on the Abolition Question, there prevails a moderation much in advance of the temper I witnessed less than three years ago. In the Holy War, there is active skirmishing hereabout. Those party lines which, with us, have been drawn for years, are now only in the process of demarcation here. The consequence is feud on feud, “bellum plusquam ci vile;” house against house, mother against daughter, &c., &c. The Old School are about four to one. But vide Papers.

CHARLOTTE COURT HOUSE, VIRGINIA, October 19, 1838. This is a mighty rainy day. More rain here in two weeks of October, than during all the summer. The promising prices of wheat set our planters at sowing. Mr. Carrington is just

1 He sent several travelling letters to the “Newark Advertiser” during his absence.

putting 100 acres in wheat. The mulberry mania is rife. Serious talk of exchanging tobacco for silk cultivation. The lithograph of Childs, from a painting by Harding, is said to give the best idea of Randolph. R. affected to be a Cato in his frugality. Though he laid out thousands on his sixty horses, his stud being often worth perhaps $30,000, and had all his personal apparel from London, he lived in a mean house and never would allow a carpet to be on his floors. The will last established by the Court of Appeals emancipates the negroes, but by a law of Virginia, repealed however last year, any one, not privy to the proceedings in the court of probate, may, within ten years, bring a suit in Chancery, to try the issue” devisavit vel non

devisavit.” has availed himself of this, and hung up

more than 300 negroes in a distant Chancery. Yesterday

, a lawyer of great eminence, and, next to Judge Lee,

Randolph’s most confidential actuary, told me, that in every will and every important codicil, Randolph evinced the great concern he had for his servants. They adored him as almost above the human standard, and preferred being his slaves to being free. It is perhaps (after all our abstractions) better for these negroes, as a set, that they are not freed. I say this seriously, founding my judgment on the following striking fact: Richard and John Randolph were brothers, and divided between them the estate of their father. Each took a moiety of the slaves. Richard set his free: John retained his on the estates. Col. Madison published the history of the former moiety and their offspring. They have almost become extinct; those who remain are wandering and drunken thieves, degraded below the level of humanity, and beyond the reach of Gospel means. The slaves of Roanoke are the descendants of the other moiety. They are nearly four hundred, and though not free, are sleek, fat, healthy, happy, and many of them to all appearance ripe for heaven. These I know to be facts, and they are worth more to me than a volume of dissertations on the right to freedom. At the same time, every body here considers it highly inequitable that these people are kept from the benefits intended by their master.

You know [the late William] Maxwell, and that he is made President of Hampden Sidney College. Father Comfort [of Kingston] is here at present with his son David.

I am somewhat disposed to reconsider the expressions of my last letter touching the temper of the Church controversy here. Since I have seen ministers, and heard from Synod, I think there is prospect of pacification. The new school are about 1 to 5, or at most 1 to 4. They are scattered, divided, in some cases differing from us by the merest shade, and disheartened. They are

1833 — 1844. 2Y1

moreover, generally, mistaken good men. On the other hand, the Old Schoolmen are more and more for moderation, the oscillatory pendulum is making shorter and shorter arcs. I augur good for Virginia. There is really no ground for dissension apart from the quarrel of churches afar off.

Yours of Oct. 11 (postmark 12) got here on the 16th. I am obliged to you for your concern for the goosequills; but I am not sure that I know what you mean. I have said, in one place and another, something fitted to direct the mechanic in his read ing, and I have purposely avoided being more explicit, lest I should do more harm than good, by discouraging beginners, &c. Away from home, I cannot enterprise the thing now; but if there be time when I get to Philadelphia I will consult about it. There has been no publication of the evidence in Randolph’s case. Every thing came out on the trials; a necessary consequence of the intricate suits, in which each expectant was by turn induced to prove J. R. insane.

The manners and customs here are not the best for an invalid. A visit of relations, some 20 in number, horses, coaches, retinue, &c., lasts, at least, one day, sometimes a week.

Where one comes 17 miles, as did, to see us, it is out of

the question to make a morning call. And when, in turn, we go to see some of our kin, the solemnities of an old-time ceremonious dinner are any thing but reviving to a queasy stomach. It is more of a paradise to Henry, [his son.] He has the run of miles, if he so pleases, with ample attendance. Every half hour “Henry and his Bearer” appear with peaches, or figs, or chinquepins, or ‘simmons, or sweet potatoes “roast with fire;” or he is in chase of a peacock, or picking cotton out of the pod, or learning to talk “nigger.” One of Mrs. Le Grand’s black girls, set. 14, said more than once to my wife, with a face of great importunity — “Miss Betsy, do pray ax missus to gi’ me to ye.” There seems to be a vague impression (grossly incorrect by-the-bye) on the minds of these creatures, that they shall be happier and have less care by removal northward.

I have, as a general plan, conversed particularly and point edly about religion, with every negro whom I could get alone, in walks, rides, &c. I have been tenderly affected in so doing. Many seem to me to be genuine saints. Many show that they have been seekers for years on years, but have never been directed, privately, by any competent person. In every case they are as perfectly accessible as my Henry. Even where they are

wicked, they listen, and their conscience is prompt. The

Antinomianism is the rock on which thousands are wrecked. The scene we saw in Locust street [a religious excitement] is acted at every meeting. Yet even among these, I am sure, Christ hath his sheep. A hundred lay missionaries might now go into this £eld and convert thousands. They ought to be Southern men, and the South ought to fi.iraish them forthwith. I am so filled with this, that I try to introduce the theme in every circle. Mrs. Le Grand lodges and boards a good Episcopalian (a Connecticut man, but twenty years in Va.) awaiting orders, for this business among her slaves. He has this moment returned, on foot and through a smart rain, from the overseer’s house two miles off, where he instructed a group of fifteen last night. Now it is my deliberate belief, that more of these slaves are likely to go to heaven, than of an equal number of servants of pious people in our Middle States; and such being the hopefulness of the work, how earnestly ought Christians to engage in it! Thousands might be got to attend public preaching, as hundreds now do. The law (thanks to the meddling of anti-slavery societies) forbids schools, and public teaching to read; it was not so when 1 lived here: but I hold it to be our business to save their souls; and however criminal slavery may be, I see with my eyes that God has so overruled it, as that the slaves are more open to Gospel truth than any human beings on the globe. They are, I know, under temptations to hypocrisy: but grant they are pretending more than they feel, one has nevertheless the chance to lodge truth in their minds. The instances of this are affecting. In one short walk yesterday, I had talks with two men. One was loading his wagon with billets of wood, in a clearing of the forest. As he hung over the side of the wagon, his face beamed with the expression of sincere and intense emotion. He declared he had “long, long, yes for many years, desired to have true religion. Yes,” said he, “master, true religion — that sort of religion which will do when I lie on my death-bed.” I read over and over to him Matt. v. 6, commenting, &e. This occurs daily, and this is easy work, and work which anybody may perform. This is, moreover, the best preparative for freedom. I find your journal highly prized here; occasionally have something which may do to read aloud to slaves. The Episcopalians (who have never caught the itch of abolition) are doing something in this line. I preached twice last Sunday, and twice the Sunday before, and have attended two prayer meetings. There is an extraordinary supineness here as to the doing of good. The most that I see going on is in the Sunday School. The Episcopal clergy hereabouts are all evangelical and hard-working men. John Clark, who preaches nearest here, cannot, I suppose, make the circuit of his preaching-places without riding sixty miles.

PRINCETON, November 26, 1838.

Well — here we are, but in a mighty cold house. We have not yet broken in our stoves, &c., to any sort of availableness. My little affairs went on well daring my absence, and my little garden crops exceeded expectation. College is very full, and becoming fuller. Look about you, and tell me whether you see a good English edition of all Cowper’s works: also has Sparks issued Franklin’s 1 Since you spoke to me about Wilberforce, I have been told that has talked about doing an abridgment. This will prevent my moving in it.

I wait to see the fate of my Quills, before I attempt a similar scries for City Clerks, &c. Any and every hint you can memorandum about this topic, will be of great value to me. You are in the midst of such youth — know their haunts, tastes, temptations, &c. I have a book opened for materials, and will enter every thing as it comes to hand. Any scraps from your scissors will be in place. Henry James has re-gone to England. He and H. Walsh, and Platt, all once together in the Seminary, have become Sanclemanians, and joined the Scotch Baptists, in New York, a little sect, headed by Buchanan, H. B. M. Consul. They have no preaching, but assemble on Sundays, when the “elders” and others expound and pray. James has issued a tract which I will try to keep for you, intituled “The Gospel Good News to Sinners,” and Walsh another, “The True Grace of God.” These are in many points quite good, and their chief mistake is that they have found out something. All they say about the object of faith is just what Russell says, and just what I say myself.3 But they add other things.

I spent an hour this morning with good old Mr. [Samuel] Bayard. He showed me letters from W. Pitt, Lord Erskine, Lord Lansdowne, and Sir John Sinclair: the latter being a stringent request for the recipe for cornbread and buckwheat cakes. Also several letters from Wilberforce. From one of these, lying before me, (Beckenham Kent, 11 Jan. 1826,) I copy what follows: keep the extract for use some day:” I wish you had added some particulars both of your own personal and family circumstances, and of any of the religious and benevolent institutions, or any other particulars in your Country, in the concerns of which I take a warm interest. The growing connexion between our two Countries that is formed by your common pro-

1 £n. abridgment of Wilberforce’s biography was made by Caspar Morris, M.D., of Philadelphia, and published in 1839.

2 Russell’s u Letters,” see a previous page. In a subsequent letter he writes: “What Russell says on faith is just what my labouring soul long ago rested on as the ark on Ararat.”

VOL. I. — 12* secution of beneficent undertakings, is a subject of solid enjoyment to my mind; and I cannot but persuade myself that the mutual Esteem and Regard which will arise out of this connexion, will tend to destroy the effect of those malignant endeavours, which in both Countries, I fear, are still made, to alienate from each other the affections of their respective members. Surely it would be littleness of mind as well as a want of true principle that could render the inhabitants of Great Britain and the United States disposed to feel otherwise towards each other, than as brethren, descended from one common stock, bound together by a common language, and by Institutions of at least a congenial spirit. I will even indulge the hope, that in this instance, the hostilities that have been carried on, by confirming in each a respect for the other, may produce the effect which is sometimes seen to result from temporary differences in private life, of providing for the solid maintenance of future friendship. Let it be the endeavour of all good men to confirm and augment these kind dispositions. Such, I am sure, is the spirit with which I am actuated, and I doubt not it is felt by the correspondent whom 1 am now addressing.”

PRINCETON, November 30, 1838.

An old Baptist preacher used to visit Mrs., during her last husband’s life, and pray for “the head and heaclm” of the family. The preface to Bush’s Genesis, which I have read in proof, contains some very remarkable facts concerning the text of the English Version. Altogether, it is a comprehensive and valuable performance. I have before me a beautiful English MS. on vellum: a religious treatise, chiefly on the Creed. I have not read it fully, so as to make up my mind, but it cannot be later than A.D. 1400. It has sodeyn — clepid — goostli (spiritual) — ben (are) — clerkis — honde — scullen (should) — thilke (those) — pepil — covetise, &c. I am deep in grubbing among German metaphysics, to write an article for the Repertory, against the attempts to introduce their poison among us.

is doing his little all to bring in Cousin, which will

bring in Schelling, which will bring in Atheism, which will bring in the devil. It is affecting to see that 10 — 20 Turks have, without a preacher, been awakened by Goodell’s version of the

1 This became the paper (65 pages) on Transcendentalism in the number for January, 1839. One part of the argument (reviewing Cousin) was prepared by the late Professor A. B. Dod. The entire paper, with parts of the article on “The Latest form of Infidelity,” by another hand, in the Repertory of 1840, was, upon request, permitted to be reprinted in a pamphlet at Boston.

1833 — 1844. 2Y5

“Dairyman’s Daughter.” The more I read of human philosophy, the more I prize the childlike spirit; the more I love the book of books. Like Goliath’s sword, “there is none like it.” Why are we not more devoted to the study of it? Can we do a better work than to get people to read it?

PRINCETON, December 25, 1838.

I wish you a merry Christmas, though merry or unmerry it is now nearly over. MelvilPs Sermons have been a great treat to me; read some of them by all means. [Dr.] Skinner’s book is very fine. I am astonished at the crystalline purity of his diction; he lacks nothing but tenderness. Another volume of [Paul] Henry’s Life of Calvin [in German]: he has raked together 1,200 autograph letters of Calvin.2

[After some comments on the sin of what he calls the “Demas-ism” of ministers.] This matter in a kind and affectionate way ought to be agitated among all who think aright upon it until some nucleus of amended opinion be formed. Get Dr. [David] Magie’s late tract on Support of Ministry.3 How honourable to his Presbytery that not one of their twenty-two ministers does any thing but preach; no schools; no farms. O si sic omnes! Really, I know no topic more momentous. Just imagine our thousand preachers all devoted, all labouring, even as some of them do! My conscience is much exercised about this matter, as a personal case. [ an ex-missionary] has been

1 The “Religion of the Bible,” and “Aids to Preaching and Hearing,” by Dr. Skinner, both appeared in 1839, and were reviewed in the Repertory, January, 1841.

2 Mr. Alexander wrote the full abstract of the successive volumes, which appeared in the Repertory for January, 1837, and July, 1839. Another writer furnished the conclusion in April, 1848.

3 uAn Address of the Presbytery of Elizabethtown to the Churches under its care,” on the “claims of the Gospel Ministry to an adequate support.” This tract was the text of a standard treatise on the whole subject in the Repertory of April, 1839, which bears the marks of Mr. Alexander’s style of opinions, although, as in numerous other instances, I cannot positively identify it. In that article the sentiments of the letter as to the secular employments of some ministers are duly qualified: ex. gr.” It cannot be denied that throughout our land an alarming portion of the clergy are withdrawn from their appropriate duties by the necessity of providing for their own support. Who are to blame for this? Those who create this necessity, or those who submit to it? The remedy of this evil, perhaps the greatest which now afflicts our Church, can only be provided by the people. If they force their pastors to choose between working or starving, they must expect them to work, to engage in the business of the world, and more or less, alas! to imbibe its spirit; for the ministers, at least,

“The world’s infectious; few Lring back at eve,
Immaculate, the manners of the morn.”

vilely used by, who took a spite at the missionaries, as

most visitors do, who consort with Sanballat, Tobiah, and the other foreign residents. Quere. If the late change of opinion among 7,000 savages, in those isles, [Sandwich,] were any but a religious change, would not the world ring with it 1

Among many commentators whom I have to consult, I find none like Calvin — he oftenest beards the real difficulty, and oftenest knocks it down, and drags it out. Look at Nordheimer’s Grammatical Analysis, for a specimen of unmatchable American printing. Respects and affections.

PRINCETON, January 23, 1839.

If you have not read “Lane’s Modern Egypt,” in the series of “Entertaining Knowledge,” you have a great treat before you. No book, not even Burckhardt’s, has given me so minute an acquaintance with Islam, &c. I mean to concoct some of the biblical memoranda for your S. S. Journal. When you seem to attribute some of the evil reports concerning ministers to their wTorldliness, or rather hint that by living holier lives they will have more chance of escape, I must dissent; however pure men may be, Satan will cause his children to “say all manner of evil against” them.

I am unfeignedly friendly to the American Board, [Foreign Missions,] but I never felt that in giving one mite, I bound my self to give a second; and now that we have a board of our own, I do not expect to give another penny to the former while I live. I have no feeling of duty towards this excellent body; while to our own church-boards I feel bound, as likely to draw out the contributions of thousands who would not otherwise contribute.

The new measures you propose, for filling the Church,

are certainly innocent and I believe politic. AVhy might not the elders of a church sign a card of invitation to the canaille, to come in? Methinks no work of the age is more important than the getting the mob of our cities in contact with Gospel-truth.

I write at a hand-gallop. I have preached five times in eight days, lectured four times, examined a class, made a Tract speech, and heard seven recitations. I a’m therefore pushed hard.2

PRINCETON, March 21, 1839.

I have felt anxious for a week or more about your family, and not the less so, since your note by my father. I sincerely

1 This was done in a series of articles entitled “The Bible Illustrated from Egypt.”

8 It may be mentioned here that during the term of his Professorship, Mr. Alexander preached, on an average, sixty times each year.

hope you may be carried through this trial without a bereavement; but if not — I have nothing I can say but to recommend to you absolute and filial submission: I hope you know its necessity and its virtue; and I doubt not a moment the trial is meant to go a certain length towards slaying the body of sin in you and. In the ordinary course of gracious discipline nothing seems to kill sin in us so surely as these stripes. May they be few and light!

PRINCETON, April 9, 1839.

I have not for some days written to you, being doubtful in what strain I should address you, as I could hear nothing about your child, and it is only this hour that I have learned that it has pleased God to take her away from you. Let me assure you, that my wife and I sorrow with you, as knowing in some measure the heart of bereaved parents. In such times one can only say “It is the Lord.” Here is our stay in every affliction. “The Lord reigneth.” “It is well.” It has fallen to your lot to have a number of family afflictions, and no doubt they have been, whether you know it or not, among your greatest blessings. No one can rejoice in such strokes, in themselves considered; but when viewing them in connexion with great grace vouchsafed along with them, we may “glory in tribulation also.” The stroke must be heaviest, as it is most unwonted, to the afflicted mother. Here, if anywhere, “the heart knoweth its own bitterness;” and I would not intermeddle; but even here grace does often so soothe the agonized heart, as to bring joy out of the midst of grief. Our dear children are not lost, but sent before. They await our coming, and perhaps rejoice, not merely as redeemed creatures, but as ours; as bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh. Probably they know more of us, than we of them. Certainly they know more of Christ. You are familiar with the expressions of Jeremy Taylor and Leighton, concerning the loss of children: they are both touching, but Taylor’s the most so; for he had many children, and all his sons died before him, while Leighton was a bachelor. “No man can tell” (says Taylor) “but he that loves his children, how many delicious accents make a man’s heart dance in the pretty conversation of those dear pledges — their childishness, their stammering, their little angers, their innocence, their imperfections, their necessities, are so many little emanations of joy and comfort, to him that delights in their person and society.” I trust that Mrs. Hall and yourself will be enabled to receive just that measure and kind of benefit which it seems to be the Master’s will to communicate.

PRINCETON, April 25, 1839.

Of course there has been very great concern about the church case. In a spiritual point of view I cannot see that the Old School have lost much. At the same time it is undeniably a grievous chastisement; and the difficulty of knowing what to do is extreme. Some, I hear, are strongly in favour of going back, rescinding the exscinding acts, &c., and taking the chance of ruling in the joint body. I cannot see this to be proper, as it would establish a portentous precedent touching religious liberty and ecclesiastical independence. It would concede to the civil power the authority to determine, not only what relates to our corporate privileges, in which I grant them absolute sway, but what is purely ecclesiastical; viz., to say that A B and C (whom we, by regular church acts, have put out of the church) are a part of the church. This point I cannot yield. We do not seriously believe that the New School men have been anxious to get the property; especially we believe they would, if they could, leave Princeton property, &c., in its former hands. There would be an odium attached to any sudden change. Princeton funds can not be employed anywhere but here — and here the New School do not want a Seminary. It can cost them little therefore to be generous; but how to effect this is the question. They cannot make us a title; nor can we comfortably sit down in their possessions, as incumbents by mere sufferance. Some have supposed that the New School might consent to an amicable separation, even now, and unite with us in applying to the Legislature to have the succession continued in two branches.

PRINCETON, Hay 1, 1839.

I went to our Presbytery last week at Lambert ville. J. A. A. was ordained. I came home via Trenton. There I attended for several days the Methodist Annual Conference for this State: about 120 ministers. A highly respectable body. Bishops Waugh and Hedding presided by turns. I was much pleased with almost every thing they did, and with their business ways; great promptness and affection; nothing carping or disputatious. Nothing surprised or amused me more than the rigid scrutiny to which each minister’s character is subjected annually. The whole list is gone through regularly, each name called, and testimony taken as to the faithfulness, competency, and even health of every man. They had a great gun from Illinois, called Cav-

1 The verdict of the jury in Pennsylvania, in favour of the New School section of the Church, afterwards reversed, on the points of law, by the Supreme Court.

anagh. [Rev. J. P.] Durbin and [N.] Bangs are there. They sit more than a week. Mr. Yeomans lays the corner stone ot his new church to-morrow; 100 feet by 62. I was introduced to [J. J.] Gurney the other day, and was charmed with his personeL Dr. [John] Breckinridge arrived here yesterday, being, to a day, the time fixed months ago. He says he has never failed to meet his most distant appointments, except when he has been thrown out by the rest of the Sabbath. He averaged 50 miles a day for nine months. My father is writing a history of African Colonization. I never saw the country look more beautiful than it does after the late showers. By reference to my book I find the season two weeks, at least, earlier than the last. The Clericus multicaulis 1 increases in this State. H. P. Good rich is to be President of Marion College, vice W. S. Potts, restored to St. Louis.

May 14. — A chasm of nearly two weeks. I have in the meanwhile been overrun with our spring visiters, examinations, gardening operations, and incommoded by a very painful affection of the throat, which still continues: it is a muscular or spasmodic something about the door of the stomach, very choking and uncomfortable. College opens on the 16th. I think we shall number 250. An old Church of England missionary from Ceylon is here.

Mr. Perkins says nothing to me about a 3d ed. of Quill. I have feared that his expectations were disappointed about the 2d. If so, he may be somewhat brightened by the following extract of a letter to me from Prof. Bush of New York: “I met to-day one of our most intelligent, most wealthy, and most useful citizens (a mechanic) with a bundle of books under his arm, (here I omit sundry bits of blarney,) and which were a part of near a hundred copies that he had purchased for gratuitous distribution among the different classes of operatives in the city” — “had no doubt that thousands of them might be sold every year in this city among the class for whom they are designed.” Pye Smith seems to outstrip even his great co-eval in the race to wards neology. They say [Rev. E. N.] Kirk has quite repristinated the old Spa Fields (Lady Huntingdon’s) Chapel in London; I see one of his sermons in the “Pulpit.” The people from America who go over to help the French Protestants are guilty of one unpardonable error, in my judgment. Instead of aiming to quicken and raise the old Protestant Church, which still exists, and has government patronage, they attempt little independent, or secession bodies, which not unnaturally excite

1 Speculations in the mulberry-tree for raising silkworms.

the suspicion as well of the government as of the other Protestants. The creed of the Reformed Church of France is as sound as ever, and as a proof of what we might hope, by going to work patiently and judiciously, the government have placed at Montauban Seminary two orthodox professors, viz., de Felice and Adolphe Monod. Several thousand U. S. troops are to be in camp at Trenton, during the summer.

PRINCETON, June 10, 1839.

A more lovely season I have not known. Our fields, groves, and gardens are one tissue of green; and for a day or two past the air has been fraught with the richest odours. Some of our little copses near the brook are paradisiacal in their look, smell, and coolness. In my garden I have found great benefit to my health, and many fascinations. With the little interval for prayers and breakfast I usually work in it from 5^- to 8i o’clock. From a space as big as your front parlour, we have picked 42 quarts of strawberries, chiefly hautboys, and the season is not half done. Of these 15 quarts in one day. For some reason they are exceeding sour. I wish you were here to partake of them, for we have to disperse the greater part among our neighbours. Other garden truck, writh me, is rather backward. I little expected that you would ever have occasion to conflict with. He is so rabid a man, that, except where one’s conscience should make pertinacity a duty, I should use all lawful means to avoid encountering him. His strategy is that of Indian warfare. I have looked over ’s book; prettily got

up, and neat in style, but very much what a “smart young lady” would have produced on the same topic. It has some places absolutely puling. There are three things totally wanting: 1st. Exposition of Scripture. 2d. Theological discussion of any thing about his subject which lies under the mere surface. 3d. Evangelical unction or spirituality. And I fear some parts are (what Gilbert Stuart said of Sir J. Reynolds’ s Lectures on Painting) “a beautiful apology for bad practice.” Gurney has been here. I heard him twice, and twice companied with him. I think him a good and even a great man. Very affable, instructive, and orthodox. One of his sermons was a poetico-mystical

1 Soon after the date of this letter, its writer’s first-born child died, after years of suffering with congenital hydroceplialus. “To you” (wrote his father) “I may say, with hope of being credited, it is a loss to part with even so distressed a child. His little bird-like voice was the first morning sound we used to hear. The Lord has done well and mercifully to us, and especially to him.” To the Sunday School Journal of this year he gave two numbers on “Scriptural Account of Suffering Parents.”

rhapsody of the most exquisite kind; it was really quite Platonic. I sigh to be a pastor, instead of a professor: Quifit Maecenas, etc.

PRINCETON, June 28, 1839.

I do not think a more favourable opening for Christian effort is anywhere offered at this time than at the encampment near Trenton: and my sole object is to get you to exert yourself a little in Philadelphia on this behalf. I am told there are some pious men among the officers, but who they are I know not. There are about a thousand souls there perpetually in camp; the number will be doubled in a few days. Many of these, I suppose, have not had the gospel for years; and, after the dissolution of the Camp of Instruction, many of them will go away to die in the remotest parts of our frontier. In walking through the camp on Tuesday, I was shocked with the unaccountable prevalence of cursing and swearing. If the Swearer’s Prayer, and similar papers, could be distributed among them, the happiest effects might ensue. There is a good deal of time for read ing; and some plan for a weekly distribution of Tracts would be truly promising. A large portion of these ought to be in German, as there are several Germans in every company. In this, and every other method, the approach ought to be made very carefully through the officers, who seem to be gentlemen of the highest breeding. No man can fail to be struck with the bearing of such officers as General Eustis, Col. Fanning, (who lost an arm at Chippewa,) Major Ringgold, &c., &c.

The Quartermaster General has erected a pulpit, and the way is open for public services on Sunday; but as there is no regular official provision for this, there is danger that persons will occupy it who are not the most likely to do good: 1 do not here refer to sect, or theological opinion, but to pulpit talent. I do not think an impressive extempore speaker could find a better audience.

To prevent sectarian alarm, I wish you could enlist in this one or two evangelical Episcopalians; and get a few dollars’ worth of German tracts put into the hands of some person who would see that they are distributed. Especially, if you could in any way gain access to some of the officers, much might with the blessing of God be accomplished. We fear to be too prominent in this matter in Princeton, but various means have been taken to let the officers know that we would furnish any amount of preaching. Mr. Starr, the Episcopal minister of Trenton, would be an excellent point cFappui for any endeavours. Cannot you find some layman of zeal and address and knowledge of men, who could spend a day a week in Trenton for such a cause 1

I attended the funeral of a dragoon in the camp. Music, procession, flags, horse led as mourner, but not one word of service, nor any intimation that the thing they were burying had a soul; all the nonchalance of a drill. Such a book as “Narrative of a Soldier,” edited by Dr. Wardlaw, and once reprinted in this country, would be likely to make impression. I have seldom felt more moved in behalf of any set of men; and as I cannot do much, if any thing, in proper person, I trust I shall not fail to get your strenuous aid. Take a friend and run up for a few hours to the camp. The selection is admirable; the beau-ideal of a summer encampment: a most extensive plain, skirted by a young forest, in which the tents arc arranged with much taste. The cleanliness, regularity, and silence are exemplary. It is favourable for religious effort, that intemperance is rigidly excluded. I believe there is not a drop of intoxicating liquor. It occurs to me that a serious Methodist might accomplish great things there. When I look at these men, and remember how much was done among soldiers by Wesley, Whitefield, and others, I am convinced that he who should be blessed so far as to institute successful measures for labouring among them, would save souls, hide multitudes of sins, and furnish delightful recollections for life.

PRINCETON, July 3, 1839.

It is impossible for either or myself to undertake

what you propose, in the present state of our engagements. In deed, I consider the week-day work in camp almost as important as the preaching. I regret that we have no one to nominate. The person ought to be one of the “workers,” wrho could go in

and out of tent or hospital as would do; not however

that I recommend him. This facility of talk with rank and file, I should reckon a main matter. Some active, zealous, affectionate Episcopalian, of whatever kind otherwise, would encounter least prejudice, yet great talent or eloquence would not be thrown away. The work is so important that even a settled clergyman might lay his account with taking this for a summer retreat; and a lovelier one it would be hard to find. I should feel an emotion of more than common joy, if I could hear that Dr. Tyng, Mr. Suddards, and a few such men, had made an arrangement to give sermons.

Just look at it: for the first time in our day — perhaps for the last — the United States Army is present (at least represent atively) at one place, quite accessible, in a favourable season, hard by hundreds of ministers, and thousands of Christians. The conversion of two or three officers might give a direction to the future history of our military men. I was pleased to see a Bible openly laid out in the tent of a captain.

It is a question with me whether the safest way is to move the Secretary at War to make a regular appointment. Such a motion might frustrate our plan. We know not what influences may be working in high places. The incumbent might be a Pharisee, a Catholic, a Socinian, or a petit-maitre in black, like, who lately sent us a dancing-master with a letter of introduction. Besides, there might be some show of resistance from the staff. But if the officers could once hear such a man as Dr. Tyng, Mr. Boardman, Mr. Suddards, or Dr. Breckinridge, they would be anxious for more. But in whatever way the thing is accomplished, it ought to be done speedily. I am told there are more than fifty on the sick list, and there will be both sickness and death before the end of August. Even while the other matter is in suspense, there should be a real working, stirring layman sent up with Bibles and Tracts, both German and English. A few German hymn books might be well. If I seem to press unduly in this matter, let me plead that the king’s business rcquireth haste; and my conviction that if you or I could get this ball fairly rolling, it would be worth more than any six months’ preaching we are likely to do. May the weak effort have Divine guidance and success!

PRINCETON, August 15, 1839.

I should like to advise with you a little about the sequel to the American Mechanic, which I have been preparing, [“the Working Man.”] The plan is just the same, but I have pitched the tone of it two or three degrees higher, as to style, allusion, &c. Still I wish it to be a book for the working classes. 1 feel encouraged to bestow such little labours as I may be able to put forth, more and more on the working classes, the rather be cause they are the great object of the infidels, socialists, agrarians. Owenites, Wrightites, and diabolians generally.

If you want to read a splendid piece of dialectical wit, take hold of the review of Gladstone in the last Edinburgh Review; .t cuts up apostolical succession irretrievably. Wonderful news from Bengal. I can’t find the places on my maps. It is worth notice, that the only very great success of the word, just now, is in that very field which sundry decry; viz., Foreign Missions. Grant that seven-tenths of the baptized, there and in the Sandwich isles, are deceivers or deceived, the case is still as good as

1 Three editions of the American Mechanic, in book-form, had appeared. “The Working Man” was not, like its predecessor, first published in a newspaper.

that of most of the nations which were converted to Christianity under the later empire: yet these nations are now nominally Christian. It is an infinite blessing to abolish idolatry. I still have it in purpose to write “The Apprentice” for the Union, and have the plan already laid out.

PRINCETON, October 3, 1839.

Our meeting of Presbytery at Cranbury was the fullest one in 17 years — 27 bishops and 17 elders; a truly pleasant and edifying meeting. I hope we all received benefit. All our churches, except six, have either built fine new edifices, or wholly re-modelled the old ones; and one of the six is about to do the same. In some of our congregations the use of intoxicating drink is almost at an end. One pastor said that almost all his youth had committed the Gospel of John. I found at Presbytery that among our pastors the current is setting very strong against the use of Question Books. Nicholas Biddle was at our Commencement, and showed much interest. Our Museum room with post-chambers, &c., is one of the handsomest college rooms I have ever seen. The alligator, now in it, has not eaten any thing for six months, and is nevertheless quite lively, though by no means amiable. I have been “sounded “about the presidentship of the Newark (Del.) College. “Ancient Manuscript,” signed A. in New York Observer is from your humble servant. Dr. Green said in his address to the Seminary Students,” As to mustaches and all whiskers, let us leave them to the goats and

the dandies; “and then he called on, who was” bearded

like a pard,” to make the concluding prayer. On Saturday, I saw the closing service of the U. S. troops at Camp Washington, [Trenton,] by Gens. Scott and Poinsett. As a “sight” it surpassed any thing I have seen. The evolutions and firing of the light artillery were wonderful; cannons flying about at a gallop. The large body of dragoons were so black and stalwart, with their long-bayoneted carbines, that when in solid column they might be taken for knights of the middle ages. I have come to the conclusion that Baxter’s style, which is not at all obsolete now, is the best extant, in respect to clearness, Saxon purity, vivacity, directness, strength, and pungency; it is not always elegant, or concise, or tender, or melodious. His “Dying Thoughts” is a great book: I mean, as he wrote it, vide vol. 18 of his works. Dr. John Breckinridge is in Kentucky. It occurs to me to say of him, that I never saw him idle or lounging a moment, nor ever diverted to minor matters or levity; I never saw in him the slightest tendency to worldliness; I never saw him in any company, even of the most fashionable political grandee, where he did not take a high religious stand, and avow high Christian opinions, with an air of conscious superiority; and I never detected him in any sort of self-pleasing or shrinking from sacrifices or hard duty. I know no minister whose private intercourse is so purely and zealously religious. I think this way of reading verse about at [family] prayers is a shocking abuse. To my ear also it destroys the sense. I have no notion of turning family worship into a Madam’s school.

November 27, 1839.

You see a man may come to the degradation of writing on ruled paper, for lack of better. I have such a dislike to doing things “on compulsion,” that I have half a mind to write betwixt the lines; but I content myself with merely entering my protest, and reserving all the rights of irregularity. A dozen at least of our small mechanics have burnt their fingers with the mulberry-speculation; some to the tune of thousands: another proof of the folly of making haste to be rich out of one’s proper calling. Trees bought at 20 to 30 cents are selling (if sold at all) at 2 mills apiece. This day I have seen a handbill advertisement of a great vendue of stock, &c., on the farm of a licentiate of our Presbytery; a thousand-dollar bull, Samlo, pedigree vaunted, references to the “Herd Book,” &c., also 60 odd calves. A few weeks ago I saw in the common papers attestations to the worth of an English bull, by an eminent bishop of Presbytery. Perpend the following remarkable passage of the Apocrypha, viz., Ecclesiasticus xxxviii. 25: “How can he get wisdom that holdeth the plough, and that glorieth in the goad, that driveth oxen, and is occupied in their labours, and whose talk is of bullocks?” Read the whole. By-the-bye, the said Ecclesiasticus might be often quoted, as we quote other uninspired productions. Read some sublime passages in chapter 50. Qu. Might not you surprise some readers of the Journal by quotations from this book, as from an old Jewish work? The accession to the Seminary (near 50) is greater than on any occasion, but two, since its foundation. This is very cheering, considering the division of church, and the nearness of the New York Seminary. You will see I am aboard of the Apprentices again in the Newark Daily. Some of the views expressed are favorite ones with me, and have been produced in some measure by a number of facts of a nature which I cannot make public.

O how I should rejoice to see a paper set up in Philadelphia, on the following principles: [1.] Size: A little bigger than the Sunday School Journal. [2.] Time: Weekly. [3.] Looks: Beautiful type, with as little variety as to type or leads as possible. [4.] Church Connexion: none. [5.] Doctrine: Evangelical, but not committed to anything; yet admitting all we believe. [6.] Disputes: = 0. [7.] Worldly News: = 0, but not bound to exclude items. [8.] Contents: 1. News of Christ’s kingdom; a resume and coup d’oeil of the field of missions; seldom giving long journals, but sketches of the real good done by all sects; revivals. 2. Experimental and Practical Religion, not excluding Biblical Interpretation and Saving Doctrine; chiefly, however, the former.

Is not this a good notion? Or perhaps you would rather say 16 pp. 8vo, so as to bind. I solemnly believe such a paper would honour Christ more than any publication known to me in the world.

I was called the other day to see a dying man several miles out in the country. It was a wretched hovel of a place, reminding me of some of Crabbe’s inimitable descriptions. Neither the sick man nor any of his household could read, and they were as ignorant as heathen. The front door of the house was unhinged, and merely lying up against the posts. We need such a district ing of all our neighbourhoods as should infallibly bring every such place under inspection. This work has been tolerably well done around here, but this man has been almost always drunk until he was seized with consumption. I wish in my soul that all the alcohol could be annihilated. Every day exposes to view more and more its horrific, soul-destroying power. I am ready to go “full-chisel” for the 15-gallon law. These coalstoves will let out the gas (or gaz, as you elegantly call it in the city, and nowhere else, I suppose, on earth) in certain states of weather, so that I am almost inclined to revert to wood fires. I had a piece of genuine Irish peat lately presented to me.

PRINCETON, December 9, 1839.

We have a Sciot (or Chian) here a-lecturing. He wears a red cap and a capote, and is a smart fellow: name, Castanis. Apropos de Journaux, the worst thing your Board ever did for S. S. J., was to destroy its weekly character, [making it semi monthly.] The interval at which it now appears is next to the cycle of the moon, and is representable only by the equation

T=TT -{-,>/ -j 7r-fB(. 1A Its arrival is always unexpected,

a mere windfall. A sheet, by a given mail, however small it be, is looked for. Again — say what we will, the title hurts it, except with Sunday School folk. I never read a number of it, without perceiving its value, yet I don’t find myself looking out for it. I therefore believe that just such a sheet, weekly, withcut reference to any association or enterprise, would go down nicely. Only the leading character should be NEWS; but news of the Kingdom. The Seminary has 112, and additions every week; among these additions only one is from a New England College. By a prolepsis of a week, I preached the semi-centurial sermon at Freehold. What an ugly thing State policy is, when it leads such a power as England to prop such a power as Turkey. I believe it to be all in vain, and that the book of Prophecy has doomed that empire to a curse. Eli Smith gave me new views of the exhaustion of the empire, and Lamartine lately said Turkey was perishing for want of Turks. Think of a million Russians going over to the Greek Church from the Romish, and Nicholas backing his father-in-law of Prussia about the mixed marriages. In lately reading the epistles to the Thessalonians, without note or comment, I have been driven almost irresistibly into the opinion, which I long rejected, that the Papal Power in some way is the Man of Sin j I say “in some way” because 1 know not yet whether it is the Pope as an individual, or the abstract Pope, or the collective Church. The Jewish letters of those Scotchmen [in the London “Record “] are very interesting; they quote Scripture after a different fashion from our Yankees — always excepting Goodell. Our old friend Mr. [Samuel] Bayard, now in his 73d year, is onfe of the most pleasing specimens of religious serenity and hope that I have seen. He is tottering over the grave, but his inward man is renewed day by day.2

I have heard, and have observed, that almost all the New England ministers have a trick of often sinking, or bending the knees, while preaching, the body being erect. This “squat,” whether taught in the course of Sacred Rhetoric or not, arises, I think, from the necessity of bringing the eye near to the MS., at times, and the desire to do this without leaning over; make the experiment yourself, and observe it strikingly set forth in

and. It is plain from 1 Cor. xiv. 35, that any

man might ask questions in the church; indeed, that chapter shows their assemblies to have been much less starched than ours. Do you know what Usher is derived from? From Huissier French, and that from Ostiarius, Take a leisurely course

1 The General Assembly appointed December 8, 1839, for the commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of the organization of that body: Mr. Alexander’s text was Ezekiel xxxvi. 37, 38.

2 Mr. Bayard was an elder in the Princeton church, and the author of “Letters on the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper,” a new edition of which was made the text of an article on the subject, by Mr. Alexander, in the .Repertory of January, 1840.

through Plutarch, and you will find some unmatchable picking for the Journal. I find this odious verse-about way of reading

at prayers growing into use among our ministers. At I

was between a booby with a cold in his head, who shouted like a clam-man, and snuffled like a distempered horse, and a Miss, whose words were scarce audible. I hold it to be essential to the due performance of that duty that the Scriptures should be well read, as well as possible, and therefore by one person. In the other case, the brats are all the while counting on ahead to see what verse will come to them, or losing the place and read ing the wrong one, while mamma is finding the place for Tom, and Sally and Joe are fighting for the bigger share of the book they are daubing and dog-earing between them. I set a higher value every day on this ordinance, and in a plain familiar way have expounded the New Testament regularly (only in the mornings) as far as 2 Cor. v., always studying the passage as laboriously as 1 can, and sometimes some hours. And I believe there is no portion of the Scriptures with which I am so well acquainted, and no preparation for preaching that is so useful to me. I have a notion to re-read my five volumes of Luther’s Letters, and to translate such short letters and extracts, chronologice, as would suit the Journal.

PRINCETON, December 21, 1839.

What tragedies we have in our banks — failures, peculation, robbery, suicide! For some years I have had the fact forced on my observation, that a large proportion of felones-de-se are made desperate by pecuniary embarrassment. It is horrible to contemplate the temptations to fraud, held out by banks to those without and within them. Borrowing, which should be, and in a healthful state is a dernier resort, is now a substantive part of worldly business. Endorsing, in nine cases out of ten, is a deliberate promise to pay that which one knows he cannot pay: the contingency, in my view, does not alter the morality of the transaction. When we say of our extensive Credit System, that it is necessary to our great operations, we should first show that our operations are not too great. A ruinous amount of steam is necessary to speed of 100 miles an hour; but this speed is too great. I do not see that the overtrading of the mass is less culpable than the overtrading of an individual. Is it not plain, that the aggregate of liabilities (that is, of obligation to pay) in our country, nay in the commercial world, is greater than the aggregate ability of the promisors 1 The moral influence of the

1 This was done for several successive months in 1S39-’40.

Credit System strikes me as one of the most malign influences to which our country is subjected. I have near me a (black) parishioner, not long for this world, a young woman, whose case will, I think, some day, make an interesting article for the S. S. Journal, or for a book, as showing the value of Sunday School texts and especially hymns, on a dying bed. We, who prctond to be refined folks, greatly undervalue hymns and psalms. Now I have often observed, that, from the natural fondness of the common mind, and the infant mind, for metre and rhyme, the great body of theology and experience in the lower classes is preserved in the shape of hymns. They read the psalm-book, they repeat and sing the verses, &c. Hence we should not neglect sacred song, I mean the plain sort, with our children and scholars.

My present feeling is that I will write no more irreligious books. Life is short. The great work is to save souls. All our economical, political, and literary reformations are mere adjusting of the outer twig; religion changes the sap of root and trunk. This I never felt more than now. I see that when a people become godly, all the rest follows. In the same connexion I see the value of preaching. Let me earnestly exhort you, on the strength of my own sad experience, not to allow yourself to trust to a flow of extempore thought and expression in the pulpit, but to labour every sermon, however obscure or ignorant the auditory may be. Drs. Skinner and Spring have proved what can be done by devoting all one’s soul to the simple work of sermon making. I wish I had done something of the

kind. has made a few days’ visit here. He says the

Taylorites have had a number of successive meetings of Associations to censure the East Windsor and Pastoral Union folks, but they “blessed them altogether.” Num. xxiii. 2. I am reading the Oxford Tracts, and am struck — 1, with the exquisite simplicity of the English style; 2, the strange absence of logical power; 3, the dangerous fascination of the monkish piety. The two most fashionable American tailors in Paris, partners, are named Cutter & Tryon. We have in College Cattell & Colt, (contiguous on the roll,) Bur net & Cook-us, (ditto,) Cake & Pitcher, (room-mates,) Nabb & Tabb, (room-mates,) Nixon & Dixon, Sturgeon and three Whaleys. Could not your Pennsylvania Secretary Mr. Skunk send us a son? For the pronunciation- of my name, take the following couplets from Crabbe, a sound authority in my view:

1 His “Notices of a Coloured Sunday Scholar lately deceased,” appeared in the Journal July 1, 18-10.

VOL. I. 13
“The plan was specious, for the mind of James,
Accorded duly with his uncle’s schemes”

“For now no crazed fanatic’s frantic dreams,
Seemed vile as James’s conduct, or as James.”

PRINCETON, January 18, 1840.

If you want an exquisite morsel for a column of the Journal, see a piece of Jean Paul (Richter)’s, admirably translated in “Christian Observer” for 1835, April. It is a gem. And while you have the volume in hand, cull a child’s hymn from p. 502. I do not know a book from which there is more to be sifted for a periodical than the back volumes of the “Christian Observer.” I think Dr. Bache’s Report on Education in Europe, a noble work. Spend an hour in digesting some of his statements about religion, viz.: In what countries does it form a part of education? is it regarded as a substantive, integral part of the course? how taught? how much time 1 with what relation to the Bible? &c. Being a teacher, and a dilletante-one, I was really kept awake by the book one night. It will do immense good, I believe, collaterally. I am hard at work upon another story-book for the Union, if it do not grow too big. It is not about children, or in the Childese language, for I am getting skeptical about that. I find my babes more interested about GOLIATH, than about the tiniest infant in monosyllables. I’ll not tell you the title, for fear you steal it, as some

swindler has done Mr. P ’s. Tell the said P. that I’m not

the first man who hung back from the penitentiary; and that I agree that he’s twice as much at home there as I could be. So I must wait a while to qualify myself [to discuss the solitary system.] On the 17th, at 7 P. M., the mercury here was — 8°. Dr. Demme [of the German Lutheran Church, Philadelphia] has kindly sent me a copy of his Sermon before the Synod. It is really an excellent and even eloquent production, so as to surprise me very much. “We have really few men among us who can preach as effective a discourse in English. It is faithful and warm, and has some original turns of Scripture quotation. I can’t say how well the production may look in a version, especially by the author himself, as his German style is very racy and idiomatic. The following statement came to me, as from

: The German atheism (pantheism or Emersonism or

Carlyle-ism) makes fearful progress in Boston, so that there are not a few who are willing to say (I pray that I may not sin in

writing it) that Deus est “a great;” This is a deceiver

and anti-Christ. Such is the career and tendency of Unitarianism. Read 1 John ii. 23. Query: why may not Job be one of the books which Noah had in his little library in the ark?

There is no notice of any thing postdiluvian? The expressions in i. 6 sound ewfc-diluvian. Behemoth and Leviathan are with difficulty brought under any of the Linnean mammalia. The length of the speeches, of the mourning, of the feasts, and the increase of Job’s family at the close, are very much like the incidents of a sexcentenarian life. Faber or Bush would give $50 for the patent right to so beautiful a hypothesis. The poor man (in the house where none could read) is no more; I hope

well for him. (on dit) is a great admirer of Carlyle!

I confess I like not these changes from what and Mines,

&c., once were, (i. e.) revival-men, however rash, to the decorous, lady-like, semi-high-churchism and semi-Oxonianism which converts souls in silk gloves. The fancy-lecturers I don’t like at all; this saves no souls. Time is short. I don’t, moreover, like this perpetual reproduction of the old controversy. I don’t

like ’s doctrine (v. N. Y. Evang.) that enemies are never

to be forgiven (till they repent, i. e.) while they are such. I don’t like “fine” preaching, or preachers; and (lest you should think I like any thing) let me add, I don’t like myself, or my past or present ways, especially my having made so much of preparing as scarcely to have begun to work; my having laboured so much indirectly when I might have done the same directly; my having set the soul’s salvation too for off. O if we could live one real year of effective gospel service, we might be willing to depart. Preaching Christ is the best, hardest, sweetest work, on this side of beholding him. I trust we shall do both. Blessings on your family, and may they see the “salvation of Israel.” Comp. Ps. lix. 35, 36, and liii. 6.

AEOLIC CASTLE, PRINCETON, Feb. 11, 1840.

As to, (the man hanged at St. Louis,) I remember

him well; but how little can we rely on even dying confessions! how hard to get the truth of a Popish martyrdom in China, when a murderer’s execution in Missouri cannot be given correctly. was indeed a Sunday School scholar; but — 1,

his father was one of the vilest drunkards in our place, and died such; 2, his younger brother (said to be crazed of grief ) is crazy a potu; 3, his uncle has been, to my knowledge, a wretched sot for twenty years; and 4, his “godly mother” has, I am told, been tipsy (as often before) since her son was hanged. The paper does not state that his repentings were all poured into the auricle of a Romish priest.

Mr. ’s complaints are sickly. I should be glad to see

him very often, but he must come to me, as life is too short for us busy folks to make calls. Out of at least twenty similarly situated men here, I never visit one without business. And he who will count up the sheets I write in a week, not to mention College and even pastoral cares, will not wonder. I shall nevertheless take means to show him that he will be welcome at all times. I rejoice to meet Christian friends and never grudge the time, but the man who wants to see me must take the trouble

to come in. I see there is a bill before the legislature to discharter [a Seminary where young men and women were received as scholars.] I wonder the grand inquest has let them alone. Such mingling of boys and girls is giving a bribe to Belial. I could state cases enough of the evil of such propinquity.

FRIDAY, Feb. 14, 1840.

In regard to what I proposed respecting pieces on “Committing Verses to Memory,” (pray why don’t some of the wordmongers make a simple verb to express this daily-used idea? memorize is awful, yet almost necessary,) I am not so fit as you think; because, to say truth, I am not so whole-hearted in my attachment to the present mode of question-teaching, as I might be; and he who takes up the cudgel for you ought to be so. I am ready enough to write something on the getting-by-heart portion of the subject. After next Monday, however, I have a new class, on a new and difficult book, (Juvenal,) and shall have no time except “nights,” — therefore don’t look for much from me. 1 have an interesting book about Iceland, from which I may perhaps get you something for Journal. Bush concluded his lectures here last evening; they have not been as full of matter as they ought to have been. His phraseology comes next to

’s. He prayed about the” unconsuming naphtha which

lighted the war-fires on a thousand mountains;” and said on one occasion, “we are now ready to make our inquisitorial entrde into the chambers of the Apocalypse.” In all this, however, he displays a power of diction and harmony of phrase which is totally absent in. I wish I was a Quaker! I mean I wish I

could carry off things with the equanimity which they seem

to enjoy. Tell Mr. P that he certainly errs in thinking I

have any special hints touching the objects of his embassy, [a visit to Great Britain.] Every thing which I could say has doubtless occurred to him a hundred times. Of proper Sunday school teaching, I have a notion that they have very little to teach us in Britain. But much may be picked up, especially in the “Guid Town,” as to the operation of Gall’s and of Wood’s plans, and the methods of scriptural instruction adopted in the common schools. If the Am. S. S. Union had the means, and saw the thing in its true light, they would lose no time in having an agent to do what Dr. Bache has done; I mean in reference to religious instruction. Bache’s book has suggested many inquiries to me, especially about the “simultaneous” system. By-the-bye, no book which I have read for ten years has given me so much food for thought, or suggested so many plans, as that same report to the Girard College: it is to Victor Cousin’s, what the elevation of an edifice is to the plan, or what the bill of fare is

to the dinner. Tell Mr. P, that by topographical cuts I mean

views of places, scenery, plans, maps, &c.; by archceoloyical, every depiction of biblical or Oriental houses, men, animals, modes of life, every thing, in short, which could interest a reader of a book of Antiquities; cuts, in short, generically like those in the Bible Dictionary. I won’t tell you wThat I mean by the emblematical. ‘Antiquities can be taught only by pictures. With a good supply of such we might go on with small numbers, which at length would grow into quite a volume. I feel a strong leaning towards a work of the kind myself. Wouldn’t it be good for us if we had a fair and full answer to the following queries, from every country in Europe? “What class of books is at this moment most decidedly popular and effective with the common mind — fiction, prose, or poetry? in what form — style? with what embellishment? how brought within their reach?” Of course we ought to feel the world’s pulse with all the fingers we can lay on its wrist. (!) There’s a figure for ye!

We are all of us in danger of undervaluing the importance of our posts, and our means of usefulness. I make this remark in order to introduce another, viz., that I should “deeply” regret any change of an ordinary kind, which should re move you from the S. S. U. You know very well that

the publishing crank is turned by yourself and P; in

a sort, therefore, you have control of the juvenile literature of increasing thousands. You know the delicacy of the post, you know how slight a straw laid over your rails would (hear! hear!) turn the locomotive off the track. (Cheers.) Again, I can conceive of no situation in which you could possibly set so much truth a-running over our wicked nation as this. Lastly, I don’t know what I should do with my superabundant material, and superfluity of wisdom, if I did not shower it over the infant mind through the watering-pot of your publications. Next to lastly; I sincerely hope that by conciliating measures on the part of the Union, it may act a mediatory part between several conflicting parties, and connect together the peaceable men of all. Did you ever get fully possessed with the notion that it, was Saturday on a Friday? such is my condition now, and it is like nothing so much as getting one’s head turned on board a vessel.

Yesterday I examined Betsey Stockton’s school; I wish I knew of a white school where religion was so faithfully inculcated. Perhaps the great revivals in the Sandwich Isles are meant to prepare the way for persecutions: if so, we may expect to see a new stature of Christians. I wish you would in some shape or other call the attention of some Low Churchman to Daille’s celebrated work de Usu Patrum. Look at Bayle, art. Daille. I never read such a piece of annihilating argument. I can’t imagine an impartial mind to feel the Oxford Tracts as weighing a grain after such a book. The author’s original was in French, entitled du Vrai usage des Peres. It exists in Latin also. The English version, though excellent, is rather antiquated, having appeared in 1075. As nobody, nowadays, could write the book, so nobody can answer it. I am amazed that it has not been mentioned on the Low Church side: but indeed, from the nature of the issue, the patristical erudition (how I hate the Latin part of our language, but what can a man do?) is chiefly on the Oxford side. That is a noble letter of blessed old Bp. White, in the Episcopal Recorder, a man worthier of saintship than half the saints, even of the “first four Councils:” a few like that would drive the nail. As it is, I confidently expect the Oxford Tracts to split the Church, and that by a vast majority on the wrong side. N. B. To preserve the point of a metallic pen (which 1 can’t use to any advantage) a good way is to have a little vessel of very fine shot by your inkstand into which to stick the pen after wiping; it prevents both rust and warping. I lately mentioned to you the case of a black girl who seemed to be dying. She is convalescent, but is in a very strange condition, for she won’t get well; that is literally the state of the case. She insists upon dying — wants to go to heaven — yet is free from disease, eats mince-pie, gains some flesh, &c. She will lie all day in one posture, and will not sit up. She evidently thinks the desire of death good per se. My visits to her are now offensive I think. Dod is ill in bed with a fever; he has carried your plan of going without an overcoat to the extreme; he always looked as if he was trying not to shiver. The hot room he has, to be sure, been guilty of: so have not I. Lest you should mistake my meaning about the book I have on the anvil for you, observe what follows. The subject is, The Best Way of Doing Good. The form, a grave story; just enough to support the dialogue. There is a young Christian of wealth and education introduced, as trying to do good in a certain neighbourhood, and his experience is divided into three stages, in which he attempts

1 A coloured woman, who had accompanied the Rev. C. S. Stewart’s family to the Sandwich Islands mission.

I. Doing good to men’s bodies, — by giving money, helping poor, feeding beggars, &c., &c. II. Doing good to men’s minds, — which he undertakes from a belief, derived from the foregoing experiment, that popular ignorance is the grand source of evil. III. Doing good to men’s souls, — the best way of accomplishing the other two, illustrated by the effects of true piety in a bad neighbourhood.

PRINCETON, Feb. 26, 1840.

The following is verbatim from a letter of Oct. 26, from Peter Harris, the African Prince, who is now at Monrovia, to a negro here. It describes a native dinner. You will admit that the “sir “ring is ultra- American: “They had great dinner that day, sir. Well, sir, they had two washbowl full of rice, and the other bowl full .of chicken soup, head and all in the bowl, sir. The way them Missionaries cat that rice and the soup — it was the sin! They set on the ground, sir, with country-mat spread on the ground: they did not * set on the chair, sir; they set on the ground. They did not have any knifes or forks when they was eating that rice, sir. and they only had three spoon. The way them five men eat that rice with three spoon, I tell you, the first man take his spoonfull of rice in his mouth, then he hand the spoon to next man; so on till it get round.”

I send herewith, if possible, ’s penultimate publication.

I hope you will carefully read it. He has been here, and is as strongly fixed in his opinions as if he were inspired. Sandeman is not now his leader, but the late John Walker of Ireland, formerly a church clergyman and fellow of Trinity College, Dublin. I have been reading this Walker, who is a reasoner of singular poxver. The sect in Ireland is called “Separatists.” They hold that Faith is Belief; that the corrupt nature is never less corrupt in this world; that baptism is to be administered only to proselytes; that Christians are to hold no fellowship in any religious exercise with any but themselves; and that they are the only true believers. [After mentioning some instances of false preaching of which he had heard, the letter proceeds.] Such a gospel as this is very unlike the New Testament. In deed, I am getting to “test” systems a good deal by the way I feel in going right from them to the pure word of God. More and more am I afraid of the best human compositions on religion: some are nearer, and some further; but all the streams have an

1 This work appeared in 1844, under the title of “Good, Better, Best; or, The Three Ways of making a Happy World.” Pp. 321. It was republished in London, in 1856, with an Introduction by the Rev. Dr. Cand-Ush, of Edinburgh.

earthly taste from the soil they run through. In connexion with what you say about the Eucharist, I have some notions about the other sacraments, (as we call them.) Do we not, in our squabbles about the amount of water, &c., lose sight of one great intent of the ordinance? viz., the public avowal of any person as a leader, or as worthy of being accredited. In this sense proselytes were baptized long before Christ. And I believe the word is often used chiefly in this sense, just as we use subscription. Thus Christ was himself baptized: i. e. he acknowledged John’s mission. So Mark xvi. 16, He that believeth, mid is baptized, &c. Compare Rom. vi. 3, “baptized,” ets Xptorov I^crow; 1 Cor. i. 13, “were ye baptized,” ets TO oVo/xa IlauAoC; 1 Cor. i. 15, 1 Cor. x. 2, “baptized,” ei? TOV Mwuo-^v. Not that I doubt the symbolical meaning, but I see great force in such passages when viewed in immediate connexion with the idea of u yielding oneself a disciple.” The Oxford notions on these subjects have never made one sore place in my whole surface: most errors do, until I am armed afresh by the study of the questions. The attempt of the Tracts to throw a venerable mystic halo about the pedigree of their Nag’s Head Succession is really farcical.

PRINCETON, March 21, 1840.

[After declining an appointment to preach the annual sermon for the American Sunday School Union, in May.] It is with much pain that I bring myself to say the aforesaid. But I am sincere in it. I am conscious of no special ability on set occasions; 1 suffer distresses, which to many would be inconceivable, while such an engagement is pending. The season also is one when I wish not to lade myself with labour. Next week I have to preach the ordination sermon of a foreign missionary [Wm. H. McAuley, at Kingston, March 25.] The week after is our examination. Then the vacation, in which I ought to go to Virginia. I see by the New Orleans papers that [Rev. John] Breckinridge is abused as making many converts, producing excitement, thinning theatres, &c. Good sign. Rose (the black girl) died last night in great peace and holy joy. Though there is not much to quote, I never attended a more satisfactory death bed, (I take in two or three months.) There are here two young men, not long in their majority, the sole relics of a respectable Quaker family. They are farmers, and educated, and both tottering over the grave with consumption. The best is, they are lovely Christians, full of heavenly hope; now members of Mr. Hare’s church, but bred Quakers. A grand book might be made (for the English market) out of a full and fair account of the New Harmony (O wenite) Institute in the West. Say and

MeCullocb, and some other men, could tell some good stories of Socialism. It-would sell in England and do much to cripple Owen. I am and we are thine and yourn, J. W. A. & Co.

PRINCETON, March 31, 1840.

Have you arrived at that stage of ministerial experience at which one receives anonymous letters, telling him to preach this, or preach that? I got one to-day; I suppose from a woman, as every other word was underscored. After the acquittal of Wood, [for murder of daughter on plea of insanity,] I suppose insane murderers will increase in Pennsylvania. Such things, no doubt, go into the account of national sins. I hope there is a change working among the Africans of this vicinity, and they are very numerous, in regard to the Colonization Society. Their prejudices have been mighty, but since Peter Harris writes to them about Africa, they have to admit some things which they once denied. Two of the best educated among them are going to take the African Repository, and one of these is willing to go out and see for himself. My father, who has this more at heart than any thing in the world, is writing a series in the Newark paper. He has had a large history of Colonization ready for the press more than a year. He regards the experiment as tried, and the foundation as firmly laid, and thinks repression (as to emigration) is more necessary than stimulation. I perceive Buxton founds his last hope on the colonizing plan, and you may see by the “Record” that a new paper is set up in London, called “The African Colonizer.” Do you know that we have a whole family of pure Malays living here? They were brought here by Van Polanen, a Dutch gentleman, who was governor of Batavia. The children are all grown. Let me saw something to you about Facts. One authentic fact is a great thing. There is a life and power in fact, which is not in fiction. They are more striking than fiction. In reading a book, you find your self suddenly arrested by certain statements, just as in hearing the noises of children you are perhaps little moved till the sounds form themselves into a tune. These passages we often find to be facts. The best characters in Scott’s Novels and Crabbe’s Poems, are from real life. In religious things, no genuine record of a soul’s history, or of any segment of it, is unimportant. God’s way of working is always marked and self-consistent. In a real history, I care not of what, the parts hang together in a definite relation like the limbs in a human body, or the features in a face; the connexion in a fiction is often forced and sometimes impossible. Corollary. 1. We ought to keep an eye open perpetually for religious facts. 2. We ought to VOL. i. — 13* record them. 3. We ought to record them with great care, in cases where the enormity of the transaction, or some delicacy of circumstance, absolutely forbids their publication at present. These are the very facts which are often most striking and valuable. Lay them by, and a year or two hence, they may be brought out with much force. 4. Ministers ought to keep a record of “cases” in their pastoral practice. That they do not, either mentally or verbally, argues a certain skepticism as to the reality or moment of the exercises. These thoughts have come on me with increased impression within a short time; and as I have lost some fifteen years’ use of them, I give them over to you. I think more of [Dr. E. D.] Griffin’s sermons than I expected. They have that sort of power which arises from the extirpation of superfluous words, in a very remarkable degree. In most cases I like the doctrine; always bearing in mind that they are avowedly awakening sermons. We have two Cherokees in College. One of them I taught eight weeks, without knowing that he had any thing of the red-man about him. As you are not near enough to me to give me your old coats, you may give me old notions instead; as an encouragement, here are some of mine: The Power of Christian Love is a great subject. “Love is Power,”

was Dr. J. H. Rice’s motto. “Light and Love” is Justin Edwards’s. In managing my children, in rebuking my servants, in quelling refractory boys, in every thing great and small, I find that want of love causes failure. Often, for the moment, every thing seems against this; but events always bring me back to it. I hope I have more disposition to yield and give up even rights, for love’s sake; but we are dreadfully infested in the church with a sort of feudal honour, which raises itself by the side of Christian principle. For example: I am insulted. Christianity says Suffer it; Chivalry says Resent it; at least shew that you feel it. How common in fashionable (??!) Christian intercourse, and among ministers in ecclesiastical bodies. After an hour or two in such scenes, how like springs in the Zahara is it to read a chapter or two of the Life of Christ! As I grow older as a parent, my views are changing fast as to the degree of conformity to the world which we should allow in our children. I am horror-struck to count up the profligate children of pious persons and even ministers. The door at which those influences enter, which countervail parental instruction and example, I am persuaded, is yielding to the ways of good society. By dress, books, and amusements, an atmosphere is formed which is not that of Christianity. More than ever do I feel that our families must stand in a kind but determined opposition to the fashions of the world, breasting the waves, like the

Eddystone Light House. And I have found nothing yet which requires more courage and independence than to rise even a tittle, but decidedly, above the par of the religious world around us. Surely the way in which we commonly go on is not that way of self-denial and sacrifice and cross-bearing which the New Testament talks of: “then is the offence of the Cross ceased.” Our slender influence on the circle of our friends is often to be traced to our leaving so little difference between us. I plead guilty to every count. I am at a great loss what to do about the Temperance Question. My sole difficulty is Pledge or no Pledge. As to the Wine Question, it has long seemed to me frivolous to stand over the corpses of a thousand drunkards asking whether their brandy had water or wine in it. I am made up in mind and conscience to avoid the means of drunkenness in my family. On this I have acted some months. We have dozens of young men in and about Princeton who are drunk every little while, and always on wine. Our students commonly begin on maltliquors. But I am not so clear as to the Pledge. I do not see my way plain as to taking the high ground respecting morals, which some do. And I abhor as hell the doctrine that our blessed and omniscient Saviour can be conceived to have made wine ignorantly. That the wine he made was intoxicating, I believe as fully as I do that he made it. Our students need an example. I am really at a loss. We need divine direction at every step,and for want of seeking it, and waiting for His counsel, (Ps. cvi. 13,) we so often rush into errors.

PRINCETON*, MONDAY AFTER PALM SUNDAY, AND FEAST OF )
ST. HERMENGILD MARTYR, 10th OF NISAN, 5600.

My edition of Luther’s Letters contains 2324, and has no Index of names; I may therefore err in some slight degree. I find 14 letters to Jerome Weller, and have looked through them. In no one do I find any thing resembling the advice about concubinage. The other matters are, no doubt, those which occur in the letter of Nov. 6, 1530, in number 1322. Luther is advising Weller about a dreadful hypochondria and despair, which is the subject of several letters. His words are as follows: “Et quoties istis cogitationibus te vexaverit Diabolus, illice quaere confabulationem hominum, aut largius bibe, aut jocare, nugare aut aliquid hilarius facito. Est nonnunquam largius bibendum, atque adeo peccatum aliquod faciendum in odium et contemtum diaboli, ne quid loci relinquamus illi, ut conscientiam nobis faciat de rebus levissimis, alioqui vincimur, si nimis anxie curaverimus ne quid peccemus. Proinde, si quando dicet Diabolus, noli bibere, tu sic fac illi respondeas: atqui ab earn causam maxime bibam, quod tu prohibes, atque adeo largius in nomine Jesu Christ! bibam. Sic semper contraria facienda sunt eorum, qute Satan vetat. Quid causa? aliud esse censes, quod ego sic meracius bibam, liberius confabuler, commesser scepius, quam ut ludam Diabolum ac vexem, qui me vexare et ludereparaverat. Utinam posscm aliquid insigne peccati designare modo ad eludendum Diabolum, ut intelligent, me nullum peccatum agnoscere ac me nullius peccati mihi esse conscium. Omnino totus decalogus amovendus est nobis ex oculis et animo, nobis, inquam quos sic petit ac vescat Diabolus.” [Dr. Martin Luther’s Briefe, u. s. w., ed. De Wette, Berlin, 1827, vol. iv., p. 188.] I ought to say that 1 have found nothing approaching to the ignorant rashness of this in any other part of his correspondence.

While we are upon casuistry, I wish to make a stricture on your canon, that “a man ought not to write and publish aught which he would not say ore tenus” I think I once before said, and I still think, that the rule is unsound. It should read thus: “which he might not lawfully say ore tenus” Our duty, it strikes me, is in no degree dependent on our willingness to do this or that. One man may be uncharitable in boldly saying one thing, and another man may be uncharitable in timidly with holding another thing. would say many a thing which

neither you nor I would utter. Many a man would say to another’s face, what he would not print. I have known the grossest calumnies justified by people’s adding, “I say nothing behind his back which I would not say before his face;” it was so, but it only proved that effrontery was added to injustice. The true question should be, I think, “Is it a duty to the public to say so and so? is it true? can it be said charitably?” In point of fact, no doubt most of the hard things said are uncharitable.

I think exactly as you do about [Rev. John] Newton’s Letters and Conversation; his other works seem to me of little value in comparison. We have had a very interesting visit from the Rev. Dr. Lang of the <: Kirk,” from Sydney, New South Wales. Very heavy in the pulpit, but amazingly interesting in private. He has had an Odyssey of voyages for that colony, and its religious interests. I am struck and fired with the greatness of the field. I wish you may talk with him. What an opening for Sunday School Books! Free colonists are pouring in, from the better class of Scotch and Irish Presbyterians. Last year 15,000 went out. Sydney has 30,000 inhabitants, and is a very beautiful city. He thinks New Zealand will certainly be colonized by England, and be a great Austral Britain. See how analogous to Great Britain it is on the globe, antipodal, insular, &c. My mind expands when I look at the mighty conquests of our language. If we could only pour in the gospel with this tide of conquest and colonization! Since, in our day, God so signally blesses colonies for the spread of civilization, ought we riot to follow the lead of Providence, and strike in as much as possible with the divine plan? The hope of great effects is more reasonable from such efforts than from insulated assaults on the mass of heathenism. It is the difference between firing a ball against a walled town, and entering a great breach with a victorous army. Fact 34. An alligator lived more than six months in our Museum with nothing but cold water; mention to the Temp. Society, before Lent is out. Fact 85. We have had several sorts of common snakes, domiciliated for days together, in our yard, and I and my child have handled them freely with out being hurt. We dedicated our [Presbyterian] new African meeting-house yesterday. A pleasant “season,” and really delightful singing. Eli Smith is here; he strikes me, as on former occasions, as a man of the first class of minds, always direct, clear, and decided in what he utters.

PRINCETON, May 4, 1840.

I have been endeavouring to attend to a little direct ministerial duty this vacation, at Cranbury, Freehold, and Trenton, whence 1 am this day returned. At Cranbury they now have two new church buildings. At Freehold I found a very pleasant

state of things. declares to me that he does not know

of a man, or woman, or child, (of suitable age,) whom he has not recently talked to in the most direct manner on the state of his or her soul; generally with prayer, and, in some instances, repeatedly. About 40 are hopeful converts, and the place is small. There is also a revival in Mr. Webster’s church, Middletown Point, another feeble church, but greatly strengthened by the awakening of the leading men in the town. Also a struggling little congregation at Upper Freehold [Betts’s] has had a similar ingathering. And the old [Tennent] Church of Freehold, has added perhaps 40 — 50. In all these places the work is going on in as healthful a way as I have ever yet seen, though not without some things which make me indulge painful scruples as to the plan of perpetual meetings. Mr. Yeomans has done wonders in Trenton, as to temporalities. I do not suppose $20,- 000 were ever laid out more for the adorning of a city, than in the New Presbyterian church there. Internally it is certainly the pleasantest place of worship I ever was in. A new organ has just been installed, and Dr. Ewing is the organist. It is worthy of note that within two years the following churches in our Presbytery have erected new and convenient churches, viz., Trenton, New Brunswick, Cranbury (2), Freehold, Princeton, Dutch Neck, Nottingham; Bound Brook a little before this period built anew, and Ewing, Pennington, and Allentown, have turned their old edifices inside out. Our meeting of Presbytery was a very pleasing one, and excited good hopes. The Mor mons, however, are making serious progress within our bounds. At Thorn’s River they have about 40 converts, quite substantial people. They profess to speak with tongues, and to work miracles, believe in baptismal regeneration and immersion — are high-church, as thinking none salvable but themselves — hold to the divine legation of Joe Smith, who has been in Monmouth. They make much use of singing. It is a dangerous feature of their system, that they talk almost always in secret with one another, about their peculiarities, and not to the uninitiated. Their chief man at present is named Rigdon. Their chief book is the “Book of Mormon,” which I have seen. They also have “The Warning Voice,” by one Winchester, who has been in Philadelphia. Some of their books they are said to conceal very carefully. They always dip at night. I dined at a house where I met an old lady named Cubberly, who had been with me to a long service, in a heavy rain, at the age of 91. Her descendants, she said, are 170. The Seminary examination begins to-day. I am (on dit) unanimously called to the pastoral care of the Hanover [or College Church] Prince Edward County, Virginia. I think as you do of Davies. The completest life I know of, is in Dr. J. IT. Rice’s Lit. and Evang. Magazine. With a little pruning, I think his sermons are perhaps the best extant; and even the exuberance would scarcely be felt in an impassioned speaker such as he was. Everywhere in Virginia he has left his track in the conversion of leading men and women, whose children and grandchildren remain. Read the Life of Rev. Devereux Jarratt, an Episcopal minister; it contains much interesting about Davies. See also GillieJs Collections, a book which, somewhat abridged, the Board [of Publication] ought to publish.

has no family- talent, [as a pastor,] which, after all, I

am repentant enough to think at least half the matter. What he attempts he carries through, but he attempts nothing warm. 1 think a large portion of our churches are in a good state of preparation for awakening measures, especially in the county of Monmouth; which, by marl, is becoming the richest, after having been the poorest county in New Jersey. Our county of Mercer has just erected a court-house in South-Trenton; which, I suppose, is equalled by no similar county building (out of great cities) in America. It is a beautiful Ionic building, and costs $50,000.

PRINCETON, May 5, 1840.

It is, perhaps, unnecessary for me to say that I have, as yet, no official and incontestable evidence of the call I mentioned, to Prince Edward. It is a good living, and in the choice part of Virginia. The College and Seminary always form part of the congregation. I am in pain to know what is my duty. I have always sat in my present chair with a feeling that it was right only as a refuge during ill-health. At present, through great mercy, I am perhaps only for a short interval, in the enjoyment of the best health I have had since I left College. I think I can say, ex ani?no, I wish to go wrhere I may most fully exhaust my talents, quantulacunque sint, in the service of Christ. It may seem strange to you, that no invitation has shaken me more.

Meekness seems in many minds to be confounded with imbecility, indecision, or fear; and 1 o.wn that, in point of fact, it too seldom escapes some measure of pusillanimity; but if we could have the magnanimous love of Christ, or of Paul, or of John — how it would attract, and govern!

I am inclined to hope that the Assembly will be conservative. Such seems to me the natural tendency of things. As no great church-crisis exists, many Presbyteries will feel free to send moderate men, whom they have respected all along, but whom they durst not send during the conflict.

The cold of this day threatens to bring on a frost, which will perhaps destroy our fruit, and nip my bunch-beans. I have begun to take my usual pleasures in the garden, an enjoyment discovered by me too late, but one which grows in my esteem.

’s daughter, aged 5 years, reads every book which a girl

of 10 would do, tales and novels included. She is quite forward in French. I am drivelling this stuff out after 10 at night: I had better prepare my head and heart for the pillow, so “manum de tabula,” Good night.

PRINCETON, June 4, 1840.

I think I would rather write Baxter’s English, than any I know, though I would not wish to write always what he has done. He wrell describes his own style: “May I speak pertinently, plainly, piercingly, and somewhat properly, I have enough.” (Premonition to Saints’ Rest.) He was not afraid of idioms, the real strength and glory of a language, and espe-

1 The call was declined.

daily of ours. The quality of plain, straightforward, market-English is rare in books. It is somewhat dangerous for us cisatlantics to attempt, for in becoming idiomatic we become provincial, witness Finney. But read Bunyan, Fuller, Swift, Gobbet, Hare, [” Sermons to a Country Congregation,” 1838,] and you will see wh.it I mean. This was, after all, what was meant by Attic Greek as distinguished from the KOLV-T) SioAeKxos: and Attic salt was the very sort of wit which circulated among Athenian hucksters, and which we find in Fuller and Charles Lamb. There was great wisdom in making the speech of the people the standard of good Greek, and great advantage in being so small a State. If you have never done it, don’t fail to read the’” Rest,” the “Call,” and the “Gildas Salvianus,” as he wrote them, and free from the emasculations of Methodist abridgers, and do it in Duncan’s impression, London, 23 vols., 1830. It would be a good notion to excerpt and reprint some of the noble passages of the “Saints’ Rest” which have been omitted in the abridgment. With all my admiration of Baxter’s parenetic writings, I must say that he seems to me never to get upon a doctrinal point without doing mischief. Except in the schoolmen, (whom he greatly studied,) I have never seen such subtilty of distinctions. For a good specimen (as I suppose) of his pulpit prayers, see his “Dying Thoughts,” vol. 18, p. 413 and seq. As you seem to have acquired a little interest in Samuel Davies, (whose name was always pronounced Davis,y I will add these items: I was told by Mrs. Dr. J. Woodhull, daughter of Gilbert Tennent, that he was very attentive to his dress, so as to excite much observation, and always had a ring on his finger, and a gold-headed cane. I was told the same thing by an aunt of my father’s. My mother has heard it said in her father’s house, that Mr. Davies used to say that he wore this ring to remind him of eternity — without beginning and without end. I have a MS. journal of Col. James Gordon, of Lancaster co., Va., who married Gen. [and President] Harrison’s aunt, and whose daughter Dr. Waddel married. The names of Davies, Whitefield, and Waddel, often occur on the same page, and the places, and times, and texts of all their preachings are given. The amount of labours performed by Va. ministers in that day was amazing. You remember the affecting remarks of Davies about his little ones; several of them lived ungodly. In his manuscript journal he complains of great harshness and jealousy on the part of Gilbert Tennent, while they were in England. Do not fail to get hold of the life of Devereux Jarratt. It will give you a lively idea of those times. I know very well a daughter of Mr. Jarratt’s, and my father knew the man himself. He was “a speckled bird” among the Churchmen of that day.

PRINCETON, June 10, 1S40.

The religious prospects of the University of Virginia are really encouraging. It seems as if Providence was throwing contempt on old Jefferson’s ashes. I have lately visited Mrs.

, who is on her death-bed with consumption; I could

scarcely keep from envying her. When I see a Christian die I

lose my fears. It is grand impolicy in to print any of

his sermons. “It is as easy to paint fire (says old Gurnall) with the heat, as with pen and ink to commit that to paper which occurs in preaching. There is as much difference between a sermon in the pulpit, and printed in a book, as between milk in the warm breast, and in a sucking-bottle.” It may not be so

with such preachers as or, whose discourses have

sometimes been preached in the pulpit, then delivered at a commencement, then published in the, and then issued as the

Preface to a work. In my notion a sermon is a sermon, and nothing else; if you make it with any thing ulterior in view, you destroy it as a sermon. It is death to a good sermon, as to a good love-letter, to publish it. It is dead beer, sour champagne, cold coffee, an effete cigar, a daguerrotype portrait.

I have lately re-read Southey’s Thalaba; it is certainly a wonderful poem, though the freshness and simplicity of the first two cantos are not sustained.

I beg to be presented to and your amiable babes,

and am, with all the et ceteras,

Yours and theirs.

PRINCETON, June 22, 1840.

I have many independent sources of evidence showing that evangelical religion is greatly advancing in Virginia under the labours of Episcopalians. Most of their clergy are good and hard-working men. The Alexandria Seminary has been a great blessing to them. As to God forbid I know of no case such as you ask about; it is, however, hazardous to assert a negative. I have looked at the Hebrew of all the places mentioned by Cruden, and the word is uniformly ^V^n literally ad profana, “i. e. (says Gesenius) absit, vox detestantis.” Respecting the New Testament phrase by all means rend what Dr. Hodge says on Romans iii. 4. “The Scriptures,” says he, “do not authorize such a use of the name of God,” &c. An expurgated

J The translation of ^t] yevoiro in our version.

edition of Jeremy Taylor’s Holy Living and Dying would be one of the loveliest books in the language. I mean such expur gation as Howard Malcom has effected in Law’s Serious Call. We cannot set too many such books afloat. Some of the Psalms of David might be rendered into blank verse, with better effect than in rhyme. Such a one is the 18th. De Wette’s German translation of them makes many passages more clear by exchanging future tenses for present or past. Anagram by;

Old Tippecanoe — People can do it. Every year I am more and more surprised, in tracing the course of our College Alumni, to see how many thoughtless, wild, and even wicked young men, (especially of the South,) who have left us without any sign of good, become true Christians in the course of a few years at home. Even of cases which I know, I think I could enumerate thirty or forty. This is really encouraging, and ought to be mentioned as an offset to the real and imaginary dangers and evils of a public education, I seriously think, after some inquiry, that where one piously-bred boy is corrupted, five neglected receive the seeds of divine truth. If we were faithful, how many such instances would there be! What an amount of

rhetorical passion infuses into his speeches: I don’t

know any of our orators who ventures upon so much, nor any of our agents who has kept alive his enthusiasm so long for one cause. It is pleasing to observe how hired agents become devoted to a single charity heart and soul, and then equally devoted to

another. I am not at all pleased with ’s Critique. It is

full of the slang of the pseudo-German school, even to such words as Stand-point, (Standpunkt:) why not call a glove a Hand-shoe, (Hand-schuh,) as the Germans do? I am more and more convinced that no man need regret the extremest ignorance of every German metaphysician that has written.

I have just opened the Record of May 13, which contains Packard’s speech. He seems to have been well received, with the exception of the usual blackguardism of the next speaker about slavery. If I should ever speak on British Boards, I think that I would forestall that by blazing away beforehand against the British for having introduced slavery among us, and kept up the slave-trade so many years. It is plain that the report of the “worthy gentleman’s” speech is defective in the extreme. The bones of old Boney [in Paris] will be as really adored as ever any relics were. The simiotigre, as Alfieri called the French, will make a wonderful work over them. I doubt whether France contains in it as honest a man as Wellington; but I confess to a violent antipathy to the great nation. Except from necessity, they seem to me to be the same people they were during the

Revolution. What a blessing it is to belong to the Teutonic race! The more I see of the black-eyed races of the South of Europe, the less I respect them. Next to Britain I would live in Prussia. Last year we had 00 quarts of strawberries; this year not nine, the season being just done. The last article of the Edinburgh Review for April on the “State of Parties” is fine reading — no doubt by “Tom” Macaulay. It is very unjust, however, in many particulars. I see the General Assembly of Scotland have gone very strongly against Lord Aberdeen’s Bill; no doubt rightly, but, I apprehend, to the ruin of their establishment. I am much struck with the tone of piety which pervades Dr. Chalmers’s writings on the subject. I am not without reasons for thinking that the last sermon I preached to the blacks was the means of awakening the only white person present. Strange are the ways of Providence! I think it is too much our way to rank modern philosophers who reject the Gospel, with ancient sages who did not know it. But if Plato is in hell — how far nearer absence of pain must he be than Gibbon! the former having almost guessed at truth without revelation, the latter, after a perfect education in it, having rejected it! The grand error of free-thinkers, and that which, I think, should be pressed home upon them, is their obstinate persistency in going blindfold when a light from heaven is offered to them. Suppose a man should profess to doubt all the acknowledged principles of chemistry and blow himself up, by going into a foul mine, when a thousand safety-lamps had been offered to him. Our minds are too often disposed to regard that as venial, which God regards as heinous. Perhaps the very rejection of such a book as the Bible, even without a word of external evidence, is proof positive of enmity to God. Pride of under standing ruins learned men by hundreds and thousands; it is destroying, I fear, all the philosophers of Germany. To become as little children is a great attainment. May it be ours! It evidently means a great deal. Especially it means faith: what is credulity in our babe, towards us, is faith in us, towards God. After this page of homily, I allow you to have a recess for a few minutes. Look at that hard place, 2 Sam. xxiii. 5. De Wette translates, and as I think in exact accordance with the Hebrew: “Yea, and is not my house so, before God1?” &c., &c., &c. “Yea, all my salvation and all my desire, will he not make it grow 1” In verse 17 of the same chap., and in 1 Chr. xi. 19, the phrase is not equivalent to our “God-forbid,” but rather (1) “Be it far from me, Jehovah!” (2) “Be it far from me, from God.” Some little chronological tables might with advantage be dispersed over a Bible; some light from the following neglected relationships: viz.:

Jesse

Abigail
Araasa

DAVID

Zeruiah

Joab

Asahel

Abishai

A few self-made charts of this kind tracing out the relations mentioned in Scripture, would, by degrees, enlarge and distinct-ify (we need a word) a man’s historical knowledge of Scripture. Half the readers do not know whether Zeruiah was male or female.

PRINCETON, July 1, 1840.

Bishop Chase (in the “Record”) talks of moneys “rising of” so many dollars! Show me an English authority for “over ten thousand dollars!” Yet Walter Scott says, “I have done a monstrous sight of work,” (Diary, July 13, 1826;) this I thought a Philadelphianism. “Leave me alone,” I never heard but in your town; it is a German idiom exact; “Lassen mich allein”

We have had a visit from, who is zealous about a prize

tract just from England, which demonstrates that the Scripture wine was not intoxicating. He says Louis Philippe told him he would gladly sign the teetotal pledge, but that he feared his subjects would say he was a fool. That is the thing they will never say of him, even if they shed his blood on Napoleon’s ashes. I do not much expect to be at Trenton; we expect to have a Colonization effort here on that day. The iron is now hot, and the Buxton influence should be driven forwards with all power while it lasts. My mind has run very much lately on Colonization (in general) as God’s means of civilizing and Christianizing the world, and on the part which the Anglo-Saxon race is taking. From ’s letters, as from the British pa-Eers, I see how far worse, after all, the spirit of party is in Engmd than here. How it is embittered by politics, by the Establishment, by the feeling of rank, and by the admitted heats and outbreaks of the platform! Would it be possible for any American Committee or Board to treat any accredited British agent as every American ditto is treated there, by some or other of them? I trow not.

Give my kindest regards to and the rest of your

white family, as they say in Virginia, to distinguish from a man’s black ditto, which is sometimes quite patriarchal.

I am, was, have been, had been, shall be, &c., through all the tenses, Yours.

PRINCETON, July 22, 1840.

I enclose with this the MS. of Lame John. It was begun under the title of Lame Jack, which I greatly prefer, but the resemblance to Miss Edgeworth’s Lame Jervas, and Capt. Mar ryat’s Poor Jack, made me fear to add a third great work of the sort.

No book of mine has less plot or less fiction. Almost every page is a copy of scenes and incidents under my eye at the time of writing, or remembered by me. If I do not err, this copying of real life will interest young readers.

Believe me very respectfully, Yours and Theirs, (sc. the unknown Committee, which is not unlike the Chambre Introuvable of the French Revolution,) and am, et cetera,

JAMES ALAXANDREW,
as my carpenter spells the name.

PRINCETON, July, 1840.

Bishops abound. Last Sunday we had Samuel Michigan, yestreen Levi North Carolina, next week we are to have Charles Ohio. The fourth passed without any thing very remarkable, except a Colonization meeting at which Capt. Stockton spoke and Langdon Cheves attended. The Captain is admirable in elocution and gesture. A knifegrinder from Worcestershire, speaking to me yesterday of the sects in this country, said literatim: “you seem to have a great many of the Prispeterians, and also of the Priscotarians.” Our blackberry woman has come to an estate in France; name Ancillon: we have eaten her dewberries within the week. A girl applied to us as child’s nurse a week or two ago; last week she fell out of a tree and was killed. Tell me, if you know, who the Mr. Peter is, who translated Schiller’s William Tell, lately published by Perkins.2

So far as I know there is no book in defence of Christianity extant in French, of a kind to meet French infidels, and be circulated in France where the need is greatest. My father has had an urgent demand this week for any thing of the sort in French or Spanish, in a letter from a native Spaniard, nephew

1 “Lame John; or, the Charitable Poor Man.” Published 1840. Pp. 137.

2 He was the British Consul in Philadelphia.

of a Romish priest. Can we neglect this without sin? My father has received innumerable letters from persons converted as well as convinced by his “Evidences;” one last week from an Episcopal clergyman.

PRINCETON, August, 1840.

Read a grand article on Style in the July Blackwood. Do your children get a chance to fly kites 1 it is a very graceful and interesting pastime. Among the Tract Society’s volumes is the

Life of. I must in candour say it is a worthless book.

It is such prima facie, but doubly so to us who intimately knew the subject of the memoir for years. He was a very warm hearted Christian, but as great a mixture of weakness, imprudence, and pomposity as I ever saw in my life. Some of those who loved him most were most surprised and ashamed when they saw him made a lion of. Harris’s Mammon and Abbott’s Young Christian seem to me very objectionable. Most of their [Tract Society’s] other permanent volumes I think good. I stand astonished at the extent of their circulation. What an engine! We are (our house) about equidistant from three most sage musicians — an owl which perches and screeches every evening in Dr. Hodge’s trees, and two of Elliot’s “animals” [asses] at Capt. Stockton’s. I never knew fully before what braying meant. Come out before the season is over. Signora Upupa is engaged for a few nights only, and one of the Aslnelle is lately confined. How is a man ever to be sure how another man’s name is spelt 1 Shakspeare’s is three different ways in his autograph will. In preparing an article, I had scruples about “Sydney Smith;” found it with y in the Record, i in Lockhart’s Scott, and both i and y in John Murray’s Byron, and got it

wrong at last. I have heard, and, I think,, say

Byron: the noble Lord himself rhymes it with iron and siren.

Do you ever read the Spectator 1 Read it, by extracts, with or to your daughter. It is crystal water after gutter ditto. Some of Steele’s are more racy English than Addison’s. What pomp of American verbosity could express what follows, about Westminster Abbey: “When I look upon the tombs of the great every emotion of envy dies in me.”

“The better vulgar” — a fine phrase of Warburton’s.

I would subscribe two prices for a bona fide old-time Walshian gazette. I owe something to that man:

“But why then publish? Granville the polite
And Knowing Walsh would tell me I could write.”

Pope.

It is some weeks since I was enabled to close the canon of the New Testament, having, in my small way, expounded the whole in course, at morning prayers. And I am sure I love the book more for having so done. I have begun again.

Some of our wretched wags in College had a strolling painter

in the gallery, last Sunday, busy taking ’s likeness, while

he preached!

This evening is very cool; enough so, I guess, for a blanket. A neighbour’s child, 18 months old, has swallowed 15 percussion caps, (invented, you know, by Forsyth, a Scotch clergyman.)

In private I have found forms of prayer very valuable. They suggest what to pray for, which we may forget. 1 have thought it would be good to make for one’s self a liturgy of subjects; we are so apt to forget. Have a book; put a general topic at top of page; leave space to add particulars. Romaine used to have a list of friends, and prayed it over every Friday afternoon.

Sam [now Rev. S. L>. Alexander] is going on Tuesday to Sullivan co., N. Y., on the Erie railroad, as a Surveyor. He is a moral boy, but very careless. God grant him a new heart!

Some papistical books on Christian morals are, exceptis excipiendis, among the best I ever read. To-day I have been read ing the “Spiritual Combat,” a famous book among them, from which I think I have derived real benefit. It is one of the most original productions I ever perused. Read any chapter of it, and you will see what I mean. It is anonymous.

We have a very wide horizon where we now live, and surely nothing of pyrotechny can equal the lightnings of this evening. Last night — moon shining — I stood by a fence, coming from Dod’s, and speculated a colt, as I thought it, grazing in a pasture: it came right up to me, and lo it was an ass! Really now, it was quite a noble creature of the kind.

I sometimes find my evenings quite light and hilarious after a very tort day. This morning I attended a funeral, sat at Dod’s examen, heard a long recitation, and, after a bite, examined 76 fellows in Latin, came home exanimatus, drank three cups of strong tea, played half an hour on a flute, and feel better this moment than I did when I got up. What wonderful machines these are! Sometimes the grasshopper is a burden to me. I have been reading O. A. Brownson’s Charles JEllwood, which purports to be his own experience. No American book is better written — the style, in places, is exquisite; but it is the deadliest assault on religion; and though he does not quote a German word, it is Kant-ism applied to American infidel politics. The system is the more dangerous because it is alive; in this having

an unspeakable advantage over the Unitarianism of and

Co., which is corpse-like, and has never moved among the people.

Tell — — that I beseech him to write an ofT-hand article for the Repertory, on the subject he once touched in some letters; viz., the danger and folly of an un-religious Education for the country. Let him fill it with his British recollections, &c. He is precisely the man to do it. The call is imperative, and this is the nick of time. I wish I could make him know how earnestly I desire this. Both your Union and the Tract Society would profit by it; and if he does it as he can, it may do more good than a thousand sermons. Don’t wait for method or references; let him strike it off hot, and it will burn in the deeper. If this is not our vocation just now, I know not what is. I am afraid the devil is getting hold of the common-school crank.

It is plain that the [London] Record has several writers of its editorials. The man who writes on the Scotch church is truly a powerful fellow. When I read what he says (and he has confuted my foregoing conclusions on sundry points) I feel as if I was in the gripe of a Cornish wrestler.

Lord Byron, in a paper of Strictures, written at Ravenna, in 1821, takes Campbell to task for misquoting Shakspeare, and says: “A great poet quoting another should be correct” In the very same article he designates Bacon as the ‘’greatest — wisest — meanest of mankind.” The allusion is obvious, but the distich of Pope runs thus:

“If parts allure thee, think how Bacon shined
The wisest, brightest, meanest of mankind.”

I wish you would attend one of our Final Examinations; in deed, I wish they were public. Nothing could do so much justice to our methods of teaching. It lasts from 8 to 10 days; hours 8J — 12, and 2 — 5. Most of the subjects (about 16) are, on the English-University plan, from papers, embodying the chief points of the whole subject; the same paper to each; not seen before the moment; no book, reference, or communication allowed. Some of the best scholars answer every question in full, writing 3 or 3-J hours at a stretch, and filling several sheets. There is perfect silence, and it is a fine moral spectacle to see 70 odd young men so intensely employed. Of course there are many who do little or nothing; but the examination is absolutely fair, and the comparison between man and man exact. I doubt not that our whole course of study will be more faithful, under the urgency of this motive. I will try to enclose such of our papers as are printed, for a few are exhibited on a black board. The paper is always a fresh one, and such as no chance

1 It was done in an article of fifty-three pages in the Repertory of July, 1841.

1833 — 18M. 313

can enable any one to answer who has not some knowledge of every portion, and exact knowledge of certain parts proposed.

I have received 78 answers to my examination-paper. I will send you a copy of the paper, and perhaps one of the answers. The following question from Dod’s examination paper of Juniors is sent for Tom’s use:

“Find the length of an arc of the Tractory, its differential

equation being -= — = — — j- Correct the integral on the

supposition that the arc commences at the origin, where y — a.”

A Simeon (Charles) here might be a great blessing: he

ought, however, to be disconnected with the college police. Our

advices are like those of the Newgate ordinary, yjy Talk

fully with P about the religious-education-literature, (as

above,) for I think it the question of our age and land. If we could leave that matter on its right foot, we might die. If I were a raging, athletic, outdoor man, I would stake every thing upon it. New England will do her own work, well or ill; but who will do it for the non-New-England States?

I think you are too severe upon the absconding clergy. The thing is no doubt an abuse, as it now exists, but there is after all, at the bottom, a real necessity for some recreation and change of scene. Only it ought to be under some well-understood arrangement, so as to prevent this summer complaint of the people. Why must all clergymen need winding up at the same month? Why need there be so much stiffness about not preaching in another’s pulpit 1 Why not agree together and have a rotation ofHejiras? This I don’t understand. The source of the evil in some of the best pastors, I suppose, is undue night-work during the working season.

John Y. Caruthers of Lexington is dead. Our large connexion in Rockbridge could not have met with a single loss so serious. He was a man of extraordinary talent for business, and of prudence unsurpassed, an elder, and a conscientious Christian. I believe, long a Sunday School Superintendent. Old Dr. Hillyer is dead also, a truly good old man. How beautiful is goodness! Fierce orthodoxy burns as well as warms, but Christlike gentleness sheds life all around it.

CHARLOTTE COURT HOUSE, VA., Oct. 27, 1840.

It is with great difficulty that I snatch an interval from excessive company to write you a letter, and I shall probably be stopped before I get done. My wife, two boys, and nurse stopped at the University, [Charlottesville.] Though they all wore somewhat better, they were not in a state to brave a land-journey VOL i. — 14 olrer mountains. Mr. ’s carriage had been sent for us;

leaving, therefore, my family with Dr. [Prof. J. L.] Cabell, I reached this place in four days. We had to lie by for heavy storms. We got here last Thursday. We shall, if the Lord will, meet at Judge Cabell’s about the 6th prox. There has been a great religous excitement here; about 105 converts of different sects. Twenty of these have joined the Presbyterians. The feeling extends on every side to neighbouring congregations. The new measures are rife, but connected with old doctrine, except in the case of the Methodists.

I have met with B. W. Leigh, W. C. Hives, Alexander Rives, Governor Barbour, and a few more of that class. I heard Rives in Albemarle. He spoke three hours, and was very eloquent. The Harrison cause is triumphant here. It is supported with a high and dignified zeal, which I like better than the Tippecanoe fury of our canaille in the cities. B. W. Leigh is an honest statesman. I heard him pronounce a most cordial, discriminating, and copious eulogy on the people of Massachusetts. The most painful thing, in visiting this old slave-holding country, is to see, after fifteen years’ acquaintance, none of those municipal and domestic improvements which strike one in the north. The University is more of a place than I thought. Their professors do more, especially in the way of lecture, than any I know. Bonny castle is a wonderful man for genius and learning. Tucker is a man of elegant English gentlemanhood; just like Walsh in the cast of his mind, and his talk. Each professor is bound, under penalty, to deliver 132 lectures in the year. Library, 17,000 volumes. Annual appropriation from State $15,000. After as good counsel as I can get, I am under the necessity of declining the invitation of the Sunday School Union.

PRINCETON, November 18, 1840.

We all got home well, and found our house swept and garnished5 and fires made, but no servants. We are little better off now, in the last particular. Mr. Crane went to drive a cow out of his yard, and fell down dead. I am anxious to make out a statement, with reference to all our public charities, boards, &c., in answer to these questions: 1. What is the amount of receipts, yearly? 2. What part of this goes for expenses? i. e. is not laid out on the direct object. 3. What part of this sum goes to Agents, as salary or compensation? You have access to more reports than I, and if you could amuse yourself on a rainy day, by a few figures, you wrould please me. We have matriculated 63 new students, being more than we have ever received, so far as I know, at so early a day. The Seminary has admitted 34, also a large number. Addison is this year lecturing on the whole of the passages quoted from the Old Testament in the New. I

learn that and others came forth strongly against the A. S.

S. Union, and some of them even against the Bible Society, at the Sy nodical meeting at Wilkesbarre. I learn also that very large minorities in the two westernmost synods of New York refuse to join the New School Assembly. Perfectionism and Oberlinism are making stealthy but wide advances in that great country. I find all my binding O. K. This symbol may be variously rendered, viz., “O qu’est!” or, “Au quai.” Prof.

says the English laugh very much at the American and

Walkerian pronunciation of buoy; and that no Englishman ever gives it any sound but that of boy, as the sailors do. I hear a sleigh-bell, while I write, after dark; the mercury has been below 32° all day. One of our students, Frederick William Mark, died during the vacation at New York. He was a Bavarian Jew.

PRINCETON, November 24, 1840.

The death of Mr. Davis at the Virginia University is a horrible comment on the Southern, I may almost say American, practice of using deadly weapons. I parted with Davis at the junction of the two railways, (he accompanied us from Richmond,) on the Wednesday before the Friday on which he was shot. He was, I have every reason to think, a truly pious man, of the Episcopal church. As a professor he wras one of their best — a black-letter lawyer of great reading, and a good lecturer. I think he married a grand-niece of Jefferson’s.

PRINCETON, December 1, 1840.

I guess that will be versification enough for one sheet.2 Mr. John Wray of the Seminary is to call some day this week for a coat for me. Any message, cartel, paper, or what not, might by said Wray be privily inserted into pocket of said coat, and then will be conveyed to me, even though Mr. Wray meant only to take raiment. Tell Tom that Henry had a dead owl yesterday, and started a live hare (rabbit) in the garden to-day. The severe cold drives animals near to their natural enemies. My brother Sam is hard at work in Orange co. Prof. Henry gets all his winter butter at 16 cts. the pound, which is a clever thing in him. Numbers of the “air-tight stoves” coming into use here,

1 John A. G. Davis, Professor of Law, was shot by a student, as the Professor was approaching him for the purpose of detecting him in disorderly conduct.

2 “A Christian Lyric,” and “Lord, hear the Seaman’s Cry,” for the Sunday School Journal, (not I,) Dr. R., Dr. II., Prof. IT., Prof. D., Dr. M.: wood needn’t be touched for half a day together — three-fourths of a cord of wood take you through winter. Introductor of the same, Dr. John N. Campbell, of Albany. I consider Longfellow’s “Village Blacksmith” the best American fugitive poem I ever read, and if I had a daughter of competency to get any thing by heart, I would make her rehearse it to me while shaving, (i. e. while I was shaving.) I have a Scotch boy named Kenneth MaoKenzie, which means Kenneth the son of Kenzie; but he is the son of Allan McKenzie, who gardens for me. When I was in Buckingham, Va., I saw a stuffed pine snake, more than seven feet long, and as thick at the thickest as my leg. It had been killed on the estate where I saw it: on the same place I saw a rattlesnake, which was showed to me by the lady who had killed it. I saw a good many gold mines, but most of them are “being “given up. The gold occurs in hard quartz, and the thing is to get it out. The grinding is a terrible process, and no flux has been found yet. A poor Jew named Levon lectured (!) here Sunday evening [oh! oh!] a layman — highly recommended

by &c-> &c- Pravp if Leeser is in town, decoy him off till

said Levon has exhibited. I gave him a coin, which twenty Christians within half a mile deserve as much, and need more. Hurrah for beggars! Vive la bagatelle!

Dec. 2, 1840. — I left off at the bottom of page 6, late last night, for I can’t do night-work; notwithstanding the excellent rule of Miss Taylor,” Let each day’s work be done by night.’’1 V. Original Hymns for Sunday Schools. I have never seen any decent hymns for children, but Watts’s. I have heard say that

was desirous to enter on regular pastoral duty, and that

he would entertain kindly any vocation from Philadelphia; whether in the place of such clergy as are pumped dry, or to found a new church by abstracting the best elders and Diveses from two or three churches. Part of this, it now occurs to me, I did not hear, but I as good as heard it — in a Masonic sense I might swear I heard it. As there is the greatest anxiety every where to know who nominated Harrison first, &c., &c., I beg you to bear in mind, that I claim the honour of naming Chang and Eng, Esqs., of Siam, the one for President, the other for Vice President. Their claims are manifest, &c,, &c. When next you pass Frederick Brown’s druggery, please ask how they sell pyroligneous acid, such as is used for meat. I mean to prepare my winter’s bacon with it, at the suggestion of the Professors at the Va. University, who have the best bacon I ever ate, without the ordinary plague and delay of smoking. As to “boughten” hams, to use a Jersey phrase, I would not put a morsel in my head, save from necessity.

PRINCETON, December 8, 1840.

Just thus far had I got in writing, when Dick brought your letter of the 6th. Allow me to open it. ... I thank you for your care about the Kisterbock [stove]: the word has now be come a noun-common. Our country is covered with snow, which will keep me for some time from the basin. A sleigh just called for me to call on Mrs.. There is something in bridal-dress which always reminds me of a corpse: white silk is a very ghastly thing. The December No. of the Missionary Herald is very interesting, especially in that part which concerns the Nestorian mission. But why should these Yankees be so rank to introduce extempore prayer among the poor Nestorians, when they acknowledge that their liturgy is sound enough? I have been reading some more of Luther’s, and the Elector of Saxony’s letters, &c., about the time of the Diet at Ratisbon, 1540, and the more I read, the more am I filled with unfeigned admiration and love for those two heroic men. They are like the strong characters of the Bible — great lights — great shades — but gigantic mind and heart — accomplishing a thousandfold more for Christ in one lifetime than hundreds of us correct, cautious, temperate creatures. There is something very chaste and

1 It may not be an inappropriate note upon this sentiment to insert the
following lines written by Mr. Alexander near this time:
The power of grace has tempered into one
The strongest contraries beneath the sun;
Nor is there aught of work divine more great
Than the new creature in its altered state;
When by heaven’s pencil on the soul are traced
The self-same lines by which the Lord is graced.
If all were softness, where were Christian might?
If all affection, where the reason’s light?
If bold contention for the truth were nil,
How could the spirit into meekness fall?
While trust and penitence together move,
Zeal dwells with quiet, action blends with love;
Nor contemplation though foretasting bliss,
In viewing that world fails to work in this.
The mingling opposites, like rainbow hues,
Blend in one beam, and all discordance lose.
‘Tis God’s own work, and every several grace,
Like gems in Aaron’s breastplate, hath its place;
Each unto each reflects a lustrous hue,
Unlike yet joined, well-known yet ever new.
Each priceless when alone, but when thus set,
With mutual radiance fairer, costlier yet;
And all combining in a concord just,
To show divinity set forth in dust;
A thousand charms in one redeemed face,
All to the praise of glory and of grace.
Lord spread such harmony within this breast,
And draw thy lines till all be there exprest.

charming in the cold brilliancy of these snowy moonlight nights. Venus had a brilliancy greater than I remember. This morning I observed a hawk of the largest kind making circles over our lot, as if stress of weather had tamed him.

If “Lame John” be well received by the gracious Public, I will probably follow it up with a story of which the hero will be the lad Mark Lee [a character in “Lame John”] elevated to a youthful country school-master. It will give occasion to show ways of usefulness in that capacity, and especially to convey many scriptural and other proper lessons to school-boys. The thought occurred to me while writing the chapter about the school. I have several bits of rhyme for your paper, but I refrain from troubling you with a commodity of which there is a glut in the market.

The last chapter of “Ten-Thousand-a-Year,” about the Rev. Morphine Velvet, is capital. I wish it might be marked, and inwardly digested by all the clergy who are gaped after by the self-supposed aristocracy. Warren, if it is he, is certainly a very powerful writer. Dr. Nettleton took tea with us, and talked in his usual strong but somewhat tedious manner. Mr. Suydam. of New Brunswick, has been missing for some days. [lie had been murdered.] I learn he was President of the Bank, and a member of the Dutch church, and of unblemished reputation. He disappeared on Thanksgiving Day, Dec. 3, left his house saying he was going to the bank, and would be back to accompany his wife to church — did not even take his overcoat. The canal has been dragged without success; and his family have not the slightest clew. I doubt not the “root of all evil” is somehow or other the root of this. You are Dutch enough, I suppose, to know the pronunciation of this common name — Sid-dam. The true Dutch pronunciation is Sol-dam. Prof. H. says the statistics of health show that the use of coal, or heated air from furnaces, is very deleterious; that the gases which sometimes escape arc noxious, especially some which come off last, and with out smell. I can’t but think of poor “Accum,” who found every table strewed with “culinary poisons.” We cannot make ourselves immortal; and it would be well if we could look more at what is beyond. Capt. David Hunter and wife are here — he is a Princetonian — mentioned in Murray’s (the Englishman’s) travels. His wife — a fine woman — is noted for having, in the Far West, accompanied her husband 700 miles on horseback. They now live at Chicago. Present me truly to your wife and young ones, and to your mother and family, and am, yours, &c., J. W. A.

PRINCETON, December 16, 1840.

I don’t think I can do any longer without a scrap-book: so many things do I lose which 1 have cut from the papers; valuable authorities, &c. Will you look mo out one 1 I hope there is nothing poisonous about the proofs you sent me of -, they have a scent that is pharmaceutical in a high degree. Please send me “The Practical Spelling Book, with Reading Lessons,” by Gallaudet and Hooker, published at Hartford. No news yet of the Kisterbock, at the basin; but they are horribly neglectful there, as all country officials are about every thing. Comfort yourself, among some crosses, that when you want any thing got, or any thing done, you can have it in less than three weeks. A joiner has been a month making me a small box, and a shoemaker two weeks making a pair of shoes. I regard myself as well used [as to his publications] from beginning to end, except by the engraver. Qu. Did he ever see a real tree? do walk him out of that attic some Saturday afternoon as far as the State. House yard: show him the trunk of a tree, and give him a lesson. More and more do I trace disease, especially of the young, headaches, &c., to bad ventilation. Air may be very bad even if it don’t stink. Mr. II - has had the most astonishing relief from nausea, vertigo, &c., since he opened all the sashes of his lecture room at hours when the class is out. Inquire about this at schools. We take great care about a little wet feet, yet we drink air that is the excrement of hundreds of foul lungs. I don’t file - [a periodical] though I should like to rasp him. I’ll send one or two. I know of five or six men who arc silently wearing out life in most devoted labour among the slaves. Slavery must and will end; I hope peaceably; but, anyhow, we ought to save the souls of this generation. There are 1,700 black Baptist communicants in Richmond. Of these as many are elect souls, I believe, as of any 1,700 of white Baptists, taken at random. Two infants (one a brother of a boy that lives with us) have been badly scalded by pulling, the one a tea-pot, the other a coffee-pot, over them. The former one has entirely lost its eyes: a singular coincidence in the same place and week. Nothing but a special Divine guardianship keeps our little ones from daily dangers.

N, December 22, 1840. Have you seen “Christian Ballads?” (!) Such is the produce of a ritual religion. There is indeed (though much poetry) no trace of religion, except the religion of a babe or a bell-ringer, a sceneshifter or a verger. I counted more than fifty several places about “bells,” “chimes,” and the like: e. y.:

“The sun is up betimes,

And the dappled East is blushing,
And the bonny matin chimes,

They are gushing — Christians — gushing.”

P. 66.

He is surplice-smitten. It is on every few plages. Though he affects old English, he is ignorant that enow is the old plural of enough. In all my reading I never met with so sickening a comment on a system. Give me the roughest old Scotch Irish seceder that ever croaked Rouse’s psalms, rather than such foppish, puling, mawkish, water-gruel, ascetic churchdandies.

These reverses of the British in Scinde and Beloochistan were very distinctly predicted in the last Blackwood before the news came.

“Fencing the tables” is carried, in my opinion, to an unscriptural height. I am also persuaded that our church is running into a great error, in disallowing the membership of baptized persons who are not communicants. Our book, and the practice of all the Reformed Churches, (New England excepted,) is plain enough.

O how much more is the presumption in favour of Catholic Christianity than of those who cry with every breath “the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord are we” whether Papists, Oxonians, Baptists, or Separatists! How much more exercise of Christian tempers with the former than the latter I can get along with a Quaker, but not with a bigot.

PRINCETON, January 1, 1841.

A Methodist preacher called on my father on Christmas, and informed him that he was unconverted, exhorted him, &c. If you had been much among the Baptist Antinomians of Virginia, you would have been less amazed at the case of the woman and son. I used to ride, every week, by the house of a desperate drunkard, often in almost death-throes from this, yet always in a state of assurance. Such men have come down among us by thousands from the Antinomians of the commonwealth: hear Baxter, Works, v. 23, p. 39:

“I labour with my utmost skill, to convince common drunk-

1 His correspondent had been greatly moved at the anxiety evinced by a mother for her dying son, whom she was exhorting and entreating in the most pathetic manner to give her some hope of. his being in peace, reminding him that she had faithfully instructed him in the Scriptures all his life. The next day he found the son in his dying agonies, and the mother intoxicated, and discovered that it was the habitual vice of both.

ards, swearers, worldlings, &c., of their misery, and I cannot do it for my life; and this false faith is the main reason. They tell me, I know I am a sinner, and so are you, and all, as well as I. But if any man sin ‘we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; ‘I put my whole trust in him, and cast my salvation on him; for ‘He that bclicveth on him, shall not perish, but have everlasting life.’ If I tell them of the nature of true faith, and the necessity of obedience, they answer me that they know their own hearts better than I, and are sure they do really rest on Christ, and trust him with their souls. And for obedience, they will mend as well as they can, and as God will give them grace; and, in the mean time, they will not boast as the Pharisee, but cry * Lord be merciful to me a sinner.’”

It appears from “Ten-Thousand-a-Year,” (perhaps as good authority touching neckcloths (hemp apart) as Lang,) that “hab erdashers’ shopboys” at Tagrag’s wore white neckcloths. Lang is logical in stickling for all three — gown, hat, and white cravat; no doubt, in his heart, he missed that “holy tone” of which he is such a master, and which he will propagate among his “transported” hearers in srccula. I have been filing my letters for 1840, and find at least half a dozen of yours without date; just think what confusion this will produce when your “Remains” are published. The earliest letter of yours which I have in rctentis is Sept. 25, 1822. Mr. Council of the Seminary is spending New Year’s Day in town, and may be used as a courier. I

mourn that should have spoken so unadvisedly with his

lips; sorry should I be to utter such a dictum. It would have come well from a raving Jacobin in Robespierrian days. Is France better for the going up of atheism, and the going down of papism? Calvin says (bene) on Coloss. i. that the way to make all other things vanish, is to keep Christ in full view; and that the way to drive out error, is to proclaim Christ.

January 19, 1841.

I have long been of the opinion that our ideas about geography are often twisted for life, in consequence of our learning from maps, in the first instance, instead of globes. Be kind enough, in your walks, to cheapen a pair of globes for me. Read Nichols’ Architecture of the heavens, by all means. It has been mangled by Dick, in his “Celestial Scenery;” who is a

1 The Rev. J. Martin Connell. This estimable man, whom the editor remembers as a Sunday-school pupil of his in Philadelphia, died from the effects of injuries received in the dreadful collision of railway cars near Burlington, N. J., in August, 1855. VOL. I. 14* mere bookmaker; and the New York editor and publisher has disgraced himself and the country by his notes and glossary. He talks about the “elder Sir John Herschell,” meaning Sir William; and says of Tycho Brahe, “He first asserted the principle that the earth remains fixed, and that the sun moves around it, which was disproved by Copernicus” (p. 145.) N. B. Copernicus died 1543, and Brahe was born 1546. This is a mere sample. I have a religious attachment to the books I read when a child. You once got me (at Judge Peters’s sale) the Christian Magazine; can you do the like for me in regard to the “World Displayed,” 8 vols. 8vo; it is a book of travels and voyages. The 3d will be remembered as the “cold Sunday.” I had a fair trial of it, as I went in an open sleigh, facing the wind, to attend the funeral of an insane girl, three miles off, on the top of Rocky Hill. I have seldom known such a change of temperature. On Monday, 4th, my thermometer was at — 1°; on the 7th at -f 54°. Bethune is very severe on our country colleges in his Philomathean address. The evils he speaks of (though exaggerated by him) are real; so would be the evils of sending country youth to town; the effects of which are beautifully set forth in the case of the medical students. What will the French do, now that they have interred old Bonaparte’s bony parts? I am making some little researches, from year to year, in the Anglo-Saxon: name any books you see in that line. The National Intelligencer is now one of our best papers. Walsh has a piece in almost every number, and I like him as much as ever. I never see any thing rancorous or unfair in the Intelligencer. Is it not probable that Great Britain will get possession of all the West African coast 1 they seem to be looking that way; and it would no doubt hasten the civilization of the world.

, who has been seven times to Canton, and stayed eight

years the last visit, said to me on Saturday, that he had no doubt the British would meet exactly the same reception at every place all the way to Pekin, as at Chu-san. He tells me Gutzlaff has been in mere secular employments for some time past. I am really afraid the Amistad blackies will be sent to Cuba: if so5 I don’t believe the British will let them be hanged; and the Spanish are pretty much under Palmerston’s palm just now. I see re-iterates ’s speech about the Catholics, [that the case of an infidel is better than that of a Papist.] Put the case thus: I am to choose between

1 & 2

A man who worships Christ,
(whatever else he may do, or
not do.)

A man who blasphemes
Christ, (whatever else he may
do, or not do.)

1833 — 1SW. 323

For observe, both say a “Deist of the school of Voltaire” whose watchword was “Ecrasez Plnfamc!” Rottcck’s Universal History ought to be marked as an infidel book.

PRINCETON, February 12, 1841.

What bitter weather! you would say so if, like me, you had come from Cranbury this morning, in the teeth of a northwester. The mercury was at 3° this morning. I went, by appointment, to preach a Temperance sermon. In the sufferings of my children I experience a feminine distress, which makes me enter tenderly into that passage: u as a father pitieth his children,” &c. The cold is such that I have not been drawn out this evening, even to hear Dr. Parker, and see his Chinaman. I hope his Mandarin-ship will take no offence thereanent. A copy of Mrs. Hooker’s works has been sent to the “Editor” of the Princeton Review, which, though not the editor, I have appropriated, with the intention of writing something about it. Mrs. Hooker was a writer after my heart, and her prose is immeasurably above that of Mrs., who travels on very high stilts. The fol lowing remark of Dr. Johnson is so good that you ought to put it into your Journal. It respects the question what children should be taught first: “Sir, it is no matter what you teach them first, any more than what leg you shall put into your breeches first. Sir, you may stand disputing which is best to put in first, but in the mean time your breech is bare. Sir, while you are considering which of two things you should teach your child first, another boy has learnt them both.” I have in a manner read

on. Its facts are strong; but don’t you always

feel a sinking of respect, when you find a treatise made up of scissors-scraps? I grow in my conviction, that in our day, when men have a thousand things to read, and won’t read long at any thing, the books which reach the mass and colour its opinions, are not books of research, but books of feeling, of point, even of eccentricity; books written with a gush, currente calamo. I have a treat before me, in the Correspondence of Zu ingle, which has just come over from Germany; he is one of the prime saints and martyrs in my calendar.2 Major Downing’s “there’s nothin’ cuts like the plaguy truth,” is a good version of the French proverb: “il n’y-a que la verite qui blesse.” There are no hymns, for unction, like the German. I read them liturgically. They are pure outgoings of gospel feeling. The best I

1 This he did in the short notices in the April Repertory. Mrs. Hooker was the writer of the Lives of David, Elijah, Elisha, and Daniel, for the Sunday School Union.

2 He reviewed the works in the April Repertory.

know are old Paul Gerhard t’s. I never saw the works of John IIuss till this week. They fill a very large folio volume. Does a mechanic who becomes literary become thereby a happier man?

query, how happy might now be as a farrier 1 Juvenal

discusses the question, and says of Demosthenes:

Dis ille adversis genitus, fatoque sinistro,
Quern pater ardentis massse fuligine lippus
A carbonc, et forcipibus, gladiosquc parante
Incude, ct luteo Vulcano ad rhetora misit.

Sat. x.

If you should ever want to quote the vulgar proverb, “It takes all kinds of people to make a world,” you may give it in the terms of John Locke: “The world has people of all sorts.” I love to hunt out a proverb; which Lord John Russell well describes as “One man’s wit, all men’s wisdom.” I count it a signal exemption, for which to be thankful, that, after years of throat-affection, I have not had any symptom this winter, even for a moment. I know not whether there is any connexion, but I have, in washing, used a sponge, and made a more thorough application of the cold water to my neck and throat. We have now had [Feb. 15] five days of very severe weather, and from our bleak and exposed situation here, we suffer far more than any difference of the thermometer would indicate. I saw a traveller very snugly seated in a wagon like a house, drawn by one horse, and a smoking stove-pipe sticking out above. I find by reading Zuingle’s letters, that lie was a polished scholar, as much so as Erasmus or Melancthon, intimately acquainted with all the ancient classics, holding correspondence in Greek, and employing a latinity which is as nervous and elegant as that of Calvin. He had a heroic courage, and remarkable prudence. The edition I am reading gives the letters to as well as/rom him, so that I am quite transported to Reformation times. This is what I like. No novel can awaken an interest like these realities. We now have the correspondence of Melancthon, (to and from,) Luther, Calvin, Erasmus, and Zuingle, whose name is spelt a dozen ways.

PRINCETON, March 5, 1841.2

I see by the Presbyterian, that Dr. Doane has made an assault on Bishop Boardman. Methinks the Doctor’s blank verse

1 Mr. Alexander reviewed D’Aubigne’s Reformation in the Repertory, January, 1842; and McCrie’s Reformation in Spain, July, 1850.

2 About this time Mr. Alexander received a unanimous election to the Presidency of Lafayette College, Easton, Pennsylvania, which he declined.

will not run well in controversy. The article in the London Quarterly on American orators is worth reading. What he says about convicts is more true than some folks would like to be remembered. I happen to know three or four high families who are so descended, and a number more who sprang from “redemptioners.” It was customary in Virginia for white men to indenture themselves to the captain, for four years. My grandfather used to go to Baltimore and buy such. Two of my father’s early schoolmasters were well educated Englishmen of this class. The Hebrew of Exodus ii. 6, is more expressive than the English: “behold a weeping child.” Nordheimer’s 2d volume [Hebrew Grammar] is beautiful, especially the Hebrew, which is exquisite. He has been here; told me every page of copy was written four times, and every signature read ten times, the first proof occupying him twelve hours, as he collated every reference in the proof. Gesenius has spoken well of it. I have seen the beautiful species of currency which your banks are emitting. I am not versed in bankology, but am inclined to think the whole system akin to orwSAu/y. We know as little how the matters are conducted, as in the old lottery systems. I wish they would make Walsh minister to France, Clay to

England, and to Guinea. I find the following good verses

in an old play of 1G10:

“Our life is but a sailing to our death
Through the world’s ocean; it makes no matter then,
Whether we put into the world’s vast sea
Shipped in a pinnace, or an argosy.”

Frost fish or smelts are now in season. They are a great delicacy, and last only a few days. They are taken, so far as I know, nowhere in these parts but on the Raritan. Being always caught as they ascend the river, on its opening, they are full of roe. We buy them at 18 cents the quart. I feel less respect for Milner [Church History] than I did, since I have examined the truth of what he says about Zuingle, whom he disparages very unjustly in comparing him with Luther. How much we lose in reading the Bible, by not having that fresh feeling of novelty and interest which they had in the apostolic age, and even at the reformation; we come to the book already acquainted with its contents, in its most important parts.2 Perhaps the best way

1 The allusion is probably to a device resorted to by some banks to evade the penalty of not redeeming their notes with coin, by issuing their currency in the form of checks.

a In one of his posthumous “Sacramental Discourses” he says: “Some times we are ready to wish it were possible to travel backward on our line to gain something of this vividness is to read large portions without any human comment, and in as complete forgetfulness as we can attain of our own age. Latterly I have more frequently thought than I used to do, that we make too little of the Holy Spirit’s agency with the Scriptures as indispensable, perpetual, immediate. Do we not in fact read the Bible as if our unaided powers would secure us from error 1 Few texts have been oftener in my mind than 1 John ii. 26, 27; especially in reference to the diversity of opinions which men profess to derive from the Bible. The “Word and the Spirit” conveys the true doctrine.

Harrison is now President, so I suppose the hens wrill lay ready-roasted eggs, and money drop out of the clouds. The speeches in parliament, 1641, which I have been reading, are much more pious than any I have ever heard in General Assembly. Our legislature can’t get a suitable man to be judge, vice Dayton resigned. If they had the magnanimity of a hen-partridge, they would at once give it to; but Whigs are as

party-bound as other folks. I fear pretension is getting to be our national character. We get the Paris u Semeur,” of which the principle seems to be to exclude news; the very opposite of what I think the ideal of a religious journal. Dry reviews, continued from week to week. As room is allowed me, I hope you will permit me to take this method, however unusual, of defining my position with regard to you, by declaring, in terms of the utmost frankness, how truly 1 am, dear Sir, Your most obedient servant.

PRINCETON, March 12, 1841.

Vide “Gift for the Holidays,” pp. 125, 126, “neither he nor Charles were considerate.” Is it possible that I wrote this? if so, it ought to have been made grammar. I have frequently had a misgiving as if the worshipful committee altered my English; but as I write in haste, I bring no impeachments. So again, p. 70, “the girl who spoke friendly to him,” is a form which I never use in my waking hours. At the same time, I think it quite as likely that the blunders are mine, as not. The Newark Daily advertises a series of “protracted sermons; “not such a rarity. Walsh’s admissions about the Sabbath (in the former of his two communications this week, in National Intelliof experience, to that point in childhood when gospel grace first came to our cognizance; or else to stand in the position of some serious inquiring heathen who opens his ear and heart to the news of a redeeming God; that by either of these ways we might get rid of the dulness and indifference which our worn and jaded souls derive from long hardening of custom”

gencer) are invaluable, and ought to be made prominent in every religious paper in the country; but alas! our religious editors copy only from one another. I received your paper with obituary of Dr. Ranch since I began this. The Daub who was his “spiritual father,” was, I think, one of the worst of the modern pantheists. The main proposition of all semi-Germans, is that no matter how gross or atheistical any philosophy may be, it may still be held in connexion with Christianity. Let me give you a few items from Sandwich Islands, which you will not see in the [Missionary] Herald. The king is very immoral, and is a mere tool. The islands will pass before long into the hands of some foreign power. The missionaries went out Congregationalists. It is a sufficient confutation of that theory, that it cannot be set up among the heathen. They had, by resolution, in 1830, to deny the right of “government” to their new converts. In 1831, they were forced to appoint Elders. In 1835, they adopted our rules of discipline. In 1839, they found themselves necessitated to unite as a presbytery, having acted as one before. They are now regularly organized in four presby teries, (not a word of this in the Herald,) none voting against, but four or five non-liquets. Exactly thus, I doubt not, Presbytery grew out of the mother-church at Jerusalem. “It is no small matter,” says one, “that the missionary of the A. B. C. must surrender his right to personal liberty, his right to acquire property, and the liberty of the press.” One of the leading missionaries thinks that the present method of doing the missionary work by one method, and through boards and committees, checks the fruitfulness of the church in methods of converting the world.

PRINCETON, March 24, 1841.

Robinson’s trial [for murder of Suydam] is going on in Brunswick. Graham, of New York, is his principal counsel; and he is every thing that such a case could demand. Though one might expect the jury to agree in a verdict of Guilty without leaving the box, some suppose he may yet be cleared. And, further, if this should be the case, I have heard fears expressed of a Porteus mob, and summary execution. The rainbow and sunset yesterday were surpassing. The new series of the Penny Magazine is a beautiful book. I am pleased to observe in it a little spice of religion now and then, not very decided, it is true, but enough to show that they feel the necessity of deferring to

the Christian opinion of the age. is a better preacher

than nine-tenths of those I hear. He has that “holy-tone,” which, after all, carries great weight with the multitude.

You will not forget that to-morrow (25) is LADY DAY. f The adjustment of the difference [in the Senate] between King [of Alabama] and Clay [of Kentucky] is certainly a matter for national thanksgiving. Perhaps 1 mentioned to you that Stacy G. Potts, Esq., of Trenton, (an elder of the church,) and his brother, the Rev. Wm. S. Potts, of St. Louis, are going abroad, shortly. Their first visit is, I believe, to the Continent, -and they will be gone about eight months. Dr. Carnahan says Henry Kollock [of Savannah] was the most eloquent and impassioned preacher he ever heard. The congregation at Norfolk, Va., is vacant, and will be a delightful place for some one. They have a- new church, and will probably give 1,300 to 1,500 dollars. Right on the sea, incomparable “water privileges,” easy run to Richmond and Baltimore, healthy place, good society: fish, oysters, soft-crabs, &c., on the direct railway line to the South, a climate resembling the remote South in winter, and much tempered by the breezes in summer. 1 have passed some delightful days there. Peter Harris (African Prince) writes to my father, ending thus,

“Your remaining friend Peter Harris.”

PRINCETON, April 9, 1841.

A longer period than common has passed since I wrote to you. I have been in a state of bodily and mental uneasiness, with the details of which T do not mean to plague you, but which has made me somewhat unfit for letter-writing, in which I never can engage but with an easy mind. To record troublesome thoughts always seemed to me to increase them. Apropos of which, Cicero seems to have had different notions of the matter, if one may judge from his 4th book of ep. ad Atticum; by all odds, the fullest revelation of humiliating, unmanly sorrow 1 ever read; but exceedingly interesting and instructive. The Tristia of Ovid come next, but that is poetry. I confess I like Ovid far better than it is fashionable among critics to do: his flow of versification is so easy arid unrippled. Seneca is another contraband author whom I love to read. (N. B. Here 1 change one bad pen for another.) I finished my part of the semi-annual examination this morning. Our session ends next Thurssay. This day week Peter Robinson is to be hanged, nominally in private, really in public. They might as well not hang a man at all as hang him in secret. I have to-night been reading a book I never saw or heard of before; the younger Lord Lyt-

1 Dr. Carnahan’s opinion is given at length in the memoir of Dr. Kollock in vol. iv. of Dr. Sprague’s “Annals of the Pulpit.”

tel ton’s letters. He was a great genius and profligate, a Byron of his day, an elegant epistolist; they are well worth an hour’s attention, and contain first rate anecdotes about Chatham, Burke, Mansfield, Fox, &c. The death of our President [Harrison] ought to be lokcd upon by every one of us as a visitation ot God, a great national rebuke, a lesson to ambition. How easily, by a single death, God can discomfit all the plans of a party! I am not without fears of a war with England; and, if it come, it will, as Wellington has said several times, not be a small war. I have been reading Bickersteth on the prophecies. Independently of his hypothesis, the spirit of the book is delightfully devout, humble, and tender. The question of the Millennium has occupied my attention a good deal for a year or two. I have abandoned my old traditionary views, without having settled on new ones. From the Scriptures alone I have been led to some negative results with a good degree of firmness. For example, I cannot dare apply the warnings about Christ’s coming, to the hour of death; nor can I say one word about a millennium before Christ’s coming. It is now more than a year since I wrote down a number of conclusions on this point, derived chiefly from Rev. xx. studied without note or comment. I conjecture that some of my old friends in Trenton may be unwise enough to vex rue with solicitations to return to them; this I shall discourage in every way, if it should happen. Nothing would bring me to such a course, but a conviction, such as I have not, that I am doing wrong in keeping my present post. The natural and proper way [for a congregation in view of a new pastor] is to invite him to supply them a few Sabbaths. From this nothing should make him shrink. I am convinced, that in the sight of God, my declining to preach as a candidate has often been a sinful tribute to my own pride. We ought to be as willing to seek a place of labour for Christ, as the people to seek our services. This is my serious opinion, after having long acted on the other and the worldly plan. True, a man’s reputation is a talent, and should not be jeoparded by his making himself cheap.

Our trials vary, but we all have them, and we all (Christians) profit by them. The Lord provides and will provide. Our path is wonderful, but he describes the whole line.

TRENTON, April 27, 1841.

We came here on Saturday, and I suppose met you in the carriage from the depot. 1 am sorry 1 could not see you, and

1 They proved to be not genuine, but were fabricated by Alexander Combe.

330 WHILE PEOFESSOE IN PEINCETOtf COLLEGE.

am more disquieted than comforted by being here. Indeed I slept very little last night; for, altogether against my expectation or desire, certain of the people have been at me about a return to them. No one (but some of the most trifling street prattlers) had breathed a word to me about their looking to me-ward; and I confess your letter made little impression on my belief, at the time I received it. I have stayed within (regretting that I happened to choose this time for my visit) and have heard nothing from any leading member of the congregation; but from what transpires from some of the lighter sort I am led to think that a considerable portion of the people are bent upon subjecting me once more to the painful decision of a question of conscience. I have great difficulty in expressing to you the exact state of my mind, because I scarcely know what it is myself. I would gladly do so if I durst. I could not come here without a great pecuniary loss, and the resumption of burdens from which my spirit is yet sore. Nevertheless, as I have never dreamed that I should ever be settled here again, and as, notwithstanding, some of the people mean to force me into a determination, I must lie still for a week or two, and “hear what God the Lord will speak.” I feel in regard to it exactly as I would in regard to a call to go to China. I hope I shall be directed; nay, 1 believe I shall be.

TRENTON, May 3, 1841.

I remain here to-day, to further the plan I have, in regard to this business, which becomes more and more painful to me every moment. I have sent the following to Dr. Ewing.

“This communication respects a matter which I have not mentioned to you, but one in which I have a very painful interest. It is, I am told, intended to make out a call for me this afternoon. It is my earnest wish that this should not be done. The only reason why I do not arrest the matter by a positive refusal beforehand, is a scruple of conscience lest I should be running in the face of Providence. But the most delightful

news I could have, would be that you had called. The

longer I meditate on it, the greater seems to me the probability that I shall not feel myself competent to a pastoral charge. My presence here (altogether unconcerted) has awakened some expectation. I now wish to say with earnestness that I should be inexpressibly relieved, if the Congregation would drop all further consideration of me. I am, &c,, &c.”

I do not here say to Ewing all that this means. To you I

1 The pastor, Dr. Yeoniaus, having accepted the Presidency of Lafayette College, Pennsylvania.

explain thus: — if they should fail to call, divide, or otherwise seem likely to go to ruin, I might after all be driven to accept a future call.

My prevalent feeling is that even if they should be so rash as to call me, I shall not come. The conflict of my feelings is great, and I never was more sensible of my weakness. I came home from you in a wet, cold, and somewhat open car, and took a bad cold, with rheumatism.

I do not regard this as a confidential letter. I have said the same thing to everybody here.

TRENTON, May 7, 1841.

I have been detained from Philadelphia by sickness, having had another wetting since I was there, and a severe catarrh with sore throat. The first official notice I had of the congregational doings was last night, though I was sufficiently acquainted with what occurred at the meeting; what that was, as to manner and feeling, I had rather leave you to learn from others.

I felt it to be my duty to go to Princeton, for consultation. I did not talk with my colleagues. Results of advisement thus far, thus: Dr. Hodge is vehemently against my leaving Princeton. Reasons, these: -1. “You are as useful in Princeton as you would be in Trenton.” 2. “I grant you ought to be a pastor, but not in Trenton,” innuendo that I might be settled in Philadelphia or New York. 3.” The Trenton people cannot

support you.” 4.” would make them as good a pastor,

and in some respects a better one.” This is the only argument of his which weighs with rne, and I assent to it, without affectation. My father says, “The pulpit is your proper place. You have health enough at present, and have no right to count on future contingencies; but the people cannot support you, and you ought not to stir a step, without explicit arrangements on this head.” The feelings of my relations are in favour of my being in Trenton. My Princeton friends have not made a point of my health, as I expected, and this, more than any thing else, disturbs all my provisional calculations.

I wish I could tell you what I am likely to do. I shall probably decide late in next week. Alas! I am all out at sea. 1 try to place myself in thought before the judgment-seat, and to ask “From which of the two places would you choose to be summoned?” If I leave Princeton, I leave a great array of worldly comforts, air, verdure, house, ice-house, garden, literary circles, libraries, periodicals, leisure, and case pecuniary; and

1 He was unanimously re-elected pastor May 3, 1841.

assume responsibilities, care, labour, vexations, and straits. What to do I know not. If the finger of God should distinctly point either way, I should not have a moment of disappointment. If they do not give me more salary, the thing is at an end; it is an obstacle in limine, and precludes the necessity of vexing myself about the other considerations.

If I were put on my oath, and asked which way the balance of probability now librates, I could not answer.

Write to me freely, and (I hope the phrase is not outworn by hypocritical abuse) give me your prayers. Pray leave nothing unsaid which may do ine good. I am harassed beyond expression.

PRINCETON, May 25, 1841.

I know not that I ever enjoyed mere -weather so much as the last three days. There is such a burst of vegetation, such a concurrence of plants and birds which are usually separate, that the green and fragrant earth seems almost paradisiacal. A sparrow has “laid her young” at our very door, and I suppose we have twenty nests on our premises. A bob-o’-lincoln sings his bravuras back of our garden from morn till night; I know no note so rich as some of his; indeed his strain, taken singly, is incomparable; but the mocking-bird has a thousand, and even the robin a good many. I am full of College-work thus far, mingled with a pleasing interspersion of proves as the 8ia/3oAoi always call them. I have engaged to supply Father Comfort’s pulpit [the Kingston Church] for three months, not however necessarily in person. He goes to Illinois — pretty well for threescore and fifteen. I have read, since I came home, a stout slice of Chillingworth, some of Mrs. Hawkes, (excellent,) two plays of Plautus, two satires of Juvenal, one book of Wordsworth’s Excursion, one book of Cicero’s Letters, one book of Ovid’s Tristia, a few pages of Lucretius, and about a third of Herbert’s Poems; there’s a task for you. I have, of course, doffed my leathern jerkin, and have begun my summer washings in the mornings, my lettuce-eatings at noon, and my star-gazing at night. I have preached once, had two head-aches, and palpitation of the heart to a remarkable degree. There is something wrong, I am sure, about my arterial system. What think you of Nagle’s pictures? I am told they are exhibited. We have a full College, more admitted than last year, about 100 new ones since last commencement, in all 200 -J-. What a series of designs Ketzch might make out of the history of Joseph! It is an incomparable story.

1 Soon after this, the offer of the call was positively declined.

PRINCETON, June 3, 1841.

I write with a very sore eye, therefore stenographieally. You know, no doubt, that you were called unanimously, on Monday. You will, of course, go. Four or five persons were for hearing others, but they came in very heartily. I see no way for you to refuse such a call as that to Trenton; I trust it is from above.

PRINCETON, June 6, 1843.

I gather from your letters, that your mind is pretty much made up to accept the Trenton call, and the belief of this gives me unfeigned satisfaction. In your success there, I feel a more than ordinary interest, and I have a confidence that these hopes will not be disappointed. The call is, I am sure, a cordial one, and I think the sooner you pitch your tent among the people, the better. In a letter of, there is a suggestion which 1 can not convey to you better than in his own words: “Pray tell Mr. Hall, if you can, to let on steam in his preaching. He certainly can do it, to such extent at least as to remove all appearance of deficiency.” I accord in this, and it is the only point respecting which I have heard any misgiving expressed; and I would not mention it if I were not assured that it is perfectly within your power to remove the difficulty at once. You utter voice enough, I am persuaded, but there is a want of sharpness and percussion in your utterance, which causes the stream of words to flow indolently and somewhat indistinctly, and this is seriously the case in the cadence of every period. Perhaps every thing will be accomplished, if you give yourself up with a greater abandon in delivery; as there is no possibility of your laying yourself open to the charge of being theatrical, affected, or extravagant. The only other point is one in which you cannot be too much interested. The Trenton people lack frequent pastoral visits. They need “this, and they look for it. I have told them that in my opinion you would not be backward in this class of duties; and my private judgment is, that you have advantages in this particular. Such is the character of the people, that they would be satisfied with inferior pulpit performances, if these were accompanied with a free and easy social intercourse.

I think our Presbytery meets in August at Middletown-Point; but if you are ready, I should advise you to cause the elders to have a meeting called pro re nata. The sooner the thing is over, the easier you will feel.

I told Mr. Stryker that I would see them supplied till you began to preach. You may relieve me very much therefore, by assuming this office as speedy as possible; and I hope, in your next, you will say something on this point, as I am engaged to supply Mr. Comfort’s church for three months, besides a sermon every Lord’s-day to my blacks.

PRINCETON, June 14, 1841.

Addison told me you meant to be in Trenton yesterday, and as I had made no engagement to supply except till you should come, and none whatever for yesterday in particular, I felt my self at ease; till Dr. Miller called on me and told me Mr. Stryker wished me to know that they relied on me. I therefore sent down Mr. Dixon. I consider all the care of supply, henceforward, as devolved off me and on you. I am glid you are coming, and coming at once. It is right, seemly, and promising good. As to your elocution, Question 1. “Is it to throw my arms about more?” Answer. No. Question 2. “To vary my tones 1” Answer. No. Your arms and tones are well enough. It is to make yourself fully heard, without an effort on the part of the hearer. Though familiar with your voice, it was with the greatest difficulty that your last words of sentences were heard by me. The “indolence” I mean is consistent with too great rapidity, being a want of distinctness in the syllabication, rather than a too small volume of voice. After all, the only thing which you ought to carry on your mind when you go to the pulpit is to speak as loudly and distinctly as you possibly can.

The last accounts from Dr. [John] Breckinridge were rather unfavourable again. I saw sitting together, at College-prayers, the sons of three men very generally known in America, Eli Whitney, Francis Blair, and N. Biddle. I shall have less of Philadelphia news, now that you are about to be a Trentonian, unless you get a free-ticket on the railroad, and go to the city every week. My hopes about strawberries are very much disappointed; we have had but two messes.

With best regards for and the youth, I am, was,

have been, shall be, may or can be, might, could, would, or should be, shall or will have been, &c.

PRINCETON, July 6, 1841.

Your note-ling of yesterday informed me of your settlement in your new habitation. I hope you will find it, and all your being and doing in it, useful and happy. A son of Bishop Hobart and three classmates (of the New York Seminary) are

1 Dr. Breckinridge died August 4, 1841, going to Wisconsin to found a mission on the primitive plan — take a central point, live as coenobites, radiate a hundred miles each way, found a school, which is to be a College, which is to be a Theological Seminary.

We had a quiet Independence-day. The storm at night both shamed and extinguished the students’ fireworks. My scries of domiciliary pupils has been — 1, W. C. Carrington; 2, Samuel D. Alexander; 3, Henry M. Alexander; 4, S. Harrison Howell; 5, Samuel M. Breckinridge; 6, R. F. Stockton. More persons in this neighbourhood seem to be seriously inquiring than usual; I mean within a few miles. A son of the Rev. Howard Malcom, in the Seminary, has been very active. N. B. The hack or stngc-coach which comes from Trenton hither every evening is a delightful conveyance at this season. The sunset, the verdure, the tout-ensemble, are charming. Pusey comes out, in defence of Newman’s No. 90, in a vol. of pp. 217.

PRINCETON, July 10, 1841.

I have Stephens [Central America] in hand. My interest in the musty ruins is nothing to what 1 feel in the country and pple. The book is as interesting as a tragedy or an epic. put for simplicity and graphic-ness of description, I have had nothing since Crusoe, equal to Dana’s “Two Years before the Mast.” I wish our people would read such books in place of novels. Many females whom I know, almost confine their read ing to the latter, taking whatever comes. Give them a sideblow at this in Trenton. 1 have No. 90; quibble on quibble.

Give our love to, and tell her we assuredly expect

her to come up and pay a farthing in the pound of the visits I have been making her for something less than 40 years.

PRINCETON, August 19, 1841.

We had a great deal of wine-bibbing and some brawling among our students on the day of the Seniors’ dismissal. I am now rapidly verging towards T-totality.

Dr. professes himself hugely delighted with the

review of. For myself, while I regard it as a true and

just unmasking of a charlatan, I do not think the public well enough acquainted with the facts respecting that bad man to make them appreciate the critique. I shall not go to Grande Ligne with Kirk, being detained by various things. Father Comfort has returned. There are 40 — 60 persons awakened in his church. Dr. Rice is holding a four-nights-meeting in Queenston. We have got a cook! [put the foregoing in small caps.] How do you feel without the editorial kettle tied to your tail $

As you sometimes go to the city, and I never, volens, — I want you to get me a pen (1 mean a dozen of pens) of a kind which I once got at your instance. They were very large in the barrel, indeed much the largest metal-pens I have seen, and the tube of the quill was complete. I think they were Gillott’s; though he makes a smaller sort. Alward, our Seminary and College alumnus, is dead of the African fever — a dreadful blow after the loss of David White. Chaplain Grier has brought from Attica a pot of honey of Hymettus, as a present to my mother. It is thought to taste of roses. Bennett [N. Y. Herald] has done us a service, by making fun of a late ball here, so that at a later one the females were all afraid to go. Old Mr. ’s description of life at a watering-place is:” to eat in a crowd, and sleep

in a closet.” thinks of preaching altogether expoundingly; he has long done so, all but the morning-sermon. Tholuck is married again, after long viduity. Baird passed through yesterday from Washington. He says the Cabinet will abide, and that a Bank of Exchanges will pass. I should like that. I am no Bank-man.

Unless you could see the Rev. Mr., the following anecdote will be lost on you. He is 0-j- feet high, red hair and every thing, and bows to the’ earth; in other things a Dominie Samson. Mr. S., an eminent lawyer of Baltimore, told me to-day that he once fell in with, whom he had known in Princeton; S. invited him to dinner, and set before him some of the

choicest wine the country could furnish. drank a glass,

and then asked with indescribable naivete: “Is it domestic, sir 1” A decided Calvinistic woman in this town lives in the house of a Methodist. She lately said of him, “He is as kind to me as a son, but I hate him, he is such an Arminian.” My father preached five times last week, and already four times this week.

PRINCETON, Aug. 30, 1841.

I have had a good deal of preaching labour lately, as all around us, in the country, there is a state of great awakening. In Mr. Comfort’s congregation, I dare say, there are seventy or eighty inquirers, and perhaps thirty who have believed. It is thus far remarkably free from any the least new doctrine, new measures, noise, enthusiasm, and opposition. In Mapleton, a neighbourhood between us and Kingston, on the Canal, it is believed that every person above ten years of age, is seriously concerned. Here the awakening commenced; and in some degree through the labours of a half-witted bound boy, who would not rest till he got meetings established in a certain school-house. In the Rocky Hill district north of this, and at Centreville north-west of us, each about four miles off, there is a like appearance of good. In the former place, I knew of four blind persons in one house converted. The seriousness is extending itself into the Blawcnburg Dutch Church. (Mr. Talmage’s.) Some of the very worst and most hopeless men in our country side have been brought to Christ. I spent Thursday night at

, where five children (all he has) are seemingly renewed.

In Princeton-proper, I know of but three or four persons inquiring; but I think more of the communicants are stirred up, than I have observed for ten years. Dr. Rice has been much aided by the Rev. Samuel J. Cassels, of Georgia, some years pastor at Macon, who has come to the North to make up some deficiencies in his theological education. Though an ugly, little, swarthy man, he is one of the very best preachers I ever heard, both for instruction and pathos. I wish you may find him out. The addition to the Seminary is not as great as last year, perhaps in consequence of the change of time in opening the year; this, it is hoped, will be temporary. It was a happy providence, that Dr. Robinson’s book [on Palestine] should embody the labours of four such men as Eli Smith, Robinson, Ritter, and Cathorwood. Dr. Green is still here. You may still look out for a Presidentship, as the Marshall throne is not filled. This is said by the “oldest inhabitant” to have been the rainiest August that ever was.

PRINCETON, September 10, 1841.

You have, no doubt, heard of the awakening in Bucks Co., near you. There are some new cases of awakening, occurring slowly, in our congregation. Mr. Cassels, a truly Christian man. leaves us on Monday for Norfolk.

Poor [Rev. Samuel G.] Winchester’s death is a sad blow, and great warning. He was found stiff and cold in bed, though he had been sick some time before. Young Sawyer left us yesterday, to take Alward’s place in Africa. C. C. Jones, of S. C., preaches to the slaves three times on Sunday, and every evening in the week. Yet this is the man whom the young Andoverians would not let preach in their chapel. Sit anima mea cum Jonesio!

PRINCETON, September 18, 1841.

Why do ministers regard it as necessary to sit in the pulpit, when no service foils to them? It is a poor seat; the superero gatory head distracts the audience; and the presence of a man

1 Mr. Cassels died 1853-’4. VOL. i. — 15 behind is no help to him that preaches. Mr. Cassels has left us for Norfolk, carrying with him great respect and affection. I discern in him no ncwschoolism, no new ways of doing things to make people stare and ask why, no harshness or consciousness, and no vanity. He preached at the rate of seven sermons a week all the time he was here. About twenty persons here, or more, profess to be inquirers. Two or three cases of awakening in College. Scott, of Stockholm, has been here; a pleasant, unaffected, good, sensible man, and as mellifluous a Wesleyan as ever I listened to. His statements about the Swedish Churches were very startling, and I would record some of them, but that I have a notion that you have met writh him. There is some encouragement among my blacks. I am very dubious about inquiry-meetings, and my doubts are always greatest while they are going on. If admitted, I am clear that no one but the pastor should ever talk with the inquirer; especially, that ignorant or foolish helpers should not bring their trowels and daub. The natural, the scriptural, and the safe way, is for the pastor to see them at his house or theirs. But then this great means of excitement must be foregone, and this is really the reason why ministers cling to it. As it regards instruction, the wrorst place in the wrorld for it, is a crowded room, where there is buz-buz-buz. I am (perhaps culpably) lukewarm about Tyler, Ewing & Go. I did not vote for Tip or Ty. I thought and think Clay our greatest statesman. Yet I have no zeal for the all-absorbing monetary question. With us Money is Politics. The fear of War with England much more occupies me, as a man and as a Christian. A man may dispute whether he will carry his money in a purse or a pocket-book, wThile an enemy is levelling a musket at his heart; and if he cocks his hat and brags, more Kentuckico, the case is not bettered. What think you of a weekly lecture on the Life of Christ, without texts, but taking up the history, harmonizing it, and applying? 1 The weekly converse of the preacher’s own soul with such an object would be worth something. Sixteen Southern Presbyterian ministers have died in thirteen months. Some of these are very important, Baxter, Breckinridge, Winchester, Phelps, Cunningham, and Sloss. I am seriously convinced that more harm is done by newspaper-reading, than by novel-reading. I know men who spend 2 — 6 hours daily over newspapers. There is no other production so heterogeneous and incoherent; there is none in

1 He had begun such a course, and given sixteen lectures, at the close of his ministry in Duane street, (October 31, 1848, to May 29, 1849.) lie began it anew with the Fifth Avenue congregation January 27, 1852, and continued it at the Tuesday meetings until February 27, 1855.

which we read so much that is not even interesting. Probably each of us spends a hundred hours of morning-time per annum, on 1, Repeated matter; 2, Accidents; 3, Crimes; 4, Idle narrative; 5, Unintelligible or useless statements; 6, Error and Falsehood; 7, Advertisements and proper names. What better recipe for making a weak mind addle? We take the tone of our company. Suppose a man’s bosom-friend to talk an hour a day, exactly like his newspaper. I am told Dr. Wilson used to read only a small weekly sheet; and I have heard that Mr. Wirt, daring his most active forensic labours, spent three years without reading a newspaper. But this is fine talk from one Ex- editor to another.

PKINCETON, September 29, 1841.

I the rather missed you [at Commencement] because of the visit of “General J. [JosiahJ Harlan, Aide-de-Camp of Dost Mahomed, Ameer of Cabool;” certes the most distingue of our numerous visitors. He spoke kindly of you, and expected to meet you. He is a noble, gentlemanly, and soldierly man in his port, and endlessly rich in sorts of knowledge which are perfectly

new to us. has a high opinion of him, and says the

Russian government would do any thing to get him on their side against the Anglo-Indian operations. His moustache, gold-spurs, and signet-ring 2,000 years old, are great distinctions. I should very much prize further communication with him. You doubtless remember Joseph “Wolff’s account of him in his “Researches,” p. 180, Phil. 1837. Peter McCall [of Philadelphia] delivered a polished oration yesterday. Our services to-day were as long and exhausting as usual. I lament their probable influence on the minds of our young men, among whom there has been a spirit of religious inquiry. Fifteen or more have been recently awakened, almost all of whom are among our best scholars; I trust several of these are converted. But they all go to their homes at this time. Three Scotch clergymen, Johnston, Ferriar, and Allison, have arrived in New York, men of polish, and good preachers, intending to settle among us. The cause of their emigration is painful, viz., the ruin oif their congregations by the

1 From Mr. Wolff’s book I collect the following sketch of my old friend, now living on his farm in Pennsylvania. Mr. Wolff met Harlan at Goozerat in June, 1832, and describes him as then “the Governor of the place and province.” He was born of a Quaker family in Philadelphia, 1799: engaged at first in Commercial business; then became surgeon in the Government hospital in Calcutta; resigned the British service and entered that of the native prince of Cabool. He had returned to the United States not long be-fore the Commencement above referred to, after an absence of nearly twenty years. In 1842 Mr. Ilarlan published “A Memoir of India and Avghanistaun.”

inroads of Chartism. They are all, however, of the secession. Adams, whom Colt murdered, fin New York,] was the printer of our Missionary Chronicle, and a pious man. If you are fond of sweet-potatoes in winter, let me recommend to you to put up a few bushels in sand. The sand should be perfectly dried in an oven, after the bread has been removed. This is the proper time to do it. As many as eleven of my Africans are under serious impressions. In College we have had no excitement, and not even an inquiry-meeting, but a wide-spread seriousness, daily short prayer-meetings, and much private conversation. Mr. Cassels will probably be settled at Norfolk. The air-tight stove is adopted by Prof. Henry, Dod, Hodge, Miller, and Dr. Rice. Its two great advantages are (1) absolute cleanliness, and (2) perfect manageability-, so that a fire may be kept 24 hours so low that you can scarcely feel it, and yet may be raised high in three minutes. It may be abused so as to be a mere common sheet iron stove, but this is not the intention. The great art is repressing the fury of the little creature. Mine kept about flesh-warm all last night, and on sliding up the door this morning, I had it roaring in two minutes. Then I shut all up except a minute crevice, and so it has been some hours. It is meant for a room of which the door is kept shut. You will learn the whole trick in two days. Wood dry as possible, charge say 4 — 6 billets. I would begin with hickory, but sound maple is as good, when you know the article. Blood has gone to Ireland; it was time that he should be extravasated.

PRINCETON, Nov. 13 and 14, 1841.

Our journey to Virginia, and my return, were accomplished with much less trouble, danger, and fatigue, than I had feared. The kindness of Providence was signal towards us, in regard to weather, conveyances, and the like. I trust my little flock is safely folded in Charlotte. I do not desire soon to have a trip of the same solicitude; yet I feel it to be a sacred duty to record the loving-kindness of the Lord in every part of it. My situation here is lonely enough, and I feel it more than if I were alone in another house. I am, moreover, somewhat confined by a cold and rheumatism in all one side.

I was greatly encouraged by the sight of the Virginia Synod, [at Richmond.] The number of highly respectable and faithful ministers in the prime of life, is very large. Making allowances for the idiosyncrasies of some, the following list is remarkable: McFarland, the Browns (5 brothers, sons of a minister, not all in Va.,) Leyburn, Stevenson, Skinner, Love, Stewart, White, Cassels, Graham, Armistead, Alkinson, Peyton, Harrison, Bciij.

Smith, Foote, Stanton, Whary, McPhail, Button, Sparrow, Plumcr. Every one of these is a man of pulpit talents and influence. They think the interest of Presbyterianism advancing. The Synod proper had adjourned, but they all remained over Sunday and communed together — a delightful solemnity. Plumer’s large church was crowded with communicants, many of whom had come several days’ journey. I am sure I spoke with a hundred acquaintances not residing in Richmond. I preached on Monday to a most awakened audience.

I wished to see Greenough’s statue of Washington; but, though erected, it was not uncovered. The patent-office at Washington is a great show; the largest room, it is said, in America. If you ever go to Washington, do not go to Brown’s hotel. The Exchange House in Richmond is beyond comparison the finest hotel I ever saw, not excepting the Tremont at Boston, by the late landlord of which it is kept. It lacks nothing but gas. For attendance of servants it is ten times better than the Tremont. This is a great change, in the view of one who remembers the former dens of Richmond.

The addition to College cannot be fully stated yet. We have matriculated about fifty, thus far. It looks as if Van Buren would be next President; and I see much less to choose, than I once did, between the parties. That we are victims of Banking, I see too plainly. McLean, of Monmouth, expects to have his organ up next week.

I take breakfast and tea entirely alone. You can’t tell how I miss the children. What a doleful place is a childless house. Let me assure you that to have a sick wife 400 miles off, is no small trial; I hope it may do me good.

PRINCETON, December 8, 1841.

I have not for a long time seen a book, so well adapted to awaken the heart and conscience of a minister, or so well deserving to lie on his table, as the Life and Death of Joseph Alleine, written by Baxter and others, and lately printed by Carter. Your Pole [a beggar] came here, and in excellent Latin swindled us all out of sundry “vctera vcstimenta,” and money likewise. I love Banks less and less. They tempt men to borrow — make money nominally plenty — and then, when trouble comes, are the

first creditors to exact, and the last to have mercy. All ’s

other creditors here would have waited — yet the Bank, after having handled $60,000 of his money, beat up his quarters near midnight for 82,100. I know they have the right — to the pound of flesh. Ask your Catharina if she is familiar with the following passage, in the “Taming of the Shrew:”

“You lie in faith; for you are called plain Kate,
And bonny Kate, and sometimes Kate the cross;
But Kate, the prettiest Kate in Christendom,
Kate of Kate-Hall, my superdainty Kate,
For dainties are all cates.”

What follows is an exact copy of an epitaph in Craribury Church Yard, on a stone set up within the year:

“Her blooming cheeks was no defence

Against the scarlet fever,
In five days’ time she was cut down
To be with Christ forever.” 1

A very pungent little book by one Ford, of England, is issued by Carter, intituled Decapolis; proper to circulate among believing Christians, to make them seek the conversion of the ungodly. I am using my copy in college, or I would send it to

you. I think its circulation worth several sermons. has a

letter from Geneva, saying that a friar of a Dominican convent, in Italy, has lately renounced popery, in consequence of his read ing Calvin’s Institutes, to which he was directed by the Index Expurgatorius. I rejoice that the Board are about to publish Daille on the Use of the Fathers; I do not know any thing to pat against Oxfordism. Don’t fail to get the Board’s little Life of Philip Henry; librum vere aureum. My father abridged it. Love to Madame, Mesdemoiselles, et les petits bons hommes. I am deeply yours.

PRINCETON, ult.^ 1841.

A happy New Year, in all the senses, especially the best, to you and you-ess and the youths! Your letter of the 25th was of a more Christian length than your late foregoing ones. Pray, don’t let press of business tend to curtail a correspondence which

has lasted some half a century, or less. If I send you ’s

sermon, it is not as a sample of rhetoric purity; the metaphors are mixed as much as communion-wines. Dr. Torrey has hired the Bayard House: he deposits in our library his herbarium, equal in bulk to 500 folio volumes, and containing, as I remem ber, 50,000 species; the number of existing species, by estimate, is 100,000.

More than once I remember to have expressed to you my sense of the importance of writing down things on the spot — con-

1 His correspondent was able to return an inscription copied from a stone in a Trenton marble (not church) yard.

“The boiling coffee did on me fall,

And by it I was slain;
But Christ lias bought my liberty,
And in him I’ll rise again.”

versations of an interesting kind — death-bed facts — striking retributions — successful cures of soul-sickness — results of experience as to matters of duty, or policy — cases in one’s own family, children, &c. Such records are valuable when one is gone. “I agree,” says II. Walpole, “with Mr. Gray, ‘that any man living may make a book worth reading, if he will but set down with truth what he has seen or heard, no matter whether the book is well written or not.’” I wish the practice were commoner of introducing the text by the introduction, and not the introduction by the text.

How nicely one might see the river from your window, if it were not for Mr. Potts’s house. In 1780 a Mr. Shirley built a house on the Thames, on purpose to intercept a view of the river from his opposite neighbour; the people gave it the name of Spite-Aa//. My good old father, after spying out for threescore years, strongly maintains, that there is less and less appearance of amalgamation among Protestant sects; that is, so far as their admitting one another’s ordinances goes; e. g. the Episcopals and the Baptists are more exclusive than formerly. The newspapers are intolerably dull; what more unprofitable and really nauseous than legislative debates, murders, bankruptcies, &c.? There ought to be an epitome for scholars and busy men. One of the few things I can read is Walsh’s Letters [from Paris] to the National Intelligencer. Will it be worth your reception for me to mail one to you now and then ] We have a tutor descended from Jonathan Edwards, and two students, grandsons of Drs. McWhorter and Ivichards. We have a half-hour prayer meeting every evening. This term, already, we have heard of the conversion of five of our late “students,” some of whom were great rowdies. In 1 Cor. ix. ult., I don’t believe that dSoKt/xos means “castaway,” in the usual acceptation. It is a word of the paliestra; the apostle says, “I keep under my body, lest I be come unfit for service — for contention.” I know of an excellent place for a young lady, as governess, in Goochland co., Va. $300 a-year and found — pious old-sehool family: piano-teaching required. Dod has the advowson of the benefice.

The Costa Rica earthquake is awful indeed; read about it in your newspaper: if it had extended a few minutes northwarder,

would no doubt have a sermon on it.

is a truly good man, and a man of strong mind and

strong delivery, but he has made the grand mistake of spending his strength chiefly in rebuke, I do not mean that he is too minatory; this I should not easily think one, if this were all, but he aims at showing faults, and constantly “plies the conscience,” as he would call it. I do not think such preaching, alone, ever fails to be deadening. It does little good to awaken mere conscience, without reaching the heart. We know better what we ought to do, than we feel motives to do otherwise. I think this the great difference between New England, and the best Old England preachers of the best time. It is wonderful how different is the strain of address to Christians in the New Testament epistles.

I see Kirk is like to be settled in Boston, over a new church. His manner of preaching has attracted many stragglers from the Unitarian ranks. I hope he will be useful there.

The notice of Yeomans’ inaugural in the Repertory is by Dr. Miller, as are sundry of the short notices. The Doctor is in another dispute with some layman in the Episcopal Recorder, who has really treated the old gentleman most dishonestly, attributing an odious phrase to him, which he protests he never used. If [Dr. E.] Robinson’s maps can be got apart from the book, one ought to have them. O, it is grand to have such a feeling of reality in reading about the “holy places;” Ramah, Shiloh, Nob, Mizpeh, &c. They are engraved at Berlin, and printed at London.

PEINCETON, January 15, 1842.

Don’t you think, on the whole, we have had quite a mild winter? The roads have been very dreadful. I learn with pain,

that poor has probably lost another child with scarlet fever.

My father had a letter from him on Friday, and he was despairing of it then. O how deep such rebukes pierce! For a season life is a cup which has lost its zest. What is there but God and Heaven that can do any thing for a man in such a case 1 Our Congress is really blackguard, and more so every year. Just

listen to the fish-market talk of &c. Don’t think I read

’em; enough runs over from, who, I suppose, has not failed

to read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest, every speech, bill, report, nay word, of every session of Congress, as reported by hisown-side papers, for fifteen years. His memory of every thing, but especially of what he has witnessed, is unparalleled by any thing 1 ever met with. There appears to be no distance in his retrospects, no dimness. Every day he brings things to my recollection, which I, as older, ought to remember better than he, and that with such a particularity as few men could show in regard to the last week. Dr. Phillips’s people wish to move up town. Yet it seems to me, even if the congregation go up, the edifice ought to be left. There are many churches in the very bowels of London. There must be every Sunday thousands of strangers in New York, and in that part of it, not to speak of clerks, &c., who lodge in the upper stories of places of business. Why would not it be a good plan for some to keep the house, pay a minister, reserve pews for themselves and numerous retainers, but throw open the body of the pews to the poor and strangers? To the poor the gospel is not preached in our crack Presbyterian churches. Mr. Olmsted of Flemington admitted nineteen on the 9th. Dr. Rice preached six times for him. [Professor] Dod has given your steeple a reprieve until Lecture 2d. Our steeple here (viz., of the Seminary) is said to be of the BREWER order. As for expositions of the text Gen. iii. 15, you need not look far. I believe the common, and, as I think, (to one who has an inkling of a Messiah,) the obvious meaning has been defended by all interpreters from the Christian era. There is, perhaps, no interpretation more catholic; whence this prediction alone has received a specific technical designation, TrpwrevayycAtoi/. Even Adam Clarke, and Turner of New York, who generally give the lowest sense, plead for its Messianic application. No other fulfilment seems to me at all satisfactory, or even true. But if you wish a full examination of the question, read Ilengstenberg’s Christology, vol. 1, on the Protevangelium; or, see Melvill’s sermon on the text; it seems an argumentative discourse. The original Hebrew, compared with Gal. iii. 16, weighs very much with me; though I confess I never could make it a doubtful matter. I have written a sermon to-day on “Our polity is in heaven.” Observe how much more point the Greek

£, y frireiTe. has in Col. iii. 1 and 2. p< The English is feeble in

comparison, and the antithesis is entirely lost. I have been studying the Colossians lately with a good deal of attention. There is a fund of motives to holiness in chap. iii. Mede thinks the Jews will all be converted simultaneously, and that Paul’s conversion wras a type of it. „

PRINCETON, January 18, 1842.
“Hie murus aeneus esto,
Nil conscire sibi, nulla pallescere culpa.
Roscia, die sodcs, niclior lex, an puerorum cst
Naenia, qure regimm recte facicntibns offert,
Et maribus Curiis et decantata Camillis?
Isne tibi melius suadet, qui rem facias; rem,
Si possis, recte; si non, quocunque modo rem.”

Horat. Ep. 1, lib. 1.

There are some quotable verses in the same epistle, on avarice, and it is really wonderful how often Horace lashes this particular vice:

Vilius argentum est auro, virtutibus aurum.

—0 cives, cives, quoerenda pecunia primum est,

Virtus post nuramos.

Perhaps you will remember that Pope has an imitation of the Epistle above cited, and he gives the critical lines thus, which I write as prose: “Who counsels best? who whispers, ‘Be but great, With praise or infamy, leave that to fate; Get place and wealth, if possible with grace; If not, by any means get wealth and place.’” I was much struck with a saying of Addison, that we make too great a gap between some books of Scripture, and that Joshua evidently just kept up the journal after Moses’ death. This would explain several difficulties. The beans you pretended you were going to give me have not arrived; having been left at Snowden’s inn, and no doubt devoured by the legislature. If this letter, wrhich goes by the same hand, should fail to reach you, please let me know in your answer. Mr. Cassels reports a revival at Norfolk. I expect, with leave of Providence, to go to Virginia about the middle of February. I found the following passage to-night in a letter of Bussy-Rabutin, (1675,) “Si vous n’en pouvez trouvcr d’autre [encre] que cclle dont vous vous servites I’annee passee, souvenez-vous de in’ecrire sur papier noir, car enfin, je veux lire ce que vous m’ecrivez.” Not so bad. We have four of the Scriptural unclean beasts now in Princeton, “the camel, the cony, the hare, and the hog.” Hogg and Colt stall together in college. The distinction of meats has now given place to the distinction of drinks. If you have not a Greek Lexicon of the critical kind, I would nominate Rose’s Parkhurst, which I have used a number

of years. has obtained two bottles of the unfermented

wine. It is merely a light syrup, like poor molasses, with no vinous taste to my palate, and when diluted, as ordered, not unlike vapid raspberry-vinegar. Nothing but an insane love of a hypothesis could bring one to believe, that such was the “fruit of the vine,” used at the Passover. They are agitating this question among our old-school churches in Kentucky; Grundy leading the treacle-ites, and W. L. Breckinridge the wine-ites.

PRINCETON, January 25-6, 1842.

Walter Lowrie, who has waited three months for a vessel to go for Canton, has got off at last. He made all his Seminary preparations with a view to Africa, and very reluctantly gave up the latter destination. A couple of young Germans, one of them Israelitish, have been canvassing our town as spectacle-mongers. I am told they have had a shop in Trenton. The Jew read Hebrew for me very well; he is, moreover, a musician. I got a penknife from him cheaper than they are found in the shops.

, alack! is coming here to brawl against Pop-pery.

Have you ever read Wiseman’s Lectures on the Connexion of Science and Religion 1 It is worth reading; and the earlier lectures, tracing the pedigree of languages, give what the great Germans have discovered in this field, which is, so far as I know, the only English account of the same. It is an economy of time to read such books. I have seen nothing in your Trenton papers in laudation of Dod’s lecture; doubtless in consequence of your practices with the editors, on behalf of your steeplehouse. Resuming the subject of Wiseman, as above, I add, that if Stephens had read this book, he would not have evinced himself to be so “hideously unprovided” of antiquarian preparation for his Southern Researches. It throws great light on the history of our Indians. Of the beans I have as yet seen nothing, and “de” not “apparentibus,” and not “existentibus” — I hope you have a recollection of your law-maxims. According to the proverb, “bis dat qui cito dat,” you have given me only half the amount, and I am told the parcel has been broken, and some bestowed on Dr. Miller! The confusion of the dramatis personse in Canticles does not exist in Hebrew, where the verbs have gender, and you know at each moment whether it is the sponsus or the sponsor who is addressed. Our lack of gender is felt also in Ecc. xii. 3, “the grinders cease because they are few, and those that look out of the windows be darkened:” the original gives, “the female-grinders keep holiday, &c., and the female-lookersout-of-windows, &c.” I dare say many hearers think the grinders are the “dentes molares.” The tee-totallers are making great conquests in Kentucky, under the command of two distinguished Ebriates, as reformed mebriates may be called. Why so tender about naming them drunkards?

I have just been reading over, at one sitting, the epistle to the Colossians. I have done so many times within a month, both in Greek and in all the translations I have, which are more than ten. This way of frequent reperusal, continuously, I learned of my father, many years ago. It is well to intermix it with critical study of the same portion. I like to confine myself to one book for a time, and as it were, live in it, till I feel very familiar. I usually find great satisfaction during such a period, in preaching from such a book, thus studied. We greatly need a book of “Introduction to the New Testament.” Home is useful, but has no mark of unity produced by an original conception; it is a scissors-book. Hug is all the reverse; you are sensible of the charm of a genius on every page: by all means, mean to get it, when you have the means; but the pun is too mean. A book might be made containing only such matters as are in Home’s 2d and 4th volumes; leaving out of view a great deal about Interpretation, which, after all, must be left to common sense. Notwithstanding what 1 have said of Home, I would, seriously, rather be the author of it than of any book in our language. Strange, that living, as he does, in one of the greatest libraries of the world, he should have written nothing else. I find lay men of intelligence greatly awakened and benefited by the book. It was so with Mr. Wirt; and [Rev. Mr.] Hare lately made the same remark to me. To return to Hug, I have found his Life of Paul, and account of his character and writings, more instructive than any thing 1 have ever read on the subject. Before you publish that you are going to lecture on “Phee-Phaw-Phum,” you ought to remember that many read an advertisement who do not go to hear a lecture, and that with such, your taste, dignity, and judgment will sutler; as they will not hear the really wise remarks you utter. I fear our friend, the Shah-Bulkh-Bidden-B’hoo will be in ‘• King Cambyses’ vein.” A temperance society was formed last night here; on the ““Washingtonian” plan, 1 guess. I expect, to-morrow, to go to the Birchine visitation at Brunswick. Mr. Hare is to lecture at our Mechan ics’ Institute on Edom.

CHARLOTTE COURT HOUSE, YA., February 23,1842. From the appearance of this ink, I am seriously afraid the paper will be blank when it reaches you. I arrived here on the 18th. My journey was more exposed than common. I had to travel all one cold night, in a stage, alone, over such roads as I never saw, and then all the next day. The James lliver at Carterville could not be crossed, by reason of the tempestuous current, thermometer at 19.° I slept on the Goochland side, in the lock-keeper’s house,” three in a bed,” in an unfinished house. I find my wife better than when I heard from her. As to personal comfort, I can conceive of nothing, as to external circumstances, family, servants, and the like, more favourable than what she enjoys at Ingleside, [five miles from Charlotte Court House.] My children have undergone the most extraordinary transformation as to health. Henry has, through mercy, escaped every ailment this winter. My friends think he bears every exposure quite as well as country children; he is out all day, and has his feet wet for hours. But then he is excited by his traps, birds, squirrel, and horses. Jemmy is almost as sturdy as your Caldwell. Since I saw him he has learnt to converse, and some of his remarks are odd enough. He informed me, as a fact in zoology, that “the little lambs suck the big lambs.” Quite enough this, however, of a subject which seldom fails to disgust any but the speaker. I try to be thankful lor this alleviation of my trials. I have preached seven times since I reached Virginia; sometimes with more enlargement than is my wont. Mrs. Le Grand’s house is still full, from day to day. There is not a small mechanic or labouring family in all the village or vicinage who does not freely come to her for aid, or as freely enter her doors. I sincerely think I have never seen the human being who lives so much for others. Mere sacrifice of money is little: in her case, it is sacrifice of health, time, privacy, convenience, ease, and (virtually) of life. She is about 78, and is ill enough any day to keep her bed, which she never kept except when in severe pain or extreme languor. Her cough is deadly and her attenuation extreme. You must write frequently, and remember I hear little of what the world is doing. The remoteness and quietude of the situation strikes me exceedingly. I roam over the plantations, as little obnoxious to observation or criticism as if I were in the Pacific regions. Our weather is wintry. Cro cuses were blown in Richmond, but we have since had it very cold. I calculated that a fire such as is kept in my wife’s room, of hickory, would cost me about $200 a year in Princeton. I know no luxury greater than a constantly glowing fire of wood,

replenished ad libitum. Mr. C averages three cords of wood

a day on his estate. The slaves use it without measurement, all going to a common pile. I have not yet heard from the North. I saw Lord Morpeth in Richmond. Judge CabeLl dined with him at the lieutenant-governor’s, Rutherford’s, and was much pleased wTith his mild and unpretending manners. Bishop Mcade seems to be doing much for Evangelical piety in this State. There has been a great stir in Petersburg, involving the Episcopal church; ninety-three were confirmed in Mr. Cobbs’s church. It is not known whether a coadjutor will be appointed to Mcade. Johns has been spoken of. The Methodists have made great inroads here. There were formerly none; they are now building a respectable house. Their gain has been greater, by reason of the yielding of Presbyterians to their Thomsonian practice. In Hampden Sydney College there are about thirty students, and about as many in the Seminary. There are five schools in this village. Among these is Michael Osborne’s lately erected girls’ school, which has twenty-six already. I find much entertainment from the company of Dr. Brown, nephew of the Edinburgh metaphysician. He is a brother-in-law of Hart, the pastor. He was educated at Edinburgh and Paris, and is a bachelor and a genius. He is a great opposer of total abstinence, though, I believe, a temperate man, and declares that the cases of bronchitis which

o» he has known among sedentary people all arise from that state of body which would be prevented by a moderate stimulus. such as the clergy used to admit of. I have battled with him at great disadvantage, as his stores of medical authority overwhelm me, and he denies point-blank the testimonies of the physicians who are relied on by Tee-totalers. Being out as much by night as day, and frequently riding on horseback thirty miles a night, and even swimming rivers, he says that nothing disarms these exposures, but fire or diffusive stimulus of some sort; of which alcohol is the only one which can be given often safely. He denies that it is ineffectual to keep off cold. He was a Temperance-man five years ago. The abstinence folk are making great advances in this State. At Lynchburg they have more than a thousand signatures. They have adopted the phrases, “revival,” “awakening,” “conviction,” and “conversion.” - says he thinks these excitements highly deleterious to the cause of religion. Public opinion is made to bear upon those who dissent, and abstinence is like to be made a term of communion by many. In the country hereabouts, the body of the people have always been temperate, and Total Abstinence has few adherents.

IXGLESIDE, CHARLOTTE Co., YA., March 10, 1842. I have one of yours. The date I do not record, as I am away from my file. If you should have written in answer to my last, before this reaches you, please to write again: I shall await your reply to this. The weather is mild but pluvious. There have been great freshes here, perhaps thirty during the season. Peas are quite high; peach and plum trees in blossom some days. Birds are pairing, and their number, on this estate, is remarkable.* Mr. Carrington saw four wild turkey-cocks on his grounds a day or two ago. You will have seen, by the papers, that J. R. of Roanoke’s will freeing the slaves has been established. I happen to know that this is false. The clerks here are busy copying the voluminous testimony. There is no decision of the last suit. Meanwhile, the proceeds of the immense estate go to the Tuckers and Coalters and Bryan. The evidence in the case is very extraordinary. The following is a true copy, literatim et punctatim, of a letter, most reluctantly produced by my quondam elder -, as a part of his testimony. - is above 70.” To Henry A. Watkins, Come and see me if you can — I mean if you are able 1 beseech you — If you cannot come pray for me — for the effectual fervent grayer of a righteous man MUCH, f Friday 10 — but in fact 11 of April, un-

* While I close this, a mocking-bird is making matchless music near me.

blotted — I am in extremis on the word of a Christian. I write with a blotting pen upon greasy paper, unclean all offensive in the eve of God — because I am under the powerful influence of the Prince of Darkness who tempts me with a and champagne.”

I have been preaching a good deal to the negroes, a delightful work, promising, I think, as much good as any labour a man can engage in. Within a year or two much more attention is paid to this, especially by some of the Methodists. A preacher, named Skidmore, himself a slaveholder, has some thirty plantations under his charge, at one of which he preaches every evening. He enrolls the names, and conducts every meeting of the slaves on the plan of a Class-meeting. I am much affected by the negro singing. There is a softness in their voices, which penetrates me, and in these meetings they all sing, down to the infants.

Mrs. ’s cook (emerita) Patty, she says, is” as pious a

woman, and a lady of as delicate sensibilities as I ever saw; she is one of the very best friends I have in the world.” And Mrs.

is second to no woman I ever saw in judgment, taste,

and education. The negro dialects of English are a curious study. E. g. The slaves on this plantation are part from Mr. C.’s, part from Mrs. C.’s estate. There are some pronunciations and phrases which never pass from one set to the other. Thus the Carrington negroes all say “Gi we sum-hin-nurra fuh we bekfuss,” i. e. “Give us something or other for our breakfast.” But the Monte-Video negroes (whom Judge Cabell once owned, on James River) and none other, so far as Mrs. C. knows, pronounce e long where it ought to be short, thus: bade for bed; Halen for Helen; also Constdntia for Constantia. My children, having nurses of the latter, have adopted this elegancy. There is no way of accounting for this phenomenon, but by supposing that the progenitors of these respective sets came from different African tribes. For several days we have had as visiters Mr. John Henry, son of Patrick, his wife, my wife’s cousin, and two little daughters. Mr. H. cut a walking-stick, cherry, from the head of his father’s grave, as a present for Gen. Harrison, who received it a few days before his last illness. He tells me that his mother was told by the mother of Patrick, that the latter always used to drive her in a gig to hear Mr. Davies preach; set. about 14: place Hanover Co. Patrick Henry was a great violinist for that day; so is his son. I have always considered this region of Virginia more favourable to the highest popular eloquence than any other. There are twenty men in this county, whose elocution is enviable. The “cleverest” man since Randolph is Wood Bouldin, son of T. T. Bouldin, who succeeded J.

R. in the House of Representatives, and who died there of a fit. The Venables are an extraordinary family. I have often hefird my father say that Col. Sam. Venable was the wisest man he ever saw. He married a Carrington, half-sister of my good host. He had twelve children. His wife lived to see them all married, and all converted. Dr. Paul Venable counted up to me 142 descendants of these his parents, all now living. Each of these families is rich, and they are all democrats, and all Old School Presbyterians. Of the father of II. C. (old Judge Carrington) the descendants are about 400. Such things are important elements of the state of society. I am more and more convinced of the injustice we do the slaveholders. Of their feelings towards their negroes I can form a better notion than formerly, by examining my own towards the slaves who wait on my wife and mind my children. It is a feeling most like that we have to near relations. Nanette is a mild but active brown woman, with whom I would trust any interest we have. She is an invalid, however, and in the North would long since have died in an alms-house. As it is, she will be well housed, well fed, protected, and happy, if she lives to be 100. There are two blind women (80 — 90) on this estate, who have done nothing for years. It is touching to see them walking out, arm in arm, to bask in the sun.

INGLESIDE, C. CT., YA., March 21, 1842.

Your letter, though not quite as full as usual, was very acceptable in these ends of the earth. You can have no idea how far one feels here from all the foci of news. Yesterday was July. I attended two full services, right on the back of one another: the last one was a funeral sermon of a black. 1 had a large collection, and preached from “Thou fool, this night, &c.” Great attention, and hysterics in at least seven. The singing was transporting; positively I never enjoyed any thing more at the Musical Fund. I have preached eighteen times in Virginia. I

have met here an original. is a Yale man, about as deaf as

. Has an office built in the yard, lined with glazed cases,

wherein 2,000 volumes. As much of a litterateur as I ever saw. Was a member of the Virginia Convention in 1830. Thorough scholar in Greek, Latin, and French. Perfect health and athletic vigour. A boxer, in all the forms. As to diet and bathing, almost a Cornaro. Has not eaten warm bread for ten years. Shaves in his shirt in a cold room in winter. A pedestrian: has walked all over Canada, and several times over New England. The last day of his return from Canada to Norfolk, he walked fifty-five miles, and then was at office business, on his feet, till ten at niht. For this journey he trained, on Capt. Barclay’s scheme; two meals a day, of rare beef and Madeira, and stale bread; this for three weeks. He has every sort of gymnastical contrivance. Always stands at study, with legs wide apart, and no support. His chest is like the keel of a boat. He is an intimate friend of Upshur, Judge B. Tucker, and other ultra States-Right men, to which party he belongs. I have met with nothing like him for knowledge of history, biography, heraldry, and the like. He is

an eloquent talker. His father-in-law, entered the army

at 10, and was desperately wounded at the battle of Eutaw, in 1781, being shot through the thigh and bayoneted in the breast. Though he was years getting well, he is now, at 80, ruddy, erect on his horse, in good flesh, and has lost only one tooth! There are many such men here. This is owing to exercise, and simple habits. Patrick Henry was a fiddle player, and that by note, and scientific too, for that day. My grandfather Wadd’el also played fiddle, as Mrs. Hoge told me, who has heard him. So do John and Winston Henry, sons of Patrick. Patrick, late in life, turned in to enriching himself, and died immensely wealthy. His power over men was his great implement. I expect to visit his grave at Mr. J. Henry’s, Red Hill. All fruit trees are going out of blossom here. Peas are a foot high. This part of Virginia produced capital light-horse-men in the old war, and will do so again. The boys are Centaurs, and I wonder daily at the coolness with which Mrs. C., a very cautious mother, sees her son, 9 years old, galloping like the wind, through woods and over fences and ditches, on a colt or a mule or any thing that has legs. Pray at what epoch did you begin to aspirate the li in humble, and to write a humble? and when will you begin to say a honest

man, or as does, a herb? I have heard cockneys say a hour.

Nothing so much engages my thoughts as the spiritual case of the negroes. I seize every chance to preach to them. Of no people, I think, is a larger portion regenerate. They are unspeakably superior to our Northern free blacks, retaining A thou sand African traits of kindliness and hilarity, from being together in masses. I may say with Abram,” I love a

nigger, they are better than we.” So they are: grateful, devoted, self-sacrificing for their masters. I do believe that there are a dozen on this estate who would risk their lives in an instant for my wife. They are, under ordinary masters, a happy people. Their chief suffering is from cold weather. In summer they are always well, plump, and joyous. The only thing 1 am anxious about for them, is their illumination. Several wait on my wife, who are as well-bred and (in heart) refined as ladies.

When you or I depart this life, the letters of the survivor, (free as they have been about persons who may then be alive)

might prove very mischievous to the surviving party. I think, therefore, we both ought to provide for the return of the letters to the writers or the family of the writers: I beg you will not fail to append a conspicuous advertisement in respect to this, to any parcels retained by you; I will do the like. I was 38 on the 13th. The thought overwhelmed me. It was communion day. In regard to new measures, I wish I had always observed this rule, viz.: “Never vent any general principle about them; speak to the individual case; nor then but when forced.”

MRS. LE GRAND’S, CHARLOTTE C. H., March 25, 1842. Your news of the progress of religion is good. In Virginia there are a few revivals. To-morrow Plumer [Richmond] will receive p fifty. My mind has been, and is, filled with the negroes. What I say on this point I say with, I do believe, as much love for the race as any man feels; and with an extent of observation perhaps as large as I can pretend to on any subject, having seen the worst as well as the best of their condition. And the result of all, increasingly, is, what you I am sure would agree to if you were on the spot, that the average physical evils of their case are not greater than of sailors, soldiers, shoeblacks, or low operatives; while their moral evils are unspeakably great. My point is this, then: The soul of the negro is precious and must be saved. Aim at this, at this first, at this directly, at this independently of their bondage, and the other desirable ends will be promoted even more surely than if the latter were made the great object. A gradual emancipation is that to which the interior economy of the North-Southern States was tending, is tending, and will reach; it is desirable; in my view it is inevitable; it is craved by thousands here; but an emancipation even gradual may arrive in such sort as to leave a host of blacks to be damned, who, by the other means, may be Christianized, while their eventual freedom is not less certain. It is the salvation of the slave, which is infinitely the most important, which moreover Southern Christians can be led to seek, and of which the very seeking directly tends to emancipation. I say this, on the obvious principle, that when the owner by seeking the salvation of his slave, gets (as he must) to love him, he will not rest (I speak of the mass) without trying to make him a free man. I cannot describe the pleasure I have had in preaching and talking to the slaves: if I have ever done any good, this is the way. I have just been in Mrs. Le Grand’s garden, which is a faery-land. There are blooming and perfuming at this moment, and by wholesale, yellow-jasmines, double-peach, hyacinths, Siberian-crab, tulip, violets, pansies, jonquils, &c. The forests are very imperfectly leafing. After several freshes, the plows are going for corn, outs having been sown. N. B. — As to the anomaly of the plural nominative with singular verb, in our version, it is as certain a usage in old English, as in Greek, though I confess not so common. I have had my attention drawn to it, some years ago, and in other English books. Pros. Maxwell [of Hampden Sidney] and Mr. [Rev. Patrick J.] Sparrow were here yesterday, on the way to Presbytery, in Halifax Co. They are expected to stop as they return. Maxwell has good spirits, on such small provocation. Lexington has become a flourishing literary place for Virginia. The military school has rather helped the college; for, as Gen. Carrington said to me, “Among soldiers the point dhonneur is obedience.” They are meaning to have a monthly magazine at Union Seminary, which is as flourishing as it has ever been. Since I came to Virginia I have preached nineteen sermons. Since I came to Ingleside, there has been one houseburning and one death. A little [negro] girl a?t. 12, daughter of Mr. C.’s miller “Henry;” peripneumony; just before dying said, “I see a beautiful dress.” Bystanders said, “She is out of her head.” Child answered, “No, I a’nt out o’ my head, I am dyin’” — and caused “Christian Moses” (Mr. C.’s head-man, so called to distinguish him from “Long Moses “) to be sent for, to sing for her a certain hymn. Poor souls, their hearts go forth almost always in hymns. The other night, after preaching to an unmixed negro flock, we sang “When I can read my title clear,” &c., and the

feeling I caught was almost that of enthusiasm. Every voice joining, all loud, and all true enough in tone to have satisfied Haydn. Abram V enable is licensed by Presbytery to preach to them. I lately counted up the living descendants of Col. Sam. Venable (my father’s Mentor) and his wife (half-sister of Henry Carrington) — 140 odd. Of the original Woodsons, (i. e. the first English emigrants,) the descendants, by a rough calculation, are 20,000. The contiguous settlement of many among these, and their unmixed Englishhood conditions very much the state of old- Virginia society.

CHARLOTTE C. H., April 26, 1842.

Your acceptable favour, 18th inst. is accepted. We have resolved on realizing what has all along been our plan, viz., to seize the first possibility of setting off. This we propose to attempt on the 3d of May; meaning to go via P. Edward, Cartersville, Canal, Richmond, Norfolk, &C.; in every step consulting ease of motion. Our good friends here have prevented us in one important item — the getting to the canal, 60 or 70 miles from here. I was in expectation of hackney-travel from Prince Edward, and had writteTi to engage the same, as Mr. C.’s carriage-pair have become disabled; and though he has about a dozen horses, none of them would be both safe and able. But Mrs. Le Grand has come in to relieve us in this strait. The plan is this: to take her carriage and horses and coachman Billy, (who was at my grandfather’s as a lad when my father was a boy;) to have a light wagon with a horse of Mr. Carrington’s, and his man Fontaine, for change, and for the trunks; with our affectionate nurse Nanette in the carriage, and a saddlehorse, (Margery Daw, so called from her easy amble; the nag I have uniformly bestridden in my last two visits.) When 1 remonstrated against so overwhelming a favour, Mr. C. (whom may God ever bless!) said: “Say no more, sir, it costs me nothing. I have no money to give you, but I can give you ser vice: and remember what Jack Randolph used to say was a Virginian estate, Aplenty of serfs, plenty of horses, but not a shilling.’” We may be a fortnight and more in getting to Philadelphia, where I hope to stay a day or two. If there is any thing which could make it, in the least, burdensome to your mother, for us to pass these days under her long-tried roof, do be frank enough to say so in a line to Richmond. She gave me the kindest invitation, but I arn ignorant of their family-movements just now. It is summer here; 83° at 5 p. m. yesterday in shade. Henry picked ripe strawberries in the field. Your Trenton and church news is just the thing; I prize your particu larity; and joy in your success, almost with a personal gratification. You have bragged twice in a heathenish or lenten manner of your shad; know ye, that the Roanoke shad has been in season for weeks past, and was on the table the day your letter came; though I seldom eat the animal. Cherries are red. In Mecklenburg I picked ripe strawberries nearly two weeks ago. I there saw eglantine and coral-honeysuckles, wild, and as “plenty as blackberries.” The calycanthus scents whole swamps oppressively. In Abram Yenable’s garden of three acres, I counted C6 beds of tulips in bloom, and in an average bed I counted 144 tulips; = 9,504 actually blooming; every shade and contour. He is equally curious in roses. His house is in full view of Prcstwould, seat of the late Sir Peyton Skipwith, now occupied by Humberstone Skipwith, the 2d son. Sir Grey lives abroad. There is nothing on Virginia tables which I should care to transport, but cornbread (plain) and bacon; and I have no hope of ever seeing either elsewhere. Peas are ripe. My Henry, in chasing a hare with a dog, came across a venomous moccasin-snake; the dog killed both hare and snake. Two other children were in company, not a hundred yards from the house.

PRINCETON, June 3, 1842.

I expected to find you in the city, when I heard that you had gone thither; but you passed us on the river, and not being civil enough to salute us, left me under the impression that you were not in the Flamingo, or whatsoever name you may have given your craft. My children, though perfect rustics, are well; an unspeakable blessing just now, [their mother an invalid in Philadelphia.] Say what is necessary to the Rices and other Tridcntine friends. Give my love to them, and to Mrs.,

and all and sundry misses and masters. I heard Krebs [in General Assembly] open the defence of the [wife’s sister marriage.] He spoke all Wednesday afternoon, and much of yesterday morning. Then arose Colin Mclvor and declared that he could say his say in four hours. I fled. It is now several years since I was, even as a hearer, in the Assembly: I have no lust for going again.

PRINCETON, June 30, 1842.

Yesterday was exactly eigl.fc months since I took my wife away. That she should, at last, have got home, even as well as she is, should mark the day albo lapillo of thankfulness. The events and anxieties of the last twelvemonth have given me deep thoughts about myself, and about life. I rejoice that as I grow

grayer, I do not feel, as lately told me he felt, a growing

distrust in my kind. On the contrary, I have so lived upon kindnesses, in time of need, and often from strangers, that I can only attribute the whole to that system of inexplicable divine favour, which follows and overwhelms us, despite our manifold sins and provocations. And feeling, I do think, a firmer purpose to spend my remnant of life in service, and a stronger hatred to the unslain body of death within me, I cling more to the freest views of the Divine salvation; and more and more seek to be hold the gift of Christ as the gift of every thing: 1 Cor iii. 22, 23. Surely there must have been somewhere, in the teaching of the Reformers, a wonderful spring, to act so powerfully and rapidly and widely. I think I find this, when I read in their works, especially those of Luther, certain declarations which are less frequent, earnest, and prominent, in later reformed writers, even those who adhered to the same confession; especially free justification; change of state, as distinct from change of moral character; which latter was as much insisted on by good Romanists. It was the same thing when Whitefield and Wesley preached; and in this they agreed; and there was the same effect. And I am convinced, that just so for as we seek to save God’s free grace in justifying from abuse, by any condition in the sinner, except simple reception of Christ, which is only a condition-sine-qua-non, the more we produce practical Antinomianism. No communities have ever been so thoroughly moral as those who were most evangelical — I mean the least legal: e. g. the Scotch, in their best days; when everybody was externally Christian. The universal offer of a present, free salvation, to every son and daughter of Adam, for Christ’s sake, is what I hold for Gospel; it is the good news which made the Reformation, which makes every true revival, and which makes us work, if we ever work what is right. It is the favourite topic of the old Calvinistic preachers of the 17th century; and of Boston, &c. Some of these thoughts have been suggested to me, by reading McCrie’s life by his son.

PRINCETON, July 13, 1842.

I exclaimed at the improvement of your hand, before I perceived that it wras all along of the ruled paper. Dr. A. goes to ward Niagara, on Friday, to be away for two Sundays at least. J. W. A. cannot leave home by reason of college engagements, especially one on Monday morning. J. A. A. has a very severe and disabling catarrh, and an engagement elsewhere, to boot. Dr. Iv. consents to be with you — I taking his two services. Lord Congleton, who slew himself last month, is succeeded by his son John Parnell, an intimate friend, abroad, of Dr. Hodge, [see page 156 ;] he went out, as missionary, on his own hook, with Mr. Groves, to Bagdad, India, &c. In three years, the number of camels destroyed in the Affghanistaun war = 50.000. I believe the domestic use of mercury worse than ditto of alcohol. I am no longer a member of any Temperance Society of any sort, except that which is 1,800 years old. I look on the present seat of war in the Aflghaun region as one of the most interesting spots o.n earth, physically, historically, prospectively, Chi istianly. Think of Cabul being 6,000 feet above the sea. Think of the Indus, no river such a barrier; of the Khyber-pass, impassable in general, but just passed by Pollock; it is the gut of the river which runs by Cabul to the Indus. Think of the edging of English toward Russian power. I hope we shall live to see a Presbyterian mission on that sublime plateau. All I hear of the Congregational missions makes me more in favour of our own. You see they had to make two presbyteries, even in Sandwichaiai. Independency can’t begin, of itself, as somebody said somewhere. Try to imagine it beginning among heathen. A parochial episcopacy and then a bench of presbyters is the only thing conceivable; and this is presbytery. The Churchman may well sneer at Goode’s book, [” Divine Rule of Faith and Practice: “] it is a demolishing book to them. My garden is in a poor state, in consequence of my absence at seed-time. I have neither peas nor early beans, but abundance of the “wind-compelling” roots, called radishes. Girls’ schools are humbugs; i. e. in the long

run. Yet Prof. has just got back from an examination

of Rutgers Institute, New York city: 400 pupils. He says the attainments in mathematics surpass any thing he has ever seen among lads; and I know no better judge. And therefore, I am, with every complimental respect and regard, &c.

PRINCETON, September 2, 1842.

Yours of yesterday informed me, to my sincere satisfaction, that you were home and well again. I hope you may always get along with the same punctuality of pastoral presence: but do not fail, while strong, to bear the infirmities of the weak. I am delivered from my cough, but much feebler than while I had it; having been so tied at home as to be unable to fly even for a week from my sources of care. Do you see that, at the Dart mouth Commencement, Dr. has been disparaging the

reformation, and glorifying the Dark Ages? At the same place, President Lord preached a most eloquent sermon against all the boastful Philosophies; maintaining Scripture to be the only safe, and the sufficient guide, and snubbing the metaphysicians in the very style of superiority which they assume. The whole argument that there is more nearness of kin between a woman and her husband’s brother, than between a woman and her sister’s husband, may be thus conveniently expressed in symbols: “A = a, but a is not equal to A.” Capt. Stockton has been trying his big gun; it tears every thing to flinders. Dallas Bache was here last week. He is elected vice Emmett, of the University of Virginia.

PHILADELPHIA, October 12, 1842.

It is reversing matters, with a witness, for me to write from Philadelphia to you in Trenton. We came here on the 1st, by the Doctor’s prescription, and my wife has amended very much, so that she walked a mile with me this morning. We have a room at No. 163 South 9th, Mrs. Bowers’s. We see some of your mother’s family every day. Harlan is lionizing in New York. Humphrey of London, James’s quondam fellow-prentice, is here; they say he is one of the first artists in his line, [engraving.] Mr. J. L. Wilson is here; arrived from Guinea on the 9th. Surely you ought to be here. I miss you very much, especially as has been manoeuvring in Massachusetts ever

since I came, and, who is rather an unexhilarating companion, at best, foams away most of every clay in the Burlington steamboat. The Board of Publication bestowed on me an elee mosynary ten dollars’ worth of books this morning. Very smiling likeness of Dr. Parker in the shops. I have to preach for [.I. II.] Jones, on “Sabbath first.” The Presbytery is now largely British-Irish, e. g. Tudehope, Macklin, Hoge, Loughrklge, and Stuart. I heard MeCalla make a speech, of which part follows: “I beg leave to state, that my connexion with this body is precisely that which the apostle Paul had with the soldier to whom he was attached in prison; namely a chain” — “I have been for twenty years a sufferer for conscience’ sake; the hostility between me and you, has been altogether towards myself.” His speech, though, was first-rate, for diction and delivery. I have preached as often as I was able; perhaps more. Anna and I went on Sunday evening to the “Mariners’ Church,” where was an immense throng. The mariners discoursed; each had his psalm, his doctrine, his tongue, (for one was a Seminole, whose conversion was miraculous,) his revelation. The singing was grandly methodistic. The handsome Indian boy I mentioned, has really a powerful natural eloquence, notwithstanding a stutter and broken English. I was convinced that good is doing at that church, though by means as Finneyitish as could well be. A semi-genteel seaman, with forehead as per margin, [there was a profile here,] acted as a sort of Valentine to the “Orson,” [the Mariners’ Chaplain was the late Rev. Orson Douglas,] and descanted on the following text, which he stated to be in the Bible, “There is no repentance in the grave, whither thou goest.” Election is over: you know the result. I saw a furniture cart, full of placards and a band of music, on which the painted letters made with a placard the following cross-reading “To hire — Whigs of Middle Ward;” solemn fact. Mention it over the way. There was no fighting and less drunkenness than common.

- sits next to me at table, and is an ultra Philadelphia pun ster already. He is as mercurial and jovial as is satur nine, or his father martial or (at present furloughed) terrestrial; I don’t like the other adjective, or I should get all the old planets into my period.

I hope to spend part of Monday and Tuesday in Trenton. Till then account of me as truly yours.

PRINCETON, December 19, 1842.

Do not omit to read the ancient Call, in last Presbyterian. Half the names to it are my kindred. The pastor, Brown, was father of [James] Brown, formerly American Minister to France. The Archibald Alexander in the list, is my great-grandfather, an eminent saint. I trust the prayers of that day are now in remembrance. A great awakening is now in progress in Mr. Skinner’s church in Lexington; 105 have been admitted. The McDowell on the same list is forefather of James McDowell, at present Governor of Virginia. Our college meetings are well attended; two on Sunday, and one of half an hour every evening at 62-. I never knew a more assiduous pastor than Professor Maclean: he daily talks with some of the youth; and is doing more good than any of us.

My old cook, Judy, came in just now to tell me of some inquirers in my black church; and, speaking of plain preaching, said, “There was Jemmy Armstrong that used to preach at Larrence, he didn’t preach in the fear of man.” She meant your and my predecessor, the Rev. J. F. A. The black Methodists here practise orgies. The other day or night a wench was brought into their church, on a bier, laid out, and in a trance. During the exorcism she sat up and spake. My mother’s black maid speaks of it exactly as if it were a miracle. They have carried off a large portion of my congregation. I have, God willing, to preach on New Year’s day P. M. in Lord’s new church, [Seventh Church, Philadelphia,] then to be opened. The deficit of the A. B. C. F. M. since their extra effort is amazing: viz., $18,000 less for this, than for same quarter 1841! $5,000 less than average for five years! And this, when the complaint has just been that the American Board swallowed up all from the other societies. 1 am for using our existing machinery, while approved, to its utmost, for evangelical ends: yet Quere 1. Whether we do not sometimes account of the engine, (board or scheme,) as almost apostolic, and essential to church-progress? 2. Whether it is not probable that God will allow all our present enginery to decay, with the circumstances which reared if? 3. Whether the conversion of the world will not result, under God, from an action more individual, more cheap, and more flowing from great affections in every church and every member of it 1 4. Whether such is not the New Testament missionary wrork, as we read it in Scripture? These views have always struck me; even while I abhor the malignant opposition to our Boards, which seem to me innocent, indispensable, and infinitely the best existing mode of doing the work thus collectively. But will the church keep up its zeal in the present mode? I own I never thought Irving’s book on “Apostolical Missions” so foolish as it seemed to every body. As I always welcome any hints about preaching, let rue give you one. A good plan is invaluable, and may be turned VOL. i. — 16 to better account ten years after date, than when first used. 1 learned of Summerfield to preach extempore, and then to write out the skeleton, after trial. Now this is to introduce my hint, which is, that a good plan for a ten-minutes’-session-room-harangue, is an equally good plan for a sermon. Therefore, when ever a text or passage has opened well before the mind, in an exhortation, write down the skeleton on going home: it will some day hatch a discourse.

PRINCETON, January 6, 1843.

Dr. Baird is at this moment, I guess, -discoursing to the seminarists on the things of Europe. Last evening I heard him for about an hour and a half. Dod, at this same hour, is holding forth, for a second time, at the Musical Fund, [Philadelphia.] I have read a letter from Paris, by the Rev. Otto von Gerlach, of Berlin, on his way home from England, whither he went in the cortege of the king of Prussia, and where he staid five months. I mention it because of the interest felt about the proposed re organization of the “Evangelical Church,” and because, since the consecration of my namesake Alexander to the see of Jerusalem, the Oxonians have alleged that their system was to be set agoing in Prussia. Von Gerlach is an intimate of the king, and brother of one of his first privy-councillors. He says there is no truth in the report; that Frederick William admires the regularity of the Anglicans, but is not for their hierarchy; that he is for a more synodal polity. He spent five days with Pusey at Oxford, and talks of him exactly as we do. The Sunday School Journal is quite an anti-popery paper. There are four Romish priests in the Theological Seminary at Geneva. Burtt and [E. S.] Ely have both come back from the West. Ely’s whiskers are as white as his shirt. Walsh writes with as much vigour and pith as ever for the National Intelligencer. He gave Baird a grand feu-de-joie in his last. His health is quite good. While there is not a grain of snow in Philadelphia or at Cranbury, it is a foot deep north of us, and in some parts of Orange Co., where Sam is, three feet deep. Delavan’s “colossal stomachs” [illustrating effects of alcohol] are displayed in the Seminary. Quere: whether a good Madonna is not as fine an altar-piece as any entrails whatsoever 1 Maclean’s house providentially saved from fire, on the 4th; attic caught from an ill-jointed stove-pipe of coal-stove below. Baird thinks that Providence has given to French Protestants the ablest defender of their liberties that they have had for a century, in young Count Gasparin, master of requests to the king, and member of the chamber of Deputies. There are about sixteen of my little African flock who seem to be seeking conversion. I perceive an increasing number in our ambitious students every year who babble the nonsensical dialect of transcendentalism. The chief lecturers on the Newark programme this winter are Bancroft, Brownson, Emerson, John Neale, Burritt, Bellows, Furness, and Emerson: I name the majority. Yankee Hill had the Dutch church (on dit) at Newark. You perceive a strong tendency towards catholic union, on the part of the suffering Scotch Presbyterians. God grant that we may see the same at home, to counteract the divisive fanaticism of the ultras! The strength of Presbyterianism, its tendency to increase, has, I think, always been in proportion to its keeping clear of polemic preaching, sectarian propagandism, and supplanting and proselyting ways; and in times when its direct aim was at converting souls. After oscillations to one side and the other, this is the resting-point of my opinion. If I have not wished you a happy-new-year, I do so now; and if I have, I doubly wish it, for you and yours. May our houses be Christian houses, and their inmates objects of special grace and mercy. If you have any coughing propensities, pray do as you would advise another, and subtract from your meetings; for you know well enough that the real good done is not always in the ratio of the number of preachings. I am in sorry condition as to strength.

PRINCETON, January 23, 1843.

Your Indians are here. If you have not Merle’s History of the Reformation, mention to me your deficit. By all means circulate it, and by all means Carter’s edition. I heard my good old father say yesterday that no book in our day he thought was doing more good. He puts the Reformation on its true ground, i. e. Luther made his great business the declaring of saving doctrines, (we lack a phrase here; I mean the truths which the soul converses with in the article of conversion,) and these went on triumphant, destroying popery, till ( — when 1 for this is the great point) in every country the Reformers took another way, either controversy about minors, or political agitation. The difficulty you mention, of reaching certain people out of our congregations, rots €^w, often occurs to me. It is the greatest argument I know of for new measures: an excitement brings them within the orbit of attraction. Hence I have known revivals in which Papists, Quakers, and infidels, wrho had not heard the gospel for years, have been awakened. Qu. Could not lay-people be the means of saving multitudes, if each would fix on an individual who never goes to church, and never cease till he brought him? if only once? Preach on John i. 46, and context. I would put such a book as the “Saints’ Rest” into the hands of a Quaker; the affections must be gained over.

Somebody, the other day, in ’s study, saw a MS. sermon

on his table, marked “No. 2500.” There is some excellent writing in the close of the Annual Report of the American Board of Foreign Missions.

, in a letter to me, some time ago, says, that the only

preaching which will meet the demands of the awakened public mind, is the metaphysical. You and I may as well shut up shop. He argues the point, but I am less than ever convinced. I did not consider his preaching metaphysical, but I deny his proposition. In every age, the interest has attached to just that preaching which most directly reached the affections and passions of souls inquiring what must we do to be saved. This I think historically incontestable. A mix of Baxter and Flavel would be my highest wish as a preacher. I took my children to a private audience with the Indians; they were bivouacking and in dishabille. Secretary Ross did the honours. I am to lose the Hares from next door, but to be indemnified by the Crabbes, on t’other: Capt. Crabbe, U. S. N. What a beautiful euphemism is the following, in Rep. A. B. C. F. M., page 44, (speaking of 80 returned missionaries:) “Fifty were males, and thirty of these came home bereaved, or else in consequence of the sickness of their wives. About one-half of the bereaved missionaries have returned to their work with new partners.” The Psalmodists, whom the Assembly “set over the service of song,” [a committee for new hymn-book,] have resolved to go on and print. Some fine stanzas of Watts will soon be obsolete, e. g.:

“Till God in human flesh I see,
My thoughts no comfort find,” etc.

I do not know a book of Scripture so consolatory as 2 Cor. Lately I culled the passages in it describing the writer’s troubles, and was amazed; but the consolation is like sunshine over all, and everywhere the same — Christ. Cheerful religion is most like Scripture, and, as Dr. Hodge says, joy is an oil to every wheel of the machine. Hence I look with all but envy on such writers as Flavel, Bates, Philip and Matthew Henry, Romaine, and John Newton; they put me into working gear sooner than Brainerd, Payson, and the American school. The enclosed hymns by a valued friend of mine are better than sundry by Mrs. A., and Mrs. B., and Mrs. G., and Professor H., &c. Keep them for me. The author was a recluse “stickit minister,” but a true scholar. He wrote a 12mo history of Virginia, which is the best I know, and of which Bancroft speaks highly; and a school reader the “Columbian Reader,” better than any I know except Pierpoint’s.

When are you going to set up the” New Jersey Magazine,*’ with Dr. Ewing for Editor 1 If you do not hurry, you will be anticipated, and surely the capital is the place. You might make it a religious and moral as well as a literary organ. I will contribute my quota; so will you. Dr. Beasley would send pieces abundantly. Trenton gentry would be glad of such an organ. I know your editorial fingers itch to paragraph a little. The records will furnish material for history. Music will find

its place. Dr. will embellish your pages. Poetesses

will spring up, bland and numerous as poppies. The “children’s department” will be attended to. The temperance-reform will have due notice.

The last Biblical Repository has an article on the Wife’s Sister. He is driven to take the ground, that no church-court can declare evil that which the law of the land approves. “It is not decent,” says he, “to suppose the law of the land against the law of God.” Under Tiberius and Nero, Christ made no such supposition. Forsooth, the poor martyrs under Nero, who disobeyed his laws against Christianity, might have escaped martyrdom, if this second Daniel had come to judgment a few centuries earlier. Such is innovation in morals. What a pity 2 Cor. vii. 1 is torn away from the foregoing context! There is wonderful force lost in our version of 2 Cor. ix. 8; and observe it is %lyQlip giving: Avi/aros Se 6 ©eos Tracrav ^aptv TT €picrarev<ra.i eis v/xa?, Iva cv Travrl iravTore Tracrav avrapKciav, &c. Symmes Henry told a good thing about his ways of managing the Methodists when they made inroads. There were two or three Methodist families, in whose houses the preachers held meetings. “This will never do,” said Henry, “you shall have my session-house,” so the bell was rung, and he sat in the pulpit. Of course, the “rider” could not say any thing uncivil. After a few trials they dropped it.

PRINCETON, February 7, 1843.

[Rev. C. F.] Worrell was received [by Presbytery] and called to 2d Upper Freehold, (what confusion worse confounded among the Freeholds! we have a 2d Upper Freehold and no 1st do. — “Freehold,” and “Freehold village.”)1 So the “first church Trenton” is in Ewing, [since called Ewing.] There is a revival at Nottingham Square, [now Hamilton Square.] I came

1 Mr. Worrell’s is now called “Millstone;” and “Freehold” is called “the Tennent Church;” leaving the village church the only “Freehold.”

from Cranbury yesterday in a sleigh, in the teeth of the worst N.TV”. drift I ever faced. Symmes Henry has a delightful manse, the best I know. He is a truly hospitable, friendly man in his house. There are great revivals reported in Middle Pennsylvania: Carlisle, Chambersburg, Lewisburg, &c. You see Krummacher, of Elberfeld, is elected to succeed Rauch at Mercersburg. A man may write very popular books and yet not be a good president. Some say the Duane St. church will be a collegiate church, [in connexion with a proposed new organization.] I suppose we shall never see another General Assembly, without proposals to alter our book. I am disposed to praise the bridge that has brought us safe over.

Though I should not have vetoed ’s admission, I think

every Presbytery has a right to refuse entrance, without reasons stated; a man might be litigious, abusive, erratic, &c. The day may come when this Presbyterial right shall be very dear to us.

Don’t you think our cities are rather feebly manned? O that our country-ministers would only aim at more learning and piety! Most of the great Puritans were in the provinces. So it was in old New England. But our countrypastors think themselves exempt from all scriptural research.

1 have turned schoolmaster, and teach Henry at home: I wish at least that he may know the Bible. I have been studying

2 Corinthians for a week or two, and have come at some little discoveries which please me a good deal. The heart of Paul breaks forth wonderfully in that epistle. Does not the spirit of the scriptural teaching go against female-pray er-meetings? As to Maternal Associations — why not Parental Associations, where men might lead in prayer 1 Look carefully at the Greek of 1 Tim. ii. 8, rovs a 1/8/3 as — not avpcovrovs — and mark the antithesis, afterwards, wcurrws KCU, ras yv vat* as, etc. Read over the whole passage in connexion, and see how, immediately after enjoining on the men to pray, he subjoins “let the woman learn in silence,” &c.

PRINCETON, February 14, 1843.

Henry goes to-morrow to Trenton on some business, by whom I hope to send this valuable missive. My old and poor black kitchen-woman gives 12£ cents a month to Foreign Missions. This is nearly twice as much as the pro rata of our Prcsbyterial-demand.

Come up and see the mortified, schirrous, and cancerous stomachs in the oratory [p. 362 ;] they are magnified, so as to tally with the statistics. An article on our national debt to two races, the black and the red, would do good. I wish I had some paper or magazine in which to insert literary scraps, which turn up in my reading, with an interspersion of religious remark. In regard to the Newark Daily, as I am the only one who writes in this line for it, I am found out and accosted about every thing I pen.

I think it likely my notes on 2 Corinthians will grow into something like an informal commentary. Much as we laugh at Rons’ s version, some of the psalms are wonderfully fine; and if we would only make the allowance which we do in regard to the old English ballads, we should find them noble, e. g. Ps. xxiii. Then they stick so close to the original. I do not wonder that those who have been brought up on them should be loth to give them up. A young Quaker from Bucks, graduated last year, who seemed only moral, writes that his being at College was blessed, he thinks, to his becoming acquainted with the grace of the gospel. Two youths, room-mates, eminent scholars, have been hopefully converted this winter. I don’t see why every body should not learn Greek enough to read the New Testament. It would be worth ten times as much as the nonsensical boarding school French, which never does any good to anybody.

PRINCETON, February 20, 1843.

I am reading very steadily on 2 Corinthians, and could easily make a book, if I could only satisfy myself as to what sort of a one. Three plans occur to me: 1. A critical exposition, analyzing the Greek text, and discussing the various opinions. If our clergy would read such a book, I believe it would be far the best. 2. A current, running comment, by way of text, with abundant notes of critical and contested points, by way of marginal notes. 3. A commentary, all text, without critical notices or authors cited, so written as to be readable straight ahead, for common readers, giving simply but fully my view of the sense. The more I meditate the more difficult docs it seem; I mean to choose a plan. Hodge’s method [Romans] chops up the matter too much into bits and compartments. Is it not better to put in the text after the Henry, than after the Scott method? Of all the commentaries I have examined, there is the most constant glow of piety in Calvin, and this without setting his pious remarks by themselves. I mean to send you a specimen chapter, for I wish sharp criticism, and the aid of other

eyes. is the most laborious Bible student I know. I

never saw a man who comes so near reading nothing but the Bible. He has whole paragraphs of the Hebrew in his head. His method is to hang over a single portion for days and weeks. He never reads cursorily. Yet he does not produce any thing interesting in the pulpit. He has no history, no science, no literature, no news. I think he is singularly devoid of constructive power; like one who quarries tons of stone, but builds nothing. I think him one of the most devout, serious, reverent men, but strangely blind to every thing like evangelical privilege. Our trials and apprehensions, personal and domestic, ought to drive or draw us to greater spirituality, and more devotion to the best things. Let us pray for one another. Here is a paragraph of beautiful latinity, from Calvin, ad 2 Cor. i. 10, “Tametsi autem” [&c.]

PRINCETON, March 3, 1843.

I mean to send you Borrow’s two books, [” Bible in Spain “and “The Zincali.”] You will find them after-dinner reading of the best. You will devour them, always having your granum sal is on the edge of your plate. His religion is of a peculiar kind, but his genius, chivalry, and good-nature will delight you; and whatever good he may have done in Spain, his adventures will suggest to you a hundred thoughts about the value of individual daring and apostolic missions among the Popish peasantry.

In a wood near this place are four old chestnut trees, the only ones of that species; so planted as to form a square. A few weeks ago, a deep hole was discovered between them, newly opened, with marks and remnants of two boxes, which have been taken out. Nobody can explain it. I hear a good deal about Millerism among the lowest sort of people; who, unfortunately, are those who become the prey, in such cases.

has bought, for the aisle of the Library, a Cashmere

carpet, which Kunjeet Singh gave to John C. Lowrie.

PRINCETON, March 27, 1843.

It is snowing again; what a March! For the improvident poor, it is really a serious matter. The comet seems to grow dim, but my namesake Stephen has had observations enough to derive elements for a very satisfactory calculation. Prom these he constructs an ephemeris, and if the thing’s place every night answers to the ephemeris, the calculation is conceived to be verified. He will publish it. I attended a soiree of select observers in a case of Mesmerism, the other night. Further than the apparent sleep of the patient, I saw nothing wonderful.

Matt. xii. 30 is often quoted, with a very edifying sense, but how can it be made, in such sense, to cohere at all with what goes before and after? The ancients thought it referred to the devil. The connexion is certainly difficult. Our session is running down rapidly to a close; it ends April 13. Davidson has

arrived at New Brunswick. If, as demands, we must

have Scripture injunction for every thing in our polity, I think we must go vastly further than his present move. I see no title of Scripture for the life-long continuance of ministerial character, or against electing elders every other year, as tho Dutch do, or for the power of a majority to govern, or for synods and general-assembly, or for the principle of representation. Where does the Bible say that ruling-elders are representatives of the people, or that they may not be chosen by the pastor 1 The whole of his arguments are from the jure-divino mint, I have no doubt that the majority of American Presbyterians stand on lower ground than this. Archbishop Whately’s book [” Kingdom of Christ Delineated”] is of great value in this respect. It settles some principles about the freedom of the church, within certain limits, to organize itself, which are very comfortable to my mind. But for these, I should have to un church the Baptists, as much as they unchurch us, as they are ordained in many cases by laymen. It strikes me with great force, that when the apostle Paul is defending his apostolical claims in his epistles to the Corinthians, he never founds any of them on his external connexion, or succession, or any rites, (which might easily have been verified,) but in every instance, on his doctrine, spirit, and life; 1 Cor. iv. 1, and 9 — 15; ix. 1, 2, “the seal of mine apostleship are ye” 2 Cor. vi. 4, “approving ourselves as the ministers of God” — how? — “in much patience,” &c.; xi. 23, “Are they ministers of Christ 1 I am more;” then he gives his proofs, xii. 12. He gives “the signs of an apostle,” with no breath of rituality. And so much does he make of doctrine as a criterion, that though an angel preach otherwise, he is to be accursed, Gal. i. 8.

PRINCETON, March 30, 1843.

I send herewith a couple of catalogues, which you will please give to Capt. Ewing, (I suppose you know your elder is a miles emeritus, once a captain of horse.) In reperusing Foster’s inimitable essays, I am much struck with the fitness of the last, to be put into the hands of a thoughtful, literary man, who feels a sort of contempt for the vulgar manifestations of religion, with which many are offended. Yesterday to my extreme surprise I received a call from Natchez. I am truly and only grieved, for, as I cannot live in that climate, that suffering people have iigain compassed a denial. The least hint of it beforehand would have led to my preventing such a step. I congratulate you on VOL i. — 16* some symptoms of spring. We have had to boat it, from and to the depot. Stephen Alexander has been delivering a public lecture on the comet, which gave much satisfaction. Gen. Jackson gives a recommendation (very religious too) of Pease’s candy. A very decent Irishman told me yesterday he had been five months out of work. Great revivals and protracted meetings among the Seceders, at Newburgh. I see the Edinburgh Review bepraises Borrow as much as the Quarterly. Lowrie’s Travels is a very good book, and worth reading. Dr. somebody in Albany has come out, giving the lie to Sewell’s stomachpictures, which, he says, are caricatures. Moffatt speaks of whole tribes as living for weeks on locusts in Africa. My regards to your “familiares,” and am yours.

PRINCETON, April 8, 1843.

The languors of spring have come upon me with a witness. I know not many feelings worse than that of feeling no just cause for activity, and yet being unable to do any thing. If Providence permit, we shall be in Philadelphia next Thursday; probably at our former lodgings, Ninth and Spruce. I congratulate you on the accession of shad, a favourite Trenton dish. College duties are substantially over. There are to be 150 trees set out next week in the Library lot. You will find in the Repertory some things which I said in a late letter, [March 27,] but which, nevertheless, I did not get from the author of the article on “Ruling Elders.” I am pleased to see a Layman in Virginia giving $525 as a “thank-offering.” I should like to know from

, what master of literature or art can produce a work,

like his who made the lizard or the crow. Will any man compare the Venus de Medici with a living organization, having reproductive powers 1 I have no doubt that there was high civilization immediately before the deluge. Allison, the Scotchman, has resigned his charge at Paterson. The new school Psalm and Hymn book is out; compiled by Beman. The Methodists are going to have a meeting-house about halfway between us. You know, perhaps, that a second Dutch church is hatching in New Brunswick. There is a man in the Seminary, who is said to have been an actor in Philadelphia. One of Shakspeare’s daughters married a John Hall, M. D., whose arms were, “Or on a bend sable,” &c. Her epitaph ran thus:

“Witty above her sex; but that’s not all:
Wise to salvation was good Mistress Hall.
Something of Shakspeare was in that: but this
Wholly of him, with whom she’s now in bliss,”

Your next son should be called William S. The death of poor [an idiot] must be a relief to his afflicted mother;

though in such cases the very wen seems to involve some of the vital circulation. This year the months of April and Nisan begin together, which makes the passover fall on Good-Friday; this is worth putting into the papers. I must try to get to the synagogue. 1 do no*”, expect to be among you until the Council of Trent, [meeting of Presbytery at Trenton.] I have a resolution to propound, recommending sturdy folks not to sit during prayer. I wish in my heart our church had adopted kneeling in prayer, and standing in song. The comet has entirely absented

itself. Only two lecturers-errant this week., so I hear

since I began, has taken advisement with about the

Hebrew letters going to make up 666. If you wish to know, I will find out. Vinegar is now said to be a fine thing for the teeth.

PHILADELPHIA, April 18, 1843.

Your friends here are well. We are 163 South 9th. Quaker Yearly Meeting, which accounts for the rain. I attended a grand Concert of the Blind, yesterday, in full force; it was passing fine. I saw six elephants walking two and two, up

Spruce Street. In a proof of ’s, instead of” and when

Abraham drew near the camp, he heard a shout” it had “he tore his shirt” I did not think the church very well filled on Sunday, considering the eminence of the divine [himself] who preached. Next Sunday I am caught for St. Louis le Grand’s, Penn Square, [an elegant new church.] Dr. Tyng’s lectures are very largely attended. The rain has kept me from going about much. The Episcopal churches are much thronged; there is good policy in laying so much stress on the “service,” which is, like potatoes, always present, whatsoever the other dishes may be. The cheapness of goods is wonderful. I bought very good white pocket handkerchiefs for 25 cents.

PHILADELPHIA, April 24, 1843.

My visit to Philadelphia, from which I anticipated much pleasure, has proved somewhat Tantalic, as I have had to be supine most of the time, with a complaint which has rendered locomotion excruciating. Otherwise I am well. Confined to the house, I have little news. I saw McCalla going by, looking like a general officer; hair as before. Leeser has started a magazine, “The Occident.” The spring display of city -flowers is very charming. I bought a razor-strop from the celebrated “Strop-man,” who harangues in front of the State House; I

1 This is a common saying in Philadelphia.

got it for 25 cents, more for* fun than any thing else, and I find it excellent. The “converted thief,” Munday, goes about, rain or shine, bare-headed, but chin covered with an abundant shag. Odenheimer is out with a new book, “The True Church man no Romanist.” Bp. Kcnrick lectures statedly, on the controverted points. There is a schism among the Jews in this country about instrumental music in the synagogue; Leeser thinks it” labour,’* and so forbidden; I think their yelling and eructation much more laborious.

PRINCETON, May 11, 1843.

The green fields, trees, birds, &c., are beyond all praise. I am glad to get back to my cabbage-garden. The Seminary examination is “being “made. I have been very busy, since my return, on a piece of writing, which has to be ready by Assembly-times. On dit, that they will certainly have a tra montane Assembly next year.2 Allan Mackenzie, who digs my garden, is afraid the troubles in the Kirk will lead to the” bringing in of episcopacy and prelacy.” A crazy man lives next door; perhaps we shall have “vegetable marrows “thrown over the fence; vide Nicholas Nickleby” by Mr. Dickens of

South Britain,” as calls him in his newest series of

letters. has left young, a half-converted Jew-lad,

here, to study.3 If you want some okra-seed, I raised a bushel last year. The giant, the dwarf, and the harpers have been here, but the “razor-strop” man has not yet got on so far. I hear of direful mercantile failures among some of the wealthiest of my acquaintances in Virginia. Our students begin to return; I see a few new faces. My old uncle Maj. John Alexander is to be in the Assembly; and D. v., my father will return with him to Virginia.4 I hope he may be prospered in this, probably his last, visit to his native county. Never can I be sufficiently grateful for the preservation of my honoured parents to an old age of cheerfulness, health, and activity. The last British Critic is out in favour of auricular confession. Dr. McElroy is still at Santa Cruz. Dr. Chalmers says, in a speech, which I know not whether our papers have extracted, that the Scotch clergy are preparing for their change of circumstances, by going into smaller houses. Dr. Gordon, leaving one of the

1 I cannot discover from the Minutes, or otherwise, what this paper was.

2 The Assembly of 1844 met at Louisville, Kentucky.

3 The conversion proved to be even less than half.

4 For an account of this visit see “The Life of Archibald Alexander, D.D.,” Chap, xviii.

finest mansions in Edinburgh, goes into a house of £35 rent. The new body will be called u the Free Presbyterian Church.”

PRINCETON, May 24, 1843.

The Occidentals will, I have no doubt, have the next Assembly at Louisville. The New-School folks are in the expected trouble about abolition; and it will not be strange if their Southern members fall off. In this case, I confidently expect that the most of the latter will join us. Before this reaches you, I suppose the ruling-elder question will have been decided; perhaps to be reversed at Louisville. Dr. McElroy has returned from St. Croix, in good health. During Maclean’s absence [at General Assembly] I conduct a daily prayer-meeting at half-past five. I was at the communion at Dutch Neck last Sunday; 12 accession. I am suffering a most painful languor and debility; the cause must be latent disease, yet my ordinary functions are as usual. It is itself a disease, and one for which one can ask no sympathy, and which is not sufficiently prononeee to absolve the conscience from the obligation to work. I often feel that the effort of rising from my chair is a labour. Too soon has the grasshopper become a burden. (Economos, one of our late Greeks, [in College,] died of consumption, in Fairfax co., Va., on the 9th inst. There is a young Jew here,

[mentioned in last letter,] injudiciously sent by, one

, of Posen, Germany, set. 20, who has excited my

strong commiseration. He is speculatively a Christian, and convinced of his sinfulness, but as blind as Pharisaism itself as to the plan of grace, and so distressed at being rejected by his parents, that he told me the other evening he had not been in bed for four nights. He speaks German, Polish, and English, and is a thorough Hebrew and Chaldee scholar, has read all the Talmud, and understands French. He is a “puer ingenui vultus,” and certainly of fine capacity; but unless he obtains some relief he will go mad. He showed me his phylacteries. His change of views was occasioned by the simple perusal of a New Testament, seen first by him since he grew up, and given him by a clergyman in Germany. John Miller is going to Richmond to assist Plumer in the redaction of the Watchman, and in preaching. A late drunkard of our town once said that the soil about Dutch Neck was like self-righteousness; the more a man had of it, the worse he was off. Young Wadsworth, late of the Seminary, now of Troy, is said to be a phoenix of eloquence; he is in Philadelphia.3 J

1 The decision, by a vote of 83 to 35, was that three ministers (though / + without a ruling elder) constitute a quorum of Presbytery. 3 Now pastor of the Fifth church there.

PRINCETON, May 30, 1843.

My father and uncle set out this week for “the old Colony and Dominion of Virginia.” I am not well, but potter about in my garden on the few clear days; my truck looks promising, and it is a great amusement to me. [Jos. B.] Stratton is gone to supply Natchez, [now the Pastor.] Dr. Lindsly and Dr. Edgar both have sons, physicians, coming to the Seminary. I have had two visits from an old man who was in the battle of Princeton. My weight is just 132 Ibs.

TYLERTON,1 June 12, 1843.

You will judge from the papers that we have all been Tylermad; sundry of us have been so. I feel anxious that it should be generally known, that the programme of the part to be enacted by the Faculty of the College, was printed and posted, and the appointment made on our grounds, without consultation with us. As a faculty we did nothing. Several of us were present in the throng. The President and suite, viz., WicklifFe, wife and two daughters, Spencer, &c., went to the Episcopal church in the morning, and to the Presbyterian at night. Between services a grand ‘dinner. They left us, with music and a great cortege, about 8 this morning. A large number of naval and some army officers were at Com. Stockton’s in uniform. As the cavalcade passed [Mr. J. S.] Green’s, departing, [Rev.] Dr. [Ashbel] Green came out; on which Tyler rapidly dismounted from his chariot and four and uncovered himself to the old man: the only im pressive scene in the melodrama.

PRINCETON, June 15, 1843.

All your malignant evil speaking concerning, may be

accounted for from the chagrin you experience at not being invited to orate. Notwithstanding what you say, I must honour the King: not that I did much for King John III.: but I arn opposed to all ultra-democracy, of which the very extreme, I take it, is to make our tribute of respect dependent on mere popular like or dislike. [After referring to a medical friend, for whom he wished to find some public employment.] His mildness, reading, &c., would make him a good principal of an Insane Asylum. Could he not be spirited up to an agitation of the public in behalf of such an institution in Trenton 1 He might write a lecture and deliver it in our chief towns.2 My father is heard from as far on as Waynesborough. He preached four or five

1 The President of the United States had just been visiting at Princeton.

2 This suggestion was made two years before the Legislature of New Jersey established the Insane Asylum near Trenton times at Charlottcsville, and, from Dr. Cabell’s letter, must have been in his very best mood. The college tee-total society, of which Maclean is the soul, has more than a hundred pledges: exclusive of an eminent professor, [himself,] who is suspected of daily potations of Oporto. I preached last evening from Prov. i.

32. Dr. [in New York] is down again, and uttering the

Macedonian cry. I can certify, of personal observation this morning, that some toads are still found in Princeton: “Personally appeared before me,” &c., &c. Give our kind regards to and circumjacent friends. A new pamphlet on the sisterquestion sent to me from Natchez. It has some hard arguments in it, some quite puzzling ones.

PRINCETON, June 24, 1843.

A little tropical weather after all. Dr. O’Shaughnessy, of Calcutta, (Prof. Phys.,) has been here. Brisbane, the Fourierist, and some aids, are looking out for a farm of a thousand acfes in this neighbourhood, whereon to exemplify their socialism. The following is from the Leipsie Acta Eruditorum: “Jacobi Alex-’ andri paradoxam opinionem de motu terras circa lunam, ceu pianette secundarii circa primarium, recensuimus in Actis, A. 1728, p. 127.” I write a fresh lecture every week on Latin literature, which I read to the Sophomores, over and above their regular recitations. Musgrave has published an 8vo volume against the Methodists. Henry Van Dyck picked 50 quarts of strawberries yesterday morning: I have none worth naming.

has become a regular hack, and writes on every topic which

promises to catch the million: this may do for a laureat, but it is not the plan of a poet. There are some things often mentioned but seldom seen: yesterday, for the first time, I saw the death of a cow. At the present rate every family ought to take the Sunday School Journal. I propose, next Friday, to publish, with my name, a card in the Princeton Whig, calling attention to it. Suppose you do the same, simultaneously. I acknowledge the seven [Acts vi.] are not called deacons, but I suppose no one ever doubted that these are they; the duties being so much the s*ame. It is a case where universal, uncontradicted tradition goes far with me, as in the case of the change of the Sabbath.

PRINCETON, July 19, 1843.

I am sorry that I cannot render you the assistance you ask on the next Lord’s day. Not only have I to preach for Dr. Rice, but early next morning I have to examine a class, at our Quarterly Examination, to which I could not be back in time. I have been very much debilitated this summer, and lately, for the first time in my life, had to sit down in the midst of a sermon, from a sudden affection of the head.

There is more of the influenza within a few days, than we have had. Of ecclesiastical news there seems to be none. Last Sunday afternoon Dr. Green preached to my Africans. Though his voice laboured, the sermon was excellent, and towards the close very impressive. My father, when last heard from, was in Bath co., Va. Sam has gone on to accompany him home. Mr. Rogers, of Northern India, has been here. Mr. Walsh, late of the Seminary, is about to go to that mission. Smyth’s new work on Presbyterianism is out. Joseph Tracy is making an abridgment of his former one. If should follow the example

of some of the Oxonians, and turn Romanist, it would lower his dignity very much to be ordained sub-deacon, deacon, &c. A short-hand teacher is enlightening us at this time. I begin to need spectacles to read long-hand. It is not one of the agreeables of our college arrangements, that our hardest work and heaviest examinations come in the heat of summer: our terrible “Final” begins on the 7th of August. Do you hear of any colleges about to doctor us this fall? What a grand method it would be to sell D.D.s as they do commissions in the British army! They would then be sure to fall on such of us as long for them, while others who care not for them might be spared all trouble. Some painters have been pottering about the outside of our house for more than a month; what with ladders, daubing, and smell, it is decidedly worse than house-cleaning. I never, in my craziest moments, feel the slightest desire to share the greatness or fame of kings, grandees, poets, grand authors, orators, or the like; but I often feel a sort of envy for quiet folks, whom I see, for from all publicity, carrying on some humble household labour. These Fourier-systems would make every one live in public, and obliterate little family-circles, and all that we call Home. One of my neighbours lately caught a bull-frog, which had a whole cat-bird in his insides; he also caught a pike, with a sucker six inches long in its stomach. These marvels you will report to your Lyceum. Judge Tucker, of the University of Va., had for many years a periodical rheumatism in one knee, recurring with perfect accuracy every 13th day: it has for a year past been exchanged for a syncope, returning for some months at the same interval, but now oftener. The legislature of Virginia gave the widow of Prof. Davis $12,000 for the copyright of a work of his on Criminal Law.

1 The death of Professor Davis is mentioned on page 315.

PRINCETON, August, 1843.

My father has returned. He was gone sixty-four days, and in that time -delivered thirty-two public discourses. So Pusey was really suspended: Vide his letter of the 2d inst. A man came last week into the office of the Board of Foreign Missions [New York] with a bag of money, laid it on the table, and said it was for the China Mission, on condition no questions should be asked: the contents were $10,000. Such an event ought to be laid before our people, to show them, by a scale they all too well understand, how some Christians rate the Mission work.

PRINCETON, Sept. 5, 1843.

I am truly glad to hear that your resort to the hill-country has done you good. My stay at the Cape [May] was very delightful, but very short; I arrived there on Monday evening, and came away on Saturday morning of the same week. Yet my spirits were much refreshed, and I think, if I could have stayed three weeks, I should have been made quite well. The Seminary has opened with a larger accession than is usual at this point of time. More are expected, as several commencements are yet to come off. The “Princeton” [a Navy Steam-ship] is to be launched this week. We had Dr. May of Alexandria [Episcopal Theological Seminary] at Cape ditto; a very agreeable man; as near being a low churchman as any I have seen. When called on by me, he made an extempore prayer at a meeting. I also made myself acquainted with Judge Stroud [of Philadelphia] formerly of our college. I see all connexion between Bokum and the Jews’ Society is dissolved by proclamation. Did I ever tell you of a little quarrel I had this summer with Bokum 1 It arose from my “accusing him of injudiciousness.” Thereupon ensued a correspondence, &c. I have been honoured with a picture of Hustcccoluck-chee, alias John Douglass Bemo. He is on his way back to the Seminoles. Eleven of the last class, Andover, have agreed to go together to Iowa. Quere: whether all missionary enterprises among us ought not to yield precedence to the work of evangelizing the Southern slaves? Ministers ought to be among them, in sufficient numbers, even if they were to be emancipated to-morrow; so that the question has no limitation from that of Abolition. Next in order, I think, come the Indians, whose condition is now more favourable than that of any heathen tribes on earth, for receiving the gospel. The prestige, however, of this

mission = 0 Will go to? No, I guess. If he

does, he will go away from home. There is nothing in a pro fessoral place at all resembling the worship which a popular city-pastor receives.

PRINCETON, Sept. 15, 1843.

I have read Young’s sermon, [afterwards a “Campbellite Baptist: “] he must be an Arian. His fundamental articles make no mention of Trinity, Atonement, or even Incarnation. He objects to such terms as Trinity, Triune, three in one, coessential and coeternal. When a man objects to creeds, he always has a reason for it. I perceive he is out upon the Corn-laws. I hope to re-open my house on the 1st prox. Beds, stabling, the choicest wines, (in part of the stock of the late Esq.,) omnibuses passing twice a day, &c. Dr. Rice thinks he has a disease of the heart. He is like to go to Augusta, Ga., for the winter. I have, for a rarity, to marry a couple on Saturday night. Our venerable friend Mr. John McMullin has been released at last: all my thoughts of him are pleasant. Mrs. Smith, relict of Dr. John B. Smith, is dead in Indiana, set. 82. Capt. Stockton is ordered out for a four-months’ cruise in the “Princeton.” What a difference between us and the English, in regard to school-books! They still use, in all their great schools, the grammar of Edward VI. I have a copy of it. It is full of forms, and primary rules, but few observations. Our American Bibles vary exceedingly from the standard British ones, in small points, especially of orthography. Dr. Hodge’s organ has come.

PRINCETON, Sept. 20, 1843.

I am conscious of no indebtedness in regard of letters, but being more good for nothing than common, 1 shall vent the contents of noddle on you. On Monday, a very ingenuous-looking young man, calling himself McMana, applied with much humility for aid to get to Albany. He offered to leave btoks in pawn, &c., and showed a certificate of church-membership from Mr. W. S. Potts of St. Louis. In the evening, Prof. Henry, going to the depot, happened to get into the same hack with this man, and (it being dark) shortly heard the fellow take great liberties with his name, asserting that he had dined with Prof. H., and more over declaring that he was on his way to Philadelphia. At the depot he saw Prof. H., and tried to hide behind a platform. My brother Sam pulled him out, and H. extracted from him the money he had begged, and the certificate of church-membership. The Hon. Mr., in the Quarterly Register, in a

piece lamenting the decay of classic learning, recommends the Bible as “corpus juris divince” This is the eventful day at

1 Mr. McMullin was an elder of the Third Church of Philadelphia, when Dr. A. Alexander was pastor, and afterwards, and until his death, of the Sixth Church.

Easton: visions of gigantic Ds float before my mind. “Between the acting of a dreadful thing, &c.,” v. Shakspeare. Our annual Examination is now being holden. I wish I had a number of the Christian Mirror to show you. There is a piece in it about Princeton, lauding every thing to the skies. Inter alia, much as follows; (I don’t pretend to give exact words:) speaking of Dod: — “whose colloquial powers are no less extraordinary than those reported of Johnson, Sir James Mclntpsh, and Coleridge... The profound metaphysician, mathematician, divine — pupil of Sir Christopher Wren and Palladio.” This, as Sam Slick says, is cutting it very fat.

PRINCETON, September 25, 1843.

I neglected to say to you that we will give you a bed during Commencement times, and a napkin at my father’s. Do not imagine, my dear sir, that any elevation of rank on my part will prevent me from exercising all the condescension which is seemly towards my humbler friends. Come freely, and lay aside all the dread which the circumstances are fitted to inspire.

TRENTON, October 2, 1843.

I am disposed to make a stand on this position, viz., that wherever our church has made great advances, it has been by the pressing of converting truth. The following words are uniformly spelled thus, in standard English Bibles; I mean certain places in all editions: ‘Ax, horscleach, morter, brasen, throughly, whiles, Rahel, Judaea, houshold, enquire, sope, jubile, intreat, asswage, pluckt, caterpiller, lot-he.” Dr. Brownlee has had a paralytic stroke, from which he is not expected to recover.3 We are hereafter to have Commencement in June, and a summer vacation. The faculty, who are most interested in not going wrong in such a matter, are unanimously for it. It was opposed by only four Trustees. In order to bring it about, we have to make the next nine months equal to twelve, by working double tides, and having only a fortnight of vacation, from opening of next term till the close of the succeeding one. Your friend, Dr. Kidd,3 was a crony of old Mr. Potts’s, and dedicated one of his works to him, in connexion, I think, with Dr. Green. He published, about 1815, a large octavo, on the Trinity; a

1 The sportive allusion is to his having received the degree of Doctor of Divinity from Lafayette College. This honour was doubled upon him, in 1854, by Harvard University.

2 Dr. Brownlee survived’until February, 1860.

8 1 had inquired of him concerning a Professor Kidd, of Aberdeen, who had received the degree of D. D. from Princeton in 1818.

very heavy and abstruse work, in which he endeavoured to derive a metaphysical argument from mere reason.

PRINCETON, October 24, 1843.

When I parted with you on the 16th, I did not expect to go to Synod; but that night I repented and went. I got to Newark about 10 P. M. Next morning I awoke early, and finding it clear and frosty, I traversed the streets and surveyed the markets. I breakfasted at the Park House with Kinney and Mc Donald, and their wives. At 9 I ascended the cars for Morristown, and found myself in company with Mr. Helm of Salem. I have seen no. cars more agreeable. We arrived at Morristown about half-past 10, having gone through a rolling country; fertile looking; snug houses, clean hamlets, signs of comfort; in a word, a little New England. Morristown is a pleasant but irregular village, on high ground, in sight of hills. Mr. Johnson, elder of Mr. Kirtland, here joined us, and we three went together to Newton. Dr. Rice, Maclean, and Talmage had lodged in Morristown, and taken an extra. Mr. Kirtland was detained by a funeral, and Mr. Dumont by the illness of his wife. We took a four-horse stage-coach, and began to climb the hills; and from this to Newton we had a perpetual succession of ups and downs. Yet even among the mountains the roads are smooth; often however mere galleries, cut around precipitous ledges. The inequalities, and the zig-zag of the trail, made it eight hours before we got to Newton at 7. It was 85 miles. We had passed through places called Denville, Dover, Rockaway, Sparta, (a pleasant village, where Torrey, formerly of Rio, is New-School minister.) I was enchanted all the way with the mountain and valley prospects. Like the Virginia valley, but not so much distant mountain range, and of course less bold than the Alleghany. Many iron-works, and much limestone. Millions of loose rocks in the fields; yet settlements close together, and many fine houses. The Synod had been four hours in session. Gray had preached, and McLean was in the chair: Rodgers and Imbrie clerks. We went in, and found a missionary meeting in progress. Morrison from India had spoken; Lowrie was speaking; then followed Dr. Janeway. Davidson prayed, and the choir (though a good one) balked in a tune. Perhaps you would like the names of the bishops: From the North-west, Foster, Hand, and Colton; from Elizabethtown Pby., Williamson, Hunt, Ogden, Murray, (Kirtland, 2d day,) Cochrane, J. Cory, B. Cory, Street, and Imbrie; from New Brunswick, Comfort, Janeway, Rice, Rodgers, Dcruelle, Maclean, Davidson, McLean, Vandoren, Mahon, Hale, Worrell, and Schenck; from Raritan,

Kirkpatrick, Studdiford, Hunt, Olmstead, Hull, Williams, and Sherwood; from Newton, Shafer, Castncr, Longmore, Gray, Yeomans, Nassau, Johnston, Webster, Jurikin, Lewers, Irwin, Worrell, Tully, McGee, Me William, Mack, and Lowrie; from West Jersey, Beach Jones, Helm, and Lawrence. I lodged at Dr. Shafer’s. We were treated with great kindness. They live well in Sussex; it is a land of milk and honey, and their buck wheat cakes are unrivalled. Their butter equals Goshen, and is their chief export. Every thing went on pleasantly at Synod. There was no judicial business; there were no angry words. There was much conversation on the progress of religion and of our benevolent church-schemes. A. uniform plan of raising money was reported, adopted, and recommended. The Synod yielded assent to the proposal for a new synod in Pennsylvania. On Wednesday Morrison spoke an hour on Foreign Missions. Though a very Moses in elocution, he deeply affected every one with his statements. I never before had such a notion of the missionary’s contact with thousands of the heathen. Murray followed with a very spirited and effective speech. In the evening there was a meeting for domestic missions; full house and pulpit. Deruelle prayed, and and orated: the one

as fine as silk, the other as coarse as cordage: is a splendid declaimer; his organ is incomparable. abused the

Episcopalians beyond aught I ever heard in public: many of them were there. Inter alia, he called (horresco referens) the sign of the cross, “the sign of the beast.” On Thursday 19th, some resolutions for the Free Church passed, nem. contradicente. Our presbytery-minutes occasioned much mirth, by the Latin of the recorded exegeses: it was horrible indeed; and was pounced upon by some of the Newtonian Latinists. They must have been penned by some Bunyan among us: “the Latin I borrow.” e.g. “An opera bona necessaria sit?” The next meeting to be at New Brunswick; where Dr. D. is effecting a painting in distemper back of the pulpit. He introduced a resolution assertory of what is falsely called the strict mode of baptism. He withdrew it, after satisfying himself that his view was the popular one. The business was all done at 1 P. M. on Thursday. We spent the afternoon, however, in devotion; addresses by Dr. Rice, Maclean, Vandoren, and McLean: and there was preaching at night by “P. P. clerk of this parish” [himself].

I found a number of former pupils in Synod, and there were residing in Newton, Martin Ryerson, Geo. Ryerson, Thomas Ryerson, Shafer, Thomson, (the surrogate,) and McCarter; all students of ours; from whom I received much attention. Friday, the 20th, was a fine day, but I saw quite thick ice, under the shade of a mountain, as late as half-past nine. Father Comfort offered me a seat in his vehicle, and the journey homeward was truly delightful. The old man fought all his battles o’er again, and was fine company. He knew every cross-road, and almost every house. We passed several little crystal lakes, and abundance of hills and valleys. We had in company, in other carriages, McLean, Vandoren, and Schenck. Our way was through Hackettstovvn, Schooley’s Mountain, where we drank of the waters; German valley, where we dined; Germanstown, in Ilunterdon; Lamington, Pluckamin, Somerville, Harlingen, and Kingston. We passed the natal spots of the McDonnells, I. V. Brown, and S. C. Henry. We lodged at Major Talmage’s near Somerville, where we had profuse hospitality. I saw Dominie Messier, and called on Dominie Chambers and Dominie Labagh of Harlingen. I was, by a kind Providence, returned home in safety by 4 P. M. on Saturday, after a very delightful week. I passed through nine counties, viz., Mercer, Middlesex, Essex, Morris, Sussex, Warren, Ilunterdon, Passaic, and Somerset. Not a word was said about Elders’ impositions, [of hands in ordaining Ruling Elders.] Wife’s sister, or the Psalm Book. I believe every member of the Synod went away with a pleasant feeling. Old Dr. Shafer is a most affectionate and pious man. I have volunteered to preach for Helm on the 5th of November, or Gunpowder-day. 1 learn from Mr. Lowrie, who got here on Saturday, that the Philadelphia Synod were in the trenches, and like to be some days, on the elder and quorum question.

PRINCETON, November 2, 1843.

I shall not be able to stop on my return from Salem, as the opening of our term will be so near. The awakening among the Jews, at Pesth, see last Missionary Herald, is a striking event. There have been two more deaths by small-pox, but it has not extended beyond the family, nor to any vaccinated subject. Gov. Haines [of New Jersey] was my classmate. Dr. Miller speaks of his mother as an eminent Christian. Rich. Johnson is expected here, to be feted. John Owen, in his famous work on Congregationalism, after declaring that there is no such thing as a minister, who has no congregation, asserts expressly, that the church has no power to send men to preach to the heathen, or to any people not gathered into a church. This is a corollary to be sure. He, as were all the New England pilgrim fathers, was stiff for ruling elders. All the early New England churches had them. He (O.) argues plausibly, that the Bible knows no visible organized church, except a particular congregation. This was also the New England tenet. I trust those members of legislature who profess godliness, will do something to bring their unconverted colleagues to church, &c. Morrison preached and spoke here on Sunday. Four young men of the Seminary are assigned to China. One of these and another during the long vacation, paid two thousand family-visits in the pines; every where giving advice, books, &c. One of the four, Culbertson. [Rev. M. S. C., now at Shanghai,] was an army-officer, and highly honoured at West Point; chosen to go on some military mission to France. I have a black synonyme or homonyme in Africa, [in one of the Mission Schools.] Nevins has published a pamphlet intituled “The Anxious Seat.” The Western [Theological] Seminary [Alleghany city] has forty students. Clow, our college steward, is lord-mayor, and I am yours, with much sleepiness.

PRINCETON, November 21, 1843.

I preached on Sunday for. He is the best specimen I

know of a country -pastor, for demeanour, piety, and sound learning; a good theologian, and a ripe Hebraist and classical scholar. None but a Hercules should attempt three services. At his house

I met Dr., a surgeon in the army. He has been several

years in the south and west; his last post being Fort Gibson. Last summer he went far into the Indian prairies, with a command of mounted dragoons, under Capt. Boon, a son of the famous hunter of Kentucky. Their business was the protection of the Santa Fe traders. He showed me specimens of the saltrock, with which extensive tracts of that country are covered. He has been constantly among the Indians. He ridicules the notion of savage life being favourable to health, and says he never saw more disease among any people. Thousands die in infancy. They have perpetual coughs and pleurisies. Their doctors have scarcely any remedies, no knowledge of herbs, and little credit among the people, except as conjurers. They had a sorry fellow for chaplain, at Fort Gibson. He found a soldier with a bottle of rum, ordered him to deliver it, and on refusal drew a pistol on him. On one occasion, preaching, he chose to expound the phrase “fear and trembling.” “Fear, my brethren,” said he, “is — is — is — the emotion which fills your breast upon the approach of an enemy.” This is like the New England parson, who, in preaching before a court, prayed “that all their decisions might be overruled” You will seldom find a more enchanting drive than the upper end of the river-road to Lambertville; I mean in summer. Studdiford has an English MS. of a tract of Wicklif’s in good preservation, on vellum, which is at least four hundred years old. You should see it. A work of thrilling interest has appeared, intituled “Letters to a very young Lady:” it is not certain whether by Chalmers or Macaulay. It is likely to move both hemispheres. I fear a church can never be supported at Titusville; the district is too small, and nobody is likely to attend from Pennsylvania.2 Dr. Phillips’s people “Wall Street Church, New York] have bought ground up town, Fifth Avenue.] I am told that Merle d’Aubigne makes nothing yond expenses by his original work, few copies of the French being sold. Suppose you and I get him to send us a copy in advance, and give him part proceeds of the translation, which would have a great sale. We have admitted more than seventy students, of whom more than twenty are communicants. From a concurrence of causes, my teaching labours are trebled this year. In Charlotte Elizabeth’s Magazine, this dashing woman declares Cowper’s melancholy to have been a judgment on him for translating Homer: an odd prolepsis, surely, inasmuch as he tried to hang himself shortly after he was of age, and never thought of his translation until he was more than fifty. All she ever will write will do less for the gospel than Cowper’s Task, Truth, Charity, Expostulation, and Hymns. His translation, like his other works, was the refuge from a madness, which but for this would have driven him to suicide, or at least to the cells. Though he is not our only Christian poet, he is certainly (of the great ones) our only evangelical one. The cruelty of the aspersion is affecting. The woman is deaf herself. When Charles the Second taunted Milton with losing his sight, as a judgment, Milton reminded him that his majesty’s father had lost his head. And when Warburton, in a like vein, told old Quin, that all the regicide judges came to a bloody end, the actor replied, “The same, your lordship may observe, is true of the twelve apostles.” Missionary Morrison preached on Sunday at Pcnnington. Dr. Hare departs tomorrow, [for Philadelphia ;] he does not abandon his school scheme.

PRINCETON, December 11, 1843.

I send you a catalogue of the Seminary. The commercial turn of the Seminary is evident from the accession of “Byers” and “Sellers.” Mr. Webber has been a Texan major. Thomas Thomas is a Welshman. Mr. Byers is a Nova-Scotian licentiate. W. Scudder is a Ceylonese. I do not know any ching which I ever read so much from a sense of duty, as the

1 A work of his own, published by the Sunday School Union, pp. 251.

2 This proved a groundless fear. The enterprise has flourished so well that a handsome church edifice has already succeeded the one first occupied.

“Message:” it teaches one nothing, and gives no amusement. On Thanksgiving Day, I preached on the blessing of Peace. We were providentially prevented by the storm from having our parents to dine with us, as projected, but through divine fa vour we had the whole remainder of our large family. It was an event to be recorded with thanksgiving, as it has not occurred for many years, nor is likely ever to occur again; at least at such a season. Wo endeavoured to rejoice and be merry, and ate and drank: 2 Sam. vi. 19. We cannot in English compress like the Latins: this morning I read with my class Juvenal’s nemo mains felix. My father has a severe catarrh; so has Dod; so has Dr. Miller; so has Dr. Hodge. The latest Oxford Bibles contain the following orthographic anomalies: “subtil, sycomore, agone, goodman, intreat, injoin, subtilly, sneesed, fetcht, ringstraked, scrowl, Nicolaitanes, vallies.” I have a serious request to make of you, in which my feelings are very much interested. There ought to appear an article in our Princeton paper on Drinking and drinking-houses; and I wish not to be the writer. Do me the favour to send me such a piece on the following, brief, sharp, and short: “Beer-houses; danger even of fermented liquors; groups of young men at doors of such places; effect on good name; the kind of men who frequent; the sudden fall of many not reputed drunkards; delirium tremens, &c.” The whole intended to warn young men, and to fihow that such persons attract public attention. Chalmers, in a written report, has a sentence much like this: “there are other channels, the foundations of which are connectable with our object..” Prof. Dod begins this evening a course of lectures on Architecture in the Seminary, ladies to be admitted; Monday and Wednesday evenings. So [Daniel] O’Connell, lawyer like, is going to slip through the meshes of the law. There are said to be 30,000 witnesses on his side. Dr. Chalmers has sent for the Repertory, and requests a review of his Romans. [Professor] Stuart ought to understand the Revelation; he has been lecturing on it 25 years. In Den’s Theology, the Roman Catholic text-book, high Predestinarianism is taught, exactly as Turrctine teaches it. I see Sydney Smith writes common-shore [sewer] exactly as it is pronounced. The probable withdrawing of Calhoun from the presidential race, will greatly brighten up Van Buren’s prospect. I pray against the annexation of Texas; it would spread slavery over Mexico, and I fear add a century

1 The theological works of Dr. Chalmers were reviewed by Mr. Alexander, in the Repertory of January, 1841, and those on education and ecclesiastical economy in the number for October, 1842. Part of the first anicle was by his father.

VOL. I. 17 to its existence in the United States. Nothing but the opening of new cotton and sugar lands within twenty years has prevented the abolition of slavery (at least in regard to post-nati) in Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee. If a wall were built around these States, the slaves would eat their own heads off in a twelvemonth.

PRINCETON, December 30, 1843.

Dr. Cunningham has been here for several days; but this is not his main visit. He is altogether the most satisfactory foreigner I have seen. By the Scotch papers I perceive he ranks among the first four or five in the Free Church. Height about 6 ft., and large in proportion; a stout but finely formed man; very handsomely dressed, and in an eminent degree the gentleman, in every thing but excess of snuff. Age, I reckon, about 41; spectacles. A shock of thick curly hair. He has no airs of patronage. Powerful reasoning and sound judgment seem to be his characteristics; and he is a walking treasury of facts, dates, and ecclesiastical law. I heard him for an hour, on Friday, in a speech to the students. Indescribable Scotch into nation, (but little idiom,) and convulsion of body, but flowing, elegant language, and amazing power in presenting argument. Though his manner is rugged and uncouth, and he has no sign ot imagination, yet when he gets on tender topics of religion, he is so scriptural, and so sound, that one is affected by what he says. I have seldom listened to a man with more instruction. New and Old School in New York have joined in regard to him, and he has preached for both sides. On Sunday he is to preach for Drs. Phillips and Potts. On the 26th and 27th I was in Brunswick — visitation, [of committee of Presbytery.] Rodgers and I were the only foreign bishops. Good assemblies. Three weeks ago McClelland preached in the Second Dutch church, on profane swearing. He said that on a recent occasion he had gone to Rahway in the cars, and had counted seventy oaths. Also “It was once customary to rend the garments on hearing a false oath: if this were customary here, we should all go naked.” “The sin prevails from the President in his bed, to the beggar on his dunghill.” My father’s address at Lexington [College] is printed; but the fashion of sending a copy to the author has not been introduced there. On Christmas day we were favoured of Providence to meet, all of us, at my father’s, with three distant relations. My father preached an Advent sermon. New Year’s day is the New York saints’ day.. I am concerned at having to say that good old Dr. Miller is quite ill, with pleurisy. The loss of him would be a sad blow to us, I think him one of the most conscientious and pious men I ever knew. His behaviour in a parlour-controversy is an example to every one, and has often put me to shame. According to the New England decision about incest, a man may now marry his step-mother; thus it is likely to be no longer so odd a thing “that one should have his father’s wife.” Cunningham says the prejudice against reading sermons is still very general in Scotland, and that committing to memory is the prevalent method; the Moderates have always read. Cunningham is to be professor of Churchpolity, &c., with Chalmers, Welsh, and Duncan, in their new college, which is already in operation. I have had a file of” the Witness,” which gives all the speeches in October. The men I should like to hear are five, three ministers and two elders: 1. Chalmers; 2. Guthrie; 3. Crichton; 4. Gordon; 5. Dunlop. My wife and I desire to wish you and yours every blessing in the new-year. For a motto, I will give you “Is any thing too hard for the Lord?”

PRINCETON, January 25, 1844.

Did you observe how distinctly Dr. Cunningham said juty for duty? He says, Lighten, (Leighton,) and so I find it written in old Scotch books. We have about $500 subscribed in Princeton, [for Free Church.] Potts, I think, is gaining on Wainwright, [in newspaper controversy on Episcopacy.] The latter has no more logic than a pudding. Our present plan of Presbyterial visitation is a great waste of labour. If the committee were all together, they might confer, and stir one another up. As it is, the visit becomes a simple protracted meeting, and that of the least profitable sort. Poor Dr. Rice, who is a most affectionate father, has heard of the death of his second daughter, wife of the Rev. Ezekiel Forman, of Versailles, Ky. The Dr. has some good signs in his congregation. From eight to twelve seeming conversions within a week or two. I have taken somcp pains to examine the series of texts preached on by Whitefield and Wesley: few of them are odd, or even uncommon; they are the familiar, evangelical, everlasting verses, which God has owned in all ages. I have been reading, with great delight, the Life of Dr. Waugh, a Scotch minister who died about fifteen years ago in London. He was a man of great eloquence, and a leader in the London Missionary Society. The average of his sermons for forty-six years was three a sabbath, and about 400 over. I have consulted several Scotch and one English copy of the catechism,

1 Dr. Alexander for a long time followed the Moravian custom of adopting a “year-word,” or text for the year; and while a pastor in New York, gave a sermon upon it to his congregation on the first Lord’s-day of every year.

and find in all, scriptures in the plural. Wines is coming back here. A student in the Seminary lives on bread and water. I have heard that [Lyman] Coleman, (brother of the cross-ban neret) [Editor of “The Banner of the Cross,” an Episcopal periodical in Philadelphia,] is about to issue an anti-prelatic book, composed by him at Berlin, under the guidance of Ncander. [” The Apostolic and Primitive Church,” with Introduction by

Neander.] Mrs., an excellent old lady, but not a respecter

of Priscian’s head, being once at my father’s, when two of our Greeks were there, turned round and said, “Am they Scotch?” I have heard an affecting story of poor Nordheimer. He foresaw his death, and, calculating pretty well when itr would come, gave double recitations as long as he could sit up, so that his class might lose nothing. His Grammar is lauded in Gesenius’s last edition of Lexicon. There is a great stir among the Baptists at Penn’s Neck, on the straight turnpike from Trenton to Brunswick. Dr. Scudder is to be here this week. Dod is lecturing twice a week to crowds of Seminarists and ladies, on Architecture. He has reached his tenth lecture. I wonder if Cunningham will wake up the Philadelphians much. He is a powerful fellow; and a noble instance of what may be done without any pathos or any decoration. How I rejoice that Father Pollock

[page 200] has had the hearing of him! has one good

quality — he is afraid of nobody. I believe him also to be abso« lutely ignorant of personal rancour in controversy: he would be the first man in town to ask his enemy to dinner, after oceans of abuse; and that not of policy, but out of real good will. Dr. Miller, after a sore attack, begins to walk about the house. Grace seems to work in him, under this trial. I have a book (some 150 pp.) nearly ready for Sunday School Union, [“Good — Better — Best.”] It is a narrative, but not aimed at children. Subject: the three methods of relieving human misery; to show that doing good to men’s souls brings other relief in its train.

PRINCETON, February 20, 1844.

The Scotch delegates thicken upon us: we have had [Rev. Dr.] Burns and [Elder] Fergusson, and are daily expecting Lewis, who has arrived at New York. Burns, you know, is in Witherspoon’s pulpit, at Paisley: he has been settled there thirty-three years. He is one of the most learned men in Scotland — has edited Halyburton’s works, Wodrow’s history, and is author of Memoirs of Prof. McGill. Burns’s manner in the pulpit (gesture excepted) is more outr6 than Cunningham’s. But his sermon was noble, rich, original, scriptural, and evangelical, and in diction elegant: and his closing prayer was seraphic. Fergusson is a smallish man, about 37: about the dress and ways of a common weaver; no apparent shirt. I was thunderstruck — especially when I found that Chalmers had picked him out. But my wonder ceased when I heard him, on the evening of the ] 8th. He spoke an hour and three-quarters by the watch — I wish it had been twice as long. In the first half of his speech he erred, by causing too much laughter. His vis comica is amazing. In the latter part he arose to a height of passion such as I have seldom witnessed. A critic would have condemned every thing in the elocution and gesture — but the eloquence was penetrating and transporting. I found Addison affected precisely as I was. In a word, it is utterly vain for me to communicate to you any idea of the degree of his power. As he rose, his diction became elegant and sublime. And yet he is only a merchant of Dundee. A bad sore-throat prevails here. My father has been seriously, perhaps dangerously, ill with it. There is certainly a more general attention to religion here than I have ever known, but nothing like excitement. Scores of persons, who have neglected ordinances for years, come to every thing. Some of our most substantial men and women are affected. I suppose a hundred copies of the “Way of Life,” [by Dr. Hodge,] and the “Great Change,” [by Dr. Redford,] have been sold here within a few weeks. The latter has been blessed to the awakening of a number. A most visible effect has taken place on our tavern-haunters. In college we have little appearance of revival. Deruelle preached a very good sermon here last week. Burns thinks Chammers (so they all call him) will be out in the summer. Dr. Miller has recovered. I went to the African church on Sunday to hear [Ely mas P.]

Rogers, and heard a black named. He preached on Saving

Faith, from the text, “In your faith possess ye your souls.” Happily, he did not name chapter and verse. With a lecture of an hour every morning, a recitation every afternoon, and once or twice a week a sermon at night, I am kept in pretty good tension. Burns says he preaches four times on Sunday, a good part of his time. I am told Fergusson failed in speaking in Philadelphia.

PRINCETON, March V, 1844.

Mr. Lewis of Dundee spoke twice here this week. He is a gentlemanly man, and gave us a delightful gospel-sermon. On leap-day [Feb. 29] I married a black couple: the bridegroom and bridemaid were both one-eyed.

Since I began this letter, a mournful event has occurred — the death of Mrs. [B. II.] Rice. She was ill about seventeen days. Her fever was violent and unyielding from the beginning. It left her, for several days before her death, in a state of extreme prostration.

Her mind was all peace, without a single cloud or anxiety, and she declared her triumph in Christ. Her friends, though deeply grieved, are filled with a sense of divine grace as displayed in her remarkable faith and hope. Poor Dr. Rice will feel his loss more hereafter. I know no man who leaned more upon a wife, nor any woman more remarkably fitted to cheer a desponding husband. She was as pious, open-hearted, benevolent, and self-sacrificing a person as I ever saw; and it is a general expression in town, that every one has lost a personal friend. Thus my good old father has, within a month, lost the oldest and the youngest of his brothers and sisters. He has one brother and two sisters surviving. I was at Worrell’s [Monmouth co.] visitation on Saturday and Sunday, and had some hard work. Next Sunday is our Communion. About thirty will make profession of faith. The seriousness is not abated. It is a remarkable fact, that no one means of awakening has been so much blessed here, as the putting of books into people’s hands; especially, “The Great Change,” and “The Way of Life.” We have had no inquiry-meetings, and latterly no increase of preaching. Domestic prayer-meetings have been a good deal multiplied. My father has not regained his strength, though he passes for well.

PRINCETON, March 16, 1844.

Dr. Cunningham is here again; chiefly to gather some hints about theological instruction. He has been laid up with lumbago. He grows in my esteem as a man of knowledge, piety, and consummate prudence. — (Sunday.) I heard Cunningham this morning, in the Seminary chapel. Text, 2 Cor. v. 14, 15. He explained the text, as I have for twenty years found myself constrained to understand it: “if one died (airiOavtv) for all — then all died,” (aireOavov.’) The sermon was a most able one, uniting the highest degrees of plainness, argument, and unction. He read it, but exactly as he made his address. There was no ornament or illustration. In the evening Dr. C. preached; Heb. vii. 26, “Seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for us.” Fifty minutes. I. The nature of the intercession. II. Practical application; in regard (1,) to the sins of believers; (2,) to the circumstances of believers; (3,) to their prayers; (4,) to their prospects and ultimate happiness. It was a noble sermon, as plain and unillustrated as before, but mighty in argument, and robustly eloquent. A very touching passage, seemingly for poor Dr. Rice. In his prayer he used that phrase of our excellent (Presbyterian) liturgy, “bless this corner of thy vineyard.” Quaere de hoc: how many corners has this polygon? are all the churches at the cor ners? He nevertheless prayed with great solemnity and devotion. In private, I am full of admiration for his considerate and discreet and gentlemanlike demeanour and words. — (Monday.*) Sennakcrim called here just now p. p. c., with a younger brother. He has been in America seven years, and goes back to Stamboul, as a naturalized citizen, and M.D. He has always behaved himself very well. None of our outlandishmen have been less offensive. Dr. Rice admitted 36 on profession of their faith. For the sake of a testimony for truth and godliness, I wish Frelinghuysen could be elected Vice President. I do not think I shall vote for Clay. I think Potts and Wainwright have been at it long enough, and should be choked off. A new periodical, (probably) to be called the Scottish Review, [” North British Review,”] will begin next month. The first number will have articles by Chalmers, Candlish, Sir David Brcwster, Welsh, &c. It will not be merely religious. They want American articles, and will pay £15 a sheet. Reviews of American books of travel are specially mentioned. Dr. Chalmers says (in a note I heard read just now) that his class numbers 209: Dr. Lee’s, (University of Edinburgh,) 30. A tract of my father’s has been published in Armenian. The papers have given our late LL.D. to John, in stead of Alexander Dunlop. They are very different men. The latter is the chief legal defender of the Free Church. His answer to the Dean of Faculty (Hope) is both a cogent and an elegant thing. Dunlop is lineally descended from two of the greatest leaders of the Scotch Kirk, (Dr. Carstairs, the friend of William III., and Dr. Robertson, the historian.)

PRINCETON, March 22, 1844.

Dr. Burns has been here; and, spite of my prejudices, I must say he preached, on Wednesday evening, one of the very noblest discourses I ever heard. The text was, Zee. xiii. 7, “Awake, O sword,” etc. It was teeming with Scripture, but even the most famiriar texts were made brilliant by their setting and connexion. I did not see him in private. You must read Webster’s speech in the Girard College case: it is a noble defence of the Bible, the ministry, and religious training. I am to have a recitation four days in the week, at six o’clock in the morning, all summer. You see Dr. Potts has gone up town, [University Place Church.] Smyth’s [of Charleston] sermon on the Free Church is out in Edinburgh. The Edinburgh Witness (of which I have had the reading lately) is conducted with great pdwer. Plan of the Record; but the editor, Hugh Miller, is a genius, and a writer of extraordinary force and originality. He was a common mason at Cromarty, is now a leading geologist, and author. His severities are like those of Brougham; who, by-the-bye, is coming out in a book against us.

PRINCETON, April 9, 1844.

If it had been in my power I should have hastened to Trenton upon receiving your note. But I was suffering from an attack of sore-throat and influenza. I am particularly glad to hear that your brother George is better; though from what you have said from time to time I gather that his case is serious. What you

say of is really melancholy, if not alarming. His giving

up music is like King Saul’s flinging the javelin at David. The

Rev. Tract Agent is here. He is a pleasant, scholarly,

gentlemanly man, and made a fine impression, even on some among us who like few things from the pulpit; Coal-porter [Colporteur] is like to be a famous word in Anglo-American. You must be sure to attend the Methodist Conference in your city. When I was at the last one in Trenton, I thought it the most decorous ecclesiastical body I ever saw. So old Mr. Duponceau [of Philadelphia] is dead. Soon there will be none left of the magnates we used to look up to, and the great men will be our own coevals. Soon you will be startled with the compellation of “Father Hall,” — “the venerable father, who last addressed you,” — “the dear old man! I call him my spiritual father” — “years should speak,” &c. You ought to follow up your piece in the Presbyterian, on Church-schools. It is a good string, and this is a good time. Only this morning I had a letter from Richmond, entreating for a man to set up a Female Seminary there; “what we want,” he says, “is to get a first-rate Presbyterian school, and thus be relieved of the necessity of having our daughters educated Episcopalians.”

You see the Abolitionists are out upon the Scotchmen, for fingering the wages of iniquity, [receiving donations for the Free Church from slaveholders.] They will learn a lesson as to the animus of American anti-slavery men. Having to go to College at 6|- A. M., I find my “matinal labours,” as Walsh calls them, somewhat onerous. Dr. Yeomans wrote to me that they had 115 students in Lafayette College. Parke Godwin, the leading Fourierite, is an alumnus of the College and Seminary. Cooke represents the scheme as becoming formidable, from the numbers taken in. What a delightful book might be made about Philadelphia, if somebody would do what Watson [” Annals of Philadelphia”] tried to do: — antiquities, growth of city, views of all the old buildings, abundance of pictures, Penn, Bcnezet, Franklin, Morris, Rush, Wistar, White, Collin, Eastburn, Girard, Duponceau, Peale, &c. Could not you recall some of the incidents of your youth? Capt. Cox? David Allen? old Carswell? Mr. McElwaine? [all of his father’s church in Pine street.] I am more and more convinced, that the greatest preparation for preaching extempore, is to know the English Bible by heart. An old black man, 78 years old, has learned to read, within six months, in this place. This being election-day, there has been not a little cursing of the “parsons,” who all vote the Clay ticket, if any. You see that Pettit has made another speech in Congress, [against chaplains,] and again has had no echo. I wish old Adams would take him in hand. Hammit, of Congress, was a Methodist preacher in Virginia when I lived there. The Irish Catholics have been in treaty for an old stone house just back of my garden, for a mass-house. If they succeed, you are invited to the consecration.

PRINCETON, April 14, 1844.

Though I thought a great deal about you, I did not dare to write until I received John’s letter, which contained such comfortable statements, that I feel as if the opening were plain. I need scarcely say I sympathize with you and your mother, most deeply, under this affliction. It is true of your family, as of ours, that death has spared you long, only to make the blow of bereavement more severe. My recollection of George goes back to a very early period, and my renewed acquaintance with him, not many months ago, brought me into still nearer acquaintance with his kind and affectionate qualities. But I will not enlarge upon those considerations, which only serve to aggravate your loss. I know you feel it in your inmost soul. I know in some degree, what an interest you took in your brother’s prosperity, and that his death must inflict a corresponding wound. And I think it very likely, that under the first impulse of the trial, you find yourself the subject of entirely new experience, and in danger of being “swallowed up of overmuch sorrow.” And a certain time must elapse, before you can respond altogether to those statements of divine truth, which are applicable to your present condition, and which you will afterwards feel in all their force. It is my wish and prayer, that you, and your bereaved mother, and all the family, may be — not simply comforted — but what is infinitely better, sanctified by means of this affliction. For surely, if George is in heaven, as we are permitted to think he is, what have we more to wish for him 1 what have we more to wish for ourselves? Don’t think of him

1 1 insert this letter of condolence on the death of a brother, notwithstanding it was first addressed to my sister. VOL. I. 17* as suffering, and dying — all that is past — it is no more to him than the suffering of your infancy is to you — think of him as “with Christ,” “present with the Lord,” — adoring the infinite grace which saves sinners. The moment he departed, all the anxious prayers you ever put up for him were in an instant answered. Now let me very earnestly recommend to you, as a duty you owe to Christ, not to brood over the dark part of a dispensation which has so very bright a side. O that we may all be led to look more at the slightness of the hold we have on friends, and be prepared to go with them!

I have said these few words, not as believing there was any information to be given you, but as a testimony that you are not forgotten in your afflictions. And I beg that you will assure your mother and sister of my tender condolence. But how shall 1 speak of his widow? The Lord must comfort her; I trust He does; I am sure He will. I felt disposed to write to her, but did not feel that I had any call to intrude in this way, so soon after an unspeakable trial.

Every member of my father’s family feels the blow which has fallen on yours. We have ourselves had a great loss, in the death of Aunt Rice. God grant that each of us may be prepared in the day of His coming!

I do not look for a reply until such time as you shall feel able to say something more calmly than you now can.

PRINCETON, May 6, 1844.

has written an article [for a religious paper] on the

Elder Question, [the right of Ruling Elders to participate in the act of ordination.] The chief points are these: 1. The Scriptures ascribe to the people an important part in the government of the church. 2. Ruling Elders are the representatives of the people, in the exercise of this power, and are so called in our Standards. 3. The office is therefore of divine authority. 4. The power of elders is only that of the people whom they represent. 5. Ruling Elders are never said in our Standards to be the Presbyters of Scriptures; who (as we always contend against the prelatists) are bishops. (Turn to our Form of Government on this point.) 6. Ruling Elders, being representatives of the people, are not invested with the authority to ordain. This controversy is working great evil in the Southern churches. I would willingly give them the quorum-principle, if they would give up agitation on the other. David H. Bogart, a young lawyer of this place, was buried to-day. Dr. Rice preached, and Chaplain Starr read the Episcopal service, as part of the Odd Fel lows’ ceremony. What a poverty of invention among these

O. F., that they must needs borrow slavishly the cast-off sprigthrowing into the grave, from the Free-masons. Addison is about completing a bargain with Wiley & Putnam for the publication of his Commentary on Isaiah. He will print it in a very leisurely manner, as it is not fully written out. It will be chiefly for clerical readers, &c., and will make a large 8vo volume. He has laboured very much at it, and has gone over almost every part, repeatedly with, pupils. I hear no word of my communication to the Christian Advocate and Journal [Methodist] about Summerfield. I can think of no reason why they should reject it. [It was published.] Oblige me by looking into two or three of the last numbers, as I do not see the paper.

PRINCETON, May 8, 1844.

I send you a catalogue of our college. You will find only five errors in Cortlandt Van Rensselaer’s name.

Very much against my wish, I have to preach in New York [Duane Street Church] next Sunday. Some time ago they wrote to my father, to know whether I would entertain a call from them. I answered, through my father, very decidedly, in the negative. On the strength of this, I accepted, with others here, an invitation to preach for them. Now I learn, with regret, that they still mean to press the matter. I earnestly begged off, but they would not allow it.

I am now authorized to write a tract on Early Rising. I attend college prayers every morning, and spend an hour with a class before breakfast.

Shocking work in Philadelphia! [Destruction of a Roman Catholic Church by a mob.] I am afraid of the consequences of this Native American organization. Bishop Kenrick murders Scripture in a manner worth of the Anti-Bible party, in the end of his pacific proclamation.

One of our hens has eight ducklings. Three other hens are mothers, and two more will soon be. I never alighted on any home-attraction, which is so fertile in amusement for the children. Feeding, eggs, chicks, and ducklings, give them never-ending variety; especially as we have a regular Chicken College, roll-call, lectures on Clucking, Swimming, &c. Let me recommend a coop in your back-court. Capt. Crabb, U. S. N., my next-door neighbour, sometimes gets twenty-eight eggs per diem.

The new Pilgrim’s Progress is elegant, but $4 will make it a book for the rich. The sumptuousness does not befit John Bunyan. Retzsch ought to illustrate it, in his outline way — broad and antique. The only picture in the book which pleases me, is Cruikshank’s Vanity Fair. Charles Lamb has a capital letter to Bernard Barton, against the misplaced elegance of Southey’s English edition. I see they have not followed Southey in retaining Bunyan’s genuine street-English, such as “I thought you would a come in with violence.”

A sloop, built on the canal, at Kocky Hill, passes by us, on regular trips, to and from Texas, (Galveston.)

There will be fine churches up town in New York, which will hear one another’s organs. Duane Street will be left alone below.

PRINCETON, June 29, 1844.

I have had a disorder which has relaxed me a good deal. I have also had a call from Duane St. which has a similar effect. I have to speak at New York the day after to-morrow, and Commencement is just over. These are reasons enough for not writing before, and for not writing eloquently now. The New York business I should settle very speedily, if it were left to my feelings; my friends, especially my father, warn me against a hasty determination. On the first vote (by ballot) when every one, without nomination, expressed his individual preference, I had 30; [scattering 21, blank 3.] On the fifth ballot, I had 47; [scattering 6, blank 3.] On the last (viva voce) I had 55 and there was 1 against. I have been reperusing Campbell’s Gospels, with much pleasure. He directs one’s attention to little variations of the common version from the Greek, which escape one even in reading the latter alone. Charlotte Elizabeth, who is one of the most influential writers of the age, has published a letter to Bishop Alexander [of Jerusalem] in which she remonstrates with him for not having his children circumcised. Charlotte should take the name of Zipporah. Quite a sect is rising in England, who think the Jews, when con verted, should retain their ceremonies.

PRINCETON, July 4, 1844.

You perhaps have heard of certain matters, concerning which the true version may be welcome. The Duane people have agreed to call me. The vote was not unanimous. I spoke with none of them in New York. While there, I was visited by Mr. Greeley, a son-in-law of Dr. Tyler, and Mr. Dana, nephew of Dr. D. of Newburyport; both Bostonians, and introduced by John C. Green, with whom Mr. D. had been intimate in China. They are a deputation from the Committee of the

1 He had preached in the Duane Street church as yet only on May 12th.

Bowdoin St. Church, formerly Dr. Beecher’s, and more lately Mr. Winslow’s. Their mission, to get me to candidate. On learning about the Duane business, they professed to be concerned, and returned, I believe, to Boston, requesting me not to decide the matter. We had a large assembly at the University chapel, but the heat and dyspnoea were terrible. Burleigh pronounced a fine Christian poem, and was received with plaudits. Dr. Potts is to have a noble Gothic church; the walls are up. I heard Dr. Taylor in Grace church. His manner is very uncommon, sui generis, but, to me, exceedingly striking. I heard Andrews at the Tabernacle, and am not surprised at his great popularity. About 2,500 were out; I observed I was the only person who stood during prayer. I risited the Princeton and the North Carolina; and on the latter attended a party, at which I saw the officers of the two Mexican steamers in full dress; they danced; some of them are mulattoes. Bache says the prejudice of colour is absolutely gone, in Spanish America. I saw a party of Iowa Indians at the mission-rooms, in full dress; they were just about to embark for England. They are the party of “White Cloud.” I became acquainted in New York with Sir Win. Burnaby, an English proprietor in Bermuda; a pleasant, Koger de Coverley sort of man. We are all packed up for the Cape. This business of the call has given me unspeakable anxiety. The twofold solicitation, if I may so call it, makes me pause and ask, whether Providence does not mean to unsettle me from my semi-secular post. On examination, I do not find that I am drawn New Yorkward, so far as I know, by any attraction of a worldly nature. Ease, quiet, friends, retirement &c., are all here. I do feel a strong desire to preach. I am in a strait.

CAPE MAY, N. J., July 10, 1844.

Your acceptable letter came to hand last evening. By the same mail, two of same date, from Boston, about the church of St. Bowdoin. This island is the same which Thomson describes in his Castle of Indolence: “a dreamie land of drowsihede it was.” The “salt-air” vindicates every thing; canine appetite, nakedness, sloth, and double naps. Mr. [now Bishop] Odenheimer is here; he and I at present represent the two parts of the church militant. Musicians abound. A troupe of Italians are very delightful. Dr. May of the Alexandria Seminary, who was my pleasant companion last summer, is not to be here till the 16th. My wife and children go in, of course, with me, and give me occupation enough in the surf. It has been uncom-

1 On the 31st June he delivered the annual oration before the literary societies of the University of New York.

monly fine to-day. The number of visiters at present is about 1,000. There are a number of new houses, especially private cottages. One Capt. Hart and one Fotterall, have Chinese houses, very grand. We were on the steamboat Rob. Morris, when an. accident befell the engine. The boat was detained at Newcastle from 11 on Saturday to 5 A. M., on Sunday. Five or six of us, out of 300, remained over the Sabbath. I was most hospitably entertained by Chancellor Johns, who is one of the principal persons there, and a very instructive host. His father, set. 86, old Judge Johns, is as erect and merry as a bird, and has chewed tobacco enormously for seventeen years. He was chief justice for fifteen years, in which [Rev.] James P. Wilson was lawyer. I noted a number of anecdotes about him. I preached twice there, and have preached once here. Newcastle is like an old-world village — a sleepy hollow; but they have a regular sea-breeze, and good bathing. The air here is restorative in a high degree to me. I wish you were here, if only for a week.

I have had great anxieties about my duty in regard to Duane St. I have very earnestly wished to be fully employed in the work of the ministry; but I never thought of so responsible a charge. My visit to New York greatly impressed me with the mighty field on which even a moderate man might operate from that centre. I have no notion of abandoning the down town, which, to me, is the city proper, in both New York and Philadelphia.

( Thursday.y — I failed to get this off yesterday. Politics here dull. The chief question is between Poverty Beach and the Light-House. Trade flourishes. The apple business rising. Ginger-bread dull. A handsome operation in straw hats has attracted attention. Oysters as per last quotation. Crabs rising.

My kind regards, and those of the “Capers” (sic in lingua insulari, verbo nempe pro hujus insulse incolis usurpato) wait on you all. Yours very much.

CAPE MAY, N. J., July 15, 1844, 6 A. M.

Yesterday I preached twice, once at Cold Spring, once at the Mansion House, (Ludlam’s.) There are many more opportunities of doing good than I could have imagined. I humbly trust that I have been enabled to gain the ear of a number of Quakers. What delightful inmates of a public house educated Friends are! You feel sure they will never swear, drink, or fight. They are too clannish; but to this they owe the maintenance of their peculiarities. Young Dr. Parrish, Dillwyn Parnsh, their sister, and their wives, are here. They are highly educated and refined. is here. It is a lesson to one, to observe how

this good and really sensible man has coddled himself, and sacrificed to Fear, until the grass-hopper-burden is always on his back. I retract some of my opinions of; notwithstanding his intolerable manner and undeniable lack of nous, he is, I really think, one of the most God-fearing young men I ever saw. The care of a family makes me somewhat less free than on my former visits, but I have seldom passed a week of less trouble of mind than the last; and this notwithstanding the pendency of two serious questions. The Bowdoin St. Church have made rne out a call; but the consent of the Pew-proprietors is awaited, and certain days’ notice is required for this. The call from New York weighs more heavily on me. To go thither, 1 plainly see, will cut up by the roots my goodly tree of literary shade and family quiet, and deprive me of a support from parents, brothers, and elder ministers, on which I have leaned most pleasantly, but too long. I shall, if I go, seem to many to go for the gaud of a large stipend; this is of no weight, however, in the great account. If I go, it will be under this feeling, which I own grows upon me, / dare not stay.

CAPE ISLAND, July 17, 6 A. M., 1844.

Your very acceptable letter came to me by yesterday’s mail in company with 269 new bathers. Three hundred are expected this evening. Three hundred sat down to tea at the Atlantic last evening. There cannot be less than 1,500 in all. Rooms are not to be had for love or money; people are sent several miles into the country, or laid out on dining-room floors. We have more than 100 here, chiefly Quakers. Our table is reputed the best. Three bands of music give us harmony to satiety. I preached twice on Sunday, once at Ludlam’s to a very large audience. The New-School Elders and people seem as cordial with me as the others. I do hope that ugly wound is to be healed. It is a little Philadelphia down here, riots excepted. I wish you were here. A week would give you strength for all summer. Every evening I have to change my coat, and sleep under a blanket; nor have I had the feeling of unpleasant heat since I came, except when at some distance from the beach. Our head- waiter Brookes speaks French and Spanish fluently; and keeps all the accounts. Old Alexander Wilson (Quaker preacher) is here, and had an opportunity in our parlour. Mr. Eckel, of Barnes’s church, is here, and, I fear, approaches his end. Though it is before breakfast, 1 hear a band of music playing on the strand. Chaplain Grier and son have arrived, also John K. Kane, Lapsley, Atwood, Dunton, Cleaveland. More letters from Boston. I am to be a Congregationalist; but New York claims rather preponderate.

PRINCETON, August 9, 1844.

The college opened yesterday. Thus far, about fifty matricu lates. It is a sign of getting old, that I find numbers of my old college friends bringing sons on. All the letters I get from Boston indicate unanimous welcome. I do not think of turning Congregationalist, and they say nothing of turning Presbyterian; that settles the point, so far as I can see it with my present facts. Dr. Hodge, Prof. Henry, Mr. Packard, and Dr. Maclean, are the only persons who strenuously oppose my leaving Princeton. But, in my heart of hearts, I think they all, in their calculations, discount too liberally from the value of the preached word. Several of them are men whom I scarcely dare oppose, in a pru dential question; yet, in my most solemn hours, I declare to you, their arguments have little weight with me, because I so profoundly believe preaching (including parochial teaching) to be God’s great ordinance. O how much I need prayer and

counsel! I am, after all, undecided. Give my love to.

We shall welcome her at No. 499 Bowdoin St., or No. 1 Duane St., or No. 3 Steadman St., [Princeton,] as the case may be. Stilling’s life, which everybody reinls, was published at an obscure town in Pennsylvania, a number of years ago, and I then read it: it fell dead from the matrix. So much for having the entree of the book-market. I think the book will do good among people who will not read an evangelical book.

PRINCETON, August 21, 1844.

I have asked myself repeatedly ubi gentium you are, that you do not reply to my last esteemed favour. Not to keep you in darkness, 1 now break through my silence, to say that I have accepted the call to New York. I feel, as you may imagine, almost terrified at what I have done. Yet I have no doubt as to the moral Tightness of what I have done: success is a different thing. “Events are God’s.” The last two or three months have been a season of mental struggle. I have had to breast a current of advice and powerful reasoning, from some friends of ours, who are no mean argumentators, against my intimate convictions; and I have felt with them, that leaving Princeton is leaving home. At the same time, even in view of possible failure, I have quite a comfortable hope that God will not forsake me,

and this sustains me more than usual. says that the

opinion is openly expressed, every day more and more, in his part of Virginia, that slavery is a curse, economically, and that the annexation of Texas is defended at the hustings, on the ground that it will tend to drain off the black race into that tropical region, in which the races are already mixed, and the prejudice of colour unknown. My father has been ill, but now goes about: so does Dr. Miller, though still feeble. We have matriculated about sixty -four new students, two from Massachusetts. I am very hard at work, giving my course to the Seniors before October 1st.

PRINCETON, September 3, 1844.

Several things have put me in the vocative, or case of O! 1. A catarrh, now in its 13th day; 2. Another disorder, in its 2d do.; and 3. A sermon, which has just been finished, after several days hammering at it. My good old father is unwell again. The difference between temperature of day and night, at this season, is a cause of many disorders; much more, I think, than even the abundance of fruit. The agitation of the public mind at our election-crises is a very injurious paroxysm. Democracy must be a cornucopia, to balance such evils; processions, rallies, torch-bearings, “yaller-kiver” minstrelsy, poles, coons, banners, lies, idle days and weeks, gaping for office by ten for one who gets it, rotation, absorption of mind in matters too high for such minds, endless restlessness, sacrifice of regular trades, &c., for temporary office, loquacity and debate, ending in alienation, disappointment, chagrin, and disaffection to lawful authorities. Such are the heads of my next political brochure.

When you have opportunity, do not fail to talk with, on

his own subject, on the general or fundamental principles. Half an hour with him is quite equal to any 8vo volume I ever read. He loves to be questioned, and never talks for display or argument. I rejoice that Walsh has the Consulship, [Paris;] his Americanism deserves it. I never tire of his ana, [in his letters to the Intelligencer,] which are copious during the vacation of Congress. By-the-bye, I think the National Intelligencer the very best of our papers, for dignity and honesty. It is wonderful how deep a Papist poor B. has become: I can liken it to nothing but a man’s filling his eyes up with ounces of wax: it is part of his religion to see nothing and hear nothing; so I am told by those who know. The Seminary has more students than for ten years before. Watson’s Annals [of Philadelphia] is fine, as to facts, but what a style! it is that of the youngest milliner’s ‘prentice. Dr. Green goes on with his autobiography. I prize his company: he is living on the verge of heaven. I always envied his most comfortable fixedness of opinion on all subjects. Several Prmcetonians enter the Seminary; my brother Samuel,

Archd. Rice, William A. Dod, and Frederick Kington. All have been law students, and the third a lawyer. [J. S] Green [Esq.] has sent at least seven pupils to the ministry. [George] Bush sends specimen-proofs of two works of his in the press. The one entitled Anastasis will, I fear, go against the catholic doctrine of resurrection. Did I speak to you about an article on the “New Jerusalem Church,” in Rupp’s new volume, on all the religions? It is by a Virginia planter, and is the best article in the book, in point of style and scholarship. While I write, some one of the numerous bawling processions, with cheers and hip-hip-hurrahs, music, &c., is passing: cause unknown. I bid you good-night.

PRINCETON, September 11, 1844.

I am not shaken in any degree by what A. says of the Free Church. I am aware that many seceders retain this old grudge, after all the causes are removed. The worst that can be said of the Free Church is that their retractation (it is such in effect) has been tardy, and that a false consistency makes them loth to eat up their old sayings. True it is, that they were truculent and absurd against Voluntaryism. I have a painful and threatening cough, now in its twenty-first day. I resisted all housing, &c., went to New York, Staten Island, &c; but it is obstinate. I must stand ready to see the predictions of some verified, as to my capacity for pastoral labour. Staten Island is another Isle o’f Wight. I was altogether surprised and enchanted. A very gem: sea, bay, rivers, vales, mountains, incomparable verdure, villas, absence of all high-roads and noise. From one point, you see the Atlantic, New York, Brooklyn, Newark, Elizabethtown, Rahway, and immeasurable tracts of sea and land. Sunday morning I drove six miles to Richmond, the county-town, to hear Dr. Moore, eldest son of the old Bishop. Fancy the very ideal of an English country church; on a green hill top, with a stretch of prospect over a narrow, sinuous valley, through which a pretty river flows towards the “Kills.” It was well filled, and Mr. Peet of Rahway preached. In the P. M. I went to Fort Richmond, to worship with Brownlee’s church, (Dutch:) here I heard James Romeyn; and a more extraordinary man I never heard. Fulness of matter, every step sudden and unexpected, genius, strength, fire, terror, amazing and preposterous rapidity, contempt of rule and taste. It was an awful discourse; 1 Thess. v. 3. It is one which I shall not

1 A clergyman of the Scottish Relief Synod, who had spoken to his correspondent, in derogatory terms, of the newly professed liberality of the Free Church.

1833 — 18M. 403

soon forgot. In New York I overworked myself, looking for lodgings, and found none answering all conditions. Therefore, by urgent advice of my elders, I took a house, 83 White Street, east of Broadway, between Broadway and Elm Street, south side of White; two stories: look at a map of New York; you will see the yards are larger than usual there. But how unlike a Philadelphia house! $600 rent. After I had taken it, I learned that its first occupant had been the first pastor of our church, Dr. Romeyn. Installation probably Oct. 3. But not unless we hear from Moderator Webster pretty shortly.