COMPENDIUM

OF

AMERICAN LITERATURE.
.

JONATHAN EDWARDS, 1703-1758.

Ox no foundation more enduring could the structure of a work upon American Literature be reared, than on the illustrious name of Jonathan Edwards-an ornament and glory not to his country only, but to his race. Of a piety as deep, as pure, as fervent, and as constant as it has ever been allowed to mortals to possess; of a singleness of purpose, which never forsook him, to make the very best of life that life is capable of; and of an intellect which, by the rare union of clearness, acuteness, and strength, has never been surpassed if ever equalled, the elder Edwards has attained a renown in both hemispheres which can never die but with our language.

He was born at East Windsor, Connecticut, on the 5th of October, 1703. His parents were the Rev. Timothy Edwards, for sixty-four years the pastor of the Congregational Church of East Windsor, and Esther Stoddard, daughter of the Rev. Solomon Stoddard, who was for more than half a century pastor of the church of Northampton, Massachusetts. He commenced the study of Latin under his father's instruction at six years of age, and entered Yale College a few days before he was thirteen. As a signal proof of his early strength of mind, it may be mentioned that in his sophomore year he read Locke's "Essay on the Human Understanding" with such interest and delight as to declare that in the perusal of it he enjoyed a far higher pleasure "than the most greedy miser finds when gathering up handfuls of silver and gold from some newly discovered treasure." That such a youth should acquit himself most honorably in his college course was to be expected, not in his studies only, but in his whole deportment and bearing. During his last year in college, very deep religious