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Page 7
_Resolved_, to be continually endeavoring to find out some new
contrivance and invention to promote the forementioned things.
_Resolved_, never to lose one moment of time, but to improve it in the
most profitable way I possibly can.
_Resolved_, to live with all my might while I do live.
_Resolved_, to be endeavoring to find out fit objects of charity and
liberality.
_Resolved_, never to do anything out of revenge.
_Resolved_, never to suffer the least motions of anger towards
irrational beings.
_Resolved_, never to speak evil of any one, so that it shall tend to his
dishonor, more or less, upon no account except for some real good.
_Resolved_, to maintain the strictest temperance in eating and drinking.
Yale in the days of Mr. Edwards was not the Yale of the closing year of
the nineteenth century. It has now 2,500 students and has had 19,000
graduates. It had a very humble beginning in March, 1702, the year
before Mr. Edwards was born. It began with one lone student. The father
of Jonathan Edwards had been greatly interested in the starting of the
college. In 1701, Rev. Mr. Russell, of Branford, a graduate of Harvard,
as was the senior Edwards, invited to his home ten other Connecticut
pastors of whom nine were graduates of Harvard. Each brought from his
library some of his most valuable books, and laying them upon Mr.
Russell's table, said: "I give these books for the founding of a college
in this colony." This produced a profound impression upon the clergymen
of Connecticut, notably upon the graduates of Harvard. The first year
the college was nominally located at Saybrook, but as there was only
one student he lived with the president at Killingworth, now Clinton,
nine miles away.
When Jonathan Edwards, a lad of twelve, entered college, there had been,
all told, only about fifty graduates. It was during the time that he was
a student that the college took the name of Yale. The first year he was
there the college was in three places at the same time because of
dissensions among the students, and the very small class graduated in
two places because neither faction would go to the other place. In all
these agitations Mr. Edwards took no part. He simply devoted himself to
his studies and followed the line of least resistance so far as taking
sides in a senseless controversy was concerned. After graduation he
remained at Yale two years for post-graduate work, mostly in theology,
and then accepted an invitation to preach for the leading Presbyterian
church in New York City; but after eight months he returned to Yale as
a tutor and remained two years.
At this time he was very severe in discipline, bending every energy to
securing the right conditions for the most and best work. This is what
he wrote in his diary when he was twenty-one:
"By a sparingness in diet, and eating, as much as may be, what is light
and easy of digestion, I shall doubtless be able to think more clearly,
and shall gain time:
1. By lengthening out my life.
2. Shall need less time for digestion after meals.
3. Shall be able to study more closely, without injury to my health.
4. Shall need less time for sleep.
5. Shall more seldom be troubled with the headache."
Mr. Edwards was twenty-three years of age when he was ordained at
Northampton as associate pastor with his grandfather Stoddard, then in
his 84th year, and the 54th year of his pastorate. Soon after this Mr.
Stoddard died and Mr. Edwards became pastor in full charge and remained
for twenty-five years. He was a great student and thinker. He rose at
four o'clock and spent thirteen hours a day in his study. It is worth
while to follow the personal intellectual habits of the man whose
descendants we are to study. When he was ready for the consideration of
a great subject he would set apart a week for it and mounting his horse
early Monday morning would start off for the hills and forests. When he
had thought himself up to a satisfactory intensity he would alight,
fasten his horse, go off into the woods and think himself through that
particular stage of the argument, then he would pin a bit of paper on
some particular place on his coat as a reminder of the conclusion he
had reached. He would then ride on some miles further and repeat the
experience. Not infrequently he would be gone the entire week on a
thinking expedition, returning with the front of his coat covered with
the scalps of intellectual victories. Without stopping for any domestic
salutations he would go at once to his study and taking off these bits
of paper in the same order in which he had put them on would carefully
write out his argument. In nothing did Jonathan Edwards stand out so
clearly as boy, youth and man as in his sacrifice of every other feature
of his life for the attainment of power as a thinker.
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