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Page 8
Mr. Edwards has gone into history as a theologian of the most stalwart
character. It is undeniable that he preached the most terrific doctrine
ever uttered by an American leader, but this was only the logical result
of the intellectual projection of his effort to make sacrifices in order
to benefit humanity. As a child he sacrificed everything for health and
virtue that he might have influence, and as a man he knew no other plan
or purpose in life. His masterpiece is upon the "will" which he
developed to the full in himself.
The greatest religious awakening that the Western world has ever known
was started in his church at Northampton, not over ecclesiastical
differences, or theological discussion but over a question of morality
among the young people of the town. It had to do with the impropriety of
the young ladies entertaining their gentlemen friends on Sunday evenings
and especially of their allowing them to remain to such unreasonable
hours. And the issue which ultimately drove him from his pastorate,
after twenty-five years of service, by an almost unanimous vote was
not one of ecclesiasticism or theology, but of morals among the young
people. He insisted upon vigorous action in relation to the loose and
as he thought immoral reading of the youth of the town. As this involved
some prominent families he had to retire from the pastorate.
The views of Mr. Edwards on pastoral work reveal the singleness of
purpose of the man as a student and thinker. He never made pastoral
calls. He had no criticism to make of those pastors who had talent for
entertaining people by occasional calls, but as he had no gifts in that
direction he regarded it advisable to use his time in cultivating such
talents as he had. Whoever wished to talk with him about personal, moral
or religious conditions found in him a profitable counsellor. In his
preaching, which was equal to anything America has ever known, he made
no attempt to win his hearers by tricks of oratory or by emotional
appeals, though he had a most fascinating personality. He was six feet
in height, slender in form, with a high, broad forehead, eyes piercing
and luminous and a serene countenance. In the pulpit he was graceful,
easy, natural and earnest, though he had little action. He rested his
left elbow on the pulpit and held his manuscript in his left hand while
with his right he turned the leaves. In him were combined the
intellectual and moral vigor which are calculated to make the progenitor
of a great family.
CHAPTER IV
THE CHILDREN'S START IN LIFE
The eleven children of Jonathan Edwards had an unenviable start in life
so far as their environment was concerned. The oldest was still in her
teens when serious trouble arose in the parish at Northampton. Mr.
Edwards was pastor at Northampton for twenty-five years, and a more
fruitful pastorate or a more glorious ministerial career for a quarter
of a century no man could ask. He made that church on the frontier the
largest Protestant church in the world, and it was the most influential
as well as the best known. There began the greatest religious awakening
of modern times. In his church, resulting from his preaching, began a
revival which stirred into activity every church in Massachusetts, every
church in the colonies, and most of the Protestant churches of Great
Britain and Europe.
After this long and eminently successful pastorate, Mr. Edwards
preached a sermon about the reading and conversation of young people
upon subjects of questionable propriety, which led to such local
excitement that upon the recommendation of an ecclesiastical council
he was dismissed by a vote of 200 to 20, and the town voted that he
be not permitted on any occasion to preach or lecture in the church.
Mr. Edwards was wholly unprepared financially for this unusual
ecclesiastical and civic action. He had no other means of earning a
living, so that, until donations began to come in from far and near,
Mrs. Edwards, at the age of forty, the mother of eleven children with
the youngest less than a year old, was obliged to take in work for the
support of the family. After a little time Mr. Edwards secured a small
mission charge in an Indian village where there were twelve white and
150 Indian families. Here he remained eight years in quiet until, a few
weeks before his death, he was called to the presidency and pastorate of
Princeton, then a young and small college.
The last four years of their life at Northampton were indescribably
trying to the children. Human nature was the same then as now, and
everyone knows how heavily the public dislike of a prominent man bears
upon his children. The conventionalities which keep adults within bound
in speech and action are unknown to children, and what the parents say
behind a clergyman's back, children say to his children's face. This
period of childhood social horror ended only by removal to a missionary
parsonage among the Stockbridge Indians, where they lived for eight
years. Their playmates were Indian children and youth. Half the children
of the family talked the Indian language as well and almost as much as
they did the English language.
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