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.

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 yout