y do not fall behind them in practical righteousness and
faithfulness to the convictions of duty.

Samuel Hopkins, who gave his name to the religious system in question,
was born in Waterbury, Connecticut, in 1721. In his fifteenth year he
was placed under the care of a neighboring clergyman, preparatory for
college, which he entered about a year after. In 1740, the celebrated
Whitefield visited New Haven, and awakened there, as elsewhere, serious
inquiry on religious subjects. He was followed the succeeding spring by
Gilbert Tennent, the New Jersey revivalist, a stirring and powerful
preacher. A great change took place in the college. All the phenomena
which President Edwards has described in his account of the Northampton
awakening were reproduced among the students. The excellent David
Brainard, then a member of the college, visited Hopkins in his apartment,
and, by a few plain and earnest words, convinced him that he was a
stranger to vital Christianity. In his autobiographical sketch, he
describes in simple and affecting language the dark and desolate state of
his mind at this period, and the particular exercise which finally
afforded him some degree of relief, and which he afterwards appears to
have regarded as his conversion from spiritual death to life. When he
first heard Tennent, regarding him as the greatest as well as the best of
men, he made up his mind to study theology with him; but just before the
commencement at which he was to take his degree, the elder Edwards
preached at New Haven. Struck by the power of the great theologian, he
at once resolved to make him his spiritual father. In the winter
following, he left his father's house on horseback, on a journey of
eighty miles to Northampton. Arriving at the house of President Edwards,
he was disappointed by hearing that he was absent on a preaching tour.
But he was kindly received by the gifted and accomplished lady of the
mansion, and encouraged to remain during the winter. Still doubtful in
respect to his own spiritual state, he was, he says, "very gloomy, and
retired most of the time in his chamber." The kind heart of his amiable
hostess was touched by his evident affliction. After some days she came
to his chamber, and, with the gentleness and delicacy of a true woman,
inquired into the cause of his unhappiness. The young student disclosed
to her, without reserve, the state of his feelings and the extent of his
fears. "She told me," sa