conferring a practical good. In his own case, the effect was to diminish the healthy tone of both body and mind, and to produce for a time gloomy and despondent feelings.

After leaving Andover, in 1830, he spent nearly six years in Boston. These were among the most laborious, yet happy and hopeful, years of his life. He had been married to one whose tastes and acquisitions were like his own. The way was thus open to that profound domestic tranquillity and enjoyment, from which he derived so much strength and hope. The years spent in Boston were marked by literary plans and labors. The American Quarterly Register, established at first as the journal of a benevolent society, assumed, under his guidance, an entirely new character, and became the depository of a vast amount of information on all topics connected with education, literature, and the progress of society. Besides a large amount of statistics, every number contained biographical sketches and essays of permanent value. It is easy to see, in glancing over the volumes, each one becoming more ample than its predecessor, what an unusual amount of editorial labor must have been required in the preparation of them. He says, in one of his letters, "My wrist gets worn out with my continual use of the pen ;" and in another, "I have written eight hours to-day-four sheets of literary notices;" and in another still," It has been an immense labor to prepare the statistical tables of the Register. This devolves on me chiefly. I have spent six hours to-day in correcting one page of a proofsheet." For a time, the space devoted to statistics in this Quarterly left a wrong impression on the minds of most who read it, concerning the character of its editor, as if he were a mere antiquarian, a collector of facts, to whom one fact was about as valuable as another. Nothing could be farther from the truth. The fine poetic element, the love of all noble and inspiring truth, was not even held in abeyance, much less smothered, during this period of drudging toil. But he had a distinct idea, which he wished to carry out in the Register, and which involved large labor with small reward and much self-denial.

"I have a strong hope," he once wrote, "that the Register may be

made what no work in the English language has ever been, and that it may be more valuable for posterity than for the present age. I am ready to give up my life for coming generations. But I cannot succeed in making this publication what it ought to be, the best in Christendom, unless I become very parsimonious in regard to my time. All the men who have been very useful in the world, have taken sacred care of their minutes. Indeed, I now feel very unhappy if I am long away from my appropriate employment. Idleness, or simple visiting, even with those whom I love most, has very few charms for me. I have had vacations for ten years, and they are now closed. The sources of my pleasure must be deep, or I shall enjoy very little. Visiting disqualifies me for prayer and meditation. Therefore I must renounce it, where it has no useful purpose, and find my pleasure in my duty." Again he wrote: "The Register will give an opportunity to speak to an audience of twenty-five hundred ministers and scholars, who will carry an influence to two millions of other minds."

Vol. i. pp. 78, 79.

Mr. Edwards had an insatiable love of knowledge in every department and branch, and stored his mind with an everaccumulating mass of facts, but only that he might use this knowledge in the furtherance of his literary and benevolent projects. While engaged laboriously upon a publication demanding such constant and careful oversight, he attempted, also, to establish another periodical, of a different and higher character. The first number of the American Quarterly Observer appeared in July, 1833. Its object was to occupy ground common to various religious denominations, and to discuss the subjects of politics, philosophy, literature, and morals, on the most enlarged basis, as connected with the development of Providence, and the well-being of the whole human race. He meant, by bringing the great truths of Christianity to bear directly upon the various topics proper for such a work, to elevate and purify literature, while, at the same time, he might do something to enlarge the scope of thought, to refine and elevate the taste of those by whom the work would be most largely supported. It has been regretted that this plan, conceived in so catholic a spirit, promising enough of the popular in the subject and mode of discussion, and as much of the profound and exhaustive as could be obtained from a wide circle of able contributors, could not

have been more amply sustained. Some of Mr. Dana's choicest essays first appeared here, and not a few delicate and beautiful criticisms by the editor himself. We doubt still whether any better plan could be devised of a Review neither merely learned and professional, nor limited by denominational sympathies, and yet imbued more entirely with a religious element, than would be expected in a strictly literary or scientific work. Two Reviews, with much of a common spirit, though with different purpose, could not be sustained by the class of patrons on which both would mainly rely; and, in 1835, the Quarterly Observer became united with the Biblical Repository, of which work Mr. Edwards remained editor, until its place of publication was removed to the city of New York. While speaking of his editorial labors, we may as well state, that when the Bibliotheca Sacra was established at Andover, in 1844, he assumed the charge of it in connection with Professor Park; a charge which he did not relinquish until he left Andover for the last time. The labor which he performed in connection with all these periodicals was large, incessant, anxious, and distracting. Hardly a single number of these Reviews was issued, without bearing ample marks of his diligence, fidelity, and sound judgment, in elaborate essays, or in minor criticism, and in the full account of the current literature and science of the world, often amassed with a labor and care quite unsuspected by those who glanced hastily at the result. Had he concentrated more energy upon fewer articles, had he diffused his strength with less liberality, he would doubtless have left productions more finished and of yet greater fulness and vigor. Perhaps he himself began at last to feel, that he had been too benevolent and careless. He had for several years, indeed, been concentrating his energies upon studies most precious to him, and, had he lived longer, would have shown with what richness and beauty he could bring the rich materials of knowledge and wisdom to bear in illustra tion of his chosen pursuit. His connection with the press, although so constant, was always subservient to the claims of some other duty which served as the main employment of his life. When it was too late, we think he felt that he had spared himself too little. We cannot forget the mingled

satisfaction and sadness with which he remarked, a few days before starting on his last journey southward, that "he had done with the Bibliotheca Sacra, except as an occasional contributor." He seemed to feel at last, what others had long felt, that he had overworked himself, and to be glad of a prospect of rest. We need not speak more fully of the learning, the comprehensiveness, the variety of discussion, the delicate taste, and sound judgment, exhibited in the Review which he edited for so many years. His object was to concentrate all the talent he could command, and, at any rate, to admit nothing which his own labor could supply, to fulfil the expectations of others, or satisfy his own still more severe taste.

In the autumn of 1837, Mr. Edwards was appointed Professor of the Hebrew Language in the Theological Seminary at Andover, and on the resignation of Professor Stuart, in 1848, was transferred to the chair of Biblical Literature. This was a situation peculiarly fitted to his tastes. It led him to studies of which he was fond, and to that intercourse with young men, through which he hoped to make his influence most widely and beneficially felt. So strongly was he attached to his position here, that he declined a solicitation to the Presidency of Amherst College, mainly, as we suppose, because he thought it would be attended with a sacrifice of his favorite pursuit, at a time when he hoped to be able to bring them to a result honorable to the Biblical learning of his country. He felt that the broadest and most liberal course of study was necessary to fit him to expound the Scriptures. Classical literature and modern science, history, and poetry, philosophy and art, antiquarian researches and modern travels, came in as a part of a regularly ordered system. of investigation, the results of which he intended to lay, as a filial contribution, at the feet of David or Paul. The Bible he did not indeed regard as intended to teach scientific truth, least of all did he consider its chief interest to lie in its poetry or mere morality. Sooner than have been suspected of that, he would have almost abjured his cherished learning, — but neither did he fear that the Scriptures and true science would be found contradictory. On the contrary, he felt that all learning and all art would but illustrate them the more fully,

and in proportion as philosophy carried its investigations wider and deeper, with a truer method and a purer spirit, would the harmony be more marked. Hence he had a plan and purpose in all his pursuits; his recreations were studies. There were with him no idle moments. He was greedy of time and opportunities, and made his enjoyments and labors to coincide. A love of poetry of the highest order was one of his strongest characteristics; and his ideas of the honor due to it, and of its necessity for the full and harmonious cultivation of the mind, were worthy of Sir Philip Sidney, or Milton, or Wordsworth. He thus writes of the influence of the study of the Hebrew Scriptures on the imagination and taste:

"The poetry of the Hebrews is sometimes represented as Oriental, an Eastern fashion, local, factitious, artificial, adapted to men living a migratory life, under an ardent sky, and not adapted to a severe European taste. But the Hebrew poetry is no such thing. It is European; it is Occidental, for all ages and generations; it is universal in its character; it is everlasting as the affections of man. It furnishes food for that imagination, whose birth was not for time, but for all eternity. Peasants can feel its force; philosophers kindle at its inspiration. Strip the Old Testament of its poetry, and it is not the Old Testament; it contains truth, but not the truth that God revealed. Take out of it the element of imagination, that which makes it poetry, and the residue is neither poetry nor prose. It may be truth, but it is not the truth which we need. No error can be greater than to call the Hebrew poetry mere costume. There are some truths which are poetry in their very nature. Men, the world over, have imagination, and love poetic truths, and these truths were necessary for them, and therefore part of the Bible is poetry." Vol. ii. pp. 223, 224.

"Amid all the drudgery and perplexities of his editorial life," says his biographer, "his rule was never to let a day pass by, without refreshing his taste with the perusal of some lines from a favorite poet, such as Virgil or Spenser." These he often read aloud of an evening to his family, with a relish and discrimination that was the delight of all who heard him. The taste thus cultivated, he brought to bear in the lectureroom, where the fulness of his mind was ever overflowing, watering and refreshing all the banks of the channel through which his instruction appropriately flowed.