The winter proved one of uncommon severity. Exercise in the open air, for the sake of which, mainly, he had consented to the journey, was forbidden him for much of the time. One study and occupation after another had to be given up, yet he was reluctant to believe that his wasted strength would never return. He uttered no complaint, and walked along the last sorrowful and suffering path with deep humility, but yet with the confidence of faith. His biographer, in a striking and touching passage, thus describes his lowliness. of spirit.

"So long as our friend could hold a book, he continued to read his Hebrew Bible. One morning, after he had perused at family prayer the one hundred and fiftieth Psalm in the original, he rose to lead the devotions of the circle around him; he poured out the affluence of his imagination and his heart, in the seraphic spirit of that Psalm, calling on every thing that hath breath to praise the Lord; —' praise him with the sound of the trumpet, with the psaltery and harp'; — but when he came to the individual petitions for himself and household, his voice broke down at once, his whole style sunk from that of an angel to that of the publican, and all his words and tones were those of a stricken, bruised, crushed penitent. No other man can repeat the thoughts which he uttered, more than the sentiments of Plato can be transferred into our ruder speech. Words could not express them. They overflowed the appointed channels. They came out in the trembling lip, the curved frame, the tremulous, broken, whispering voice. While thinking of himself, he never cried out with the Apostle, 'I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith'; but when he heard the words quoted, 'Lord remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom,' he seized at them; those were just the words. Yes,' he said, I can put myself in the place of the thief." Ibid. pp. 355, 356.

When ordinary books were laid aside, he retained still his old poetic tastes, and, together with his Bible, the authors which had long been his delight ministered still to his comfort.

"On one of his last days he called for the reading of Bryant's Hymn to the Evening Wind. On several of his last Sabbaths he exclaimed, 'How I should love to hear Thine earthly Sabbaths' sung by the great congregation!' On the very Lord's day preceding his death, he asked that the doors of his room might be thrown wide open, so that

he might see the fields glistening in the sunlight, and might inhale the fresh breeze of spring. He was enchanted with the vernal scene, with the boughs putting forth their tender leaves. His soul was alive with happy thoughts, all the happier because it was the Sabbath morning. He recited the words:

'As when to them who sail
Beyond the cape of Hope, and now are past
Mozambic, off at sea northeast winds blow
Sabean odors from the spicy shore

Of Arabie the blest

'Take out Milton,' he added, and read that figure.' It was read. 'It is one of the grandest in the language,' he remarked; and another like it is in those lines:

'Sweet fields, beyond the swelling flood,
Stand dressed in living green.'

At one season of the year, the hills of Judea may be distinctly noticed, clothed in green, beyond the river.' And then he meditated on the scenes beyond the river. That was the very month when he had hoped to be in Palestine; but he was hastening onward to a holier land than Canaan of old, - fields greener than those which line the Jordan. His eyes were holden, however, that he should not know it. He did not suppose that he was soon to die. He rarely alluded to the subject of his demise. He expected, his malady and his natural hopefulness made him tenacious of his expectation, he deemed it his sacred duty to cherish the belief, which, in the influence of the mind over the body, so often makes the believed event come to pass, and some of his medical advisers encouraged him to hold fast the hope, that he might live to complete the volumes, with the plan of which his soul had been charmed. He expressed his thankfulness to his Heavenly Father for the slightest symptom of returning strength. Although the past week has been unfavorable,' he wrote on the 14th of February, yet I hope, through the mercy of God, that I am rather gaining from week to week. Even if my gain is but little, I ought to be encouraged.' But a sudden alteration came over him, on the morning of the 19th of April. At the break of the next day, about five hours before he died, it was announced to him that his end was near. The thought was new to him. But he believed it. Neither then, nor ever before in his sickness, did he utter one word of murmuring. He felt no terror. When asked if all was peace, he answered with his wonted caution: So far as I can think, it is. One of his last expressions was like the dying words of Neander, to whom he had a marked resemblance: I am weary; I am very weary.' With a clear

mind, he sent his love, his ardent love, to his old friends, expressed his unmeasured confidence in the Bible, - the first and last book of his life's study, and then he breathed out his spirit, just as an infant falls asleep. He died as he had lived, and as all who knew him expected that he would die, — humble, self-distrustful, considerate, loving. He walked thoughtful along the banks of Jordan; he stepped his feet in the waters, carefully and silently; he reserved his triumphs until he had pressed the solid ground of the other shore." Ibid. pp. 356 359.

He died at Athens, Georgia, Tuesday, April 20, 1852. The body was immediately taken to Charleston, and thence to New York and Andover, where he was, the next week, buried beside his little son, in the quiet and beautiful cemetery on the hill. A more precious burden was never borne along that grass-grown pathway; richer dust was never gathered to its kindred dust within that secluded inclosure. The form which many delighted to watch in its thoughtful movements, along the well known thoroughfares, will sleep there undisturbed till the morning of the resurrection; but his life cannot fail of accomplishing much of that for which he consecrated it to the highest objects, and his memory will be fragrant for many generations.

It was during the vacation at the Theological Seminary, that the funeral took place. On the reassembling of the students, a funeral discourse was delivered by Professor Park, from the text, The Disciple that Jesus loved. Mr. Edwards would have shrunk, almost as if wounded, from even so remote a comparison of himself with the least of the sacred company; yet never was text more fitly chosen. Seldom or never has a human life more beautifully corresponded to the example here referred to.

We find that we have left ourselves little room for gathering up the scattered threads to interweave them into a fuller and more complete estimate of his life, and of the value of his labors. But this, with many of our readers, will by no means be necessary. We might compare him with Dr. Arnold for fidelity, and enthusiasm, and devotion to the noblest purposes, and with Neander for learning, diligence, and thorough unworldliness of character; and indeed, with many more of the finer

and more generous scholars and men of our times and of other times. For, in the breadth and catholicity of his sympathies, he seemed to resemble those who differed widely from each other. But we must refer our readers to the memoir itself for a more full delineation of his character, to many elements of which we have not so much as alluded, feeling confident that the more thoroughly it is studied, the more worthy will it seem of admiration.

Of the writings of Professor Edwards, we have reserved to ourselves too little space to speak as they deserve. He never uttered a sentence for the mere sake of saying it, nor ventured a criticism for the purpose of exhibiting his own skill. In his own department of Biblical interpretation, he never disguised a difficulty, or satisfied himself with a partial explanation, nor did he state an obnoxious truth in terms less ample than it seemed to require. A hearty lover and worshipper of truth, he was less frequently seduced than most men by the "idols of the market, the theatre, or the cave." It is possible that the simplicity and directness of his writings may, at first, prevent some from fairly estimating their substantial excellence. But we value them as indicating the methods by which he was always educating himself for some higher unattained good, as well as for the truths they establish. His style is instinct with life; not a cold, though beautiful form, but a soft, pliant, breathing, living creation. One feels that he is in contact with a living mind; that a vital energy, ever active, yet not over stimulated, is causing this abundant production; the fields seem to grow more verdant as we wander through them, the trees are bowing to the earth with their load of ripe and ripening fruit, and the birds are singing among the branches.

Among the more interesting of these writings, as showing the spirit with which he came to his work, is the Inaugural Address, delivered on taking the chair of Hebrew at Andover. It is marked by his usual fullness of thought and refined taste. He delivered it at a time when all the consolations of the Book, in connection with which his instructions were to be given, were needed by him. Few who were present that day, can forget the subdued and touching tone in which he uttered the sentence near the close, "yet the experience of almost

every day warns us that the fairest earthly hopes bloom only for the grave." It was a fit caution against too sanguine expectations to any one just entering upon a new enterprise; but to his heart it had a deep significance, for he had lately been called to part with a little son, to whom he had given a name which he always loved to speak, George Herbert, and who, although not four years old, had become the almost constant companion of his father in his walks. The depth of anguish occasioned by this affliction was in accordance with the profoundness of his love, and with the hopes which he had garnered up in this child. For a long time, his heart refused to be comforted, and there is one who will always remember how an allusion, months afterward, to West's painting of "Death on the Pale Horse," seemed to strike him almost like a blow.

"Our little George," he writes after his death, "the delight of our existence, left us on Saturday morning last, at eight o'clock."—" We shall see his face no more. The dispensation is doubtless ordered in infinite justice and mercy, but now clouds and darkness seem to rest upon it. Our habitation is desolate and our hearts are sick with grief. It appears to me to be impossible to live without him. He had so identified himself with every thing which I did, that it seems like tearing away a part of my own life. I have sometimes said, with the disciples, 'Let me go and die with him."" Vol. i. p. 348.

To those who knew Professor Edwards but slightly, it might seem strange that he was listened to with so much delight as a preacher, and was called so often to address public assemblies on occasions where the graces and freedom of oratory are usually expected. But those who heard him felt the charm, though they might not be able to detect its causes. It lay not only in the richness or beauty of thought, of thought saturated with affection, but also in an indescribable heartiness and sincerity; in a high moral earnestness with which he seemed inspired, and which impelled every utterance, that sweet informing spirit which would imperceptibly melt into the heart of the hearer, and, before he was aware, allure every gentle and pious affection to meet it. His manner would perhaps, at first, be uninteresting to a stranger; and yet it was so honest and unaffected, — that countenance, with VOL. LXXVII. -NO. 160.

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