were indeed a providential people for this crisis, and they worked a veritable moral revolution in New England and affected a most significant change in the town. In the first revival after the new minister's coming, "upwards of fifty persons above forty years of age, ten above ninety, nearly thirty between ten and fourteen, and one of four, became the subjects of the renewing grace of God." Such large numbers of converts were duly received into the church that it numbered at one time about six hundred and twenty members, and included almost the entire adult population. These persons, "with other subjects of grace, in the county of Hampshire, near the banks of the river Connecticut, were turned from a formal, cold, and careless profession of Christianity to the lively exercise of every Christian grace, and the powerful practice of our holy religion,"

according to the documents of the time. And this statement one quite readily accepts, for while Jonathan Edwards's theology had very often the dark and gloomy colouring peculiar to his time, his preaching was marked by dignity, grace, patience, and a compassion truly Christlike. Probably it was chiefly his manner, however, which made him what he is confessed to have been, the greatest preacher of his age. "His eyes," says one in writing of him, were seeing things of which he talked, and not the people to whom he spoke. He was calm and pale, he had the form of an ascetic; rapt and serious in look, it was his habit to lean upon the pulpit with marvellous eyes alight, a face illuminate from within, earnest, confident, authoritative, with nothing in his vesture or manner priestly except that his heart

was touched with the feeling of our infirmities.”

In his earnest spiritual quest, Edwards -again like Dante was constantly guided by the influence of the woman he loved. The marriage with Sarah Pierrepont was in every sense an ideal one. As one studies the life and writings of Edwards one sees evidence on every hand that in the bewilderment of the "Great Awakening," the preacher depended greatly on the character and testimony of his wife. To him was not vouchsafed experience of those wonderful visions of which others boasted, and, according to his own statement, it was only in the spiritual exaltation of his wife that he found confirmation of the truth. Thus after describing the inner moods of the working of the divine grace as she had known it, and giving to the world her religious confessions, he

exclaims, "This could have been no other than the peace of God which passeth all understanding, the joy of belief which though unspeakable is full of glory."

Of the beautiful family life of the Edwardses we catch several charming glimpses from the diary of the Reverend Joseph Emerson, of East Pepperell, Massachusetts. Ten children, a fair proportion of them girls, had come to bless the union of these two rarely idealistic spirits, and with one of these the Reverend Joseph Emerson fell desperately in love, when in the course of a return journey after Yale Commencement he stayed for a few days at Northampton. Under date of September 17, 1748, we find in Mr. Emerson's journal this, his first reference to the family of his beloved one: "In Wethersfield we met with Mr. Edwards, of Northampton, and concluded to go home with him

the beginning of the next week by the leave of Providence. We stopped and dined at Hartford, and called at Windsor upon Mr. Edwards, father to Mr. Edwards of Northampton, where we were overpersuaded to tarry over the Sabbath.

"Sat. 18. Mr. Edwards of Northampton preached A. M. from 1 Tim. 6:19. I preached P. M. Very courteously treated here.

"Tues. 20. Arrived at Northampton before night.

"Wed. 21. Spent the day very pleasantly the most agreeable family I was ever acquainted with: much of the presence of God here.

"Thurs. 22. We set out for home: Mr. Edwards was so kind as to accompany us over Connecticut River, and bring us on our way: we took our leave of him. He is certainly a great man.