at Northampton but throughout the churches of New England, has abundantly vindicated his position in that lamentable controversy. But at the time it was a sore trial to him. Driven from his place of labor, unpopular by reason of his well-known views on the qualifications for church membership, with a large family dependent upon him, even his strong faith was hardly sufficient to sustain him as he thought how little likely the churches were to employ him in their service. It was at this time and in such circumstances that he received an invitation from the little church in the village of Stockbridge, then containing but twelve white families, to become the successor of Sergeant. And this was Jonathan Edwards, whose descendants, from Minnesota to Maine, have lately collected at Stockbridge to rehearse together the story of the life and virtues of their great ancestor, and to erect an abiding monument to his memory.
But he was not too great in his own estimation to accept the place now offered him. Without any sense of wounded pride or mortified self-esteem, he stepped down from his high and conspicuous position at Northampton and became a missionary to the Indians in the wilderness. He gave himself at once with earnestness to the work before him. In his preaching, however, he made use of an interpreter. He deemed himself too old, perhaps, and was too much occupied with metaphysical and theological studies, to give the necessary time for mastering the difficult language of the Indians. Besides, that language was very deficient in words expressive of moral and religious ideas. Edwards therefore thought it desirable for the Indians to learn the English tongue, and through it receive their instruction.
Allusion has been made to the studies in which Edwards was engaged while prosecuting his work as a missionary. It would be leaving out a most important item in the history of Stockbridge not to speak of these. When the Indians and the mission to them are forgotten, this quiet village among the mountains will he memorable on account of the work which this eminent man wrought there at the time almost in secrecy and silence. Edwards, on coming to Stockbridge, purchased the house which Sergeant had erected, but which the latter soon left for another he bad built half a mile northward, upon a hill which overlooks the village. The house he first built still stands, and until quite recently was little changed from its original appearance. It is the oldest house in Stockbridge, having been built in 1737. It stands near the centre of the village, fronting the south, and commanding a fine view of the beautiful meadows, and of Monument Mountain, and other elevations in that direction. The room on the left hand, as one enters the door-way, is pointed to as the library, perhaps serving also as parlor. On either side of the ample chimney there was, until quite lately, a closet, in dimensions about four feet by six. Tradition had it that the closet in the southwest corner of this room, with its one little window looking toward the west, was Edwards's study-his intellectual workshop--where he wrote his world-famous treatise on the "Freedom of the Will," as well as those other treatises on "Original Sin," "God's Last End in Creation," and the "Nature of True Virtue," which are hardly less celebrated. It is one of the finest moral and intellectual pictures which the history of the race affords--that of this man, who ranks with Plato and other greatest masters
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