Such was the lamentable state of things when the Rev. William Tennent, sen., an Irish clergyman past the middle stage of life arrived in this country, about the year 1716. After laboring for a season in the state of New York, till about 1721, he received an invitation to settle at Bensalem, where he ministered to the small Presbyterian congregation till 1726, when he was called to Neshaminy, in the same county, where he labored for the rest of his life, living till 1746, when he died, aged seventy-three. In Neshaminy the good man felt that he was called not only to discharge the duties of a preacher and pastor, but to look over the whole country, and to devise means for the extension of the cause of Christ. He had himself four sons, the subjects of divine grace, and blessed with talents for usefulness in the kingdom of the Redeemer, and he felt that when other young men rose up in the church, favored with ministerial talents, they also would need mental cultivation. Hence his determination to erect the humble building of which we now write, which was the first Presbyterian literary and theological institution in this country, the immediate parent of the college at Princeton, and from which, indeed, all similar institutions emanated. The site of the Log college is about a mile from Neshaminy creek, where the Presbyterian church has long stood. The ground near and around it lies handsomely to the eye, and the more distant prospect is very beautiful; for while there is a considerable extent of fertile, well-cultivated land, nearly level, the view is bounded to the north and west by a range of hills, which have a very pleasing appearance. Mr. Whitefield has left in his "Journal," the only description we have of the building. "The place," says he, "wherein the young men study now, is in contempt called 'the college.' It is a log-house about twenty feet long, and nearly as many broad; and to me it seemed to resemble the school of the old prophets, for their habitations were mean. That they sought not great things for themselves is plain from these passages of Scripture, wherein we are told that each of them took a beam to build them a house; and that at the feast of the sons of the prophets, one of them put on the pot, while the others went to fetch some herbs out of the field. All that we can say of most of our universities is, they are glorious without. From this despised place, seven or eight worthy ministers of Jesus have lately been sent forth; more are almost ready to be sent, and the foundation is now laying for the instruction of many others."