exhibiting in high relief the weak and the strong points of the teaching of which Calvinism represents only one embodiment. His life, in striking contrast to that of his more celebrated contemporary, ran its course far away from the main elements of European activity. With the exception of a brief stay at New York, he lived almost exclusively in the interior of what was then the thinly-settled colony of Massachusetts.[8] His father was for nearly sixty years minister of a church in Connecticut, and his mother's father, the 'celebrated Solomon Stoddard,' for about an equal time minister of a church at Northampton, Massachusetts. Young Jonathan, brought up at the feet of these venerable men, after the strictest sect of the Puritans, was sent to Yale at the age of twelve, took his B.A. degree at the age of seventeen, and two years afterwards became a preacher at New York. Thence he returned to a tutorship at Yale, but in his twenty-fourth year was ordained as colleague of his grandfather Stoddard, and spent at Northampton the next twenty-three years of his life. It may be added that he married early a wife of congenial temper, and had eleven children.[9] One of his daughters,--it is an odd combination,--was the mother of Aaron Burr, the duellist who killed Hamilton, and afterwards became the prototype of all Southern secessionists. The external facts, however, of Edwards' life are of little interest, except as indicating the influences to which he was exposed. Puritanism, though growing faint, was still powerful in New England; it was bred in his bones, and he was drilled from his earliest years into its sternest dogmas. Some curious fragments of his early life and letters indicate the nature of his spiritual development. Whilst still almost a boy, he writes down solemn resolutions, and practises himself in severe self-inspection. He resolves 'never to do, be, or suffer anything in soul or body, more or less, but what tends to the glory of God;' to 'live with all my might while I do live;' 'never to speak anything that is ridiculous or matter of laughter on the Lord's Day' (a resolution which we might think rather superfluous, even though extended to other days); and, 'frequently to renew the dedication of myself to God, which was made at my baptism, which I solemnly renewed when I was received into the communion of the Church, and which I have solemnly ratified this 12th day of January 1723' (i. 18). He pledges himself, in short, to a life of strict self-examination and absolute devotion to what he takes for the will of God. Similar resolutions have doubtless been made by countless young men, brought up under the same conditions, and diaries of equal value have been published by the authors of innumerable saintly biographies. In Edwards' mouth, however, they really had a meaning, and bore corresponding results. An interesting paper gives an account of those religious 'experiences' to which his sect attaches so tremendous an importance.