Thus, some portion of the prophecy of Dr. Jennings in his funeral sermon, from the text, “He being dead yet speaketh,” was fulfilled. “If I am not greatly deceived, the same thing will be said of him in far distant ages that is said of Abel in our text; while he is now celebrating the honours of God and of the Lamb in the new songs of heaven, how many thousands of pious worshippers are this day lifting up their hearts to God in the sacred songs that he taught them upon earth! Though his voice is not any longer heard by us, yet his words, like those of the day and night, are gone out to the end of the world. America and Europe still hear him speak, and it is highly probable they may continue to do so till Europe and America shall be no more.” [Illustration] [Illustration: Isaac Watts, D.D. _From the Bust in Dr. Williams’ Library._] [Illustration] CHAPTER XVI. Summary and Estimate of Prose Writings. In attempting any estimate of the prose writings of Watts we give the first place to his educational works. And without descending to adulation it may be fairly questioned whether any one individual in English literature has effected so much and such various work for the cause of education as Isaac Watts. As we have seen, he gave a system of logic to the universities, a very simple system, but it broke up the old trammels and chains of mere verbal logic, and taught students to look after, and how to look at things. Johnson says: “Of his philosophical pieces his ‘Logic’ has been received into the universities, and therefore wants no private recommendation. If he owes part of it to Le Clerc, it must be considered that no man who undertakes merely to methodize or illustrate a system pretends to be its author. Few books,” continues Johnson, “have been perused by me with greater pleasure than his ‘Improvement of the Mind,’ of which the radical principles may indeed be found in Locke’s ‘Conduct of the Understanding,’ but they are so expanded and magnified by Watts as to confer upon him the merit of a work in the highest degree useful and pleasing. Whoever has the care of instructing others may be charged with deficiency in his duty if this book is not recommended.” And in another paragraph of his memoir Johnson says: “For children he condescended to lay aside the scholar, the philosopher, and the wit, to write little poems of devotion and systems of instruction adapted to their wants and capacities from the dawn of reason through its gradations of advance in the morning of life. Every man acquainted with the common principles of human action will look with veneration on the writer who is at one time combating Locke, and in another making a catechism for children in their fourth year; a voluntary descent from the dignity of science is perhaps the hardest lesson that humility can teach.”