Only two Americans established a considerable and permanent reputation in the world of European thought prior to the present century,--Benjamin Franklin and Jonathan Edwards. In 1736, Dr. Isaac Watts published in England Mr. Edwards' account of the beginning of the great awakening in the Connecticut valley. Here more than a century and a half ago, when the colonies were small, their future unsuspected and the ability of their leaders unrecognized, Jonathan Edwards "erected the standard of Orthodoxy for enlightened Protestant Europe." Who can estimate the eloquence of that simple fact? Almost everything of his which was published in the colonies was speedily republished in England. Of what other American philosopher and theologian has this been true? Here are a few of the tributes to Mr. Edwards: _Daniel Webster_: "The Freedom of the Will" by Mr. Edwards is the greatest achievement of the human intellect. _Dr. Chalmers_: The greatest of theologians. _Robert Hall_: He was the greatest of the sons of men. _Dugald Stewart_: Edwards on the Will never was answered and never will be answered. _Encyclopaedia_: One of the greatest metaphysicians of his age. _Edinburgh Review_: One of the acutest and most powerful of reasoners. _London Quarterly Review_: His gigantic specimen of theological argument is as near to perfection as we may expect any human composition to approach. He unites the sharpness of the scimetar and the strength of the battle-axe. _Westminster Review_: From the days of Plato there has been no life of more simple and imposing grandeur than that of Jonathan Edwards. _President McCosh, of Princeton_: The greatest thinker that America has produced. _Lyman Beecher_: A prince among preachers. In our day there is no man who comes within a thousand miles of him. _Griswold's Prose Writers_: The first man of the world during the second quarter of the eighteenth century. _Hollister's History of Connecticut_: The most gifted man of the eighteenth century, perhaps the most profound thinker in the world. _Moses Coit Tyler_: The most original and acute thinker yet produced in America. This is the man whose intellectual life has thrilled in the mental activity of more than 1,400 men and women of the past century and a half, and which has not lost its virtue or its power in all these years. England and Scotland are not wont to sit at our feet even in this day, and yet they sat at the feet of Jonathan Edwards as in the presence of a master when he was a mere home missionary, living among the Indians, to whom he preached every Lord's day. The birth of fame is always an interesting study. It is easy to play the part of a rocket if one can sizzle, and flash, and rise suddenly in darkness, but to take one's place among luminaries and shine with permanent brilliancy is so rare an experience as to present a fascinating study.