Jonathan Edwards, during a life of close study, developed one of the clearest and most powerful intellects which was ever united to so rare a degree of patience and humility. In that day of small things it could hardly have been dreamed that the Puritan preacher, who for a quarter of a century filled the Northampton pulpit, would ever rank among the giants of intellect. At the distance of one hundred years no name is more powerfully felt in the theology of America than his, while in metaphysics, and in the sphere of pure thought, his position, like that of Shakspeare in literature, is one of enviable greatness. This man is not to be confounded with his son of the same name, who, though of distinguished ability, was far from equaling his father; both, however, were academic presidents, the one of Nassau Hall, at Princeton, the other of Union College; to which it may be added that Dwight, grandson of the first, was for many years the honored president of Yale. Judge Edwards is the son of Pierrepont Edwards, who was bred at Stockbridge, among the Indians. Here his father labored as missionary, having been driven from his parish by an ill-disposed people, many of whom were, it may be, like the Athenian of old, who was tired of hearing Aristides called 'the Just.' While laboring at Stockbridge, in the midst of poverty and privation, Jonathan Edwards wrote the treatise on the Freedom of the Will, the greatest of all existing polemics. A portion of the old parsonage remains in the village, and there are still shown marks and scratches on the wall, made by him, as it is said, in the night, to recall by daylight the abstruse meditations of his wakeful hours. The children learned the Indian tongue, and when Pierrepont Edwards was established at New Haven, the old sachems used to visit the boy-companion of their early days, when the pipe of peace was smoked in his kitchen in ancient form.