Him, and have found great peace of soul in what I hope have been the actings of faith. Some parts of the Psalms have been very comforting and refreshing to my soul. I hope God has helped me to eye His hand in this awful dispensation; to see the infinite right He has to His own, and to dispose of them as He pleases.

“Thus, dear madam, I have given you some broken hints of the exercises of my mind since the death of him, whose memory and example will ever be precious to me as my own life. O dear madam! I doubt not but I have your and my honoured father's prayers daily for me; but give me leave to entreat you both to request earnestly of the Lord, that I may never despise His chastenings, nor faint under His severe strokes, of which I am sensible there is great danger, if God should only deny me the supports that He has hitherto graciously granted.

“Oh, I am afraid I shall conduct myself so as to bring dishonour on my God, and the religion I profess! No, rather let me die this moment, than be left to bring dishonour on God's holy name. I am overcome; I must conclude, with once more begging, that as my dear parents remember themselves, they would not forget their greatly afflicted daughter (now a lonely widow) nor her fatherless children. My duty to my ever dear and honoured parents, and love to my brothers and sisters. "From, dear madam, your dutiful and affectionate daughter, "ESTHER BURR."

Edwards wrote a letter of affectionate condolence to his daughter, but it is not to be found. She writes. to him:

"PRINCETON, November 2, 1757.

"Since I wrote my mother a letter, God has carried me through new trials, and given me new supports. My little son has been sick with a slow fever ever since my brother left us, and has been brought to the brink of the grave; but, I hope in mercy, God is bringing him back again. I was enabled, after a severe struggle with nature, to resign the child with the greatest freedom. God has showed me that the children were not my own but His, and that He had a right to recall what He had

lent, whenever He thought fit, and that I had no reason to complain, or to say that God was hard with me. This silenced me. But oh, how good is God, He not only kept me from complaining, but comforted me, by enabling me to offer up my child by faith, if ever I acted faith. I saw the fulness there was in Christ for little infants, and His willingness to accept of such as were offered to Him. 'Suffer little ehildren to come unto Me, and forbid them not,' were comforting words. God also showed me, in such a lively manner, the fulness there was in Himself of all spiritual blessing, that I said, 'Although all streams were cut off, yet so long as my God lives, I have enough.' He enabled me to say, 'Although thou slay me, yet will I trust in Thee.' In this time of trial, I was led to enter into a renewed and éxplicit covenant with God, in a more solemn manner than ever before, and with the greatest freedom and delight. After much selfexamination and prayer, I did give myself and my children to God, with my whole heart. Never, until then, had I an adequate sense of the privilege we are allowed in covenanting with God. This act of soul left my mind in a great calm and steady trust in God. A few days after this, one evening, in talking of the glorious state my dear departed husband must be in, my soul was carried out in such large desires after perfection, and the full enjoyment of God, and to serve Him uninterruptedly, that I think my nature could not have borne much more. I think, dear sir, I had that night a foretaste of heaven. This frame continued, in some good degree, the whole night. I slept but little, and when I did, my dreams were all of heavenly and divine things; frequently since I have felt the same in kind, thongh not in degree. This was about the time that God called me to give up my child. Thus a kind and gracious God has been with

me in six troubles and in seven."

Edwards invited to Princeton.

The trustees of Princeton invited Edwards to accept the presidential chair. In his reply he raised many objections in relation to his personal unfitness, which were over-ruled. Leaving his family at Stockbridge till the spring, he went to Princeton, January 21, 1758, and received the most cordial welcome.

A few days after his arrival, he received the tidings of the death of his father, on January 27, 1758, in the eighty-ninth year of his age.

He Death of

Edwards.

preached from Sabbath to Sabbath in the College Hall, and prepared some papers for the students in divinity. The smallpox prevailing in the country, he was inoculated February 13; it was supposed that all danger was over, but a secondary fever set in, and he died on March 22, 1758.

"Dear Lucy," he said to one of his daughters, a little before his end, "it seems to me to be the will of God that I must shortly leave you, therefore give my kindest love to my dear wife, and tell her that the uncommon union which has so long subsisted between us has been of such a nature as I trust is spiritual, and therefore will continue for ever, and I hope she will be supported under so great a trial, and submit cheerfully to the will of God. And as to my children, you are now like to be left fatherless; which I hope will be an inducement to you all to seek a Father who will never fail you. And as to my funeral, I would have it to be like Mr. Burr's; and any additional sum of money that might be expected to be laid out that way, I would have it disposed of to charitable uses."

As the friends who stood by-expecting he would breathe his last-were lamenting his death, not only as a great frown on the College, but as having a dark aspect on the interest of religion in general, to their surprise and great comfort, he said, "Trust in God, and ye need not fear," and then fell on sleep.

Intelligence reached Mrs. Edwards as she was preparing to pay a visit to her sister, Mrs. Hopkins, at West Springfield, and to her mother, Mrs. Edwards, at Windsor, after her bereavement.

After a few days she penned the following brief note to Mrs. Burr:

"STOCKBRIDGE, April 3, 1758.

"MY VERY DEAR CHILD,-What shall I say ? A holy and good God has covered us with a dark cloud. O that we may kiss the rod, and lay our hands on our mouths! The Lord has done it. He has made me adore His goodness, that we had him so long. But my God lives, and He has my heart. O what a legacy my husband and your father has left us! We are all given to God, and there I am, and love to be. Your ever affectionate mother, "SARAH EDWARDS."

On the same sheet another daughter wrote:

"MY DEAR SISTER,-My mother wrote this with a great deal of pain in her neck, which disabled her from writing any more. She thought you would be glad of these few lines from her own hand.

"O, sister, how many calls have we one upon the back of another. O, I beg your prayers, that we, who are young in this family, may be awakened and excited to call more earnestly on God, that He would be our Father and Friend for ever.

"My father took leave of all his people and family as affectionately as if he knew he should not come again. On the Sabbath afternoon he preached from these words: We have no continuing city, therefore let us seek one to come. The chapter that he read was Acts the 20th. O how proper! what could he have done more? When he had got out of doors he turned about. 'I commit you to God,' said he, 'I doubt not but God will take a fatherly care of us, if we do not forget Him.'-I am your affectionate sister, "SUSANNAH EDWARDS."

CHAPTER XII.

Moravian troublers.

THE friendly interest manifested by Doddridge in the Methodists and Moravians did not exempt him from the vexatious intrusion of those who had zeal. without knowledge. Moravian teachers of this order entered his flock to shake their confidence and alienate their affections. Several members of the Church at Castle Hill withdrew in consequence from its communion, causing the deserted pastor great mental disquietude and self-reproach from the fear that, in necessary absorption in other engagements, he might have neglected the souls committed to his care.

The contentions of the leaders in the work of evangelization was the occasion of much solicitude to Doddridge. At a meeting of ministers at Creaton, in Northamptonshire, January 12, 1749-50, he preached a sermon, which was published under the title, Christian Candour and Unanimity Illustrated and Urged. In the dedication to the Countess of Huntingdon, he says:

"We too generally seem to study our Bibles (if we study them at all) for amusement or ostentation, rather than practical instruction. We fix on some curious incident or high speculation, and are first ingenious to explain it where it cannot be explained, and then impassioned to defend it as if it were fundamental truth, till we beat out the sacred gold so thin that every breath of air carries it away; whilst the plain things which