to the bar he was called to a tutorship in Y'ale Col-
lege. Here he distinguished himself as an inspirit-
ing teacher. At this time he publicly devoted him-
self to the service of God.

Having pursued the study of theology with Presi-
dent Dwight, he was ordained March 5, 1806, pastor
of the First Congregational Church in New Haven,
Conn. During his pastorate of three years and ten
months two hundred persons were admitted, all but
twenty-eight by profession, into his church. His

1 Prepared by Edwaids A. Park.



ANDOVER.



1635



deep, solemn, and sonorous voice, his commanding and
imjjassioned manner, his translucent style, his vivacity
oC thought, his energy of feeling, contributed to make
him one of the most eloquent of preachers. Many
supposed that he mistook his calling when he left his
pulpit for the professor's chair. Doubtless in his
early manhood "the pulpit was his throne."

On the 28th of February, ISIO, he was inaugurated
Professor of Sacred Literature in Andover Theological
Seminary. In about two years he composed a He-
brew grammar for the immediate use of his pupils.
They copied it day by day from his written sheets.
When he printed it he was compelled to set up the
types for about half the paradigms of verbs with his
own hands.

The following letter is perhaps the earliest notice
of all his published works :

" Ta Rev. Dr. Pearson, Present, December 12, 1813 .■

*' Rev. and Dear Sir: Please to accept a copy of the Heb. Grammar I
send you, and to read it with a view to note its errora and defects, for it
has both. I have printed only about 120 copies, and have not ventured
to put any into the Library, my object being to get the aid of all the
Ileb. scholars in our land in bringing it to a state of more perfection'
before I venture to offer it to the Trustees as a classical book. Robert-
son's True and Ancient Method came too late, or I should have discussed
his principles briefly in the Preface. T shall place much dependence on
your Remarks. Pleiise to write them down.

" Your obed't servant, Moses Stu.vrt."

Eight years after writing this germinal letter he
printed his larger " Hebrew Grammar." This he re-
modeled with great painstaking, and published it in
a second edition two years after the first. Not satis-
fied with this, he re-examined all its principles anew,
wrote some of it three, four, and a small part of it
seven or eight times over, and published the third
edition five years after the second. Professor Lee, of
Cambridge University, England, speaking of this edi-
tion, said : " The industry of its author is new matter
for my admiration of him." The fourth edition of
this grammar was republished at Oxford University,
England, under the superintendence of the celebrat-
ed Professor E. B. Pusey. In correcting the proof-
sheets of the grammar Mr. Stuart read some of them
over seven times, and a few of them eleven times.

This is one example of the care which he took for
securing theaccuracy of his publications. Anotherex-
ample is found in his edition of "Newcome's Greek
Harmony of the Gospels." He published it with-
out the accents in a duodecimo and also a quarto
form. He requested the students in the seminary to
re-examine the proof-sheets of the " Harmony," and
offered a small pecuniary recompense for the detec-
tion of any, even the minutest, error in them.

In the midst of his labors on his " epoch-mak-
ing" grammar he published his "Letters to Rev.
William Ellery Channing," a work which, on the
whole, has been the most popular of all his writings.
The first edition of these letters was sold within a
week ; two other editions followed it very soon in
America, and four in England. The last American
edition was published in 1846. Perhaps Mr.



Stuart's " Commentary on the Epistle to the He-
brews" stands next to these Letters in general popu-
larity among clergymen. It was published in 1827-
28, in two octavo volumes. It has passed through
four editions in America, and perhaps twice as many
in England. The celebrated Dr. John Pye Smith
characterized it as " the most important present to
the cause of sound Biblical interpretation that has
ever been made in the English language." His
commentaries on the Epistle to the Romans and on
the Apocalypse are even more elaborate than his
work on the Hebrews.

All his published writings cannot be here enumer-
ated. Among them are more than twenty volumes ;
fourteen pamphlets; thirty-four articles containing
fifteen hundred pages in the American Biblical Re-
pository ; fourteen articles containing four hundred
and ninety pages in the Bihliotheca Sacra; thirty-
three important articles in other periodicals. The
pamphlets and periodical essays occupy more than
two thousand octavo pages.

The publications of Mr. Stuart fail to exhibit the
large proportions of the man. He was greater than
his books. His greatness was most conspicuous in
his lecture-room. Hundreds of his pupils will in-
dorse the words of Dr. Francis Wayland, a late
President of Brown University, who said : " I have
never known any man who had so great power of en-
kindling enthusiasm for study in a class. It mat-
tered not what was the subject of investigation, the
moment he touched upon it it assumed an absorbing
interest in the eyes of all of us. I do not think that
there was one of us who would not have chosen to
fast for a day rather than to lose one of his lectures."

He was the inspiring teacher of more than seventy
presidents or professors in our highest literary insti-
tutions, of more than a hundred missionaries to the
heathen, of about thirty translators of the Bible into
foreign languages. Several of our most important
volumes pertaining to Biblical literature were begun
by his pupils " in the bosom of his family."

From the fact that he was the pioneer in familiar-
izing our clergymen with Hebrew and German learn-
ing, and thus opening a new era in our theological
history; from the fact that by the wonderful mag-
netism of his character he quickened the literary
zeal of men who afterward became leaders of popu-
lar thought; from the fact that he prepared more
than fifteen hundred of his pupils for appreciating
the richness of the Bible in its original languages,
and elucidated those languages in a fresh and attrac-
tive way, he has been called " The Father of Biblical
Literature in our Land." In no small degree he de-
serves to be honored as a father of Biblical litera-
ture in Great Britain also. His influence is the
more noticeable as his life was a perpetual struggle
with infirm health, and he was wont to remark that he
never allowed himself to work as a real student more
than three hours in the day.



1636



HISTORY OF ESSEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.



Bela Bates Edwards, D.D.,' was born in South-
ampton, Mass., July 4, 1802, and died in Athens,
Georgia, April 20, 1852, aged forty-nine years, nine
months, sixteen days. His ancestors were among the
first settlers of Springfield and Northampton, Mass.
His grandparents were parishioners of Jonathan
Edwards in Northampton ; his maternal grandmother
was for some time an inmate in Jonathan Edwards'
family, and transmitted to her descendants no small
degree of the virtues derived from her pastor's in-
struction and example. The paternal grandfather of
Professor Edwards was a soldier in two colonial ar-
mies, one of which captured Louisburg in 1745, and
the other defeated Burgoyne in 1777. During his
boyhood Prof. Edwards labored on his father's farm
and enjoyed the truly intelligent society of his fathei-'s
household. While thus laboring, he devoted every
leisure hour to his books. He fitted for college partly
under the guidance of bis pastor. Rev. Vinson Gould ;
partly under that of his pastor's wife, a lady of re-
markable learning, who prepared several young men
for college; partly under the special care of Rev.
Moses Hallock, of Plainfleld, Mass., a distinguished
teacher in that day. He was graduated at Amherst
College in 1S24 ; taught an academy in Asbfield, Mass.,
in 1825 ; spent the year 1825-26 as a member of An-
dover Theological Seminary ; was then called to a
tutorship in Amherst College; passed two years in
that ofliice ; returned to the seminary in 1828 ; was
graduated there in 1830, having held an exceptionally
high position in a class of exceptional ability. Be-
fore he returned to the seminary three oflices were
pressed upon him, — he was invited to be a professor
in Amherst College, the assistant secretary of the
American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Mis-
sions, the assistant secretary of the American Educa-
tion Society. The last of these ofiices appeared to
him the least honorable, but with his characteristic
modesty he accej>ted it. He continued to discharge
its duties while he was a member of the seminary, and
when ihe office of the society was removed from An-
dover to Boston he removed his residence to the
city.

In Boston he spent five years and a half of his busy
life, managing the details of his office, and at the
same time taking the principal charge of the Ameri-
can Quarterly RegMer, a periodical which he made
to bristle with statistics. In 1833 he founded the
American Quarterly Observer, which he afterwards
united with the American Biblical Repository, which
he subsequently merged into the Bibliotheca Sacra.
For these periodicals he wrote uncounted essays and
reviews, translated various articles from the German
and other languages, and conducted an extensive cor-
respondence in order to enlist youthful writers in
literary work.

He was thus a benefactor of the young. He can-

' Prepared by Rev. William Edwards Park, Gloversville, N. Y.



not be said to 1-ave founded all the periodicals
which he edited, but he originated new plans for them
all, and in process of time became the chief supporter
of them all. His conscientiousness in editing them
is illustrated by the fact that, in order to write two
paragraphs in a review of a scientific work, he once
read the whole of an elaborate treatise on geology.
Throughout his life he superintended the publication
of thirty-one octavo volumes of periodical literaiure,
and in these volumes inserted many paragraphs, which
he wrote with scrupulous care and iu exquisite taste.

While Mr. Edwards was thus promoting the cause
of literature in his periodicals, he was incessant in
his efforts for the literary and moral improvement of
society at large. His published writings were numer-
ous. Among them were two admirable school-
books — the "Eclectic Reader" and the "Introduc-
tion to the Eclectic Reader" — the "Biography of
Self-taught Men " (a volume republished in Eng-
land as well as this country), the " Missionary
Gazeteer," the " Memoir of Rev. Ellas Cornelius,
D.D.," the " Introductory Essay" to the " Memoir of
Henry Martyn," and valuable "Notes'' to the Memoir
which he edited with rare fidelity. He united with
Professor Park in translating and publishing a vol-
ume of "Selections from German Literature;" with
Dr. Samuel H. Taylor in translating and publishing
the "Larger Greek Grammar" of Dr. Kiihner; with
Dr. Sears, afterward President of Brown University,
and Professor Felton, afterward president of Harvard
College, in publishing a volume entitled "Classical
Studies." During a large part of his life he was a
trustee of Abbot Academy, and a leading trustee of .j
Amherst College, — an institution of which he was ur-
gently solicited to be president. The founders of
the seminary at South Hadley and of Williston Acad- |
emy acknowledged their obligation to him as their j
trusted adviser. Perhaps no man was so familiarly ac- I
quainted as he with the policy and the needs of our
colleges and higher schools. He formed a plan, and
expended much of his strength iu toiling, for the es-
tablishment of a Puritan Library and Museum in i
Boston, and the present library in the Congrega-
tional house may be looked upon as in large degree a
monument to him. i

His philanthropic labors were not performed in a
perfunctory way. He devoted his whole sensitive j
nature to them. When the Choctaws and Cherokees |
were driven fi'om the graves of their father.-i, when
the British forced the opium trade upon China, his
gentle spirit was roused to unwonted indignation,
and it seemed to those who heard his utterances that
he was the one oppressed. His deepest sympathies,
however, were with the enslaved African. His en-
thusiastic desire for the freedom of the bondmen was \
developed as early as 1825, and it never left him. A \
sense of the wrong done to the negroes burned like i
fire in his bones. For several months he felt anxious 1
to devote his entire life to the African cause. After •



1637



ho had decided that it was not his duty to do so, he
found that he could not resume his interest in study
until he forcibly abstained from thinking on the sub-
ject. The first address which he ever delivered from
the pulpit was on the evils of slavery ; his first
"Fourth of July" oration was on the same theme;
so was the first pamphlet which he ever published.
For twenty-six years he was an unwavering friend of
the Colonization Society. The secretary of the
Massachusetts Branch of that institution declared
that the Branch was kept alive, during its earliest
years, mainly by Mr! Edwards' efforts. He was one
of the founders of "The American Union for the Re-
lief and Improvement of the Colored Race," and gave
the greater part of two years' work to the establish-
ment of that society, which, by its appeals and pub-
lished statistics, roused general attention to the evils
of slavery, and finds its work grandly continued by
the "American Missionary Association " of the pres-
ent day. This Association was in some degree a result
of the antecedent " Union." As Mr. Edwards was
anxious at one time to spend his life in the service of
the enslaved, so he was anxious at another time, but
finally was restrained from gratifying his desire, to
spend his life as a missionary of the American Board.
He was a close friend of Jeremiah Evarts, Samuel
Hubbard, Kufus Anderson, and others who were most
intimately connected with the board.

As a preacher, Mr. Edwards was not popular with
the masses, but was highly prized by the more intelli-
gent men. His natural diflidenee sometimes em
barrassed him, his voice was not strong, his gestures
not graceful, he had ihe " student's nearsightedness,"
which compelled him to keep his eyes close to his
manuscript. But there was an earnestness in his
manner, a delicacy in adjusting the light and shade
upon the idea which he was developing, a tender yet
powerful sympathy with his liearers, making him yearn
to have them see his theme as he saw it, and feel
about it as he felt. Behind his utterances there was
a pure and large personality which overcame all elo-
cutionary defect, changed his diffident manner to one
of persuasive eloquence, and enabled him to hold
an intellectual audience spell-bound. The day of his
preaching in the Andover Chapel was a " high day ''
for the auditors.

We have not yet approached the more important
part of Mr. Edwards' life-work. In 1837 he was ap-
pointed Professor ofthe Hebrew Language in Andover
Theological Seminary. In 1848 he was elevated to the
Profe-sorship of Sacred Literature in the Semi-
nary, — the office previously occupied by Professor
Moses Stuart. For this office he had eminent quali-
fications. In fact, he began unconsciously to prepare
himself for it in his early childhood. Before he was
eleven years old he had read through the Bible seven
times, and all of Dr. Scott's " Notes " twice. At the
age of twenty-two he began the study of Hebrew,
which he pursued almost daily as long as he lived.



He made immense acquisitions in philology, solely in
order to qualify himself for the task of Biblical inter-
pretation. That he might understand Wicklifle's
translation of the Bible, he studied the old Saxon of
Chaucer. In order to familiarize himself with Greek
words and particles used in the New Testament, he
read the tragedies of ^Eschylus. He studied Arabic,
Syriac and various dialects cognate with the Hebrew.
He mastered the minutise of interpretation by cor-
recting proof-sheets of Greek and Hebrew writings.
Desiring to enlarge his acquaintance with the science
of Biblical interpretation, he read German authors
until their words became to him as his mother tongue.

His manner in the lecture-room was singularly
foscinating. He had a clear and exact sen.se of the
meaning of a Scriptural passage, traced out in the
original the finer modifications of its import, saw at
once the emphatic expression to which the preceding
paragraphs contributed, and enthusiastically led the
minds of his pupils up to the full height of the poet's
or prophet's meaning. Some of his scholars can even
now remember his rebuke when a commonplace
translation was presented, — "Such a meaning is
jejune and frigid. It does not come up to the splen-
dor of ihe words." The late Professor John N. Putnam,
one of Dr. Edwards' pupils, wrote concerning his
teacher : " Indeed it was by no means alone by what
he said that he instructed us, but by what he loas in the
lecture-room. He formed us by a calm and constant
influence that dropped as the rain and distilled as the
dew. By some it was not felt at first, but it grew upon
us silently day by day, and we found at the year's
end that we had gained more than our note-books
could show, — a greater fineness and precision of view,
a calmer and surer habit of mind. He taught us in
himself how often the perception of the final truth
may depend on the moral feeling more than on logical
keenness."

As soon as Mr. Edwards took the professorship at
Andover he began to execute the broad plans which
he had formed in earlier life. He began to prepare a
Commentary on Habakkuk, Job, the Psalter, and the
First Epistle to the Corinthians ; also an Introduc-
tion to the Old and New Testaments. He began to
collect the gems which he might insert into their fit-
tiug caskets, and to gather into a uniform series of
works the results of his multifarious reading. The
hopes of literary men, however, were disappointed by
the pulmonary disease which terminated his labors on
earth. One of his friends has remarked : " The
day of hia entrance on his professorship reminded me
of the sun rising upon the seminary ; the day of his
burial reminded me of an Andover sunset."

If this man of restless energy and far-seeing pru-
dence had devoted his life to the acquisition of
wealth, he might have amassed such treasures as
would have been conspicuous in even the rich valley
of the Merrimack. His wealth was his character.
Other men might possess his unconquerable industry,



1638



HISTOKY OF ESSEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.



but we have yet to find the man who can leave upon
others tlie exact impression which Dr. Edwards left.
It is impossible to portray him as he seemed to those
about him, or transfer to other minds the impression
which was stamped by his very presence. His apti-
tude for Biblical interpretation gave unmistakable
signs of genius, but it was not a merely intellectual
attribute. Genius may get nearer to the throne when
she rises higher than the intellect, and takes her seat
in the moral powers. It awakens admiration, not so
much for the mental faeullies, as for the man who
directs them. A nature uncommonly disinterested,
profoundly reverential ; an originality of feeling more
than of thought, a rare combination of apparently
opposite qualities ; great strength of purpose with an
exquisite refinement of character and taste; a pro-
found humility, with self-reliance in reserve, ready for
the proper moment ; a union of strong practical
sense with deep imaginative and poetic instincts ; a
singularly active mind, joined to a richly contempla-
tive one; good reasoning power, animated by the
warmest emotions; and, withal, a tender-hearted
humor that played like a sunbeam around his lofty
meditations, — -all these elements gave a singular in-
terest to Dr. Edwards' character. Beyond this, there
was a fascination which no written description can
explain, a mysterious something to which the heart
responded, but which the mind could not analyze.

A Memoir of Prof. Edwards, seven of his sermons,
and sixteen of his addresses and lectures were pub-
lished after his death, in two volumes. They contain
instructive extracts from the papers which he wrote
during his tour through England, Scotland, France,
Germany, aud Italy in 1846 and 1847. He was mar-
ried in 1831 to Miss Jerusha W. Billings, daughter of
Col. Charles E. Billings, of Conway, Mass., and de-
scended from clergymen, among whom are Richard
Salter Storrs, of Longmeadow ; Solomon Stoddard, of
Northampton; Timothy Edwards, of East Windsor;
John Williams, of Deerfield ; Eleazer and Richard
Mather.

Samuel Haevey Taylor, LL.D.,' was born Octo-
ber 3, 1807, and died January 29, 1871, aged sixty-
three years, three months, and twenty-six days. He
was descended from Scotch Covenanters, who estab-
lished themselves in the old township of Londonder-
ry, New Hampshire. Mr. Horace Greeley says that
probably " more teachers now living trace their de-
scent to the Scotch pioneers of Londonderry than to
any equal number anywhere else." In the single
State of New Hampshire six descendants of these
pioneers " have been Governors of the State, nine
have been members of .Congress, five, judges of the
Supreme Court, two, members of the Provincial Con-
gress, and one of these was a signer of the Declara-
tion of Independence."

Mr. Taylor is supposed to have derived his Chris-



' Prepared by Prof. Edwardd A. Park.



tian name from Samuel Harvey, a youthful hero who
distinguished himself at the celebrated siege of Lon-
donderry in Ireland.

After an eventful childhood and boyhood, Mr. Tay-
lor entered Dartmouth College, where he was con-
spicuous for his iron diligence and mental grasp.
After his graduation, in 1832, he entered the Theolog-
ical Seminary at Andover. Professor Stuart and Dr.
Edward Robinson often expressed their admiration
of his zeal and accuracy in his Hebrew and Greek
studies. Dr. Leonard Woods had confidence in his
theological views, for Mr. Taylor was an early con-
servative in theology. His pastor and father-in-law
was an intimate friend of Dr. Daniel Dana, and
through life Mr. Taylor retained the high esteem of
Dr. Dana as well as Professor Stuart. His fellow-
students, as much as his instructors, trusted him as an
interpreter of the Bible and as a theologian. With
such antecedents he was called from the seminary to
a tutorship in Dartmouth College. This call appeared
to be an omen that his future course would be a lit-
erary one. He remained in his tutorship about two
years, and returned to Andover so as to receive his
regular diploma in the autumn of 1837. Before he
acquired his high reputation as an instructor and dis-
ciplinarian at Dartmouth College, he had won golden
opinions as an assistant teacher in Phillips Academy,
Andover. He was chosen principal of this academy
and began to discharge the duties of his new office
near the close of his theological studies.

He might have received ampler emoluments in oth-
er schools, but the trustees of the academy recognized
his peculiar qualifications for this school. They saw
that he united accuracy in the details of classical lit-
erature with an enthusiasm in its life-giving spirit ;
an uncommon quickness of perception with an un-
common solidity of judgment ; a singular devotion
to the Greek and Roman classics with a general in-
terest in scholarly pursuits and the affairs of life. In
a peculiar degree he united the factitious with the
natural qualifications for a teacher. In several par-
ticulars he resembled his great predecessor, Eliphalet
Pearson. Like Pearson, he had a stalwart frame and
sonorous voice. It may be said of him, as was said
of another: "The commander was visible and vocal
in him." His personal appearance gave him a right
to his Christian name — " Samuel Harvey." When
he was directing the movements of the "Phillips fire-
engine," he spoke and looked like a military general.
Indeed, he seemed to have a decided military taste.
His dignified presence and expressive emphasis gave
him one kind of power. Another kind was given him
by his reputation for trustworthiness ; — this reputation
was the fruit of his previous success, and this success
was the means of his continuing to succeed. Before
he became the principal of the academy it was not