The History of Christianity by John S. C. Abbott (free children's ebooks pdf .TXT) 📖

treatise, ridiculing the idea that the soul is material. When twelve years of age, there was a remarkable revival in his father’s parish. In a letter to an absent sister, he wrote,—

“The very remarkable outpouring of the Spirit of God still continues: but I have reason to think that it is in some measure diminished; yet, I hope, not much. Three have joined the church since you last heard; five now stand propounded for admission; and I think above thirty persons come commonly on a Monday to converse with father about the condition of their souls.”

In September, 1716, when in his thirteenth year, Jonathan entered Yale College. He devoted himself assiduously to study; and the character of his mind may be inferred from the fact, that, when but fifteen years of age, he was discussing with the utmost interest such questions as “whether it were possible to add to matter the property of thought:” he argued that “every thing did exist from all eternity in uncreated idea;” that “truth is the agreement of our ideas with the ideas of God;” that “the universe exists nowhere but in the divine mind;” &c.

When about sixteen years of age, while in college, his mind seems to have settled into a calm trust in God. His theological opinions became unalterably formed. The peace which thus dawned upon his mind he describes in his diary in glowing language:—

“The appearance of every thing was altered. There was, as it were, a calm, sweet cast, or appearance, of divine glory in almost every thing. God’s excellency, his wisdom, his purity and love, seemed to appear in the sun, moon, and stars; in the clouds and blue sky; in the grass, flowers, trees; in the water, and in all nature.”

After taking his degree, he remained for two years at New Haven, studying theology; and, before he was nineteen years of age, was invited to preach in a Presbyterian church in New York. He preached with great fervor, and in the enjoyment of intense spiritual delight, for eight months, when he returned to his father’s home in East Windsor, where he continued his severe and unremitting studies. Here, with much prayer, the young Christian wrote a series of seventy resolutions to guide him in the conduct of life. We find in them the resolves,—

To act always for the glory of God and for the good of mankind in general; to lose not one moment of time; to live with all his might while he did live; to let the knowledge of the failings of others only promote shame in himself; to solve, as far as he could, any theorem in divinity he might think of; to trace actions back to their original source; to be firmly faithful to his trust; to live as he would if it were but an hour before he should hear the last trump; to strive every week for a higher and still higher exercise of grace.

In the diary of this young man of nineteen we find the following narrative: “They say there is a young lady in New Haven who is beloved of that great Being who made and rules the world; and that there are certain seasons in which this great Being, in some way or other, comes to her, and fills her mind with exceeding sweet delight; and that she hardly cares for any thing except to meditate on him; that she expects after a while to be received up where he is,—to be raised up out of the world, and caught up into heaven, being assured that he loves her too well to let her remain at a distance from him always. There she is to dwell with him, and to be ravished with his love and delight forever. Therefore, if you present all the world, with the richest of its treasures, she disregards it, and cares not for, and is unmindful of, any path of affliction.

“She has a singular purity in her affections; is most just and conscientious in all her conduct; and you could not persuade her to do any thing wrong or sinful if you would give her all this world, lest she should offend this great Being. She is of a wonderful sweetness, calmness, and universal benevolence, especially after this great God has manifested himself to her mind. She will sometimes go about from place to place, singing sweetly; and seems to be always full of joy and pleasure, and no one knows for what. She loves to be alone, walking the fields and groves; and seems to have some one invisible always conversing with her.”

This young lady, Sarah Pierrepont, eventually became the wife of Mr. Edwards. Though several congregations invited him to become their pastor, he decided to devote two more years to study before assuming the responsibilities of a parish. In June, 1724, he was appointed tutor in Yale College. The duties of this station he fulfilled with great success, devoting himself with tireless assiduity to study, practising great abstinence both from food and sleep. In February, 1727, he entered upon the office of colleague-pastor with Rev. Solomon Stoddard, his mother’s father, in Northampton, Mass., then, as now, one of the most beautiful towns in New England. Immediately after his settlement, he sought the hand of Sarah Pierrepont as his bride.

“She listened to his urgency; and on July 28, about five months after he was settled, the youthful preacher was joined in wedlock at New Haven with the wonderfully-endowed bride of his choice. She was pure and kind, uncommonly beautiful and affectionate, and notable as a housekeeper; he, holy and learned and eloquent, and undoubtedly the ablest young preacher of his time; she seventeen, he twenty-three. What was wanting to their happiness? The union continued for more than thirty years; and she bore him three sons and eight daughters.”

Rapidly the fame of the young preacher spread; for in his sermons were found a union of the closest reasoning, glowing imagination, and fervid piety. A wonderful revival of religion soon followed his earnest ministrations, exceeding any thing which had then been known in North America. Edwards wrote an account of the surprising conversions which took place, which narrative was republished in England and in Boston.

Thus the years passed rapidly, prosperously, and happily away, as his powers of eloquence and the productions of his pen extended his fame through Europe and America. But suddenly a bitter controversy arose in the church to which he ministered. The Rev. Mr. Stoddard, a man of mild character and lax discipline, had introduced to the church many who did not profess to be in heart Christians, the subjects of renewing grace. It had been tacitly assumed that the Lord’s Supper was a converting ordinance, and that any person of respectable character might unite with the church, and partake of the Lord’s Supper, as he might attend upon the preaching of the gospel. But Edwards urged that true conversion should precede admission to the communion. In these views Edwards was overborne by the majority of the church, who refused to allow him to deliver a course of lectures upon the subject. Thus, after years of a very unhappy controversy, Mr. Edwards was driven from his parish in the twenty-fourth year of his pastorate. He was drawing near the decline of life, had ten children dependent upon him, and was left without any visible means of support. The magnanimity and firmness which Mr. Edwards displayed has won for him the admiration of posterity.

In the town of Stockbridge, among the mountains of Berkshire, there was a remnant of a band of Indians called Housatonics. A few white settlers had also purchased lands, and reared their farm-houses in that region. A society in London, organized for the purpose of propagating the gospel, appointed him as missionary to these humble people. His income was so small, that it was found necessary to add to it by the handiwork of his wife and daughters, which was sent to Boston for sale.

As Mr. Edwards preached to the Indians extempore, and through an interpreter, he found more leisure for general study than he had ever before enjoyed; and from this retreat in the wilderness, during six years of intense application, he sent forth productions which arrested the attention of the whole thinking world. His renowned dissertations upon “The Freedom of the Will,” upon “God’s Last End in the Creation of the World,” upon “The Nature of True Virtue,” and on “Original Sin,” placed him at once in the highest ranks of theologians and philosophers.

While thus laboring in his humble home in the then inhospitable frontiers of Massachusetts, he was invited to the presidency of Princeton College, one of the most prominent seminaries in the country. The small-pox was raging in the vicinity, and he was inoculated as an act of prevention. The disease assumed a malignant form; and on the 22d of March, 1758, he died at Princeton, N.J., thirty-four days after his installation as president. He had attained the age of fifty-four years. Fully conscious that death was approaching, he sent messages of love to the absent members of his family. His last words were, “Trust in God, and you need not fear.”

There is probably no name in the modern history of Christianity more prominent than that of John Wesley. It is certain that the denomination of Methodists, of which he is the father and the founder, has exerted an influence in reclaiming lost souls to the Saviour second to that of no other branch of the Church of Christ. In November, 1729,—less than a hundred and fifty years ago,—John Wesley, then a young student but twenty-six years of age in Oxford University, England, with his younger brother Charles and two other students, united in a class for their own spiritual improvement. Their strict habits and methodical improvement of time led their fellow-students to give them, somewhat in derision, the name of Methodists. They accepted the name, and made it honorable.

Such was the origin of a denomination of Christians which has now become one of the largest and most influential in the world. According to the statistics given in the Methodist Almanac for 1872, the denomination now numbers, in the United States alone,—

21,086 Preachers. 1,436,396 Church-members. 193,979 Sunday-school teachers. 1,267,742 Sunday-school scholars. $64,098,104 Value of church edifices and parsonages.217

John Wesley was the son of a mother alike remarkable for her piety and her intellectual endowments. He was born at Epworth, England, on the 17th of June, 1703. At the age of seventeen, he entered the University at Oxford. Taking his first degree in 1724, he was elected fellow of Lincoln College, and graduated master of arts in 1726. He was at this time quite distinguished for his attainments, particularly in the classics, and for his skill as a logician. Being naturally of a sedate, thoughtful turn of mind, he had from childhood been strongly inclined to the Christian ministry. The teachings of his noble mother had inspired him with the intense desire of being useful to his fellow-men. Being ordained to the ministry, he was for a short time his father’s curate. Returning to Oxford still further to prosecute his studies, he expressed strong dissatisfaction at the want of zeal manifested in the Established Church for the conversion of sinners. This led him to consecrate himself with great solemnity to the more strict observance of the duties of religious life.

He formed a society for mutual religious improvement, which consisted at first only of himself, his younger brother Charles, and two others of his fellow-students. The number was, however, soon increased to fifteen. Ten years passed away with their usual vicissitudes, nothing occurring worthy of especial note. In 1735, Mr. Wesley was induced to go to Georgia to preach to the colonists there, and more especially to labor as a missionary among the Indians. The mission proved very