apart.  But beneath these arguments, which rise Alp on Alp, there lurked a quiet perception of humor, and the reductio ad absurdum, which he occasionally drives home, showed the keenness of Puritan wit.  How he must have smiled, nay even laughed, in the midst of his abstractions at that[E] metaphysical animal which illustrates the absurdity of his opponents.  When ‘The Freedom of the Will’ was finished, and the author had sent it forth to do battle, he felt that the work of his life was done.

Just at this time a deputation waited on him to solicit his acceptance of the presidency of Nassau Hall.  It was a strange sight to that rude hamlet of Stockbridge—­those reverend forms finishing their long journey at the feet of the poor exiled missionary.  When their errand was announced, he burst into tears, overcome by a sense of unworthiness, and in a subsequent letter he confirms his unfitness by reference to his ‘flaccid solids and weak and sizy fluids.’  But the demand was pressed, and Northampton learns with astonishment the exaltation of her banished pastor.  The successful deputation possessed one member of rare interest.  This was John Brainerd, who had succeeded his brother David as a missionary, and whom Edwards had met ten years before at the bedside of his dying brother.  David would have been, had both lived, the husband of Jerusha—­but now they slept side by side in Northampton burial-ground, and the surviving brother reappeared bearing this invitation.  It was one not easily resisted; and so, amid dangers and infirmity, he was fain to say,

  ‘To-morrow to fresh woods and pastures new.’

Before another spring, a higher glory awaited him; and the same year, five of his family, including the incomparable Sarah, were likewise ‘received up.’  A sad year was that to Princeton and to the church.

We have stated our opinion, that the activity of the New England mind arose from the digestion of strong doctrine; that very activity now generated a new style of preaching, which may be termed the metaphysical school.  The days of thaumaturgia were passed, and in place of discussing demonology and temptation, an appetite for subtle dogma prevailed.  I doubt if Britain and Germany, with their combined universities, could have equaled, during the last century, the New England pulpit in mental acuteness or philosophical discrimination.  A reference to Edwards recalls mention among his followers of such names as Smally, Bellamy, Emmons, and Hopkins.  Those who listened to the preaching of such men could not avoid becoming thinkers, and thought has made our country what it is.  Very possibly what is known as ’Yankee ingenuity’ arose from the thinking habits of careful sermon-hearers.  A man who could follow the subtle theories of the pulpit, could think out the most elaborate machinery.  Next to Jonathan Edwards, Dr. Emmons possessed the most philosophical mind of the age.  So severe and invincible is