and Fletcher were our Damon and Pythias. The memorable occurrence of our childhood was the advent of a new Waverley novel, and of our youth a fresh Edinburgh Review. We loved plum color, because poor Goldy was vain of his coat of that hue, and champagne, partly be cause Schiller used to drink it when writing; we saved orange-peel because the author of the "Rambler" liked it, and put ourselves on a course of tar-water, in imitation of Berkeley. Roast pig had a double relish for us after we had read Elia's dissertation thereon. We associated goldfish and china jars with Gray, skulls with Dr. Young, the leap of a sturgeon in the Hudson with Drake's "Culprit Fay," pine-trees with Ossian, stained-glass windows with Keats (who set one in an immortal verse), fortifications with Uncle Toby, literary breakfasts with Rogers, waterfowl with Bryant, foundlings with Rousseau, letter-writing with Madame de Sévigné, bread-and-butter with the author of Werther, daisies with Burns, and primroses with Wordsworth. Mrs. Thrale's acceptance of Piozzi was a serious trouble to our minds; and whether "little Burney" would be happy after her marriage with the noble émigré was a problem that made us really anxious until the second part of her Diary was procurable and relieved our solicitude. An unpatriotic antipathy to the Pilgrim Fathers was quelled by the melodious pæan of Mrs. Hemans; and we kept vigils before a portrait of Mrs. Norton, at an artist's studio, with a chivalric desire to avenge her wrongs. RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. JONATHAN EDWARDS. [It is a somewhat surprising fact that America should produce, in its pioneer days, a metaphysical thinker who for logical power and mental ability has never been surpassed in this country, if in the world. Such a thinker was Jonathan Edwards, born at Windsor, Connecticut, October 5, 1703. His celebrated work on "The Freedom of the Will" exhibits a subtilty of thought and an exhaustive accuracy of reasoning which no philosophical logician has ever exceeded. His doctrine that the principle of necessity is compatible with freedom of the will and with human responsibility is worked out with the closest and most searching logic, and proves its point as clearly as anything can be proved which depends upon an ideal conception as its basis. We select a short passage from this notable argument, together with some extracts which show the unusual precocity of Edwards as a thinker. He began to study Latin at six, was writing philosophical essays at ten, and is said to have completely reasoned out his doctrine of the freedom of the will at seventeen years of age. The passage on his religious feelings was written before his seventeenth year, and his remarkable series of Resolutions, seventy in number, of which we give but a portion, were written before he was twenty years old. He died in 1758.] Not long after I first began to experience these things [namely, new apprehensions and ideas of Christ, of the work of redemption, and of the way of salvation by him], I gave an account to my father of some things that had passed in my mind. I was pretty much affected by the discourse we had together; and, when the discourse was ended, I walked abroad alone, in a solitary place in my father's pasture, for contemplation. And as I was walking there, and looking upon the sky and clouds, there came into my mind so sweet a sense of the glorious majesty and grace of God, as I know not how to express. I seemed to see them both in a sweet conjunction; majesty and meekness joined together. It was a sweet, and gentle, and holy majesty; and also a majestic meekness; an awful sweetness; a high, and great, and holy gentleness. After this my sense of divine things gradually increased, and became more and more lively, and had more of that inward sweetness. The appearance of everything was altered; there seemed to be, as it were, a calm, sweet cast or appearance of divine glory in almost everything. God's excellency, his wisdom, his purity, and love, seemed to appear in everything; in the sun, moon, and stars; in the clouds and blue sky; in the grass, flowers, trees; in the water and all nature; which used greatly to fix my mind. I often used to sit and view the moon for a long time; and, in the day, spent much time in viewing the clouds and sky, to behold the sweet glory of God in these things; in the mean time singing forth, with a low voice, my contemplations of the Creator and Redeemer. And scarce anything, among all the works of nature, was so sweet to me as thunder and lightning: formerly nothing had been so terrible to me. Before, I used to be uncommonly terrified with thunder, and to be struck with terror when I saw a thunder-storm rising; but now, on the contrary, it rejoiced me. I felt God, if I may so speak, at the first appearance of a thunder-storm, and used to take the opportunity, at such times, to fix myself in order to view the clouds, and see the lightnings play, and hear the majestic and awful voice of God's thunders, which oftentimes was exceedingly entertaining, leading me to sweet contemplations of my great and glorious God. RESOLUTIONS. 1. Resolved, That I will do whatsoever I think to be most to the glory of God and my own good, profit, and pleasure, in the whole of my duration, without any con sideration of the time, whether now, or never so many myriads of ages hence. 2. Resolved, To do whatever I think to be my duty, and most for the good and advantage of mankind in general. 3. Resolved, Never to lose one moment of time, but to improve it in the most profitable way I possibly can. 4. Resolved, To live with all my might while I do live. 5. Resolved, Never to do anything which I should be afraid to do if it were the last hour of my life. 6. Resolved, To be endeavoring to find out fit objects of liberality and charity. 7. Resolved, Never to do anything out of revenge. 8. Resolved, Never to suffer the least motions of anger towards irrational beings. 9. Resolved, Never to speak evil of any one so that it shall tend to his dishonor, more or less, upon no account except for some real good. 10. Resolved, That I will live so as I shall wish I had done when I come to die. 11. Resolved, To live so, at all times, as I think is best in my most devout frames, and when I have the clearest notions of the things of the gospel and another world. 12. Resolved, To maintain the strictest temperance in eating and drinking. 13. Resolved, Never to do anything which, if I should see in another, I should count a just occasion to despise him for, or to think any way the more meanly of him. 14. Resolved, To study the Scriptures so steadily, constantly, and frequently, as that I may find, and plainly perceive, myself to grow in the knowledge of the same. 15. Resolved, Never to count that a prayer, nor to let that pass as a prayer, nor that as a petition of a prayer, which is so made that I cannot hope that God will answer it; nor that as a confession which I cannot hope God will accept. 16. Resolved, Never to say anything at all against anybody, but when it is perfectly agreeable to the highest degree of Christian honor, and of love to mankind, agreeable to the lowest humility and sense of my own faults and failings, and agreeable to the golden rule; often, when I have said anything against any one, to bring it to, and try it strictly by, the test of this resolution. 17. Resolved, In narrations, never to speak anything but the pure and simple verity. 18. Resolved, Never to speak evil of any, except I have some particular good call to it. 19. Resolved, To inquire every night, as I am going to bed, wherein I have been negligent,-what sin I have committed, and wherein I have denied myself;-also, at the end of every week, month, and year. 20. Resolved, Never to do anything of which I so much. question the lawfulness, as that I intend, at the same time, to consider and examine afterwards whether it be lawful or not; unless I as much question the lawfulness of the omission. 21. Resolved, To inquire every night, before I go to bed, whether I have acted in the best way I possibly could, with respect to eating and drinking. 22. Resolved, Never to allow the least measure of any. fretting or uneasiness at my father or mother. Resolved, to suffer no effects of it, so much as in the least alteration of speech, or motion of my eye; and to be especially careful of it with respect to any of our family. 23. On the supposition that there never was to be but one individual in the world, at any one time, who was properly a complete Christian, in all respects of a right stamp, having Christianity always shining in its true lustre, and appearing excellent and lovely, from whatever part and under whatever character viewed: Resolved, to |