mons; his union, for example, of celerity with caution, of impulsive energy with constancy and perseverance. If he had been a heavy moulded man, too lethargic to turn hi* eye* away from the one object tliat he happened to be plodding over, it would not have been so noticeable that he sat for threescore and ten years at one study table.

§ 6. His Consistency with himself.

In portraying the character of Emmons, it would be easy to make his Self-Consistency the central attribute, around which all his other virtues would arrange themselves. Psychologists may labor in solving the problem, how ho could reduce so nunv original speculations into one system so well harmonized. lie could not havo succeeded so well, if his mind had not moved by clock-work. In this, as in other particulars, his personal character had an influence npon his scheme of theology, and his scheme of theology npon his personal character. Men were interested in him because he was original in his feelings, as well as in his thoughts. He felt, not because others did, not because men had taught him that he should feel, but became he felt spontaneously, as himself, for himself. His emotions being his own, were harmonious with one another. It was commonly said of him, Ever)- one knows where to find him, what he will think of a new measure, how he will treat an old friend. It would bo an absurdity for him to appear with a bell-crowned or leghorn hat, to rido in an uncovered carriage, or a worn-out chaise. Standing up, or sitting down, at home or abroad, silent or conversing, cheerful or grave, he was just like himself. " Ho never did that, fur that docs not sound like him," was good logic with regard to his conduct; and this was his great distinction above other men. He did not follow a party, but always meant to follow truth; ho did not yield to a fashion, but always meant to comply with the canons of tosto. Wherever his best friends went, he went with them or stayed behind, just as ho was advised by his fixed principles. Hence liis life is a study. It had one organizing force, and becamo a unique system.

§ 7. His Peculiarities of Manner.

He did not attain that cntiro well-rounded completeness of character which allows not even an outward idiosyncrocy. Ho sometimes worked his intellect with so great intenscness, and found so little intermission of his cares, as to lose for a few moments his wonted amenity, and to say or do things which might with reason bo expected of a laborious recluse, but not of a perfect man. Still it is not extravagant to affirm, that no hard student ever passed seventy years, in ono room, with fewer morbid excitements ; and if, for a short time, some scholars may havo surpassed him in kindliness of manners, these were rare favorites of Providence; and after all, his smiles were diffused through so long a life, that perhaps, in the end, they would outnumber those of the happy men who contracted their joy into a briefer period.

II is peculiarities added a freshness of interest to his life. One of them was, to stop his conversation in an instant, when he perceived that neither himself nor his friend in the colloquy was deriving either pleasure or profit from the intercourse. (See pp. 77, 78, above.) He would desist at once from a dispute, when his antagonist repeated an objection which had just been answered three or (bur times, or proposed a question which was too simplo or absurd to merit a reply, or persisted iu misunderstanding what he hail explained over and over again. He knew that he was thought to havo a genius for caustic repartees, and he choso to be utterly silent rather than to indulge in VOL. I. 00

them. This silence was intended for a reprimand to his antagonists, bat wi times interpreted as a sign of his own discomfiture.

He was visited once by a theologian of extensive fame, who allured him into a debate on the theory of optimism. The objector closed his lengthened argument against the Edwardean doctrine with this query: " If you now say, that the present universe is the best possible, what would you say if the universe were made twice as large and twice as good as it is ? Would not the doubling of it augment its value ? " Dr. Emmons blushed, and made no reply. The visitor reported that this one question confounded the Franklin optimist. I heard the boast, and afterward inquired of the veteran who had been thus silenced, whether he remembered that fatal question. " I do," was the reply. "Why did you not answer it 1" was my second query. "It was

the question of " a man who did not understand the rules of logic [the Doctor in fact

used a more racy phrase than this long periphrasis]. If the present universe is the best possible, then it is the best possible in its relations, and any increase of the created good would disturb the best relations of that good to the Creator, and would thus be on the whole an evil. I had repeated that idea so often, that I could not afford to utter it again."

Another divine of great renown, supposing that Dr. Emmons believed the soul to be nothing more than a series of exercises, addressed to him this question at the close of a protracted controversy : " On your principles, cannot God create holy feelings in the back of that chair on which you are now sitting ? " I once heard this interrogator say: " When I proposed my query to Dr. Emmons, he blushed, and could not say one word in reply." But the reddened mute referring to that interview and that query, remarked: " He asked mc a nonsensical question, and I made him no answer." — In the year 1786, forty years before this conversation, Emmons had published the sentence: " Tho horse and the mule, which have no understanding, and indeed all the lower animals, are utterly incapable of holiness, and even Omnipotence himself, to speak with reverence, cannot make them holy, without essentially altering the frame and constitution of their natures. But man is capable of holiness." Having reiterated this idea again and again, through a longer period than his interrogator had breathed the air, the venerable disputant preferred to waste no more breath in repeating so trite an adage. (See pp. 412, 417 above.)

On the eleventh of August, 1838, when he wanted less than seven years of being a centenarian, he was visited by another divine, who afterwards published an essay, filling more than a hundred and fifty duodecimo pages, in regard to bis " Memorable Interview." In the flow of his conversation this distinguished visitor used such words as "mercurial," "summation," "facade," "eclaircised," "contour," "alembic," "truth eliciting fecundity," etc., etc. Now tho old man of ninety-three years had been Ions wonted to drink seven spoonsful of new milk, warm, pure, and fresh from the cow, every morning and evening, and along with this innocent liquid he had imbibc-l a prejudice, as we all at that time of life may lapse into some antipathy, against the use of new or Gallic or Latinized words in any familiar talk. But his guest not only made a display of learned polysyllables, he also accused the nonagenarian of believing that it is wrong for men to love themselves, that all love to self is sin, that men are commanded not to love their own happiness in the least degree. The patriarch was amused if not amazed, by this charge, for he knew that he had taught exactly the opposite doctrine beforo his accuser had learned the English alphabet; and that tho entire ►vstcm of Kminonism is built up on the principle that every man may, and mutt, and should, love himself; that this love to self ' is a privilege, an instinct, and a duty.' (See pp. 393, 394, above.) The veteran kept his patience while His oratorical friend exhibited the proof that men have a right to love themselves. This doctrine being proved, as Emmons had proved it sixty years before, the listener broke his ominous silence by the words : " Why, I am wrong; surely I am wrong, Sir." It was a characteristic reply. He meant it as a laconic reproof to his accuser. It was a pithy announcement that he anticipated no more edification from that colloquium. But his guest misinterpreted the sententious irony, as he had misunderstood the entire creed of the patriarch. He exclaimed : " I am wondcrstruck and overwhelmed. We seem to reach a result portentous, unexampled, unexplained." — "I give you the credit and God the glory, of your making a magnanimous confession, the like of which, its proper parallel, I never knew In-fore as a fact in history " ! The magnanimous patriarch deemed it of no use to rectify this new misapprehension; and, when he was left alone with bis family, one bright word about the interview shot forth from him like a meteor, and he never alluded to it again. It was his life long habit never to triumph over the mistakes of friend or foe.

§ 8. He teas a Representative of the Ancient Divines of New England.

Dr. Emmons often spoke of himself as being left alone, all the old familiar faces long since veiled from his view. There has ever been a melancholy and sombre interest flung over such a man, staying so long behind his time, and watching over the fourth generation of his successors. He has been likened to the bird that lingers in a northern hemisphere, long after its companions have sought a more genial clime; to the soldier compelled to slacken his movements, and loiter alone in tho land of the enemy, when his comrades have marched through, cheered with tho sound of the bugle and the society of a full band, in the hope of soon regaining their home and enjoying their laurels. Ho has been compared, by an ancient poet, to the oak that stands solitary, after the surrounding forest has been hewn down, and that stretches out its stiffened arms, as if to implore mercy from the winds and the storm.

The regimen of Emmons, in body as well as in mind, illustrates the healthful discipline of the New England fathers. Both ho and they were formed for long life. They were so regular in their habits, so free from the excitements to which the clergy ore now exposed, thoy held so tense a rein over their passions, that they could not waste away and consume themselves as their successors do. Mr. Stoddard, of Northampton, died at eighty-six; Dr. Increase Mather at eighty-four; Dr. Cotton Mather «t sixty-five; Dr. Sales at sixty-eight; Dr. Johnson at seventy-six; Dr. Hopkins at eighty-three; Dr. Bellamy at seventy-two; Dr. Hart at sixty-nino; President Cbauney, of Harvard College, and Dr. Chauncy, of Boston, at eighty-two; Dr. Smalley at eighty-six; Dr. West at eighty-four ; Dr. Strong at sixty-eight; Dr. Lothrop at ninety. Rev. Joseph Adams, of Xewington, Maine, an uncle of President John Adams, sustained an active pastorate at Newington sixty-eight years, the longest active pastorate ever known in New England, and he died May 20, 1784, at ninety-five years of age. Emmons reached as great on age, and but for his modesty, might have held on aa long upon a single pastorate. His life exemplifies the rules for permanent influ

" AYcro yon familiarly acquainted with President Dwight 1" I once inquired. " Many and many a time," he answered," have I dandled him on my knee. When I ni at Yale I used to take him up in my arms. He was a very pretty boy." Thus did the patriarch bring us near to men whom we associate with all that is great. He not only resembled the fathers in his antique dress, his ancestral pronunciation, his courtly manners, his cheering repartees, but in his principles of reasoning, and the general style of his thought. He was a recent man, but an ancient theologian. His remarks on both the Edwardscs, and on the school which they founded, are numerous enough and important enough to form a volume of the Dogmatic History of New England.

He has been often condemned for employing terms which express an intellectual state, when he means to express a moral state. Thus he speaks of "approving " a character, when he intends to include the idea of preferring that character; and be uses the phrase, "a right sense" of truth, when he means to imply a right choice of that truth. But in this peculiarity of style, he represents President Edwards, and other fathers of New England.

He has been criticized for a smaller degree of familiarity with the Hebrew language, than has been attained by John Cotton, Thomas Thacher, Cotton Mather, Presidents Dunstcr, Channcy, Cutler, Stiles, and other New England fathers. He acted on the principle of Martin Luther, that " to make a good and judicious Christian, it is not enough to understand Greek and Hebrew. St. Jerome, who knew five languages, is inferior to St. Augustine, who understood but one." As is said of Dr. Singrado, " he had published a book," before the clergy of New England were initiated into the modern science of criticism, and we must not expect that a man of seventy years will remodel his style, and look out for shevas and dagheshes at the opening of a new era in sacred literature. It is rare praise which is rendered to John Knox, that be began his study of the Hebrew when he was fifty years of age.

We wish that Emmons had been an immaculate divine. Soil, in the imperfection of his Hebrew learning, he represented the majority of our ancient theologians. Both lie and they attended more to the analogy of faith, to the consecutiveness of the inspired thoughts, than to the Hebrew words in which those thoughts were clothed. We must remember, that there are witlings who sneer at Lord Bacon for his ignorance of many truths which are now taught at the infant school. But the child who can do, at the present day, what a giant could not do in days of old, is still a child, and may never become a giant. Our fathers were Biblical students, and Biblical preachers, although more conversant with the matter than with the Hebraistic form, with the substance than with the oriental drapery of tho inspired oracles. Instead of triumphing that we find so many exegetical errors in their works, we should wonder that we find no more.

CHAPTER XIX.

THE CLOSING SCENES OF HIS LIFE.

Sometimes it appears to the readers of Emmons that his favorite theme of meditation was, Old Age. A volume might be filled with his thoughts on this topic. During his hale manhood he had been preparing himself for a likeness to " good old Barzillai," who seems to have been one of his favorite characters. In the same anticipatory spirit, he spent " the chairdays of a most reverend age " in schooling himself for his last lesson on earth. The following are,

§ 1. His Meditation* on Death.

" It is a great thing to die. The thought of it is very solemn and almost overwhelming. I have now a great deal of time to think, and I do constantly think of the change that is before me. I sit here and think of the disembodied spirit, the nature of that change which the soul undergoes at death, and the condition of those who have entered the eternal world." These were the remarks that fell from him two years before his journey to the better land. The style of his meditations on that journey, on the manner of starting, on all the things that would befall him in his progress, on his arrival at his long home, on his employments there, is intimated throughout his writings.

" Departed spirits never get lost on their passage from this to another world, howerer great the distance. They arc probably conveyed by those good or evil spirits who attended them through the scenes and changes of their probationary state. Good men are attended by good angels, and bad men by bad angels. They know by their conductors whither they will be conducted. Who can conceive the strong and strange emotions of their hearts, whilo traversing unknown regions with their new conductors to the places of their final and eternal residence ?"

" If the conversion of a soul fills all heaven with joy, there is reason to think that the arrival of that soul in Paradise spreads a greater and more general joy among the blessed who had been waiting for the happy event. While those wbo arc left lament;

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