30 JUKES— EDWARDS 



a vote of 200 to 20, and the town voted that lie be 

 not permitted on any occasion to preach or lecture 

 in the church. Mr. Edwards was wholly unpre- 

 pared financially for this unusual ecclesiastical and 

 civic action. He had no other means of earning a 

 living, 60 that, until donations began to come in 

 from far and near, Mrs. Edwards, at the age of 

 forty, the mother of eleven children with the young- 

 est less than a year old, was obliged to take in 

 work for the support of the family. After a little 

 time Mr. Edwards secured a small mission charge 

 in an Indian village where there were twelve white 

 and 150 Indian families. Here he remained eight 

 years in quiet until, a few weeks before his death, 

 he was called to the presidency and pastorate of 

 Princeton, then a young and small college. 



The last four years of their life at Northampton 

 were indescribably trying to the children. Human 

 nature was the same then as now, and everyone 

 knows how heavily the public dislike of a prominent 

 man bears upon his children. The conventionalties 

 which keep adults within bound in speech and 

 action are unknown to children, and what the 

 parents say behind a clergyman's back, children say 

 to his children's face. This period of childhood 

 social horror ended only by removal to a missionary 

 parsonage among the Stockbridge Indians, where 

 they lived for eight years. Their playmates were 

 Indian children and youth. Half the children of 

 the family talked the Indian language as well and 

 almost as much as they did the English language. 



