348 Nations lately become Lifer ary. 



was the projector and founder of some of the most 

 useful literary institutions which our country can 

 boast ; and may justly be considered as having given 

 an impulse to the public mind, in favour of liberal 

 knowledge, which forms a distinguished era in the 

 history of our country. 



Hitherto scarcely any native American had at- 

 tracted attention among the learned of Europe, or 

 by his writings or discoveries turned their eyes to 

 this new world. The first persons who attained 

 this honour, in any considerable degree, were the 

 Rev. Mr. Jonathan Edwards,' the celebrated 

 theological and metaphysical writer, and Dr. Ben- 

 jamin Franklin. Though the genius, talents, 

 and general character of no two persons could be 

 more different; yet each in his way gained high 

 and extensive celebrity, and for the first time con- 

 vinced the literati of foreign countries, that Ame- 

 rica had given birth to philosophers who were 

 capable of instructing them. 



The arrival in America of the Rev. Mr. George 



i The Rev. Jonathan Edwards was born at Windsor, in Connec- 

 ticut, October 5, 1703. He received his education at Yale college, where 

 he graduated bachelor of arts in 1720. He early began to preach, and the 

 Presbyterian church of New-York, then in its infancy, had the honour of 

 enjoying his ministrations for eight months, in the year 1723. He after- 

 wards became the pastor of a congregational church in Northampton, in 

 Massachusetts ; and in 1757 was chosen president of the college of New 

 Jersey, in which office he continued till his death, which took place March 

 22, 1758, in the fifty-fifth year of his age. This illustrious man was very 

 respectably learned in the Latin, Greek and Hebrew languages, and also 

 in the mathematics, and natural philosophy ; but in theological, moral and 

 "metaphysical science, he discovered an acuteness, vigour, and comprehen- 

 siveness of mind, which decidedly place him in the very first rank of 

 great men belonging to the age in which he lived. He read Locke's Es- 

 say on Human Understanding at thirteen years of age, and declared, to an 

 intimate friend a short time before his death, that, at that early age " he 

 was as much engaged, and had more pleasure in studying this work, than 

 the most greedy miser could have in gathering up handfuls of silver or geld 

 from a newly discovered mine." The fruits of this early initiation into 

 metaphysical science were afterwards laid before the public in his Inquiry 

 into the Freedom of the Will, &c a work which has been pronounced " one 

 of the greatest efforts of the human mind," which was received with 

 high approbation in Europe ; and which has been, ever since its publica- 

 tion, quoted as a great standard work on the subject of which it t 



