as yours. Your Hebrew may be easily renewed without points, by the help of Parkhurst's Hebrew Lexicon; and without points will answer all the purposes of explaining the original text. In your case, I certainly would go no further than this in Hebrew. But I doubt much whether I would enter at present on any new plan of studies beyond those which are strictly theological. If you can prevail to imbue that great people with divine truth, and make the truth triumph where President Edwards fell, and bring them, by the side of Brainerd's grave, to pray as Brainerd prayed; you will have performed a work great enough for an angel's powers: you may then go to heaven, and the church will bless God that you ever had existence. Considering the history, and the magnitude, and the influence of your congregation, and the state in which you received it, few men have ever had such a work laid out for them;-it is enough to exhaust the powers of one mind. It is a charge ponderous enough "to make the shoulders of an angel tremble."

I would recommend it to you, my brother, to bathe your soul in Baxter's "Saint's Rest," and to be much in prayer, and make yourself deeply acquainted with the Scriptures. You are kind enough to ask after my course. I believe that an early commencement and pursuit of a systematic study of the Bible, in connexion with a long course of revivals of religion in which I was permitted to be engaged, and an habitual aim, in my ordinary sermons, to reach the conscience, and the heart at every stroke, and the habit of striking out, as I correct my sermons for a new exhibition of them, every clause and word which is not subservient to this end; may be numbered among the most efficacious means of forming my present manner of preaching, such as it is. Perhaps the most powerful circumstance, not yet mentioned, was entering upon the large congregation of Newark, calling for constant and impassioned preaching, and for continual visiting. I made a bad improvement under these advantages; but I am far from thinking with you, my Dear Sir, that a man cannot be a good preacher and pastor with a great congregation. A great con

gregation, as rousing to great exertions, is the best field for the formation of such a character. You can never satisfy any people by visiting. The best way to approach it, is perhaps to show the people, by a systematic course, that you visit all you can. Besides your social visits and visits to the sick, I would set apart one day in a week to strictly parochial visits, to be short, and right to the point, and to be closed with prayer. Make the appointment before hand, and let all know the course.

As to the manner of preaching, the object of every stroke ought to be to do good rather than to gain popularity. That will make us the most divinely eloquent. The little prettinesses of thought and expression, which the love of popularity can produce, are nothing to the great and overwhelming thoughts which flow from a mind solemnly impressed with divine things, and earnestly desirous to impress them upon others. Here we may aim high. I doubt the lawfulness of any other high aim in a minister of Christ. Dr. Witherspoon used to advise his pupils to write out one good sermon a week, and let the rest take care of themselves. You cannot, in your situation, write but one. I would recommend it to you to extemporize in the week, to preach from a skeleton in the morning of the Sabbath, and from notes in the afternoon. From your account of your fondness for belles-lettres and poetry, and aversion to metaphysics, I should apprehend that the side on which you are to guard, is a tendency to sprightliness, without sufficient weight and penetrating force. You have a fine imagination, and a fine taste to regulate it. Use both of them, as nature dictates, without effort; but let all your effort be to fill your pages with the weight and solemnity of divine truth. Under each head labor to get out that precise view of truth which you had in your most solemn hour on your knees. I advise you to read much the sermons of President Edwards. My paper is out. Mrs. G. and I will stay at your house with pleasure, at the approaching meeting of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. Won't you come and bring Mrs. T. to our commencement?

Very affectionately yours,

E. D. GRIFFIN.

Dr. G. proceeds in his narrative thus:

When I first came here there were 48 students connected with the college. The number increased before the Amherst charter was obtained, (in February or March, 1825,) to 120. That event, by the following commencement struck us down to 80. About 30 in the course of the spring and summer, took dismissions, under the impression that the college would be broken up. Nineteen graduated that commencement, and a class came in of seven, and little prospect appeared of much increase. At that crisis I formed the purpose of raising a fund of $25,000 for the purpose of building a chapel and endowing a new Professorship. While at Northampton attending the meeting of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, I determined to open the subscription myself with $1,000, provided certain other gentlemen in Williamstown would do the same, or in proportion. From that time I felt better about the college. On my return from a northern tour through Manchester, (Vt.) I heard of a revival there. This excited unusual desires in my mind for a revival in college, which desire never ceased from that time.

When college came together several returned under deep impressions; and it was soon evident that God was among us. My eldest daughter at that time was married and lived in the neighborhood; and my youngest daughter was at school at Hartford, (Conn.) about 90 miles off. As Louisa had been awakened in a revival at Newark in 1817, I came to the conclusion, as soon as I was convinced that the Spirit of God was among us, that she would, in all probability be brought in then or be lost. During the months of October and November, my agony was great and increasing for her, and her husband, and for the college. The seriousness in college continued to increase; but it was not, I think, till about the first of December, that the spirit came down like a mighty rushing wind.

My wrestlings for the college and the town were great during all this time; but Louisa's last chance appeared to have

come. She and her husband were very interesting objects to me, and my absent child also. That passage in Luke, xi. 5-13, opened upon me with a most interesting reality, particularly the last verse, "How much more shall your Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him." I believed the truth of that promise as fully as I believed my own existence, and applied it to supplications for the Spirit on others as well as on myself. It appeared indeed a wonder that God should regard the prayers of such polluted worms, until I discovered, in the light of that text, which for the first time opened upon me, (Romans, viii. 26, 27,) that it was the Holy Ghost that prayed. I could not help exclaiming, "No wonder that God hears prayer when it is the Holy Ghost that prays. What an awful place is the christian's closet! The whole Trinity is about it every time he kneels. There is the Spirit praying to the Father through the Son." My sermon on the Prayer of Faith, which I have just sent on to the National Preacher, and a copy of which I leave in manuscript to my children, was copied, with great exactness, from my exercises at that time, mingled in with my exercises in other revivals. Except the single clause, "because men keep not God's law," under the first head, (which I drew from the experience of David,) all the eight particulars were drawn from my own experience, with as much exactness as I could possibly attain. My desire on this occasion was heart-breaking. I searched diligently to see if I was setting up the interest of my children against God's interest, or my will against his will. I could not find that I was. I felt my absolute dependance; and yet could never stop in the use of means. I felt greatly abased under a sense of sin. O how did I feel often when upon my knees I was forced to say with tears, "Although my house be not so with God." The case of Jacob at Penuel and that of the Syrophenician woman always stood before me. And so confident was I that the promise was everlasting truth, that I saw I might indeed take hold of it and draw the blessing down,— that I might lawfully keep hold of it until the blessing came. I seized it with both my hands, and said, "Here I plant my

self down, and on this spot I will receive the blessing or die. I hold thee to thy word and will not let thee go." Once an objection started up, "Is not this holding of God to his word a taking from him the right of sovereignty?" I was alarmed at this, as though, in pursuit of every thing dear, a wall from heaven had dropped upon my path. I threw my eyes farther, I thought, than I ever did before, into the regions of truth, and soon I saw the solution: "If God had not given me this spirit to hold him fast, I should have been a clod. His sovereignty was fully exercised in that gift." As when a dam has suddenly stopped a rapid torrent, and after a time is suddenly removed, and the waters impetuously sweep; so did my restrained and eager spirit, when I saw the whole field open before me, and not a fence nor a bar in the way, sweep it with my whole heart and soul and mind and strength. If that was not prayer, and in some measure the prayer of Penuel, that could not fail in some degree to receive the blessing, I believed that I had never prayed, and was yet in my sins.

After placing myself on my pillow and disposing of all other matters, I used to betake myself to this struggle, first for others, and then for my children. And if I ever prayed, it was in those nocturnal agonies. And after thus staking my own salvation, as it were, on the issue, I would go in the morning, or in the course of the day, to see how my daughter was affected; and she, knowing the kindness of my intention, would meet me, week after week, with a filial smile. I could never have thought that such a filial smile would so wither a parent's heart. My stated question was, "Do you realizingly feel that it would be just for God to cast you off?" And she would as uniformly answer "No." She knew all about the doctrines; her understanding was fully convinced; she was awakened, and attended all the meetings; but she went no further.

In the latter part of December, I sent for my daughter Ellen home, that I might lay her at the Saviour's feet. If I failed in my object, I knew the world would say, "There, he tried and could'nt." But I thought with myself, "She can