CHAPTER I.

JUVENILE LETTERS.

1819-1822.

PRINCETON, May 5th, 1819. 1 According to your desire, as soon as I was a little recruited and had got my pen, ink and paper together, I set myself down to scribble away a scrawl to let you know I was safely landed at "Princetown in the Jarsys" at ten minutes after ten o'clock A. M., without having sustained any material injury, except a cut of the thumb, and a little broken-heartedness at leavingyou know what-behind me. I frightened them not a little with my mask, and diverted them as much with my dandies. I have been diverting myself a little with playing on my flute. I must confess I was not fairly out of the city, before I wished to be back again, and I shall not soon forget the delightful hours I spent last week in Philadelphia. I wish you could persuade your mother to let you come up and spend some time here. As I have made you my confidant, I will not say I had a bad pen, &c., but will candidly confess it is the best I can posssibly write, and I repose on your honour that it will not be shown to anybody.

PRINCETON, June 6th, 1819.

REV. AND DEAR SIR,-For such I expect will shortly be your title both from the long faced and crabbed style in which you write, and your parson-like division of your sermon; but

1 This and a few other letters of the same year are inserted because they are the first in the series of a correspondence which soon took a different complexion. At this date Alexander was a boy of fifteen, and his friend whom he had just been visiting in Philadelphia, was a few years younger. The former was in the Junior Class of the College of New Jersey, the latter was at school.

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waiving this subject I proceed to unfold the dark mystery of my not writing to you. Imprimis, you attribute my silence to bashfulness, and you were quite right in your supposition that it was not on that account I had not written, for since my extremely pleasant trip to the city, I have but few grains of that commodity (at present) on hand. I say at present, for I know not in what luckless hour it may return. 2dly. You pretend to think that I have not esteem enough for you to favour you with an epistle. My dear fellow, I am tempted to think that you belied your conscience when you put that sentence down. 3dly. Your letter was so far from being illegible that I think you must have meant what you said as a sarcasm upon my wretched scrawl-but the true, only, and unsatisfactory excuse, which I have to offer, is pure laziness. How far this excuse may go, I know not, but I hope that this letter itself will supersede the necessity of any farther apology, and if you prize my poor scrawl, this will be a little more acceptable on account of its being delayed.

Five of your school-mates have entered College, viz., James Stuart, and Sharpe, the Sophomore class; J. B. Clemson, J. S. Miercken, and J. M. Savage, the Freshman.'

PRINCETON, June 28th, 1819.

DEAR JOHN, I was very agreeably surprised this morning by your letter, which I began to fear was never to arrive, and which, as you certainly know, afforded me great pleasure, which I think is sufficiently manifested by my sitting down to answer it immediately. I shall answer what requires it in your own letter first, and then proceed to add something of my own. You ask me to suggest some subjects of debate for your society. I know of none at present except two which have lately been discussed in a club at college, viz.: Is a man bound (by the laws of equity) to fulfil oaths taken to save his life, or when his life is in jeopardy? and Should any one swerve from the truth to preserve his life, or estate? Both these are moral questions, and I should have no scruples of conscience, hindering me from saying No to the former, and Yes to the latter. I cannot think of any now, but if I fall across any I shall let you know of them. The health of my father is much better than it has been for some time, he is at present at Somerville in this State. I have not been very well for a week past, occasioned, I am led to suppose,

1 Stuart died a Presbyterian clergyman, in 1829. James T. Sharpe is a physician in Salem, New Jersey. Clemson is an Episcopal clergyman in Pennsylvania. Miercken died Captain of a Liverpool Packet.

by going into the water too often. I have been to swim every day for a fortnight, in fact it is the only time when I feel comfortable. I hope to see you up here before the Dog-days, so that I may have the pleasure of teaching you how to swim. I have wished very much to see a Velocipede but have not been gratified, nor do I expect to be, till I visit the city again.

PRINCETON, Sunday, August 1st, 1819.

MY DEAR FRIEND,-As I begin to feel rather ashamed of my neglect, I have dared to face your displeasure with a few lines. I dare say you will think I am out of paper from this specimen, which is really the case, as it is Sunday and there is no other in the house. I expect that by this time you have waxed exceedingly wrothy with your humble servant on account of his long silence, of which he has no very plausible excuse to offer, except a certain-degree-of-laziness-which the extreme heat of the weather has tended to increase.

By the by, the mercury in Fahrenheit's thermometer was yesterday at noon, as high as 110° in the shade, and 112° in the sun, which, if I am not very much mistaken, is enough to give the yellow fever to every man, woman, and child in the country.

After all this preamble I will proceed to inform you that we confidently expect you up here, as soon as your holidays begin, which I suppose are now near at hand, and that I shall be be extremely disappointed if you should fail to fulfil your engagement; I wish you could persuade your mother or some one of the family to accompany you, as I suppose the weather is very unpleasant in the city at this time. I must confess that I am not able to hold out any great inducement to come into this dreary, out of the way, dog hole, except perhaps change of situa tion and pity towards me who have to stay here five months, without seeing, hearing, or feeling, any thing worth being seen, heard or felt.

I cannot forbear mentioning the happy hours I spent in my short but delightful stay in the city last Spring. I am certain that if you promised yourself half the pleasure which I enjoyed there, you would fly up here as soon as your vacation commenced. But alas, I have no such enticements here for you, as Philadelphia has for me. If your mamma should fear to trust you with me and our Princeton boys, be so good as to inform her that we have some with faces a yard long, and moreover that I will insure your life and morals, for the small sum of one cent.

It is stated by our Princeton astronomers that two comets

are visible at once at 2 o'clock A. M. If it is a fact, I suppose you have heard of it before this; for my part, I think five o'clock is time enough for me to rise without getting up to view the comets. Velocipedes are beginning to be introduced here. I have not seen one yet.

The bell rings for church, and I am forced to go; remember me to all, &c.

P. S.-I had three beautiful flying squirrels for the children, but unluckily the old cat demolished them, and now enjoys a pleasing "otium cum dignitate" in the bottom of the mill pond with a stone round her neck.

PRINCETON, August 23, 1822.1

MY DEAR FRIEND,-The agreeable visit of your sisters to our village has forcibly reminded me of the duty, so long neglected by me, of writing to my old friend and correspondent. What I shall have to say will appear in the sequel, for as yet I feel so great a dearth of writing materials in my brain, that I must needs push forward, and let the thoughts arrange themselves ad libitum. Since I last saw you, many strange and unex

1 The only suspension of this correspondence that ever took place, was from April, 1820, to the date of this letter. It was in this interval that Alexander's mind became engrossed with the subject of his personal religion. The first relief he obtained is described by himself in the following record: "On September 3, 1820, walking across the field, hardly daring to ask for faith or repentance, these words burst upon my mind—' Waiting for the moving of the waters.' I saw myself the impotent man in a moment, and I thought that Christ had been saying to me, 'Wilt thou be made whole?' hundreds of times in my hearing, but now it seemed to be addressed particularly to me. From that moment I felt able to trust my whole hope and life upon the Lord."

At the end of this September he finished his college course, but delayed a public profession of faith until the next year; then the return of his birthday, and the death of a young friend, combined to make him feel the risk of further postponement. He was received to full communion by the session of the Princeton Church, March 30, 1821, and sat at the Lord's table for the first time on the following Sabbath, April 1st.

On the 13th of that month he made a private entry to this effect: "When I look forward to future life, a dreary darkness presents itself. What am I qualified for? I never can, in conscience, embrace any other profession but the gospel of Christ;' but alas, where are my qualifications? I never, never can be a speaker." In a note written some time afterwards. he says: "I thank God for having shown me that this conviction was in some measure unfounded and hasty. Though I never can be eloquent, yet God's spirit may make me a useful preacher."

The three days, Sept. 15th, 1820, March 30th and April 1st, 1821, he ever afterwards commemorated as times of peculiar humiliation and prayer.

pected things have no doubt befallen each of us, and I have had a goodly share of vicissitudes, painful and pleasant, during the three years just elapsed, but whether any of them could give you any pleasure, I cannot say. I presume I need not tell you that my time spent in college ran sadly to waste; indeed, I cannot look back upon the opportunities of acquiring useful knowledge which I then abused without shame and regret. Like most brainless and self-conceited boys, I undertook to determine that such and such studies were of no importance, and made this an excuse for neglecting them, although the wise of every age have united in declaring their utility. I was foolish enough to suffer almost all my previous knowledge of classical literature to leak out e cerebro, and consequently I found myself a much greater dolt when I was invested with the title and immunities of an A. B., than when I entered as an humble Freshman. I had acquired, not a vast amount of erudition, but an insufferable budget of silly opinions, self-conceited views of my own abilities, and innumerable vicious habits, which alone are sufficient to neutralize all the good which a college course can give in the way of knowledge. The labour of the two last years has but slightly repaired these injuries, and I have hardly reached the point which I ought to have attained, at the term of my collegiate race. To proceed with my egotistical harangue, (for I have nothing better to give you,) I have devoted most of my time since to classical reading, and my eyes I think are opened in some measure to those beauties, which, blinded with ignorant self-sufficiency, I was unable to perceive formerly. It is the fashion of this superficial age to decry the study of ancients, and more so in America than in Europe, more among the idle and ignorant coxcombs of this day, than the men of science and taste. I had caught this song at college, and like other graduated fools I presumed to laugh at those authors who have been the models of taste, and fountains of polite learning, for more ages than we have lived years. Homer was a favourite butt for my ridicule. I have read the old fellow's Iliad twice through of late, with new pleasure at every opening, and it is my intention if my life be spared, to spend one hour per diem for the rest of my life in reading the classics. No doubt, this prosing must be offensive to you; my next letter shall be more taken up about present concerns, as I hope to receive something from you to serve as a cue for my response. If you are curious to know what I am now studying-I have been for some weeks upon metaphysics, another of my old despicables; I now am much enamoured with it. You know, doubtless, that I expect to enter the theological seminary this fall. I anticipate the course of theology with a great deal of pleasure; many of