PREFACE. THE familiar letters of forty consecutive years, out of a life of fifty-five years, and addressed to one correspondent, furnish in themselves the best memoir of their writer. Over every thing in the shape of diary or autobiography, such a series has the advantage of presenting the man in the successive phases of his character and opinions, as well as in their final mould. sons. Such a correspondence, in the nature of things, must be of rare occurrence. Too many elements must concur to make it otherwise. The incidents of time, friendship, local separation, and the preservation of the letters, cannot be often combined in the circumstances of two perHorace Walpole and Sir Horace Mann kept up their intercourse in this way from 1741 to 1786-nearly forty-five years. Bishop Jebb, of Limerick, and Alexander Knox, maintained a "thirty years' correspondence," from 1799 to 1831. But though in both of these cases the exchange continued until the death of one of the parties, in neither was it begun in boyhood. In the collection now given to the public, the writer passes before us, in his own undisguised expressions, from the frivolities and crudities of fifteen, to the maturity of his half century. Those who take an interest in his career, have special reason to be pleased that the correspondence took place, and that of all the eight hundred letters which he wrote to his friend, none have been lost, because his own views and wishes on the subject of Memoirs have been so construed by his family, that they could not have consented to any other form of biography. The highest advantages of the method adopted would have been sacrificed had the editor, for the sake of producing an appearance of uniformity in his friend's opinions and positions, suppressed the evidence of such fluctuations as every independent and investigating mind is open to. With this view I have suffered to stand some diversities of his judgment, at different times, or in different lights, on points of theology, church order, church policy, slavery, and other topics. His views on some important questions may have been modified, without any trace of the change appearing in the letters; and I have been particularly requested to notice, under this head, that in the last years of his life, he saw the importance of a far stricter rule in observing the Lord's day, and in the allowance of fashionable amusements, than would appear from some occasional statements in these volumes. And I am sure that I should not have been excused had I at all subdued the light and playful tone in which many of the letters are written, or attempted any amendment of the abrupt transitions and off-hand phrases so characteristic of the unstudied, unrevised expression of the uppermost thoughts at the moment of writing. To have changed his manner would have been as great unfaithfulness to the full delineation of my correspondent, as to have concealed his sentiments. It may reasonably be expected, also, that there will be accorded to these letters the indulgence almost as claimable for a correspondence of this kind, as for ordinary conversation, of strong, and even exaggerated, language; when every thing in the connexion and style shows that these allowances are due. It would be the highest injustice to throw the private writings of another before the world, if such a consideration as this could not be depended on. Still, I would not have it understood that I have used no editorial discretion. Scarcely one letter has been given entire; and I trust that I have so far omitted the personal allusions, which were, of course, frequent in the intimate interchange of our observations, that no fastidiousness will be offended by those which have been suffered to remain. And here I must state that it is only in deference to a delicacy which commands the most sacred respect, that I have excluded many references to the happiness, the comfort, the spiritual benefit, which Dr. Alexander possessed and appreciated as a husband. His whole domestic life, indeed, was a trait in his character and biography, to which even the most unrestricted publication of the correspondence could not do justice. When I consented to undertake this work, it was with much dependence on the promised assistance of Dr. J. Addison Alexander. But I had scarcely entered upon it, before the state of his health made it improper to communicate with him on the subject, and in a few weeks he had followed his brother to the grave. I have not felt disposed to introduce into this publication demonstrations of my own personal feelings with regard to my friendship with these beloved men, and under the loss of them both, by almost the same stroke; yet it affords me a lively satisfaction to believe that the letters, besides their more important results, will be a memorial of that long and affectionate attachment. The aim of the editor has been to insert only so many notes as were requisite to explain the text, or supply biographical details. The purposes of a memoir are so fully met in this manner through the early commencement of the correspondence, that it is only necessary to prefix, in this place, a sketch of the short period that precedes the first date. JAMES W. ALEXANDER, the eldest son of Archibald and Janetta Alexander, was born March 13, 1804. The place of his birth was the residence of his maternal grandfather, the Rev. Dr. James Waddel, in Louisa County, Virginia, on an estate called Hopewell, at the junction of the three counties of Louisa, Orange, and Albemarle, and near the present site of Gordonsville. In the month of December, 1807, his father having resigned the presidency of Hampden Sidney College, and accepted the call of the third Presbyterian Congregation of Philadelphia to be their pastor, the family removed to that city, where their residence continued until July, 1812, when Dr. A. Alexander entered upon his duties in the Theological Seminary at Princeton. During the few years of their home in Philadelphia, James attended two schools—first (in 1809) that of Mrs. or "Madam" Thomson, then that of Mr. James Ross. His principal preparation for College was therefore made at Princeton. The first school he attended there was the Academy, the principal of which was the Rev. Jared D. Fyler, who was followed for a few months, in 1813, by Dr. Carnahan, and then by the Rev. Daniel Comfort. Then he entered the school of Mr. James Hamilton, afterwards of the University of Nashville. He also had the benefit of the instructions of several private tutors; among whom were the Rev. John Monteith, since of Hamilton College, and the Rev. Thomas J. Biggs, now of Cincinnati. He entered the Freshman class of the College of New Jersey in the spring of 1817, and graduated there in September, 1820. A portrait is prefixed to each of these volumes. The first is from a painting by Mr. Mooney, taken in 1845, at the age of forty; the second from a daguerreotype by Mr. Meade, in 1855. TRENTON, NEW JERSEY, May 5, 1860. |