Page:The Cambridge History of American Literature, v2.djvu/214

 198 Divines and Moralists, 1783-1860 The sons of Jonathan, whether after the flesh or after the spirit, included Jonathan Edwards the yoionger (1745-1801), a system- atic theologian, President of Union College, Schenectady, from 1799 to his death; David Brainerd (1718-47), author of a diary of his mystical experiences; Joseph Bellamy (1719-90); Samuel Hopkins (i 721-1803); and Edwards's grandson Timothy Dwight (1752-18 1 7). Of these, Hopkins and Dwight are for many reasons the most important. The younger Edwards, after graduating at Princeton in 1765, was Hopkins's disciple; Bellamy's chief works were all published before the Revolution ; and Brainerd, a young consumptive, who was to have been Edwards's son-in-law, died before him. Hopkins, moreover, exercised an influence which went beyond theology into litera- ture; and Dwight produced something uncommonly like litera- ture itself. Hopkins was bom of Puritan stock at Waterbury, Connecti- cut. Roused to religious conviction at Yale by his college mate, David Brainerd, and by the revivalist Tennent, he heard Edwards before graduating in 1741, and, stiU not sure that he was a Christian, "concluded to go and live with Mr. Edwards" at Northampton as a student of divinity — which he did off and on tm 1743. Then he was settled and ordained at Housatonic (later Great Barrington), where he had to contend with Indian attacks, malaria, and the Dutch settlers in his congregation; taking comfort, however, in a second intimate contact with Edwards while the latter was conducting the mission to the Stockbridge Indians. In 1769 the poverty of Hopkins's congre- gation, together with their opposition to his stiff doctrine, led to his dismissal. In the next year he accepted a call to the First Congrega- tional Church at Newport. The Rev. Ezra StUes, then min- ister of the Second Congregational Church and later (1777-95) President of Yale, opposed the call, but preached a learned sermon at Hopkins's installation, and remained on friendly terms with him despite radical differences in doctrine and temper. In Newport, too, Hopkins became acquainted with the Channing family: William EUery Channing, then a boy, heard him preach and was repelled by his harsh doctrine. Though the Revolutionary War wrecked his church, he re- mained with it, and in the lean years following wrote his