eristic difficulties. The pastor, it may easily be
supposed, was not popular with the rising generation. He had, as he
confesses with his usual candour, 'a constitution in many respects
peculiarly unhappy, attended with flaccid solids; vapid, sizy, and
scarce fluids; and a low tide of spirits; often occasioning a kind of
childish weakness and contemptibleness of speech, presence and
demeanour; with a disagreeable dulness and stiffness, much unfitting me
for conversation, but more especially for the government of a college,'
which he was requested to undertake (i. 86). He was, says his admiring
biographer, 'thorough in the government of his children,' who
consequently 'reverenced, esteemed, and loved him.' He adopted the
plan, less popular now than then, and even more decayed in America than
in England, of 'thoroughly subduing' his children as soon as they showed
any tendency to self-will. He was a 'great enemy' to all 'vain
amusements;' and even after his children had grown up, he enforced their
abstinence from such 'pernicious practice,' and never allowed them to be
out after nine at night. Any gentleman, we are happy to add, was given
proper opportunities for courting his daughters after consulting their
parents, but on condition of conforming strictly to the family
regulations (i. 52, 53). This Puritan discipline appears to have
succeeded with Edwards' own family; but a gentleman with flaccid solids,
vapid fluids, and a fervent belief in hell-fire is seldom appreciated by
the youth even of a Puritan village.

Accordingly, Edwards got into trouble by endeavouring to force his own
notions of discipline amongst certain young people, belonging to
'considerable families,' who were said to indulge in loose conversation
and equivocal books. They possibly preferred 'Pamela,' which had then
just revealed a new source of amusement to the world, to awakening
sermons; and Edwards' well-meant efforts to suppress the evil set the
town 'in a blaze' (i. 64). A more serious quarrel followed. Edwards
maintained the doctrine, which had been gradually dying out amongst the
descendants of the Puritans, that converted persons alone should be
admitted to the Lord's Supper. The practice had been different at
Northampton; and when Edwards announced his intention of enforcing the
test of professed conversion, a vigorous controversy ensued. The dispute
lasted for some years, with much mutual recrimination. A kind of
ecclesiastical council, for