ory sufficiently clear. They had been set in family connection,
intimate by kin, intimate in earliest life by every outward tie, and
especially intimate by the subtile affinities of their spiritual
natures. Yet he who can, under any circumstances, entreat the love of
woman, and then take advantage of her weakness or her confidence, is an
anomaly in nature, and should have a special, judiciary here and in
heaven.

Since so much of the romance here following is truth, veritable truth,
it is to be regretted that any error of historical character was
suffered to assume importance in the narrative. Yet this is so often the
case in works of this kind, that it is not remarkable here. More
surprising is it that truth was so carefully and conscientiously guarded
and preserved.

In conflicting statements, it is difficult to determine the precise year
of the marriage of Mr. Edwards, whether before or after the death of
"Eliza Wharton," although it may have been long before, even as one of
his biographers has it, and that recklessness and extravagance may have
lifted him to a too fearful height from the calm Eden of love and
honor, till he at length compromised the influence of both to baser
avarice.

That he married Frances Ogden, of Elizabeth-town, New Jersey, for his
first wife, is the fact, and the date given is 1769. Yet the ciphers may
be questioned, I think, as it would make him but nineteen years of age
at the time of the event, besides other considerations which make it
appear more doubtful still.

He was, however, as has been already stated, the eleventh and youngest
child of Rev. Jonathan Edwards, and was born in Northampton,
Massachusetts, _Sabbath_. His biographer has been particularly faithful
in thus recording it, as if the hallowed influences of the Sabbath upon
birth have a bearing on subsequent life, and were in his case either
strikingly marked or missed. He was born, then, Sabbath, April 8, 1750,
and was cousin, in good or evil, to the notorious Aaron Burr. He was
also brother to Rev. Jonathan Edwards, president of Union College.

His mother, Sarah Pierrepont, was of aristocratic origin, and the
daughter of Rev. James Pierrepont, and granddaughter of John Pierrepont,
of Roxbury, from whom descended Rev. John Pierpont, the celebrated poet
and divine of our own time. The Pierrepont family was a branch of the
family of the Duke of Kingston, (Pierrepont being the family name;) and
the mother of Mr. Edwards was