d to bring on the
great jubilee of Freedom.

THE EDWARDS FAMILY.

Among the surviving octogenarians of New York and its vicinity, there
are few of such interesting reminiscence as one who is passing an
honored old age at his residence on Staten Island. Those who live in
Port Richmond will have anticipated his name, and will perceive at once
that we refer to the Hon. Ogden Edwards. Judge Edwards is of an ancient
and noble stock, being grandson of the author of the treatise on the
_Freedom of the Will_. The family emigrated from England with the first
colony of the Puritans, having previously to this suffered persecution
in one of its members. This man--a minister--had an only son, who became
the founder of a line illustrious for genius and piety. The latter of
these traits was illustrated in the lives of both Daniel Edwards, of
Hartford, and his son Timothy, who was for sixty years pastor of the
church at Windsor, but in the person of Jonathan Edwards we see the
outcropping of genius. He was the son of Timothy, and followed his
father's profession in an obscure New England village, whose meadows
were washed by the waters of the Connecticut.

Jonathan Edwards, during a life of close study, developed one of the
clearest and most powerful intellects which was ever united to so rare a
degree of patience and humility. In that day of small things it could
hardly have been dreamed that the Puritan preacher, who for a quarter of
a century filled the Northampton pulpit, would ever rank among the
giants of intellect. At the distance of one hundred years no name is
more powerfully felt in the theology of America than his, while in
metaphysics, and in the sphere of pure thought, his position, like that
of Shakspeare in literature, is one of enviable greatness. This man is
not to be confounded with his son of the same name, who, though of
distinguished ability, was far from equaling his father; both, however,
were academic presidents, the one of Nassau Hall, at Princeton, the
other of Union College; to which it may be added that Dwight, grandson
of the first, was for many years the honored president of Yale. Judge
Edwards is the son of Pierrepont Edwards, who was bred at Stockbridge,
among the Indians. Here his father labored as missionary, having been
driven from his parish by an ill-disposed people, many of whom were, it
may be, like the Athenian of old, who was tired of hearing Aristides
called 'the Just.'

While labo