to Northampton had been to consult Dr. Mather,
whose verdict was that he was far gone in decline, and who gave him no
advice but to ride as much as possible. So little difference did this
sentence make to him that he never noted it in his diary, though he spoke
of it cheerily in the Edwards family--a large household of young
people--where he was so much beloved, that when he decided to go to
Boston, Jerusha, the second daughter, entreated to be allowed to
accompany him, to nurse him as his sister would have done.

The pure, severe simplicity of those early American manners was such,
that no one seems to have been surprised at a girl of eighteen becoming
the attendant of a man of twenty-nine. Jerusha had the full consent and
approbation of her parents, and she was a great comfort and delight to
him. He told her father that she was more spiritual, self denying, and
earnest to do good, than any young person he had ever known; and on doubt
their communings were far above earth, hovering, as he was well known to
be, upon the very borders of the grave.

They took four days to reach Boston, and there he was received with the
greatest respect by all the ministers; but, a week after his arrival, so
severe an attack of his illness came on that he became delirious, and was
thought to be at the point of death. Again, however, he came back enough
to life to sit up in bed and write ardent letters of counsel to the
brother who had succeeded him among his Indians, and likewise to give his
friends the assurance of his perfect peace and joy. He said that he had
carefully examined himself, and though he had found much pride,
selfishness, and corruption, he was still certain that he had felt it his
greatest happiness to glorify and praise God; and this certainty,
together with his faith in the Redeemer, had calmed all the anguish he
had suffered for years.

Whenever he was able to converse he had numerous visitors, especially
from the deputies of the Society in London which had assisted Eliot. A
legacy for the support of two missionaries had newly been received, and
his counsel on the mode of employing it was asked. He was able to strive
to imbue others with the same zeal as himself, and to do much on behalf
of his own mission, although he often lay so utterly exhausted that he
said of himself that he could not understand how life could be retained.
One of his brothers, a student at Yale, came to see him, and to tell him
of the d