Influence of the Clergy. Seldom have ministers exerted such influence as they did in Puritan New England during part of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Their meetinghouses served as the town hall, and their pulpits were the rostra from which they played upon the feelings of their listeners. They were usually men of action, equally skilled as political and religious leaders. Their sermons were the editorials of the day, and the people looked to them for physical as well as for spiritual guidance. These same sermons, carried sometimes to appalling lengths, constitute the bulk of the literature of these two centuries. This literature has decreased in importance through the lapse of time, and now the men whose writings were revered by their contemporaries are scarcely known by name to the student of literature. But out of this body of writers there stand forth two eminent divines who deserve more than a passing glance, not so much for what they wrote as for their interesting personality, Cotton

Mather and Jonathan Edwards.

Birth. Cotton Mather, the son of Increase Mather, was born in Boston, February 12, 1663. His mother was the daughter of the celebrated

minister, John Cotton, whose fame was spread not merely throughout the colonies, but in the mother country. His father was a learned minister, who had served for a few years as the President of Harvard College. Thus through his parents he inherited a love for learning, which in him became almost a passion.

Education. The young boy was very precocious, astonishing all by his early attainments, especially in the classics. He received an excellent education for those days, and in later years his library was considered the largest in the colonies. His religious training was most severe.

"I began to pray," he wrote, "even when I began to speak.. I used secret prayer, not confining myself to Forms in it: and yett I composed Forms of prayer for my schoolmates (I suppose when I was about seven or eight years old), and obliged them to pray."

Before he was eleven years old he could write Latin verse and had an intimate knowledge of the leading Latin writers. He had studied Greek and Hebrew, and was admitted to Harvard at the age of twelve. When he was graduated in his sixteenth year, his scholarship had been so marked and his conduct so exemplary that he was publicly complimented by the college president.

Ministry. After his graduation he began the study of medicine, but having overcome an im

pediment in his speech, he devoted himself to the study for the ministry for which he had had a natural longing. At the early age of seventeen he preached his first sermon, and the next year he was made his father's assistant. For nearly fifty years he was actively engaged in ministering to the people of the North Church, first, as associate to his father, and later, as pastor. Until the day of his death he devoted all his time to praying, preaching, reading, writing, and visiting the sick. He was even then fearful that he was not doing enough to serve the Lord. It was his sole aim to get as near God as possible, and he was kept in a constant state of religious excitement.

Writings. He was an omnivorous reader, and his eye caught at once on the page the information that he desired. He wrote freely and on a variety of subjects. In one year he is said to have published eighteen distinct works, in another twelve, and three hundred and eightythree is given as the total number of his publications. Some of these were mere tracts, while others were works of several volumes. The most important and his greatest work was Magnalia Christi Americana, an ecclesiastical history of New England which was begun in 1693 and published in 1702. This bulky work is divided into seven books as follows:

(1) History of the Colonies.

(2) Lives of Governors and Magistrates. (3) Lives of Emigrant Ministers.

(4) History of Harvard College.

(5) Orthodox Creed and Discipline of New England Churches.

(6) Record of Many Remarkable Providences, Judgments, etc.

(7) Wars of the Lord in New England.

The book was written hastily and contains many errors, yet the style is good; his statements are clear and honest, his insight into human nature was unusually keen, and his descriptions of character are vivid and accurate. The super

stitions that are found in his works are doubtless largely due to the age in which he lived. While the Magnalia does not deserve a high rank in American literature, yet it is in many ways a remarkable work, placing the author above his literary compeers.

His Essays to Do Good deserves mention for the effect it had upon Franklin, who thus bears witness to its influence in a letter to Samuel Mather, Cotton's son and biographer :

"When I was a boy I met with a book entitled, Essays to Do Good, which I think was written by your father. It had been so little regarded by its former possessor that several leaves of it were torn out; but the remainder gave me such a turn of thinking as to have an influence on my conduct through