Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1900, volume 2).djvu/329

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EDWARDS
EDWARDS
307

EDWARDS, Justin, clergyman, great-grandson of Samuel, b. in Westhampton, Mass., 25 April, 1787 ; d. at Bath Alum, Va., 23 July, 1853. He was descended from Alexander Edwards, who emi- grated from Wales, and resided at Northampton, Mass., in 1655-'y0, and whose grandson, Samuel, died in 1749. Justin was graduated at Williams in 1810, and in 1811 began at Andover a theological course, which he did not finish. Being earnestly pressed to become pastor of the " South " parish, comprising nearly 2,000 parishioners without other religious organization in the same town, he was or- dained 2 Dec, 1812. In 1817 he was elected a member of the executive committee of the New England tract society, and in 1821 was chosen cor- responding secretary, by which the labor and re- sponsibility of superintending the press and direct- ly managing the business of the association official- ly devolved upon him. Early in 1825 he united with the Rev. Dr. Woods and fourteen others in organizing in Boston the " American Society for the Promotion of Temperance." In 1827 he was one of several prominent New York and New Eng- land clergymen who met at Lebanon Springs, N. Y., to discuss the subject of religious revivals, and the same year was honored with the degree of D. D. by Yale. About this time he applied for and re- ceived a release from the pastoral relation, and had entered on his duties as agent of the American tem- perance society when he decided to accept a call from a new church in Salem street, Boston. Here he labored so zealously that, by the following sum- mer, his failing health compelled him to resign. Dr. Edwards was now free to return to his temperance work, in which he engaged with extraordinary en- ergy for the next six years (1830-6). During this period he travelled extensively, arousing the public to the importance of the reform, and wrote a series of papers known as " Permanent Temperance Docu- ments." In 1836 he was elected president of the Andover theological seminary, which office he held for nearly six years. His attention was now called to the proper observance of the Sabbath, and when the American and foreign Sabbath union was or- ganized in Boston he became its secretary. From 1842 till 1849 he was laboriously engaged in doing for the Sabbath what he had previously done for the cause of temperance, not only travelling exten- sively and delivering addresses in every part of the country, but writing another set of " Permanent Documents," which probably form the ablest con- densed plea for the Sabbath that the language af- fords. The last four years of his life were chiefly occupied in the preparation of a condensed com- mentary on the Scriptures at the request of the American tract society. He had completed the work, so far as the New Testament was concerned, and had proceeded with the Old Testament as far as the 50th Psalm. Dr. Edwards published many sermons and addresses, and was the author of the following tracts issued by the American tract so- ciety : No. 167, " Well-conditioned Farm " (on tem- perance) ; No. 177, "Joy in Heaven over One Sin- ner that Repenteth " ; "No. 179, "The Way to be Saved " ; No. 125, " On the Traffic in Ardent Spir- its " ; No. 582, " The Unction from the Holy One." Of the first four, 750,000 copies were printed prior to 1857. Of his " Sabbath Manual," 583,544 were called for ; of the " Temperance Manual," 193,625 ; and more than 70,000 of the commentary on the New Testament. A memoir of his life and labors, by Rev. Dr. William Hallock, was published by the Tract society in 1854. — Bela Bates, clergy- man, another great-grandson of Samuel, mentioned in the preceding sketch, b. in Southampton, Mass., 4 July, 1802 ; d. in Athens, Ga., 20 April, 1852. He was graduated at Amherst in 1824, and at An- dover in 1830. He was licensed to preach in the latter year, but was never ordained. After serving as tutor at Andierst, he acted as assistant secretary of the American education society in 1828-'33. He edited the " American Quarterly Register " in 1828-42; the "American Quarterly Observer," which he founded, in 1833-5 ; the " American Bibli- cal Repository," with which the latter was united, in 1835-8 : and the " Bibliotheca Sacra " in 1844-'52. He was appointed professor of Hebrew in Andover theological seminary in 1837, received the degree of D. D. from Dartmouth in 1844. and in 1848 was elected associate professor of sacred literature. Dur- ing his twenty-four years of editorial labor he issued thirty-one octavo volumes of the periodicals with which he was connected. His work in connection with the " Quarterly Register " was especially valu- able. He designed to make it a storehouse of facts for present and future generations, and it contains indispensable materials for the historian. In the pages of the other periodicals named, Dr. Edwards's contributions were chiefly criticisms of current (es- pecially biblical) literature and disquisitions on the science of education. While occupied with his labors in this field he published several works, among which are the "Eclectic Reader" (1835); " Biography of Self-Tauglit Men " (1831) ; " Memoir of Henry Martin," with an introductory essay (1831); "Memoirs of E. Cornelius" (1833); a vol- ume on the " Epistle to the Galatians " ; and the " Missionary Gazetteer " (1832). He was also a fre- quent contributor to the religious press, and wrote various pamphlets and the more important por- tions of several books in collaboration with Profs. Sears, Felton, and Park. Among the latter are " Selections from German Literature " and " Clas- sical Studies." He was also associated with Samuel H. Taylor in the translation of " Kiihner's Greek Grammar." In 1845 he was compelled to visit Florida for his health, and on his return sailed for Europe, where he spent a year. In 1851 he was again compelled to go south, and was residing there the following winter, when he died. He was an ideal editor and professor, uniting great erudi- tion and a sound judgment with a deep, earnest, • and uniform piety. A selection from his sermons and addresses, with a memoir by Prof. Edwards A. Park, was published in Boston in 1853.


EDWARDS, Morgan, clergyman, b. in Monmouthshire, Wales, 9 May, 1722 ; d. in Pencador, Del., 28 Jan., 1795. He was educated at Bristol college, England, and ordained to the Baptist ministry in Cork, Ireland, 1 June, 1757. He came to this country in 1761 and became pastor of the Baptist church in Philadelphia, but resigned his charge in 1770, and never afterward became a pastor, travelling widely as preacher and lecturer. In the Revolutionary struggle Mr. Edwards was the only Baptist minister in the country, with one possible exception, who sympathized with the mother country. He was a man of scholarly tastes and attainments, and as a preacher had no equal in the Baptist pulpit of his day. To him, more than to any one else, is due the credit of founding Rhode Island college, now Brown university. Besides being the principal mover in the enterprise, he was active in securing funds for the permanent support of the institution, and was one of its fellows from 1764 till 1789. Mr. Edwards was the first American Baptist to attempt a history of his denomination in this country. In pursuing this design he travelled from New Hampshire to Georgia eagerly collecting materials. Besides various published dis-