LIFE OF PRESIDENT DAVIES.

THE Rev. Mr. Samuel Davies, late president of the college of New-Jersey, was born on the 3d day of November, A. D. 1724, in the county of Newcastle, on Delaware. His father was a planter, who lived with great plainness and simplicity, and supported the character of an honest and pious man to his death. His mother, who was greatly distinguished for her eminent piety, some time before the conception of this favourite only son, earnestly desired such a blessing; and as she then had only born a daughter, who was nearly five years old, she had special occasion for the exercise of her faith, in waiting for the divine answer to her petition. In this situation she took example from the mother of the prophet Samuel, and "Vowed a vow unto the Lord; that if he would indeed give her a man-child, she would devote him to his service all the days of his life." 1 Sam. i. 11.

It may well be supposed, that the parents received this child as from God, and that the mother especially, who had reason to look upon him as a token of the divine favour, and an express answer to her prayers, would, with the greatest tenderness, begin the rearing of this beloved plant. As there was no school in the neighbourhood, she herself taught him to read: and, although he was then very young, he is said to have made such proficiency as surprised every person who heard of it.

He continued at home with his parents till he was about ten years old, during which time he appeared to have no remarkable impressions of a religious kind; but behaving himself as is com VOL. II.

Pp

mon for a sprightly towardly child, under the influence of pious example and instruction. He was then sent to an English school, at some distance from his father's, where he continued two years, and made great progress in his learning; but, for want of the pious instruction with which he was favoured at home, he grew somewhat more careless of the things of religion.

It appears, that about this time of life, careless as he was, he made a practice of secret prayer, especially in the evening. The reason (as he tells it in his diary) why he was so punctual in the evening was, that "he feared lest he should perhaps die before morning." What is farther observable in his prayers at this time is, that " he was more ardent in his supplications for being introduced into the gospel-ministry, than for any other thing."

Mr. Davies speaks, in a letter to the Rev. Mr. J. Bellamy on the state of religion in Virginia, of a glorious display of divine grace in and about Somerset county in Maryland, of its beginning, as he thinks, in the year 1745, by the ministry of Mr. Robinson, and of its being carried on by sundry ministers that preached transiently there. "I was there (says he) about two months, when the work was at its height, and I never saw such a deep and spreading concern among people in my life as then appeared among them. The assemblies were numerous, though it was in the extremity of a cold winter; and frequently there were very few among them that did not give some plain indications of distress or joy. O! these were the happiest days that ever my eyes saw, or are, I fear, like to see." If Mr. Davies was there (and I suppose he was there as a minister) in the year 1745, he was but twenty-one years of age. However, he was sent by the presbytery of Newcastle to Virginia, in the year 1747, when he was but twenty-three years of age. Here he continued till the year 1753, when he was chosen by the synod of New-York, at the instance of the trustees of New-Jersey college, as a fit person to accompany the Rev. Mr. Gilbert Tennent to Great-Britain and Ireland, with a view of soliciting benefactions for the said college. In this mission he was highly successful; for to his services, added to the pious and liberal charity of the friends of religion and learning in Great-Britain, received upon that occasion, does the college of New-Jersey, in a great degree, owe its present flourishing condition.

On his return home, he again entered on his laborious and beloved task of preaching the gospel to his several congregations; and continued in this work until the year 1759, when he was elected president of the college of New-Jersey, in the room

of the Rev. Mr. Jonathan Edwards. The college, before he came, had been in an unhappy situation; partly owing to the length of ⚫ that melancholy period between the death of president Burr and his accession, and partly to the evil dispositions and practices of a few members of the society. President Burr died in September, 1757: and although Mr Edwards was elected a few days after, he did not take upon himself the government of the college till February, 1758; and about a fortnight after, took the small-pox, of which he died in March following. Mr Davies was not initiated in his office till the latter end of July, 1759; so that the college lay under the obvious disadvantages of a bereaved condition for almost two years. But the prudent measures taken by president Davies soon surmounted these disadvantages; so that in a few months a spirit of emulation in learning and morality, as had been usual, evidently characterized the students of Nassau-Hall.

While he continued president his labours were great; and his application to study was necessarily more intense than that of his predecessors. For he came to this seat of the Muses when its learning, by the eminent abilities of president Burr, was advanced to a very considerable degree; and he had just emerged from a sea of ministerial labour in various places, wherein a common genius would have been able to have made but little improvement in academical learning. Besides, the speedy passage he made through the course of his studies, previous to his entering into the ministry, made his after-application the more necessary for so important and elevated a situation. He was determined not to degrade his office, but to be in reality what his station supposed him; and accordingly exerted himself to the utmost. The labours of the day seemed to him rather an incentive to study than to rest in the night; for he commonly sat up till twelve o'clock, and often later, although he rose by break of day. The success was proportionable; for, by the mighty efforts of his great genius, and by dint of industry, he left the college of New-Jersey at his death in as high a state of literary merit as it ever had been in since its first institution.

There is reason to believe, that the intense application with which Mr. Davies attended to the duties of his office was one great cause of his death. The habit of his body was plethoric: and it is not to be doubted but that his health for some years had very much depended upon the exercise of riding, to which he was necessarily obliged while he lived in Virginia, though even then he had several severe fevers, supposed to arise principally from his application to study in the intervals of riding abroad. When

he came to the college he scarcely used any bodily exercise, save. what was required in going from his own house to Nassau-Hall, which is a space about ten roods, five or six times a day.

In the latter end of January, A. D. 1761, a bad cold seized him, and for his relief he was bled. The same day he transcribed for the press the sermon, which was soon after published, on the death of the late king, and the day after preached twice in the collegehall; by all which, the arm in which he was bled became much inflamed, and increased his former indisposition. On the Monday morning after, at breakfast, he was seized with a violent chilly fit, which was succeeded by an inflammatory fever, and, in ten days (4th February) brought on the period of his important life.

Although premonitions of death in the present state of the world are seldom, if ever, given to mankind; and they who are disposed to interpret ordinary occurrences into such premonitions, when, by something similar in the event, those occurrences would seem as if predictive, generally discover their weakness; yet the circumstances of the death of an eminent person are commonly very acceptable to the public; and for this reason it may not be amiss to mention an anecdote which Mr. Davies more than once took notice of in his last sickness.

An intimate friend of his, a few days before the beginning of the year in which he died, in conversation, told him that a sermon would be expected from him on the new-year's day; and, among other things, happened to mention that the late president Burr, on the first day of the year wherein he died, preached a sermon on Jer. xxviii. 16. Thus saith the Lord, this year thou shalt die! and after his death, the people took occasion to say it was premonitory; upon which Mr. D. observed, that " although it ought not to be viewed in that light, yet it was very remarkable." When newyear's day came, he preached; and the congregation were not a little surprised at his taking the same text of scripture. Upon his being taken with his last sickness, about three weeks after, he soon adverted to this circumstance, and mentioned it as remarkable that he had been undesignedly led to preach, as it were, his own funeral sermon.

It is much to be lamented that the violence of the disorder, of which this excellent man died, deprived him of the regular exercise of his reason, the greater part of the time of his sickness, otherwise the public would undoubtedly have been gratified with his remarks on the views of an approaching eternity; and would have received another evidence of the superior excellency and power of that religion, which alone can support the soul, and