Читать книгу Aaron Burr: A Biography - Nathan Schachner - Страница 10

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And now, in swift and crashing crescendo, grim tragedy stalked the luckless family. President Burr was a slight, spare man, and the imperious demands of his situation had sapped his vigor. Still exhausted from the emotional orgy of the revival, he set off in August, 1757, to Stockbridge to confer with his father-in-law. On his return from that tedious journey, he found it necessary to set off at once to Elizabethtown to meet Governor Belcher on business relating to the College. There he learned of the death of a friend’s wife, and hastened to the house of mourning to preach the funeral sermon.

He took ill with a fever when he finally returned to Princeton, but, scorning mundane ailments, he took post to Philadelphia, once more on behalf of his beloved College. No sooner had he returned from there than the tidings were brought him of the death of Governor Belcher. It was a terrific shock. They had been close friends, and the College of New-Jersey was much beholden to the efforts of the Governor. He himself was by now quite ill, yet, disregarding all protestations, he went once more to Elizabethtown to preach a lofty and moving sermon at the bier of his friend. It was the last straw. He barely managed to get home and went immediately to bed, delirious. He never arose, dying quietly on September 24, 1757.

His death made a deep impression. His contemporaries knew that a great and good man had passed. His funeral took place in the College he had loved and labored mightily for; it was attended by a tremendous outpouring of people; the newly appointed Governor of New Jersey delivered a glowing eulogium, his praises were sung in press and pulpit alike, and finally his remains were deposited in the College churchyard.

The Reverend Ezra Stiles, preacher and tutor at Yale, heard of the sad event and sat down to his diary. “President Burr I was Intimately acquainted with,” he said. “He was a little small Man as to body, but of great and well improved Mind ... He was a hard Student. A good classical Scolar in the 3 learned Tongues:—was well studied in Logic, Rhet., Nat. & Mor Phil., the belles Lettres, History, Divinity, & Politics. He was an excellent Divine & Preacher, pious & agreeable, facetious & sociable, the eminent Xtian & every way the worthy Man. Like St. Paul his bodily presence was mean & contemptible, but his mental presence charmed all his Acquaintance. He was an Hon. to his College & an ornament to the Repub. of Letters.”^[32]

He left a not very large estate. His salary had been small and the demands on his purse heavy. But it was sufficient for the needs of his widow and their two small children.^[33]

It was a terrible shock to poor Esther. Only by calling on the consolations of religion was she able to achieve a measure of peace. All the training of a lifetime was brought to bear. “O, dear madam,” she wrote her mother, “I doubt not but I have your, and my honored father’s prayers, daily, for me; but, give me leave to intreat you both, to request earnestly of the Lord that I may never despise his chastenings, nor faint under this his severe stroke; of which I am sensible there is great danger, if God should only deny me the supports that he has hitherto graciously granted.”^[34]

Her grief later gave way to exaltation, to a raptness that comes only to the zealot. Her rhapsodic outburst to her father, barely a month after the death of her husband, and with little Aaron, who had proved to be a delicate, ailing child, in the throes of another attack, smacks strongly of the glowing visions and the joyous renunciations of the Middle Ages. “God has carried me through new trials, and given me new supports,” she cries. “My little son has been sick with a slow fever ... and has been brought to the brink of the grave. But I hope, in mercy, God is bringing him up again. I was enabled to resign the child, after a severe struggle with nature, with the greatest freedom. God showed me that the child was not my own, but his, and that he had a right to recall what he had lent whenever he thought fit ... A few days after this, one evening, in talking of the glorious state my dear departed must be in, my soul was carried out in such longing desires after this glorious state, that I was forced to retire from the family to conceal my joy. When alone, I was so transported, and my soul carried out in such eager desires after perfection, and the full enjoyment of God, and to serve him uninterruptedly, that I think my nature would not have borne much more. I think I had that night a foretaste of Heaven.”^[35]

Poor lady! She spoke wiser than she knew. For now calamity fell with renewed force upon them all. Young Aaron was better, but Jonathan Edwards was soon dead. He had been called by the Trustees to Princeton in January, 1758, to replace his deceased son-in-law as President of the College. The smallpox epidemic was still raging, and Edwards sought protection in inoculation. Unfortunately, the inoculation developed seriously, and on March 22, 1758, he died. A month before, his own father had preceded him.

His daughter Esther was not long to survive him. Already she had taken the smallpox taint, and on April 7, 1758, she, too, succumbed to the epidemic disease, aged twenty-seven.

Nor was the tale yet complete. The two orphaned children—Sally, aged four, and Aaron, aged two—had been hurriedly transported to Philadelphia and placed under the temporary care of Dr. Shippen, a friend of the family. Their grandmother, Sarah Edwards, Jonathan’s wife, journeyed there in September to take them to her own home. In less than two weeks she, too, was dead—of dysentery.

Father, mother, grandfather, grandmother, great-grandfather—all in the space of a year!