Читать книгу Aaron Burr: A Biography - Nathan Schachner - Страница 9

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On February 6, 1756, Esther Burr was “unexpectedly delivered of a Son,” and “had a fine time altho it pleased God in infinite wisdome so to order it that Mr. Burr was from home.” But, she rattled on, “I had a very quick & good time. A very good laying in till a but 3 weeks, then I had the Canker very bad, & before I had recovered of that my little Aaron (for so we call him) was taken very Sick so [that] for some days we did not expect his life. He has never been so well Since tho he is comfortable at present.”^[23] His sister Sally was almost two now. There were to be no more children. Tragedy was lurking in the shadows.

But the protagonists did not know it at the time. They were still at Newark, in the parsonage at the juncture of Broad and William. The College buildings were growing slowly. Esther Burr was in raptures over them. “The College,” she exclaims lyrically, “is a Famious building I assure you & the most commodious of any of the Colleges as well as much the largest of any upon the Continent. There is Somthing very Striking in it & a grandure & yet a Simplicity [that] cant well be expressed.”^[24]

Her husband was noticeably more controlled in his enthusiasms. “We have begun a Building at Princeton,” he wrote his Scotch correspondent, “which contains a Hall Library & Rooms to accommodate about an 100 Students, tho it will not any more of it be finished than is absolutely necessary at present, with an house for the President. We do everything in the plainest & cheapest manner, as far as is consistent with Decency & Convenience, having no superfluous ornaments.” But he is satisfied. The students are behaving well. There are, in fact, some among them “that give good evidences of real Piety, & a prospect of special Usefullness in the Churches of Christ.”^[25] That, after all, was the all-important thing: The training of missionaries to spread the new unrest, the inner agitation, to all America.

Little Aaron was only six months old when a company of soldiers was quartered on the parsonage unexpectedly. Esther was not pleased. That night she scribbled in her diary: “50 Soldiers to Sup at this House & Lodge which Surprized me much, but they behaved better than I expected considering they came from Road Island. They are going for recrutes.”^[26] The Colonies, it seems, were not free from sectional prejudices.

The very next morning she set out with her infant son—Sally remained at home—“in a Waggon for Stockbridge.” It was the long-anticipated, arduous journey to revisit her family. They welcomed her—mother, sisters, brothers, and the slightly bewildered, if still unbending Jonathan. To him she fled with the secret doubts that had troubled her soul—religious fears of which she did not wish her husband to know—and her father soothed, advised, and poured the sweet oil of his wisdom over their festerings. She came back via New York, feeling infinitely refreshed.

But alas! Poor little Aaron, who had stood the journey quite well, took immediately ill with a hoarse throat and violent fever. “The Doct Said he was affraid the Child would not live till morn.” The frantic mother went through agonies, but in the morning the little one was still alive, to the vast astonishment of the learned doctor. He mended, did Aaron, but very slowly, and “O my dear,” Esther cried to her confidante, Miss Prince, “help us to bless the Lord for his great mercies. I look on the Child as one given to me from the dead. What obligations are we laid under to bring up this Child in a peculiar manner for God?”^[27] One wonders, had she lived, what sentiments she would have set down in her diary anent the strange course of her son’s career.

In December, 1756, the College buildings having been put in a fair state of completion, they removed to Princeton. It was hard and wearing, this pulling up of stakes, this removal of an institution. Mr. Burr confessed to his friend, the great evangelist, Whitefield, that “the fatigue I have had in the care of the College this winter has been greater than ever, being obliged to do the duty of a Tutor as well as my own.” But it did not matter. For, “blessed be God I never had so much comfort in my little Society. There has been a growing concern about the great things of religion among my pupils for some time past. Some of the most vain & careless greatly reformed and some enquiring the way to Zion.”^[28]

They were quite definitely in the throes of a great revival. Whether it was the sermons and exhortations of the President, or an intangible something that sweeps over even the most intelligent societies at times, the young students had received the inner illumination that comes from a state of grace and were acting accordingly.

But neither he nor his wife found any incongruities in the situation. It was the accepted mode of obtaining “Grace.” Esther gave hallelujah. “Good news my dear,” she penned joyfully. “I have to tell you this morning a Minnisters Son near Philadelphia hopefully received Comfort last Night in the Night. There was little Sleep amongst them. Some up all Night. Mr. Spencer Sat up till 1 o’clock then left there poor young cretures Seeking God.... Mr. Burr Says he thinks [it] evidently a Work of Grace.”^[29] And again, Mr. Burr told her that the “great part of the Schollars are gathered into one Room Crying in great distress & [that] another has received comfort. My Heart Exults at the thought [that] God is about to revive Religion in general.” Esther Burr, in spite of certain worldly distractions, was a deeply religious woman.

The Princeton Revival made a great noise in the outside world. Inquiries poured in seeking first-hand knowledge of the late “remarkable occurrences.”^[30] President Burr was inordinately pleased, albeit exhausted. At no time had he been happier. But already the first clouds were gathering.

In May, Esther’s sister became ill with the smallpox—there were always epidemics—and Esther had attended to her. In spite of her fears she escaped infection. The next alarm was for “Mr. Burr.” He had played with a little dog they had taken home from her ill sister’s home. A month of dreadful anxiety passed, and then the clouds lifted—temporarily. They were both still unscathed.

Meanwhile the children were growing apace. In September, 1757, the mother considered them with an impartial eye and jotted down the results on paper. “Sally has got pretty hearty again, is not much of a Baby, affects to be thought a Woman. Nothing She Scorns more than to be told She is a Baby or Child. We are about Sending her to School, but Mr. Burr is expecting [that] She will prove a numbhead.” But as for her son, she sensed other things. “Aaron,” she noted, “is a little dirty Noisy Boy very different from Sally almost in every thing. He begins to talk [a] little, is very Sly and mischievous. He has more sprightliness then Sally & most say he is handsomer, but not so good tempered. He is very resolute & requires a good Governor to bring him to terms.”^[31]