In a letter of the same year to his mother, who had his conversion much at heart, he says:—
“I do have times when the tears of regret flow, and I make the resolution of attending to the subject of religion. But my light head and still lighter heart dismisses the subject as soon as another object arrests my attention, and my resolutions and regrets are soon lost in the mazes of pleasure and folly.”
It is curious to reflect that these “mazes of pleasure and folly” meant nothing more than innocent school-boy diversions, such as black-berrying and swimming parties, or at worst a juvenile flirtation with some rural belle. The oldness and gravity of the phrase, in contrast with the boyish tone of other parts of his letters, illustrate well that moral precocity—precocity of the conscience as distinguished from the mind—developed in New England boys of the last generation by the Puritan training.
In January, 1823, the great revival which had been in progress at Boston struck the Andover academy. Mr. Willis made his son a visit, and urged him to join the church. After his return to Boston he received the following letter:—
Andover, Mass., January 12, 1823. Sunday afternoon.
Dear Father—I received your package last evening, with my Testament, etc., inclosed. As the word of God I prize it, and as the gift of my affectionate father I love it, and shall always look upon it as a remembrance of an era in my feelings which I hope I shall always be thankful for. You cannot imagine how much your visit and advice strengthened me in my resolutions, and spurred me forward in the good work I had begun. I hope I have now the assurance of being an heir of life and a recipient of the protection which the wings of a Saviour’s mercy must afford to those who are gathered under them. My hope is sometimes shaken when I find my thoughts wandering to other subjects while the ordinances of God are administering before my eyes. But the moment that I get upon my knees and pray for strength I feel my assurance renewed, and rise happier and happier from every renewal of my supplications. … Saturday evening I attended our usual meeting in the academy for the first time since I have been in Andover. It is conducted by the pious scholars of the academy in succession, and is very interesting. This evening Dr. Shedd preached the lecture, and after meeting there is to be another at Mr. Adams’s house. So you see, pa, we are engaged here, and have reason to hope that many will be inquiring the way to the foot of the cross. … —Nine o’clock. I have been to meeting at the chapel, and after that attended a prayer-meeting at Mr. Adams’s. They were both very solemn. Louis Dwight led the last.—Monday evening, 12 o’clock. I have truly spent an evening of happiness, and I thought I must open my letter and tell you. At half-past six William Adams and I had appointed a meeting, to be conducted wholly by ourselves. We had invited only a few, but when we got there it was so crowded that I could scarcely make my way through the room to the Bible-stand. I believe nearly all our unconverted brethren were there. … After it was dismissed, many seemed to linger, as if they did not want to go, and we conversed with some of them. I then went into Cutler’s room, and Allen and I stayed there till almost eleven o’clock. There were several of the Seminarians there, and we prayed and sung, prayed and sung, till it seemed a little heaven on earth. The seriousness increases; many more are deeply impressed, and the academy presents solemn countenances generally. It is late, and my eyes smart badly.
Your affectionate son,
N. P. Willis.
The William Adams here mentioned was a son of the principal of the academy, and was afterwards Willis’s classmate at Yale. Louis Dwight was a theological student, who a year later was married to Willis’s second sister, Louisa. The subsequent progress of the revival is related in the following letter, written two or three days later:—
Andover, Mass., January 15. Wednesday evening, 12 o’clock.
My dear Father—My heart is so overflowing with joy and gratitude and happiness that I could not rest till I had sat down and told you all. We have had a meeting in Allen’s room to-night. Mr. Styles was there, and talked so that I thought I could almost see a halo round his head, and expected him to turn into St. Paul come down again from heaven. After meeting Mr. S. told them the meeting was closed, but if any wished to converse with him or the other professors of religion in the room, they might tarry. The room was crowded, body and all, so that you could not have got through, but no one stirred. Sobbing and weeping was heard all round the room. William Adams, Allen, Styles, and I then went round and conversed with them. They all burst into tears immediately, and listened with the greatest eagerness, and when I got up to go to the next one, they held on to me as though salvation depended on my talking with them. Isaac Stuart sobbed aloud the whole meeting time. Joseph Jenkins was in tears, and came down to my room after meeting and asked me to pray for and with him. He said he could not pray himself; he dared not. I gave him the best advice I could and prayed with him, and he is now in his room, as I hope praying for himself. I talked with little Joshua Huntingdon, and told him about his father. He wept, and promised to go home and pray. J. C. Alvord, a member of my class and a fine fellow, was in the greatest misery. He could not sit upon his chair, and took me out of the meeting to go to my room and pray with him. Jno. Tappan of Boston was very deeply affected. I conversed with Darrach of Philadelphia, Carter of Virginia, King of Convers, and several others. They all seemed to feel very deeply, and all begged me earnestly to pray for them. We could not get them away. They stood round weeping and looking for some one to say something to them. Oh, my dear father, what can we render to God for all his mercies! Allen has been down in my room several times to pray for some particular one. There were so many to pray for that we have been on our knees from seven o’clock till now almost all the time. Kennett, my room-mate, is very much affected. He fears to delay repentance, but says his father won’t like it when he goes back to Russia, and that there are no Christians in Russia. … Prayer ascends continually, sinners are repenting, and I am as proud as Lucifer. I feel as if I was going to do all myself; as if I could convert a thousand without God, if I only told them the truth. Oh, pray that I may have humility! It is and must be the burden of my supplications.
Of the names mentioned in this letter, that of Isaac Stuart is not unknown to fame. Joseph Jenkins afterwards became Willis’s brother-in-law, marrying his sister Mary in 1831. He was from Boston, and was graduated at Yale the year after Willis.
CHAPTER II.
1823–1827.
COLLEGE LIFE.
In the fall of 1823, Willis entered Yale. Commencement was then held in September and first term opened late in October. College life left a more enduring impress upon Willis than upon almost any other American writer. It furnished him with a fund of literary material. It brought him into the sunshine, and changed the homely school-boy chrysalis into a butterfly of uncommon splendor and spread of wing. During freshman year he lodged in the family of Mr. Townsend, opposite South College, with other members of the Andover contingent. One of these was Henry Durant, who was Willis’s chum all through the four years of the course. He was a serious-minded lad, a hard student, who took high rank in the appointment list, and his influence over his less steady room-mate was always for good. He became in time the founder and first president of the University of California, and a man of wide influence in educational and religious matters on the Pacific coast. Among Willis’s other intimates in his own class were Joseph H. Towne, also a Boston boy, and afterwards a doctor of divinity; and “Bob” Richards, of New York, who took him home with him in vacations, and introduced him to the gayeties of the metropolis. Class lines were not drawn very sharply then, and one of his best friends in college was George J. Pumpelly of Owego, New York. Their friendship was continued or resumed in later life, when Willis bought from Pumpelly the little domain of Glenmary; and settled in his neighborhood on Owego Creek.
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