|
Nathaniel Emmons (April 20, 1745 – 1840) was a noted New England divine. ==Early life and education== Born in East Haddam, Connecticut, Emmons was the sixth son, and twelfth and youngest child, of Samuel and Ruth (Cone) Emmons.〔William Buell Sprague, ''Annals of the American Pulpit: Trinitarian Congregational'' (1857), p. 693-696.〕 Both his parents were professors of religion, and he was the subject of an early Christian training.〔 Early in his life, his father intended to give Nathaniel a liberal education, and to allow him to enter some one of the professions; but on witnessing his volatile, trifling spirit, he changed-his mind, and determined to sober his views by making him a farmer.〔David Sherman, ''Sketches of New England Divines'' (1860), p. 361-370.〕 Emmons, however, never cared for labor, and intended in some way to escape it if possible.〔 Being indisposed to agricultural pursuits, to which his childhood and early youth were devoted, and having an ardent thirst for knowledge, he gained his father's consent to commence a course of classical study.〔 He studied vigorously, and after ten months he was admitted to Yale College in September, 1763.〔 He graduated in 1767, in the same class as John Treadwell, John Trumbull, and several other of the noted New England natives. Emmons lost his father about three months before his graduated, inheriting only a bequest for defraying the expenses of his education.〔 Emmons devoted a few months to the business of teaching, and then went to reside with the Rev. Nathan Strong of Coventry, Connecticut, as a theological student.〔 However, after a short time, he placed himself under the instruction of the Rev. John Smalley, of Berlin, who had then the reputation of being one of the ablest Divines in New England.〔 Of his early religious history Emmons stated that "by reading the life of a pious youth, I was sensibly struck with a conviction of my great guilt and the awful thought of dying unprepared",〔 noting that "()hen one of my sisters died of consumption, my fears about myself were again alarmed, and I had some lively apprehensions of the state of the damned, especially of the lake that burned with fire and brimstone".〔 Emmons further described the feelings that led him to pursue a career in the ministry: 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Nathaniel Emmons」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|