[19] instance, this rhythmical beauty when he describes the career of Thomas Shepard, the first minister of Cambridge, as “a trembling walk with God,” or gives this picture (1702) of what he calls “The conversation of gentlemen :”
There seems no need of adding anything but this, that when gentlemen occasionally meet together, why should not their conversation correspond with their superior station? Methinks they should deem it beneath persons of their quality to employ the conversation on trifling impertinences, or in such a way that, if it were secretly taken in shorthand, they would blush to hear it repeated. “Nothing but jesting and laughing, and words scattered by the wind.” Sirs, it becomes a gentleman to entertain his company with the finest thoughts on the finest themes; and certainly there cannot be a subject so worthy of a gentleman as this — What good is there to be done in the world? Were this noble subject more frequently started in the conversation of gentlemen, an incredible good might be done.Beyond the fact that they were both ardent defenders of the Calvinistic doctrine, Jonathan Edwards and Cotton Mather had really very little in common, as to either character or experience. Edwards was modest and gentle in character, and simple to the point of bareness in style; and life was not arranged very smoothly for him.
