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. 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 "[w]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: Ministry Emmons was licensed to preach by the South Association of Hartford County, in October, 1769. The examination which he underwent, on that occasion, was, on several points, unsatisfactory to a part of the Association,—particularly on the doctrines of depravity, regeneration, human and Divine agency. Several of the older clergymen voted against his licensure, and one of them, the Rev. Mr. Eells of Middletown, went so far as to throw in a written remonstrance. Emmons may have originally been somewhat inclined to Arminian views. Under the teachings of