Well, I'll come back to another episode of five minutes in church history.

One was the last time you sat down and wrote a letter.

When was the last time you got a letter?

Well, on this episode, let's take a look at Jonathan Edwards' first letter, the very

first letter he wrote.

Now, over the course of his lifetime, he wrote a boatload of letters.

But his first one dates to May 10, 1716.

He was 12 years old.

Now, he very well wrote letters probably before this one, so I must qualify it.

This is the first extent letter that we have, that is to say, this is the first known

letter that we possess of Jonathan Edwards.

He wrote it to his sister Mary, first a word about Jonathan Edwards' family and the family

he grew up in.

His father was Timothy Edwards.

He was a pastor and Timothy Edwards' father, that would be Jonathan Edwards' grandfather,

was a pastor.

He was the reverend Richard Edwards there in Hartford, Connecticut.

Well, into the family of the reverend Richard Edwards was born Timothy in 1669.

Timothy went on to graduate from Harvard in 1691 and in 1694, he married Esther Stoddard.

She was the daughter of the famous Solomon Stoddard.

He was sometimes called the Pope of the Connecticut River Valley.

And of course, he was the longtime minister there in North Hampton, Massachusetts.

...