Hopkins, Samuel, D.D., a noted Calyinistic divine, was born at Watorbury. Conn., Sept. 17, 1721, and was at once set apart l>y his fatlu-r for the ministry of the Gospel. He entered Yale College in September, 1737. During his coUegiate course the town of New Haven was stirred by the preaching of AVhitelield and Gilbert Tennent. The students were deeply alTected, and Hopkins was one of the converted. After grailua- tion he commenced the study of theology with jiresi- dent Edwards, and, though not an imitator of the presi- dent, he was more powerfully infiuenced by him than by any other man. In 1741 he began to preach, but with great embarrassment jmd despondency. Diiring his first few months of probation ho declined five invi- tations for settlement. On Dec. 23, 1743, he was or- dained over an infant church of five members in Ilousa- tonick, now Great Barrington, Mass. He remained in this pastorate twenty-five years. He often preached extemporaneously, and was indefatigable in parochial labor. He gave' offence to his people by his practice of reading portions of Scripture in the Sabbath services, a practice which was then miusual in New England. From 1744 to 1763 the prosperity of the church was more or less interrupted by the French and Indian war. Hop- kins was obliged often to remove his family, and some- times to go iiimself, for safety from Great Barrington. His criticisms on the militaiy movements of the British army are quite acute : " Our generals are very grand. Tlie" baggage of each one amounts to five cart-loads. Mighty preparations, but nothing done." On tlie banks of the Monongahela Washington was uttering almost the same words to general Braddock. His church, during his pastorate, increased in membership from five to 116. He labored faithfidly among the Indians of his vicinity, and spent much of his time in personal intercourse with Jonathan Edwards, then of Stockbridge. He became unpopular with some members of his parish on account of his strict terms of Church communion, his bold asser- tions of Calvinistic doctrine, and his staunch patriotism. He was especially disUked by the British Tories. Some of his parishioners would give nothing for his support, and others had nothing to give. In great poverty, he left his parish in 17G9. In April, 1770, he Avas installed pastor of the church at Ne^\T5ort, which town was then a port of commercial importance, and for many years tlie rival of New York. During the first year of his pastorate Ho]5kins enjoyed a visit from Whitefield. His church in Newport flourished until the outbreak of the Revolutionarv War. In 1776 the town was captured by the British, and remained in their )K)ssession three vcars. Hopkins continued at his post mitil the last moment, and then was compelled to flee. Ho spent the interval in assisting his friend. Dr. Samuel Spnng, of Newbiu-y-port (see Life and Times of Gardiner Spring [N. Y. 186(5, 2 vols. 12mo], i, 12 sq.), and in supplying destitute churches in Connecticut. Durmg his absence his people were scattered, and his meeting-house nearly
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demolished. He returned in 1779, and began to preach in a private room, but soon received aid from his friends in Boston and Newburj'port for the restoration of his church edifice. He rejected eligible otfers of settlement in other places, and remained faithful to liis people, re- ceiving no regular salary, but depending on precarious and meagre contributions.
As soon as Hopkins commenced his pastoral labors at Newport he began to agitate the subject of slavery. At that time Ne^qwrt was the great slave-market of New England. Hopkins affirmed that the town was built up by the blood of the Africans. Some of the wealthi- est members of his church were slave-traders, and many of his congregation were slave-owners. He astonished them by his first sermon against the slave system. The poet Whittier says : " It may well be doubted whether on that Sabbath day the angels of God, in their wide survey of his universe, looked down upon a nobler spec- tacle than that of the minister of Newport rising up be- fore his slaveholding congregation, and demanding, in the name of the Highest, the deliverance of the captive, and the opening of the prison-doors to them that were bound." Only one family left his church ; the others freed their slaves. He continued to preach on the sub- ject, and made himself intensely unpopular throughout Rhode Island. In 1776 he published his celebrated Di- alogue conceiiiing the Slavery of the AJricans, together with his A dclress to Slaveholders, copies of which were sent to all the members of the Continental Congress, and to prominent men throughout the country. It was reprinted by the New York INIanumission Society as late as 1785. Hopkins entered into correspondence with Granville Sharp, Zachary INIacaiday, and other English fibolitionists. From them he bon-owed the idea of col- onizing the blacks ; and he devised a colonization scheme, in which he manifested a practical statesman- ship unusual for a clergyman. When the Federal Con- stitution was framed in 1787, he pointed to the clause recognising slavery in the United States, and said, " I fear this is an Achan, which will bring a curse, «o that we cannot prosper." Of a movement so vast as the anti-slavery reform in tb.e United States no one man can claim to be the author ; but Dr. Hopkins was most certainly the pioneer in that movement.