It is not probable that men would choose
beings like themselves for the first objects of their adoration.
Nothing could be more capable of seducing than the beauty and
usefulness of the sun, dispensing light and fertility all around. But,
to conclude, we must not imagine that all idolatry sprang from the
same country. It came by slow degrees, and those who made the first
advances towards this impiety, did by no means carry it to that
extravagant height to which it afterwards arrived."
CHAPTER III.
In college, young Burr formed intimacies which ripened into lasting
friendship. The attachment between him and Colonel Matthias Ogden, of
New-Jersey, was both ardent and mutual; and, it is believed, continued
during the life of the latter. Colonel Knapp says, "Samuel Spring, D.
D., late of Newburyport, was in college with Colonel Burr, and part of
their college life was his chum. The doctor was a student of mature
age, and had a provisitorial power over Burr in his daily duties. He
has often spoken of his young friend with more than ordinary feeling.
He, in fact, prophesied his future genius, from the early proofs he
gave of intellectual power in the course of his college life."
At Princeton, Burr enjoyed the counsel and advice of the late William
Paterson, subsequently one of the judges of the Supreme Court of the
United States. To be thus early in life honoured with the respect and
esteem of such a man as Judge Paterson, was highly flattering.
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