Each Monthly Issue Features Seasonal Stories

Use this story, with our compliments, in your newsletter.

The man who made (and kept) 70 New Year’s Resolutions

Most people make New Year’s resolutions to become a better person, but one 18th-century minister made 70 resolutions designed to mold himself into the perfect man.

Jonathan Edwards, a Congregationalist theologian, was born in 1703 the fifth child of 11 (the only son) in Connecticut Colony. A precocious child who entered Yale at 13, he became an enthusiastic student of nature and science.

Like many of his contemporaries, he believed a perfect person could exist. He wanted to be that person. To that end, he wrote his 70 resolutions.

In 1720, he began his resolutions for his own conduct: To speak with truth; never to speak evil of others; to shun anger and revenge; to be temperate in eating and drinking; to be agreeable, peaceable, compassionate and charitable.

Refining resolutions

During the next few years, Edwards added to his resolutions, focusing resolutions about living: Resolved, never to lose one moment of time … to live with all my might, while I do live. Similarly, he resolved I will live so as I shall wish I had done when I come to die.

He asked himself if afflictions can be good: Resolved, after afflictions, to inquire, what I am the better for them, what good I have got by them, and what I might have got by them.

Edwards, who frequently meditated on death as a way to understand life, lived to age 54. The father of 11 children, his descendants have left a large legacy in America. Of 400 traced descendants, there were 13 college presidents, 65 professors, 100+ lawyers, 30 judges, 66 physicians, 80 holders of public office (including three senators, three mayors, three state governors, one controller of the United States Treasury, and one vice president of the United States (Aaron Burr elected 1801).

“I love having access to all the articles and artwork — and comics and the games too! So excited to not have to dig and search the internet for articles that are suitable as well as available for re-publication. This has made my life much easier.”

-Regina Kloosterman