William Byrd

I enjoyed William Byrd's story on How the Dividing Line between North Carolina and Virginia was established. As the editor said it seemed that he wrote with the idea that just he and his family would be reading it so the style was very straightforward but also included jokes and funny stories. I also liked the fact that it educated me on something I used to take for granted, namely how the states gained their borders.

His comments on the differences between North Carolina and Virginia were both humorous and enlightening. Virginia was described as beautiful and had an industrious people. But North Carolina was shown to be lazy and backwards. However an interesting bit of human nature was uncovered when he said that while surveying the land most people preferred that they would be in North Carolina instead of Virginia. The desire to not be told what to do by the government was evident and foreshadowed the Colonist desire to eventually be freed from English or any other rule. Byrd also made the comment that someday maybe even a great nation could rise out of North Carolina. I see this as a very interesting predictor of what has happened in N.C. since it has emerged as a premier state in the last twenty or so years.

Finally, Byrd’s commentary on the American Indians was interesting in that he saw little difference between them and the settlers in their attitudes and social life. He even criticized Britain’s lack of encouragement to interbreed with these Native Americans as a way to both convert them and gain land from the natives.

Jonathan Edwards

To begin with Edwards cited a scripture and then explicated it and the implications of it on the disciples. Then he continued with how it was relevant to all believers in his section on doctrine. The rest of this piece seems to deal with proving how there are two types of wisdom/knowledge; a natural wisdom that even unbelievers can know or feel and a spiritual knowledge that is imparted directly from God. He calls this the divine light.
He then proceeds to state what divine light is and is not. Just having a guilty conscience does not mean you have learned something from God any man can have that. Secondly, being is not just a feeling it’s a true sense or knowledge that without a doubt this is true and it feels true too. Thirdly, it is not some new idea or thought it is something that comes from the bible and is just brought to understanding by God.
Finally, He tries to show how it comes straight from God and not by man. First of all the source of the divine light must be from the bible. No natural thing can produce it. And there should be joy found in the knowledge of the truth and there should be a change of heart.
I found this piece to be rather dry and wordy and ineffective in explaining the complexities of “the divine light”. For even his base scripture was not directly related to the topic and could have been interpreted to mean something different if not at least more specific than what Jonathan Edwards tries to argue. Most of the ideas were his and he only used scripture in one part of the argument. In the end I found it to be boring and even a little snobbish that somehow he was the one to know what came from God.

May I introduce myself?

My name is Jonathan Holly and I'm a Senior Psychology Major at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. I'm from Waxhaw, NC and I hope to be married within the next few years to my wonderful girlfriend Angela. I'm taking an American Literature Class for fun this year and this is my blog for the class. Hopefully I will have some good insights and any comments are welcome. Carolina basketball is also my life so if you ever get any tickets you know who to call.