He graduated at Dartmouth College, and at the Princeton Theological Seminary at Princeton. He was pastor of the Presbyterian church in Adams, N. And then of a church in Norwich, afterward professor of English literature in the Albany Academy, N. He received the honorary degree of D. From Madison College, New York. He married Eliza Winne, of Albany, in 1825. They had five children. Offering an archive relating to Sessions with approximately 20 manuscript sermons, dating from 1824 to1846, about 200 pp, various sizes, bound with the original string. 5 ¼ x 8, ALS from Sessions to his sister with descriptive content regarding San Francisco, including the problem of insanity, which apparently resulted from high pressure driven by chaotic population growth, a situation that followed the Gold Rush. Sessions doesn’t mention the Gold Rush. The archive also includes cabinet card photographs of Sessions and his wife Eliza that were taken from miniatures of each by William Shew’s Photographic Establishment in San Francisco. In the ALS, Sessions writes, … Unaccountably there is in the great city of S. [San Francisco] a tendency to insanity. Scarcely a daily paper without the notice of one or more sent to the insane asylums. Perhaps if the papers in N. Were as particular in noticing such things, this contrast would not seem so great… [San Francisco] is a mass of sand hills, strong, cold winds-no shade trees-everything unsightly except the immense buildings… His sermons are deeply religious tying scriptural citations to human behavior and articulately written. In sermon numbered 105, he writes, reflecting Proverbs 14:12,… Every servant must answer to his own master. Man is the creator & of course the rightful servant of God. We have no right, therefore as men, to influence the opinions of our fellow men any farther than they have a bearing on our own interests as being of equal rights with themselves. We cannot impose laws for their conscience & lay down rules of moral right upon our own authority… From Matthew 6: 1: Judge not that ye be not judged. Judge not does not mean that we are to make no use of our own judgments… We are to understand it is forbidding us to intermingle & judge & condemn where it does not belong to us… Blind and rash judging is forbidden… A wise merchant will expect to meet with many difficulties, trials & losses & will endeavor to prepare for them. A storm at sea or a confabulation in the city or town may seriously affect his interests. Bad servants may perplex & injure him. Thieves & robbers may deprecate upon his property. Dishonest customers may wrong him… And generally he may be expected to be calumniated in many ways; the object of envy & reproach; having the ill will of many simply from insisting upon his rights. Thus it is with the spiritual merchant. The storms of affliction & temptation deprive him of rest… In another sermon, entitled, “True Dignity, ” Sessions writes, Some of the virtues which religion enjoins upon men are universally approved. Every man sees the loveliness of meekness, patience & gentleness. No man disapproves of the truth & honesty, Charity… Are commenced by all… The fact is, all the natural virtues may & ought to be connected with religion. When they are not, they cease to be what they seem… Whatever appears to be religion without magnanimity without religion is false magnanimity something entirely different from real greatness & dignity of character… Eight have mouse chews near the bottom edges or right-hand margins. Our goal is to please every customer.
