brightest hopes christianity can encourage. It is my consolation that I stand not here to eulogize a character which is appreciated by all; but to invite you to follow his example, that through faith and patience you may inherit the promises. To do justice to his merits, would indeed require an acquaintance of an earlier date; information more extensive; a judgment more matured by experience of human nature; and a tongue more eloquent than mine. Expect not, therefore, a detailed enumeration either of his personal virtues, or his ministerial furniture and excellencies. Of both, you are far more competent to form an estimation than I, to whom, unhappily for myself, he was unknown, except by general reputation, until disease had impared his strength and arrested his publick functions.

He was a native of the state of Pennsylvania. The era of his birth is fixed in 1740. His early years discovered that vigour of mind which distinguished him in after life; and during the course of a liberal education, he afforded ample presages of the eminence to which heaven had destined him. In 1760, or 1761, he visited this place, and in about two or three years after, renewed his visit as a probationer for the office of the holy ministry. His labours being acceptable, he formed a congregation; officiating for some time at first in a small edifice, to not more, it is supposed, than six families. The numbers shortly increased to such a degree as to call for the erection of a new church; to which, at no long period after, an addition was made to accommodate the influx of worshippers. The augmentation of the society rendered it necessary, some years ago to erect the present building; which, while a propitious providence shall permit it to endure, shall be an honourable monument of the taste, industry, assiduity, and ministerial zeal of our deceased Pastor. None can wrest from him the title of our spiritual father, or refuse to acknowledge him as the founder, under God, of our religious establishment, at this moment one of the most respectable in the states of America. In vindicating

the rights of the presbyterian church against what he conceived to be the invasions of more favoured connections, he was firm and uncomplying. In the discharge of duties more immediately pastoral, he was exemplary. He watched and wept, he prayed and felt, for all: and where; upon retrospection, he apprehended that he might have been more faithful in any particular of ministerial obligation, his enlightened conscience evinced a tenderness of regret, which more than all other proofs, demonstrates the general integrity of his soul. In his pulpit compositions, he was chaste, correct, elegant, energetic. As circumstances required, they informed the mind-quickened the fancy-or touched the springs of passion. He was particularly impressive on certain occasions; in the performance of funeral offices; in dispensing the sacraments; and, especially, in the service of the holy communion. In solemnizing the nuptial rite, the forms he employed were admirably calculated to inspire those present with the most exalted views of a relation on which too many cast but loose and superficial regards. In the deliberative assemblies of our church, he was distinguished for profundity of investigation-promptitude and vigour of decision. In the supreme ecclesiastical court, a body consisting of clerical and lay delegates, from the different presbyteries in the United States of America, where the force of ministerial talents and wisdom may be supposed to be concentrated, he had an ample theatre on which to display the distinguishing and combining powers of his mind. On that field, he stood among the foremost in the judgment of all-in the opinion of not a few; unrivalled. To close this very imperfect sketch of his publick character; he was orthodox, without possessing the asperity of sectarian bigotry; he was liberal, without subscribing to the fashionable indifference of the age, or assailing the eternal barriers between truth and falshood, rectitude and error. Such was the Pastor.

Alike eminent was the man. Let the tears of a wife, to whom, for the affectionate assiduity with which she attend

pay

ed him during a long and lingering malady, I am proud to this publick tribute of respectful admiration; let the tears of an only daughter, deprived of his example and instruction; let the tears of his domestics, whom, able as he was at once to command and conciliate, he had inspired at once with fear and with love; let the regrets of all whom he had ever honoured with his intimacy, describe to you the husband-the father-the master-the friend. In all the departments of life he was alive to the impulse of duty. Firm-incorrupt-undaunted-I deem myself warranted in applying to him that observation of the Earl of Morton at the grave of a celebrated Scottish reformer; "Here lies one who never feared the face of man."

As dissolution approached, his wishes seemed to meet it. Some days previous to his decease, he intimated to the faithful and beloved partner of his sorrows, a fear that he might live to kill her by the fatigue of attending him; and he was frequently heard to express a desire to depart. More than once he exclaimed in an earnest and impressive manner, "My God!" laying a peculiar, and apparently, endearing emphasis on the first word of the exclamation. Pardon me, Christians, if I fondly undertake to supply the omission, and say, what I believe he would have said, "My God! why are thy chariots so long in coming?" At length, on the twenty first of August, 1802, between the hours of one and two, having himself closed his eyes and composed his features, with a radiant smile upon his countenance, and not a groan or a struggle to interrupt the awful stillness of death, he returned his spirit to the hands of Almighty God who gave it, and was delivered from the burthen of the flesh, and from sufferings very rarely equalled.

Such, Christians, was the life-such were the last moments, of our Pastor. He is gone; but his memory lives; and he, being dead, yet speaketh. Hear him then, Christians: It is the last time he ever will address you. My people, he says, forget me not, before I am cold in the grave.

The bonds which united us are holy. Lose not the recollection of them in the dissipations of the world, in the rounds of gaiety, and the avenues of pleasure, where man walketh in a vain shew. My people; sharp were my pains, and keen my sufferings; I am at rest. But pain and suffering may also be your portion. Death will certainly enrol you among his subjects. "All flesh is glass, and all the goodliness thereof, as the flower of the field; that glass withereth, and that flower fadeth."*"Consider your end and the measure of your days, that you may learn how frail you are." My people, death is the wages of sin. It is sin that divides the parent from his child-the pastor from his flock. --It is sin that annuls the covenant of friendship, and severs the dearest ties of love. Sin no more. Repent--Believe— Purify your consciences from dead works to serve the living God—and triumph, with the apostle; "O Death! where is thy sting? Grave! where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God who giveth us the victory, through our Lord Jesus Christ." AMEN.

PRAYER.

ALMIGHTY and most merciful Father-with whom do live the souls of believers when the struggles of life are over, and death is swallowed up in victory; we render thee thanks as for all thy servants departed this life in thy faith and fear, so especially, for this thine eminent servant our Bishop and Pastor; beseeching thee to impress upon our minds the recollection of his Christian and social virtues; his public and private worth; to the end that by thy grace we may imitate him in all his excellencies. We thank thee for his deliverance from bodily pain and suffering, and for the good hopes we are warranted to entertain concerning his everlasting des

Isaiah, xl. 6. 7. †Psalm, xxxix. 4. ‡ 1 Cor. xv. 55.—57.

tiny; imploring of thy mercy to compensate his departure to his friends; his family; and his people; by lifting on us the light of thy countenance, and conferring on us thy favour which is life, and thy loving kindness which is better than life.

O! wean us from the world. By every instance of mortality, admonish us of the vanity of all things here, and raise our affection to that felicity which never departs; to that glory which never withers; and to that life which is immortal.

Accept these our thanksgivings, and grant these our petions, for Jesus Christ's sake our only mediator and advocate.

Our Father who art in heaven; hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom come; thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven; give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors; lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil; for thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. AMEN.