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through such a variety of scenes without stain and without proach. It must indeed create astonishment, that placed in circumstances so critical, and filling, for a series of time, a station so conspicuous, his character should never once have been called in question, that he should in no one instance have been accused either of improper insolence or of mean submission in his transactions with foreign nations. It has been reserved for him to run the race of glory without experiencing the smallest interruption to the brilliancy of his career. The breath of censure has not dared to impeach the purity of his conduct, nor the eye of envy to raise its malignant glance to the elevation of his virtues. Such has been the transcendant merit and the unparalleled fate of this illustrious man."

Of such a man, America may well boast, and the principles which helped to form his character may justly be inquired after with interest. It appears from recent American papers, that the infidel party in the Republic have been anxious to claim Washington as their own. Preposterous as this must appear to the few surviving contemporaries of that illustrious man, it is necessary, for the sake of the rising generation, that the falsehood should be put down.

The Rev. Dr. Milner, of New York, who visited London a year or two ago, has written to a brother minister at Alexandria, soliciting information, who sent him in reply the following letter:

Alexandria, Oct. 18, 1831. Rev. and dear Sir,-Although you have not heard from me again, as I promised, I have not been unmindful of the subject of your first letter. Owing to sickness in one branch of the Washington faN. S. No. 88.

mily, and the absence from home of another, it has not been in my power to obtain precisely such documents as I hoped to procure. Indeed, the private papers of General Washington are in the hands of the Rev. Jared Sparks, who is using them to enable him to draw up a life of the General. Such information as it has been in my power to obtain, relative to his Christian principles, &c. I will now give, and if more should hereafter come into my hands, it shall be forwarded without delay. That he was a professed Christian, is affirmed by every branch of the family; and the universal impression, both among his relatives and others is, that he was a communicant; but I find no one who ever communed with him. His nephew, Major L. Lewis, says, that he well remembers leaving the General and his wife in church when the Lord's Supper was to be administered, and that then, none remained in the church here but communicants. That he was a friend and supporter of religion, will appear from the enclosed extract from the records of the vestry of Christ's church, Fairfax parish, which I thought you would prefer to have, rather than a copy, on account of its being properly attested by the Rector.*

mercy, that I have now no disposition to ask it, and I feel deeply what you once said, that God is under no obligation to give me a better heart, especially after such long abuse of his kindness. Better for me now, had there been no God and no offered Saviour."

What could I reply, my lips were sealed-here was a man literally in the slavery of hell,"sold under sin."

He proceeded, "You were doubt less surprised that all you said to me should have produced so little effect; the fact was, I was under the influence of certain worldly opinions which I had made up my mind not to renounce, let the consequences be what they might. They were to me as a right eye or a right arm. You were not the first person who set the gospel plainly before me, and warned me of my way. Early in life an attached relative seriously pressed upon me the necessity of giving up my heart to God. I felt the weight of his remarks and resolved to attend to them. The Spirit, as a convincer of sin, distressed me. I felt obliged to come to some decision, and I resolved that before many years had passed over my head, I would become religious. This satisfied me and my convictions left me. I went into the world, fell in with gay associates, and soon became addicted to prac tices which the world allows, thongh God condemns.

"Some years after this I was obliged to witness the death of a young companion. He said but little, but that little was a word of warning. I left his chamber, went home and wept bitterly. My former vows came back to my mind, my sins were placed in order before me. If the Spirit ever strives with he strove with me then. But it was in vain. I loved my sins too dearly to part with them. I rushed

man,

into new gaieties and soon obliterated my impressions.

"What you said to me troubled me a little, but that was soon forgotten, and from that day to this I do not know that I have ever had one serious thought of eternity; and now that I am about to enter upon it, there is no subject I would rather forget. But this is impossible. There is no such thing as forgetting eternity on a death-bed." Then turning himself towards me, and fixing his eye upon me, he said in a slow and solemn manner and, in tones which I shall never forget, "I know now what that text means, A certain-fearful looking for of judgment."

The scene was almost too much for me. His relative, who had stood by and heard him speak, was quite overcome. She threw herself upon a chair, hid her face in her hands, and wept in bitterness of soul.

He alone was unmoved. There seemed indeed for a moment to be a kind of satanic triumph in his eye, as if he could brave Omnipotence, but it soon vanished. After a while he thus resumed.

"I had a dreadful vision last night, a vision of the last judgment. It was the great day of account. A countless host were present. The books were opened, and my character was exhibited before an assembled world.

"On the throne of judgment sat Jesus Christ, that very Christ whose enemy I had been, whose mercy I had scorned, whose blood I had trampled upon, whose yoke I had despised, and whose name had been hateful in my ears.

"The law was my accuser. It complained of violated precepts without number, pleaded its right to perfect obedience, and demanded that I should be consigned to eternal pain.

"The witnesses were called, and a host appeared, and they all testified against me; and then there was a solemn silence. And a voice from the throne uttered, 'I spread eternity before his eye.' 'I withstood him in his way.' I called but he refused,' • I asked admission to his heart, but it was the abode of every foul and hateful bird, and he would not have it cleansed. Long time I strove with him but in vain. He was joined to his idols, so I let him alone.'

"The evidence was made up. Sinner, answer for thyself sounded through the vast assembly. I was speechless. I looked to Christ and said something about having trusted in the merits of his blood. But he replied, depart from me, accursed, I never knew thee, thou worker of iniquity. Every word was like a poisoned arrow. I awoke in anguish, and ever since, that scene has been floating before my eyes."

I ventured to ask if his opinions had undergone no change with regard to his accountability. "O yes," he replied, "a most important one. There is now a solemn conviction on my mind, that I am both an accountable and an inexcusable creature. If I could feel that my aversion to God was involuntary, and that I never had either power to keep his law spiritually or ability to love him supremely, then I should feel that I was unjustly dealt with, and a sense of injury would sustain me; my situation would be unfortunate it is true, but the spirit.' of man will sustain his infirmity. But this is not my condition, my deepest anguish arises from that which no man can bear, ' a wounded spirit.' I have no sense of injury to sustain me. There is nothing in the character of God which I can possibly despise. While I hate his purity and holiness I cannot help admiring and envying him. I covet

heaven, yet I feel conscious I should be miserable there. There is not one being there with whom I could sympathize. I am earthly and I love earthly things. It would be intolerable to me to be for ever engaged in spiritual exercises. If I had my choice I would stay on earth for ever. O that I could live always. But since that cannot be I must sink to hell."

I begged him to stop, as the exertion of speaking was evidently painful to him, but he cried out, No, hear me out. You will never hear my voice again. This is our last meeting.

66

"I was placed upon earth to glorify God, but I have lived to myself. I had a soul to save, but I neglected it. I had a calling and election to make sure, but I have scarcely given it a thought. All eternity lay before me, but I chained myself to earth. I have not fulfilled the purpose for which I was created, and for this I am accountable.

I have no excuse to plead, my depravity was voluntary depravity. I had as much power to love God as to hate him. As much power to go to the house of God as to the abodes of sin. As much power to attend to the things which were spoken in relation to my eternal peace, as I had to attend to any thing else. The only reason why I did not keep the whole law perfectly was because I would not ; and when I had broken it, the only reason why I did not exercise evangelical repentance was, because I would not. Life and death were before me, I chose death. I was as able to have chosen life, and now I must bear the consequences. I have been on the whole what is considered a moral man; I have had a form of religion; I have had a clear speculative acquaintance with its truths; I have had convictions of sin; I have been confident

of heaven at last, but I have never loved God. I do not love him yet. I never shall love him through all eternity. Now the harvest is past, the summer is ended, and I am not saved.' He paused a moment or two, and then added in a low voice.

"But now the Almighty God comes near And fills my soul with awful fear." He was quite exhausted. He lay with his eyes fixed. The horrors of an undone eternity were again before him.

I gazed in silent anguish. There he was, evidently dying; and dying without Christ, and without hope of salvation; dying with the solemn conviction that he had destroyed himself; dying, after having first witnessed the death of all his false hopes, of all his vain confidence, of all his ungrounded persuasions of God's mercy. The physician arrived, and we left the room. His relative, who accompanied me, expressed a hope that he might be labouring under some mental delusion, especially as he had spoken much about having sinned against the Spirit. She could not believe, she said, that the Spirit of God ever strove with man in vain.

I reminded her of the language of God himself in reference to the Antediluvian world, "My Spirit shall not always strive with man." From this passage I urged, it was evident that God by his Holy Spirit had striven with them, and striven long, and striven in vain, and therefore threatens to strive no more.

"Give me, (said she) your views on that passage, for this subject often perplexes me." I replied, you cannot dispute that the words of the text clearly involve the fact, that God by his Holy Spirit strove with the old world. The first question then is, How had he striven with them? Doubtless,

he had striven with them by the admonitions of conscience, which never fails to set before men the sins of which they are guilty. The prevailing sin of the old world was infidelity. This was at the root of all their transgressions. They were fools, and said in their hearts," there is no God." The warnings of conscience being neglected, God next strove with them by a miraculous interposition; and, to leave them without excuse for their unbelief, Enoch was taken to heaven without dying, that thus demonstration might be given of the being of a God, a rewarder of the righteous, and a judge of the wicked. all was in vain-the corruption became universal. The righteous few who had long formed a true church in the midst of all that was lost and depraved, became corrupted too. The " sons of God,” instead of "marrying in the Lord," "took them wives of whomsoever they chose," and the whole earth, without exception, became one vast theatre of rebellion against God.

But

Last of all, God strove with them by the preaching of Noah,

a preacher of righteousness." That the Spirit of God, as a convincer of sin, accompanied Noah's preaching, is evident from the (1st of Peter iii. 20,) where Christ by the Spirit is spoken of as preaching to them. By which also, (that is, by the Spirit spoken of in the foregoing verse,) he went and preached unto the spirits (now) in prison, which sometime were disobedient when once the long suffering of God waited in the days of Noah while the ark was a preparing." Nothing, therefore, can be plainer, than that both by conscience, by miraculous interposition, and by preaching, God's Holy Spirit strove with the old world.

The second fact involved in the passage I quoted is, that there was a time when he ceased to strive with them. When that time was, does not appear. Probably long before the ark was finished; for notwithstanding this erection, which was itself a continual sermon, and notwithstanding the repeated exhortations of Noah, it seems that not one convert was made. He and his family went alone into the ark.

We know what was the consequence of the cessation of his strivings, universal infidelity abounded. Men became more careless than ever. "They ate and drank, they married and were given in marriage, and God was not in all their thoughts." In vain was the voice of Noah lifted up in earnest entreaty. In vain did the ark rise before them in majestic simplicity. Every stroke of the hammer, instead of shaking their hearts, excited their ridicule. Every sermon was laughed at. God was mocked and despised. In vain did the beasts of the field, and the fowls of the air, and every insect that creepeth upon the earth, and every winged fly, come trooping in pairs into the refuge which God had provided. The miracle might occasion wonder, but it did not affect their hearts. At length the day came, the hour was fulfilled. God shut them in with all that was needful for their preservation and safety, and before many days the ark floated over a convulsed and ruined world. In that little bark was shut up all that lived, and breathed, and moved-the fathers of a new world, the seed of the countless millions, who have since that time trodden the fair fields of earth, and whose ashes repose under its bosom. Such were the men of the old world, and such was the way in

which God dealt with them. Now, apply this to the present race of sinners. God's Holy Spirit strives with sinners now. He strives in many ways and by various methods. He strives by conscience-conscience is in the breast, the vicegerent of God; it is the candle of the Lord, shining in the innermost parts of the body; it is the still small voice of the Almighty; in the absence of revelation it is the light by which men will be judged and condemned. "For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves; which shew the work of the law written in their hearts-their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the meanwhile accusing or else excusing one another.

It is here that the Spirit of God first meets with resistance from the depraved heart of man-even in childhood, the effort begins to stifle the voice of conscience.Being resisted thus early and constantly, it is not to be wondered at, that before long its warnings become altogether disregarded; it ceases to be heard, and ceases to be troublesome.

By

Conscience being neglected, God next strives by providential dispensations. Every fit of sickness is an alarm-the death-bed of every sinner is a sermon, and the deathbed of a saint is a sermon too. these events he affects the hearts of surrounding survivors, brings eternity immediately under their eye, and sets before them powerful motives to turn to him, that they may live. In proportion as these impressions are neglected or forgotten is the Holy Spirit resisted and despised.

But chiefly and more than all, God strives with a rebellious world by the faithful preaching of