BX5995=S64 S52 
 Slaughter, Philip, 1808-1890. 
 Memorial of the Rev. George Archibald ! 
 
 I V. xvl. 
 
A MEMORIAL 
 
 ^ 
 
 REY. GEORGE ARCHIBALD SMITH, A.M. 
 
 BY 
 / 
 
 PHILIP SLAUGHTER, D.D. 
 
 Historiographer of the Diocese of Virginia 
 
 " Behold an Israelite indeed^ in whom is no guile I " 
 
 — John i. 47 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 THOMAS WHITTAKER 
 
 2 AND 3 BIBLE HOUSE 
 
DEDICATION. 
 
 To the Professors, Alumni and Students of the Episcopal 
 Seminary of Virginia, this humble tribute to the memory of the 
 eldest son of the Seminary is lovingly inscribed. The types of 
 ministers of Christ are many and various. Some are sons of 
 thunder, and others still, small voices. Some are transient 
 meteors, dazzling the eye for the moment, and then vanishing 
 away without a trace ; others shine with steady, noiseless rays. 
 Some are impetuous torrents, carrying all before them ; others 
 are gentle rills, running underground, occasionally coming to 
 the surface in springs of living waters, beautifying and enliven- 
 ing the landscape— poor in spirit, pure in heart, meek in mien, 
 patient in tribulation, rejoicing in hope, instant in prayer, dis- 
 tributing to the necessity of saints, and thinking not of their 
 own, but of the things of others, enduring, believing, hoping, 
 loving and blessing, and thus attesting themselves to be the chil- 
 dren of God in the midst of a wicked and perverse generation, 
 among whom they shine as lights in the world. Of these latter 
 types was our Virginia patriarch, who being dead yet speaketh. 
 That we who are alive and remain may heed his words and fol- 
 low his example as he followed Christ, is the prayer of 
 
 Your friend and brother. 
 
 The Authoe. 
 
MEMORIAL 
 
 Rev. George A. Smith, son of Hugh and Eliza- 
 beth Watson Smith, born November 20, 1802 ; died 
 June 28, 1889; married February 14, 1825, Ophelia 
 Ann, daughter of Isaac Hite Williams, the eminent 
 lawyer of Fredericksburg, Va., and his wife, Lucy 
 Coleman, daughter of Philip Slaughter, officer of the 
 Revolution, and his wife, Margaret French, daughter 
 of Col. French Strother, member of Convention 
 1788-89 and of Assembly and Senate of Virginia for 
 thirty years. 
 
 Issue of Rev. George A. Smith and his wife, 
 Ophelia Williams Smith : 
 
 1. Isaac Williams Smith, captain of civil engineers, 
 assistant to Gen. Emery, Northeastern Boundary ; 
 assistant engineer and astronomer, survey of parallel 
 between Creek and Cherokee Indians, under Captains 
 Sitgrave and Woodruff, U. S. A. ; assistant astrono- 
 mer and assistant on survey of parallel between Iowa 
 and Minnesota, Andrew Talcott, chief engineer; 
 assistant engineer on Southern Pacific Railroad, Cali- 
 fornia, with Col. Williamson and Gen. Parke, U. S. A. ; 
 assistant to Major Bache in constructing lighthouses in 
 Strait of Fuca ; division engineer on Imperial Mexican 
 Railroad ; engineer on hydraulic works at Tepis, also 
 
Western Pacific and Northern Pacific Railroads. But 
 his greatest achievement was as chief engineer and 
 superintendent (1871-1873) of the Williamette Falls 
 Canal and Lock in Oregon. His skill and energy in 
 the work elicited the commendations of the president 
 of the company and engineers of the army. Captain 
 Smith constructed many other works, as the water- 
 works at Tacoma, W. T., and is now engaged in like 
 work at Portland, Oregon. Captain Smith's chief 
 literary work is entitled '' Theory of Deflections, Lati- 
 tudes and of Departures, with Special Reference to 
 Curvilinear Surveys and Alignment of Railroad 
 Tracks." * 
 
 2. Mary Watson, wife of Rev. R. Dunbar Brooke, 
 of Monroe, Michigan. Issue, four sons and three 
 daughters. 
 
 3. Eliza Williams. 
 
 4. Lucy Elizabeth, wife of J. Douglas Corse. 
 Issue, four daughters. 
 
 5. George Hugh, Colonel, 62d Regiment, Im- 
 boden's Brigade, C. S. A. ; lawyer of Los Angeles, 
 Senator, and reporter of the Supreme Court of Cali- 
 fornia, and author of one or more learned law works. 
 Married Susan Glassell, widow of Col. George S. 
 Patton, killed in the battle of Winchester, Va. Col. 
 Smith often commanded the brigade, and his com- 
 
 * This notice is without the knowledge of Captain Smith, and only to 
 the best of the author's knowledge and belief. 
 
mission of brigadier-general was written just as the 
 war ended. Issue, one daughter and one son. 
 
 6. Eleanor Eltinge, died 1871. 
 
 7. Isabella Keiglitley. 
 
 8. Agnes Grey, died in infancy. 
 
 9. Henry Martyn, Captain, 62d Regiment, 
 C. S. A. ; lawyer, judge, and brilliant advocate, Los 
 Angeles, Cal. Married Adeline Wood worth. Issue, 
 one daughter. 
 
 The present writer, in an article on the " Old- 
 Time Virginia Conventions," in the Seminary Maga- 
 zine of last year, referring to the Diocesan Convention 
 of 1828, said: 
 
 " Of all the ministers in that body only three 
 survived, namely, the Rev. Gr. A. Smith, the Rev. 
 Ebenezer Boyden, and the Rev. Parke F. Berkeley. 
 " These venerable brethren," he added, " yet linger in 
 the horizon like evening stars, shining with a mellow 
 light," which he hoped was " the token of a glorious 
 morrow." Within a few short months after these 
 words were written, Mr. Berkeley's light went out. 
 And now that of Mr. Smith has set, leaving Mr. 
 Boyden the sole survivor of the Council of 1828, when 
 so many brethren in the bud of youth, in the bloom 
 of manhood, and the fruitfulness of autumn, took 
 sweet counsel and walked to the house of God in 
 company. 
 
 In the catalogues of the Episcopal Theological 
 Seminary of Virginia, the name of the Rev. George 
 
Smith has been for many years standing alone at the 
 head of the list, ^s the sole representative of the class 
 of 1823, when the Seminary was yet in the nursery, in 
 Alexandria, ere it had been transplanted to its present 
 site, whence seed have been sown broadcast through- 
 out the Domestic and Foreign field, yielding such a 
 fruitful harvest. When one turns over the pages of 
 the catalogue, he is startled to see them studded with 
 stars. In almost every class there is a little constel- 
 lation of asterisks, denoting that the person to whose 
 name it is prefixed has departed this life. Of the ^um 
 total of seven hundred and ninety-five Alumni, three 
 hundred are dead. These soldiers of Christ died on 
 the field of battle against the rulers of the darkness 
 of this world, some of them within the entrenched 
 camp of Satan, and they are sleeping sweetly under 
 the jDalm-trees of Africa, and in other cemeteries at 
 home and abroad. Of all these, our friend was the 
 senior in service, and nothing could have been more 
 fitting than that he should have been called to pre- 
 side over the Alumni at their annual reunion, as he 
 has done for half a century. When the next cata- 
 logue appears the fatal asterisk will be prefixed to his 
 name, denoting that he has ceased from his labors and 
 has entered into rest. There are loving hearts who 
 would not willingly let his memory die. He being 
 dead yet speaketh in the life he lived, and what could 
 be more expressive than speech from beyond the 
 grave. We would, therefore, if possible, reanimate 
 
him by reproducing some events of his life while he 
 walked and talked to us on earth. In this we have a 
 precedent in the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, 
 who called the roll of patriarchs and prophets and 
 others "of whom the world was not worthy," who 
 died in the faith. He thought it was wholesome to 
 realize that we were encompassed with so great a 
 cloud of witnesses, as an injunction to "run with 
 patience the race set before us, looking unto Jesus, the 
 Author and Finisher of our faith." But in view of what 
 was printed more than half a century ago, by the sub- 
 ject of this memorial, we must beware of writing a 
 mere eulogy. Pie then wrote : " It is delightful and 
 consoling to think that the righteous shall be held in 
 everlasting remembrance. But biographies are often 
 mere eulogies, and as such do little good. They should 
 be written for the benefit of the living. The dead can 
 be neither benefitted nor gratified by the ephemeral 
 breath of human praise, unless as it must appear to 
 immortals in itself, and as the tribute of imperfect 
 beings, incompetent to pass judgment upon su2:)erior 
 beings in an exalted state. But if written, as they 
 should be, as impartial narratives — making the reader 
 familiar with the talking and acting man, in little as 
 in great matters — they may be improving in the same 
 way as the society of great and good men is." With 
 this warning staring me in the face, I dare not per- 
 petrate a highly wrought eulogium. I shall rather 
 aim to describe the " talking and acting man, in little 
 
10 
 
 as in great matters," upon the basis of Lis own diary 
 and other authentic data, in manuscript and in print, 
 and the testimonials of eye-witnesses of his life, which 
 was in its later years chiefly " hid with Christ in God." 
 The diary, written as a spiritual exercise, and only for 
 his own eye and the eye of Grod, is a sort of stethe- 
 sco^^e, revealing the beatings of his heart. 
 
 George Archibald Smith was born in the city of 
 Alexandria, Va , on November 20, 1802. His father, 
 Hugh Smith, was a native of England, and settled in 
 Alexandria in the latter part of the eighteenth cen- 
 tury. He had been a member of the Church of Eng- 
 land in the old country, and did not approve Presby- 
 terian doctrines, but he attended with his wife the 
 congregation of Kev. James Muir, D.D., who became 
 the pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in Alex- 
 andria in 1789, and after an exemplary ministry of 
 thirty-one years, died, and was buried under the altar 
 of his church. Rev. G. A. Smith was baptized in 
 infancy by Dr. Muir. Mr. Hugh Smith was a mer- 
 chant, who, by spotless integrity and capacity for 
 business, gained the confidence of his fellow-citizens, 
 and accumulated a handsome fortune, which he dis- 
 pensed bountifully for the benefit of his children, who 
 cherished for him the most profound reverence and 
 affection. His son George often said that it was 
 through the love of his father on earth that he learned 
 to know the love of his Father in Heaven. 
 
11 
 
 George Smith's mother was a native of Ireland, 
 and was the granddaughter of the Rev. Dr. Gordon, 
 a Scotch divine who was invited, early in the last cen- 
 tury, to a professorship in an American college, but 
 declined because " his wife was afraid to live in the 
 American wilderness." 
 
 The life of man may be likened to the course of 
 a sti'eam, which is influenced by things in the heavens 
 and the earth. The direction and qualities of a river 
 depend upon the source from which it springs, the 
 channel through which it flows, the investing atmos- 
 phere, the sun and the rain, and the attraction of 
 o;ravitation — with this difference, that the will of 
 man can overcome nature, as the engineer by digging 
 new channels and by other devices can change the 
 course of the river. But the will of man, aided by 
 the grace of God, can do what the engineer cannot — 
 make it flow back towards the source. Among the 
 coeflicients in shaping man's life are the schools 
 through which he passes and the books which he 
 reads. 
 
 SCHOOLS AND BOOKS. 
 
 The first school which George Smith attended 
 was that of Mr. Cohen, in Alexandria, in 1809. Mr. 
 Charles L. Powell, of this city, was also a pupil of 
 Mr. Cohen, and recollects him as of short, broad 
 stature, rather formidable to small boys for the sever- 
 ity of his discipline. Mr. Smith remembered a screen 
 
12 
 
 which separated the boys from the girls, and some of 
 the former were bad boys, whose influence upon him 
 was not wholesome. His most indelible memory was 
 the impression made upon his mind by the good ex- 
 ample of one of his brothers, and how he longed to be 
 like him, to which he sometimes referred, as an in- 
 stance of the influence of early impressions upon one's 
 whole life. 
 
 In 1811 he was removed to a school about fifteen 
 miles from Baltimore, and taught by a Mr. Pearce.* 
 Here they had morning and evening prayers, and occa- 
 sional preaching in the school-room. He speaks in his 
 diary of being much affected by a rebuke for going to 
 sleep at prayers. He went to bed in tears, and in 
 after life thought what a blessing it would have been 
 to him if some one had pointed him, when thus soft- 
 ened and sensitive, to the Lamb of God who taketh 
 away sin. 
 
 After the lapse of a year, he returned to Alex- 
 andria and entered the Academy,f where he remained 
 until 1815, when its masters were Holbrook and Alli- 
 son. Holbrook reminded some of the boys of Irv- 
 ing's Ichabod Crane in person, and Allison is remem- 
 bered by some as "a small man of vinegar aspect." 
 
 * There are extant amusing letters which passed between him and his 
 schoolmates, George Calvert and Taylor Pyne, full of jeu cVesprits, 
 
 f The cornerstone of this academy was laid by Robert Adam, Master 
 Mason, September 7, 1785. Washington was one of the trustees, and en- 
 dowed it with £1,000, the interest to be devoted to the "education of 
 orphans and other poor children." It is on Washington Street and is still 
 in use. 
 
13 
 
 Mr. Smith said: "With my last teacher (Hume) at 
 the Academy, I had great advantages for learning the 
 languages, but my aversion to study and want of ap- 
 preciation of my opportunities made me go over my 
 Latin and Greek with an unwilling mind. Up to this 
 time all my reading was in novels and plays ; of the 
 former were those of Miss Porter.^' 
 
 In November, 1815, he went to Mt. Airy, near 
 Philadelphia, and staid there till September, 1817. 
 When he was examined by Mr. Constant in Virgil, he 
 said : " It luckily happened that he chose a passage 
 which I had read a few weeks before. Heretofore, 
 being but thirteen years old, I had never studied. I 
 now became tolerably diligent, and studied geography, 
 Le Sage's History, and the use of the globes — all of 
 which I soon forgot. With Mr. Patterson I also 
 studied arithmetic and astronomy with some benefit, 
 but of mathematics I could learn nothing, not even 
 having an idea of their end or utility. French and 
 Spanish occupied much of my time." In 1817 he re- 
 turned to Alexandria, and studied algebra and Euclid 
 with Mr. Burton, a teacher of mathematics. He had 
 now received all the education which was thought 
 necessary for a merchant, for which he was designed. 
 
 In the spring of 1818 he entered his father's 
 store to learn his business. " While correct in my 
 outward conduct, I had no proper sense of religion. 
 I attended the theatre often, as I had done in Phila- 
 delphia, while at school at Germantown (Mt. Airy), 
 
14 
 
 and was very fond of siicli amusements. At this time 
 I went with my cousin, John Smith, to hear Dr. Wil- 
 liam Wilmer, pastor of St. Paul's, and preferring his 
 preaching to that of Dr. Muir, I continued to go there, 
 also attending the prayer-meetings held by him at his 
 own house. I was much touched by one of his ser- 
 mons on the duty of receiving the Lord's Supper. I 
 had read in Ree's Cyclopedia some objection to the per- 
 petuity of the Sacrament. I sent a note to Dr. Wil- 
 mer that I had been struck by his views, and if the 
 Sacrament was of perpetual obligation, it was plainly 
 every one's duty to obey the command. My ob- 
 jections were answered by reference to the eleventh 
 chapter of 11. Corinthians. He asked a personal 
 conference, and I went to his study and was ex- 
 amined by him in the qualifications of a communicant 
 prescribed in the Church Catechism. The only points 
 which impressed me were leading a new life and 
 being in charity with all men. The latter I thought 
 I possessed, and I readily promised the former. My 
 sins, I suppose, being in my estimation very slight, I 
 had no difficulty in saying that I repented of them, 
 and in professing my faith in Christ. I partook of the 
 Sacrament for the first time on Christmas Day, 1818, 
 in St. Paul's Church, being then a little more than 
 sixteen years of age. This was a new era in my life." 
 This, like every other critical period in his life, 
 was marked in his diary by humiliation before Grod, 
 professions of penitence for the past, and solemn reso- 
 
15 
 
 lutions for the future. While a model of good de- 
 meanor in the opinion of others, he was in his own 
 eyes a miserable sinner, ignorant and indolent, and 
 haunted by the ghosts of " wasted time, lost opportu- 
 nities, and shameful neglect of known duty." And 
 yet, when Dr. Wilmer, who discerned the good that 
 was in him (which was hidden from himself by a veil 
 of humility), suggested his studying for the ministry, 
 he readily assented, having, as he says, no higher con- 
 ception of the office than as a field of usefulness, and 
 being, perhaps, dissatisfied with his present occupation. 
 When he mentioned the subject to his father, the lat- 
 ter advised that he should go to college, suspending 
 his decision until he was graduated. 
 
 COLLEGE. 
 
 In May, 1819, he matriculated in Nassau Hall, 
 Princeton, N. J., entering the Freshman class. As he 
 had made no preparation for examination, he was 
 urged by H. to prepare in Greek. Accordingly, he 
 read three of Lucien's Dialogues, and with the like --^ 
 
 good luck as at Belle Air (Germantown), he was 
 taken on one of them, and he verily believed that 
 otherwise he would have failed. It may be of interest 
 to some to learn something of the course of study at 
 that date. Others may pass over the coming para- 
 graph. " During the session I read Xenophon's Cyro- 
 pedia and Horace's Satires and Epistles. The next 
 session I read Homer, with the Odes of Horace ; and 
 
16 
 
 ill mathematics, simple and quad equations, Simp- 
 son's Euclid, tlie simj^lest parts of conic sections and 
 surveying, then special trigonometry and projections ; 
 of the latter I never understood anything. In the 
 classics we read Louginus and Cicero de Oratore. 
 Vinces' Fluxions were part of the M. C. senior year. 
 Cavallo's Chemistry, Witherspoon's Philosophy, Paley 
 and Logic. I looked through many books, but not 
 attentively, and left college far below what I should 
 have been." Hewas graduated in 1821. The college 
 record reads, "Georgius Archibaldus Smith, A.M." 
 It is curious that when degrees have been so profusely 
 conferred, he was never made a D.D. by his Alma 
 Mater. It must have been from inattention. 
 
 Among the valued friends he made at college was 
 Senator Pierce, Alfred Sowers, and William Krebs,* of 
 whom he often spoke with affection. But he thought 
 himself so much damaged by other associations that 
 he looked upon himself as so backslidden that he 
 ought to give up all idea of the ministry, although he 
 had not been guilty of any overt act of inconsistency. 
 He returned to Alexandria, and with great reluctance 
 received the Communion at St. Paul's. In November 
 he went back to Princeton, and spent three months in 
 
 * The following notes are from the college catalogue of Princeton: 
 Jacobus Alfredus Pierce, inCong.Rerumpub. Foed. Repr. et Sen.; Instit. 
 
 Smiths. Reg.; in Coll. Wash. Mar. Ter., Leg. Prof., LL.D., 1859, et Coll. 
 
 Sanct. Jac. Mar. Ter. 1856. 
 
 Alfredus Augustus Sowers, A.M., Tutor, 1825. 
 
 Qulielmus Georgius Krebs, A.M., Reip. Mar. Ter. Ker. Circ. Jurid. 
 
17 
 
 the theological department. He attended regularly 
 the prayer-meeting, and prayed in his turn. Feeling 
 great distress of mind, he wrote to Dr. Wilmer ex- 
 pressing his fears that he had done wrong in making 
 a profession of religion. Dr. Wilmer commended to 
 him Newton's Letters, which gave him great comfort. 
 The writer has Dr. Wilmer's letter, and it is a notable 
 example of the wisdom and tenderness with which 
 this faithful pastor cared for the lambs of his flock. 
 " I remember," said Mr. Smith, " the first satisfactory 
 views I formed of the plan of redemption, and re- 
 ceived consolation. With Alfred Sowers, who was 
 then first impressed, I took sweet counsel. We com- 
 menced our spiritual voyage together, and may neither 
 of us make final shipwreck." 
 
 In May, 1822, he went to the General Theologi- 
 cal Seminary in New York. Of the books he studied he 
 mentions Shuckford's Connections, Butler's Analogy, 
 Faber on the Spirit, Newcomb's Harmony, of which 
 last he said he retained nothing ; Prideaux, the Epis- 
 tles, Ernesti's Interpretation, with Dr. Turner, Hebrew 
 Bible, Pearson on the Creed to the Descent into Hell 
 (here he says he laid down the book to pray), Hors- 
 ley, Mosheim, Milton, Cooper, Young and Thompson ; 
 passed an examination with the class. In August he 
 visited Catskill on a packet, reaching there from New 
 York after a short passage of twenty-one hours. 
 
 A letter from Mr. Smith's father (one of the 
 wisest letters I ever read) tells him that in the event 
 
18 
 
 of Dr. Wilmers leaving St. Paul's Church, as he then 
 contemplated, he looked to him to fill his place. The 
 father says in this letter : " However much you might 
 be gratified in this station, if you could be qualified to 
 take charge of such a congregation at your early 
 period of life, you, at the time of your ordination, 
 would be very young. In the beginning you would 
 be highly commended, but in ability and in constitu- 
 tion you might find a difliculty in sustaining this char- 
 acter. I think your usefulness could be better estab- 
 lished by avoiding a settled place for a year or two, or 
 a few months, and it might be that by practice and by 
 exercise your confidence and knowledge would be im- 
 proved as much as your habit of body strengthened. 
 I have gone into this explanation that you may be 
 prepared for your course, which is at your own option. 
 I should prefer maintaining you, with your careful 
 habits, for a few years, spent in the acquisition of 
 knowledge, rather than you should station yourself 
 too soon, as regards your health or talents ; but 
 above all, I would guard you against listening to 
 the tempting suggestion which may be made to induce 
 you to settle here too soon. In this country, or in a 
 visit to your relatives in England, you may, with the 
 aid of the Almighty, continue to improve yourself, 
 while I trust that the stability you have obtained 
 would ensure you from all temptation to evil, even 
 from the multitude of them you would have to en- 
 counter." 
 
19 
 
 In the diary which recorded his daily experience 
 in view of entering the ministry, his passing through 
 the Seminary reminds one of the progress of Bunyan's 
 Pilgrim from the City of Destruction, through the 
 Valley of Humiliation and of the Shadow of Death, 
 encountering Apollyon and Giant Despair in his 
 Doubting Castle, and resisting the wiles of Mr. 
 Wordly-wise-man, and Fearful and Heedless, and all 
 the other imps which haunt the Way of Holiness, with 
 occasional glimpses of the Delectable Mountains, and 
 times of refreshing in the Land of Beulah. Penitent 
 confessions of sin and wailings over wasted time alter- 
 nate with new resolutions, agonizing cries for pardon 
 and peace, and hungering and thirsting after righteous- 
 ness, and a single eye to the glory of God. " I will, 
 I must," he exclaims " change my course. I fear that 
 I have never entirely surrendered to the will and 
 service of God. I have held back something," etc. 
 " Though I fall ten thousand times, I must rise again ; 
 though I be conquered, I must learn to fight by my 
 defeat. God has promised that sin shall not have 
 dominion over me, and though He slay me yet will I 
 trust Him. The great question now is. Shall I enter 
 the ministry ? I have considered it in a general way, 
 but I must set apart special seasons for pondering it. 
 Another point which weighs heavily upon me, and 
 with God's help I must and will consider, viz. : Am 
 I resolved to know nothing among men but Jesus 
 Christ and Him crucified ? Am I sincerely resolved 
 
20 
 
 to give myself wholly to the work of the ministry ? 
 I must weigh in their full meaning the questions in 
 the Ordination service, and ask myself before the All- 
 knowing Jehovah, will I answer them as I am re- 
 quested to do ? This shall be the chief employment 
 of the vacation, to which everything else must give 
 way." 
 
 The idea of devoting vacation to such heart- 
 searching is, we fancy, somewhat novel, and it may be 
 that all this so far transcends the experience of many 
 of us, that we may be tempted to set it aside as 
 something abnormal, the bitter fruit of a morbid sen- 
 sibility. Before we thus conclude, it may be well to 
 ask if the tendency of the age is not rather towards 
 the opposite extreme, and that too many, moved by a 
 mixture of secular motives (of which they are perhaps 
 unconscious), " rush in where angels fear to tread." 
 The Miserere of David, the pangs of Paul, the bitter 
 cry of the blessed Saviour, and the flight of Gregory 
 and Ambrose when called to take up the onus formi- 
 dandum of the ministry should make one pause and 
 ask if we have built upon the sands, instead of digging 
 down to the solid rock for a foundation that will 
 stand when the floods beat upon the building. 
 
 August 26, 1823, he said: "I have this evening 
 moved to Dr. Wilmer's, and am rejoiced at the pros- 
 pect of renewing my studies with so many privileges," 
 etc. " Oh, the length, and breadth, and height, and 
 depth of the love of God in Christ Jesus ! " He 
 
21 
 
 seems to have had a special pleasure in his quiet morn- 
 ing devotions, rising at five o'clock that he might have 
 time for them. The sensitiveness of his conscience is 
 somewhat amusingly illustrated by this naive record : 
 "Having set my clock for five, and not hearing the 
 ' 'larum,' I slept until half-past six o'clock. I did not 
 think myself censurable for this, but it was a great mis- 
 fortune, for my morning devotions had been profitable 
 and delightful. I sought the Lord early and I found 
 Him. But now I have only time for a short prayer, 
 expecting to extend it during the day, which I did 
 not." ^ 
 
 On December 13, 18|{3, he reached Richmond by 
 way of Norfolk, and was ordained deacon on the 16th 
 by Bishop Moore, in the Monumental Church. Re- 
 turning to Alexandria, he preached his first sermon on 
 the next Sunday, from Hebrews xiii. 16, a charity 
 sei'mon for the Female Sewing Society. And Christ- 
 mas Day he preached on John i. 27. The subject of 
 these sermons — Charity and Humility — was the key- 
 note to the melody of his after life. The ensuing 
 winter was spent in Fredericksburg, assisting Mr. 
 McGuire, who was disabled by chills and fever, in St. 
 George's Church. He reached there December 27, 
 and preached on Sunday his Christmas sermon, and in 
 the evening from Lamentations iii. 39. 
 
 On the margin of his diary is this significant 
 N. B.: " Sunday, December 28, p.m., is memorable from 
 a visit of to Mr. McGuire, when I met her for the 
 
22 
 
 first time." Of this more anon. January 1 he records 
 a sad lamentation over wasted time, etc., adding : " It 
 may be said of me this year, ^ Thou shalt die.' If so, 
 God's will be done ; but if I inhabit this tenement of 
 clay for fourscore years, may I make the long, long 
 pilgrimage with patience and resignation ; but when- 
 ever my time comes, may I be able to say ' to depart 
 and be with Christ is far better.' Oh, my dear Krebs, 
 more than a year has passed since thou hast known 
 fully the realities of eternity ! " 
 
 Then follow a few items more like the experience 
 of some of us than the deep heart-searchings before 
 cited: "January 22,1824. — I began my sermon, II. 
 Kings xvii. 30, Wednesday night. The introduction 
 took me until half-past eleven o'clock. In the morn- 
 ing Mr. McGuire suggested that I ought to say some- 
 thing about the New Year. To get into the way of 
 it, I read two of Davies' sermons and one of Allison's 
 on the beginning of the century. I chose the text 
 Jer. xxviii. 17, and wrote some pages with zeal. After 
 dining very heartily, I thought I had better go back 
 to the sermon I had first begun. I lost as much time in 
 halting between the two as would have sufficed to 
 finish them. But, alas ! I had been idling and amusing 
 myself. I was so ashamed and grieved that I resolved 
 next time to begin my sermon on Tuesday, but put it 
 off till Friday, when I wrote half a one on Romans v. 
 21, laid it aside and began another on Psalm iv. 6 ; 
 wrote half of that, and was so much in the dark as to 
 
23 
 
 the rest that I thought I should have to fall back on 
 one of Simeon's skeletons. But I resumed one and 
 finished, such as it was, by nine o'clock ; put off fin- 
 ishing the other, and finally preached extempore." 
 
 During this travail there had been a fire which 
 burned Mr, McGuire's house, and which broke out 
 just after they had sung " Grateful Notes " at Mr. 
 Johnston's. A few nights afterwards the choir met at 
 Mr. Park's, and just as they had begun " Grateful 
 Notes," there was another cry of fire. This was all 
 very trying to a newly fiedged divine, just trying his 
 wings, and to this he ascribed his travail witli his 
 sermons. But we suspect that the emphatic N. B. of 
 a former page had kindled another flame, quite or 
 more diverting. 
 
 The scene now changes, and the fascinations of 
 Fredericksbni'g gave way for a time to the attractions 
 and benefits of a foreign tour. The design of the 
 trip was the hope of recuperating his delicate health 
 for the work of the ministry. The records of it are 
 few, fragmentary, and with long intervals between 
 them. The diary was avowedly and evidently writ- 
 ten for his own eye only, and as a spiritual exercise. 
 It, therefore, consists chiefly of self-examination,, 
 prayers and praises, with but few incidents of travel. 
 Of the voyage tliere is but one item, and that was 
 when they were in danger, on April 23, of shipwreck 
 on the Tuscar rock. He describes himself as sitting 
 in the stern, and, every minute expecting the wreck, 
 
24 
 
 prayed He would give the grace of submission to . 
 
 " I find my thoughts at this crisis too much directed 
 to her. I then prayed for myself." Thus these 
 gleams out of the darkness reveal the unselfishness 
 which always characterized him. When the danger 
 was over, the captain said : " If we had not been the 
 moskt favored people that were ever board ship, we 
 would now all be in the other world." 
 
 They reached Liverpool on April 24, and pro- 
 ceeded to London. On Sunday he heard Dr. Short, 
 the historian, on Romans vii. 14, and hoped it would 
 bring to mind a sermon of Dr. Alexander, of Prince- 
 ton, on the same text ; but he was struck by the con- 
 trast, etc. The awful grandeur of the building in- 
 spired him with a feeling of solemnity, notwithstand- 
 ing the careless conduct of many who only came to 
 see the Abbey, and the unsatisfying discourse. He 
 could realize that God dwelleth not in temples made 
 with hands, but in humljle and contrite hearts. 
 
 On May 25 he reached Cambridge, and, like 
 every cultured man, had his spirit stirred within him 
 in traversing the streets and colleges, so redolent of 
 Bacon and Newton and many another giant of " mighty 
 bone and bold emprise." No one who has seen the 
 chapel of King's College will ever forget " that glorious 
 work of fine intelligence," as Wordsworth calls it, its 
 windows and its roof without a pillow, its walls 
 covered with intricate carvings, and the many-colored 
 lights playing with the sculpture. " In tlie solemn 
 
25 
 
 silence of the scene, which I will remember through 
 eternity," he says, " I fix my thoughts upon the Lord 
 Jesus, and present my body and soul a loving sacrifice 
 to His service," etc. Here he heard Simeon, sat in his 
 study and talked with him of Henry Marty n, whose 
 picture hung over Simeon. 
 
 On June 2 he was in Oxford, where he met with 
 two friends whose society made home life for him in 
 a strange land, and with whom he took sweet counsel 
 and went to the house of God, and traversed the 
 walks of Christ Church meadows, shaded with limes 
 and elms and horse-chestnuts, on the Isis, picturesque 
 with the variegated costumes of students in their 
 boats. One of tliese was Rev. William Stone, after- 
 wards Canon of Canterbury Cathedral. Sunday night, 
 12:15, he records in his diary devout thanks to God for 
 the privileges of the day, including the Holy Com- 
 munion and a profitable conversation with his dear 
 Stone. Another friend made at Oxford was the son 
 of the Bishop of Bangor, from whose residence he 
 afterwards visited all points of beauty and interest in 
 Wales. 
 
 He reached Glasgow from Lanarck July 3, and 
 heard Dr. Chalmers in the morning from Romans viii. 
 31, and in the evening on Psalm xix. He records a 
 synopsis of these sermons, to " recall to his own mind 
 the good advice given him to-day, so suited to his 
 state of mind," and prays that the Holy Spirit may 
 enable him rightly to apply it. In July he was in 
 
26 
 
 Ireland, Wales and England ; in September on the 
 Continent, visited Paris, and on October 1 at Havre, 
 waiting for winds and tide to Ijear liim home, which, 
 after a stormy voyage in the Bayard, he reached in 
 November. At sea he had many discussions with 
 Romanists, Unitarians, and persons with no creed, 
 which suggested the reflections " that the influence of 
 the Church of England causes more orthodoxy in 
 opinion and reverence for sacred things than exists in 
 Amei'ica, where the greater number have no religious 
 training. When the latter make a profession of re- 
 ligion, it is more apt to be the result of conviction, 
 so that in England we may look for more professors 
 of religion, but not so many conscious of personal 
 experience." 
 
 On January 25, 1825, he received, through Gen. 
 Robert Taylor, a call to take charge of Christ Church, 
 Norfolk. This weighty charge (at that time the 
 largest in the diocese) might well make a young man 
 in his twenty- third year, a novice in the ministry, 
 pause. Accordingly, the subject was seriously and 
 carefully debated in his own mind. After visiting 
 the congregation and preaching, he accepted the in- 
 vitation to begin service March 1. In the meantime, 
 on February 14, he was married to Ophelia, daughter 
 of Isaac Hite Williams, an eminent lawyer of Fred- 
 ericksburg, and his wife, Lucy Coleman, daughter of 
 Capt. Philip Slaughter, a Revolutionary officer, and 
 his wife, Margaret French Strother, daughter of Col. 
 French Strother. 
 
27 
 
 At the ensuing Convention, in May, he reported for 
 the three months, eleven baptisms, eight funerals, four 
 marriages, one hundred and seventy-three communi- 
 cants ; the revival of the Education Society, and of a 
 deej) interest in the Seminary. His labors and faith- 
 ful ministry here was brief, and terminated in No- 
 vember, " The w^eakness of my body generally, and of 
 my chest in particular, made it necessary to leave the 
 place. I have always had my fears, but the Lord in 
 mercy made it plain." In the hearts of those surviv- 
 ing there are grateful memories of the high apprecia- 
 tion of his character and of his sweet sympathy with 
 the suffering. 
 
 After visiting, chiefly in Fredericksburg, until 
 December, 1826, he took charge of St. Stephen's 
 Church, Culpepper, residing first at Springfarm, and 
 then moving to the village. Here and at Orange 
 Court House, where there was no church edifice, he 
 preached the Gospel with force and godly sincerity, 
 and chiefly at his own expense, adding to the Church 
 by baptisms, confirmations and communions, and 
 organizing education and missionary societies until 
 voice and health failed. In 18^1 Dr. Winston, lay 
 delegate, reported to the Convention the resignation 
 and removal of Mr. Smith as an event "greatly to be 
 deplored." 
 
 The present writer has a few pages of a journal 
 in which is recorded the names of some persons who 
 were the fruit of Mr. Smith's ministry here, he him- 
 
28 
 
 self having been presented to the Bishop for Con- 
 firmation by him, I also remember that when I made 
 my maiden speech, on a Fourth of July, at Washing- 
 tun's Hotel at Stevensburg, Mr. Smith furnished me 
 with books of reference, enabling me to give it a 
 religious cast ; and it is curious that when I made my 
 last speech in Christ Church, Alexandria, at the Cen- 
 tennial of Washington's Inauguration, April 30, 1889, 
 Mr. Smith, at whose house I was sojourning, insisted 
 upon reading the proofs, supervising its passage 
 through the press only a few weeks before his death. 
 It was in St. Stephen's Church, too, that, in 1827, Mr. 
 Smith was ordained to the priesthood by Bishop 
 Moore, after a sermon by the Rev. Mr. Jackson, of 
 Winchester, the grandfather of Dr. H. Melville 
 Jackson, of Grace Church, Richmond. 
 
 His diary during his ministiy at Culpepper is 
 almost wholly devoted to supplications and inter- 
 cessions for his people and all men, and thanksgivings 
 for the riches of God's goodness and long-suffering, 
 etc. " Oh, Temporis parsimonian qucmi ignota es et 
 rara, omnmm reram reparabilis jactura proeterquam 
 terrvporis^'' he writes. " If such was the reflection of a 
 heathen, Pliny, what must the Christian say ? How 
 melancholy is it for me to look back upon twenty-five 
 years and two months, cii jus jactura irreparahilis esty 
 
 Among the few incidents recorded in his diaiy 
 while in Culpepper are the following, viz. : " March 9, 
 1827. — I have been trying to think of the solemn 
 
29 
 
 vows required by those who present themselves for 
 Priest's Orders. It is the most important engagement 
 which I anticipate to the day of my death. Oh, how 
 short of the reality are my views of the responsibilities 
 of the office ! Oh, Lord, bear me up by Thy Holy 
 Spirit, under their weight." " May 25.— On 23d I 
 received, by the laying on of Bishop Moore's hands, 
 the office and authority of a priest. I was culpably 
 deficient on the morning of that day, in prayer and 
 self-examination, by the questions in the Ordinal. I 
 could only say, after it was over, ' The Lord is good and 
 gracious.' Mrs. Strother and her daughter, and Eleanor 
 Thornton partook of the Holy Sacrament, and, I trust, 
 witnessed a good profession. Lord, give them grace 
 to walk worthy of tlieir high calling, and save them 
 through Christ forever. As for myself, I feel an 
 emptiness of soul which I desire may be filled with the 
 love of God," etc. 
 
 In December he records receiving and declining, 
 after mature deliberation, an invitation to become 
 assistant to Dr. Keith, in Christ Church, Alexandria, 
 which decision he trusts is in accord with the will of 
 Grod, and that he was entirely influenced by this belief. 
 Once more his feeble health made it necessary to rest 
 from his labors, and Divine Providence opened the way 
 to another trip to Europe. Rev. Dr. Milnor, of New 
 York, having been deputed by the American Bible 
 Society and other associations to represent them at 
 the May anniversaries in London, invited Mr. Smith 
 
30 
 
 to accompany them on April 16. This he could not 
 make his arrangements to do, but followed on the 
 20th, and joined them in England, in time to enjoy 
 much social pleasure and hear many eminent clergy- 
 men, as Rowland Hill and Simeon, and Chalmers; 
 visiting Robert Hall, the great Baptist preacher who 
 so much admired the Prayer Book, and like Spurgeon 
 was an Open Communionist ; visiting and having 
 pleasing converse with Hannah More, dining with 
 Zachary Macaulay, editor of The Christian Observer 
 and father of the historian, where he sat by Fanny, 
 Lady Trevillian, and talked of " Tom." Thus, he 
 enjoyed exceptional advantages in travelling with one 
 who in his official capacity was honored by men high 
 in rank and in the walks of literature and religion. 
 
 In Dr. Milnor's journal, edited by Dr. Stone, is 
 recorded much of their mutual experience as travel- 
 ling companions on the Continent, where Mr. Smith's 
 knowledge of French enabled him to act as inter- 
 preter. They spent several weeks in Paris, where 
 there is so much to amuse and divert, yet their feel- 
 ings were not unlike those of St. Paul at Athens, 
 when lie saw the city given to idolatry of false doc- 
 trine, and hearing and telling some new thing.* The 
 
 * Those were stirring times in France, being the eve of the historic 
 three days of July, 18B0, and the convulsion which hurled Charles X. from 
 his throne, and " placed upon the brow of Louis of Orleans the crown, not 
 of France, but of the French." Previously, on his first visit to Paris 
 (1824), he was amused at being taken, because of his black clothes and 
 white cravat, for one of the attendants in livery of some grandee, and was 
 permitted to pass into the Cathedral, where Louis XVIII. was laid out in 
 state, and soon after he saw Charles X. ride into Paris as the new king. 
 
31 
 
 special design of Dr. Milnor in visiting Paris was to 
 procure a teacher for the Deaf and Dumb Asylum. 
 
 With Drs. Milnor and Mcllvaine Mr. Smith 
 passed through Brighton and Portsmouth to the Isle 
 of Wight, where Dr. Milnor had a special commission 
 from the American Tract Society to verify the narra- 
 tives by Hugh Richmond in " The Dairyman's 
 Daughter," " The Young Cottager " and " The African 
 Servant," that society having resolved to print no nar- 
 rative which was not substantially true. The result of 
 their observations was that the pictures of scenery 
 were true, not only in their general outline, but in their 
 minute details. The present writer, who made a like 
 examination, tracts in hand, can corroborate the state- 
 ment. Those editors who have expurgated these 
 physical features, supposing them to be fancy sketches, 
 have done injustice to the author, and despoiled the 
 narratives of their native beauty. It would be a 
 supererogation to rehearse the exquisite oft-told tale of 
 the Isle of Wight, hallowed by the genius of Leigh 
 Richmond and transfigured by tourists and artists. 
 
 Much of Dr. Milnor's narrative expresses Mr. 
 Smith's experience, only lacking the enthusiasm with 
 which the latter was wont to talk of these liigh days 
 of his life. These memories were a perennial fountain 
 of health and joy, from which he drew refreshment in 
 many a weary hour of after life. 
 
 Returning to Virginia in November, renewed in 
 health and spirits, but unequal for continuous preach- 
 
32 
 
 ing, and longing to do good in tlie line of his profession, 
 he saw no f ulcram upon which to work the levers that 
 were left him. But as in former like necessities, so 
 now, a unanimous call comes from the managers of the 
 Philadelphia Recorder to become its editor. This, of 
 course, raised a case of conscience, which was debated 
 in his diary, with prayers like the cries of " a little 
 child" (which he spiritually was) in "the night for 
 light. The conclusion was that, notwithstanding his 
 distrust of his ability for so responsible a trust, yet as 
 it was the only door open to him, it seemed to be a 
 call from the Master, whose aid would supply hie 
 deficiencies — it was his duty to heed it. 
 
 The preaching of the Gospel with the living voice 
 to the listening numbers, when that voice is the echo 
 of thoughts and emotions which are beating at one's 
 heart and leaping to one's lips for utterance, is a mighty 
 power for convincing the judgment, awakening the 
 conscience, moving the hearts and moulding the man- 
 ners of men. But when from want of voice, one is 
 obliged to come down from the pulpit, it is a great 
 privilege to sit in the editor's chair. He at once be- 
 comes " Sir Oracle," and his pen, if it be guided by a 
 vigorous and well-furnished brain, may exert an in- 
 fluence wider than the priestess of Apollo dispensing 
 oracles from the tripod of Delphi. They who thus 
 catch the public attention and keep it by iteration and 
 and reiteration, from week to week, always having 
 the last word, should become the masters of public 
 
33 
 
 opinion. This compensation for exile from the pulpit 
 Mr. Smith enjoyed while conducting the Philadelphia 
 Recorder for eight years, in Philadelphia, and the 
 Southern Churchman for as many more, in Alexandria. 
 When the Kev. B. B. Smith, afterwards Presiding 
 Bishop, retired from the Recorder, its managers, after 
 looking with prayerful anxiety for a fit person to 
 supply his place, unanimously chose, November 9, 
 1830, Rev. Gr. A. Smith as one having the entire con- 
 fidence of his brethren, and well qualified to maintain 
 the character and promote the circulation of the 
 Recorder. On June 15, 1831, Mr. Smith himself said : 
 " The new editor begins with the present number with 
 a deep impression of the responsibilities of the ofiice. 
 While earnestly asking aid from his brethren, he 
 desires not to shrink from the duties which devolve 
 upon himself. Disqualified at present, by bodily in- 
 firmity, for the work of the ministry, he is grateful for 
 the prospect of usefulness which a gracious Providence 
 has opened to him, and desires to improve them to the 
 utmost. In the progress of our labors we wish to set 
 forth as much as lieth in us, quietness and love among 
 all Christian people. We have no love for contro- 
 versy, and hope to avoid it, unless conscientiously 
 driven to it by the cause of truth," etc. This was the 
 keynote to his editorial career. 
 
 Although we have followed him through the 
 columns of these journals, and noted his clippings and 
 his comments, we cannot photograph them here. We 
 
34 
 
 can only touch tlie salient topics of the times. Eminent 
 among these was the cardinal doctrine of justification 
 by faith, around which controversy has so often raged, 
 not without loss of that charity which is the end of 
 the commandment. Upon this doctrine the Refor- 
 mation turned and was won, but in the progress of 
 Church history it has often suffered eclipse by the in- 
 terposition of clouds of one sort and another between 
 the Church and the Sun. Sometimes it was run into 
 the ground by Antinomianism, and then again it was 
 overlaid by dead works, or obscured by metaphysical 
 subtleties. Upon this subject Mr. Smith's trumpet 
 gave no uncertain sound, defending it with clearness, 
 firmness and force from the evangelical standpoint, as 
 held by Bishops Moore, Meade and Mcllvaine, and by 
 Drs. Bedell, William Wilmer, Milnor, Tyng, Clarke, 
 Sparrow, May, Suddards, and other leaders of the 
 times who rallied around the Recorder. But he was 
 ever careful to maintain good works as the test of the 
 genuineness of the faith which justifies, as trees are 
 known by their fruits. 
 
 As to his views of Church polity, his polar star 
 among uninspired men was the judicious Hooker, 
 whom he believed to be the soundest and ablest ex- 
 positor of the Holy Scriptures, and of the Articles 
 and the Liturgy of the Church. He was a loyal son 
 of his Mother Church, approving with all his mind 
 her distinctive polity and principles, and loving with 
 all his heart her heavenly ways. And yet he never in- 
 
35 
 
 dulged in denunciations of those who differed from him, 
 and never wished to build a wall of partition so high 
 that he could not give the right hand of fellowship to, 
 and greet with words of kindness and cheer, all those 
 on the other side who loved the Lord Jesus in sincerity. 
 This was the plane upon which all questions of polity 
 and doctrine were debated, including those arising out 
 of the Oxford Tracts and the Evangelical Knowledge 
 Society, which was instituted the very year (1847) in 
 which Mr. Smith took charge of the Southern Churcli- 
 man. He, with Bishops White, Moore, Meade and 
 others, was a strenuous champion of the Bible So- 
 ciety as a rallying point for all Christians, and afford- 
 ing a basis wide enough for every shade of opinion. 
 
 Upon the questions which arose as to the relative 
 claims of Domestic and Foreign Missions, he took in 
 advance the ground upon which the Church now 
 stands, — that the field is the world and that every 
 Christian heart is a centre whose circumference is 
 the utmost limit of the inhabited globe. The cause 
 of temperance, of schools, and colleges, and seminaries, 
 and all those wheels in the mechanism of Christian 
 civilization which are bearing the earth along from 
 torpid winter to awakening spring, received an accele- 
 rating impulse from his columns. But overtopping 
 them in his love and zeal was the Episcopal Theologi- 
 cal Seminary of Virginia, whose course he watched 
 with intense interest, never losing an opportunity of 
 putting in a good word for it and its tributary, the 
 
36 
 
 Education Society, whicli was the reservoir into which 
 was poured the little rills from the parishes which 
 kept it alive and fruitful. 
 
 As a seal of approbation of his editorial work, 
 a sort of diploma, a large Bible was given him, on 
 which was printed in gold letters : " Presented to 
 Rev. George A. Smith from S. H. Tyng, James May 
 and William Suddards, January 1st, 1838, as a token 
 of confidence and Christian regard, on the occasion of 
 his retiring from the editorship of the Episcopal 
 Recorder^ In his own diary is recorded his thanks 
 to God for success in doubling the subscription list, 
 etc., so much beyond his hopes. 
 
 The pilgrim, laden with physical infirmity, once 
 more takes up his staff and returns to Alexandria, 
 hoping to renew his strength by contact with mother 
 Earth, as Bishop Meade was wont to do at Mountain 
 View. But he could not rest long idle, that spectre 
 seemed ever to be haunting his leisure hours. He 
 then decided to establish a school for boys, as the best 
 method for doing good (the thought ever uppermost 
 in him) within his reach. To this end he chose a 
 beautiful suburb of the Seminary, overlooking Alex- 
 andria and the majestic Potomac, called Clarens, which 
 now became the " birthplace of love " in a higher 
 sense than was its namesake, so transfigured by the 
 genius of Rousseau and Byron. In this nursery, for 
 eleven years, Mr. Smith sowed seed and trained plants 
 which brought forth good fruit in many a home and 
 
37 
 
 in the Church, as we shall presently see. Among 
 Mr. Smith's assistants in the school were many who 
 passed through it into the ministry, as Leavell, Davis, 
 of New York ; Fielding, the disciplinarian par emi- 
 nence ; Dalrymple, Bishop Whittle, the cultured 
 Wiley, who came a sceptic and went away a Christian, 
 having slept in the library among the remains of 
 defunct theologians, with whose spirits he held 
 nightly converse ; Tyng and Moore, and Collier and 
 Syle, whose letters in after years were full of grateful 
 memories. 
 
 Rev. Charles West Thomson vented his enthu- 
 siasm in a touching poem beginning : 
 
 " I winna forget Clarens 
 While life shall remain." 
 
 As an illustration of the far-reaching influence of the 
 school, I may say that there are letters extant from 
 mothers, asking the prayers of the principal whose 
 influence helped to form the character of their boys ; 
 from a wife telling of the death of her husband, to one 
 who had taught him in his boyhood, and who was the 
 model of his life ; from others, telling of lives won for 
 Christ by memories of his life — " Next to my mother, 
 you have led me to Christ " ; from another, saying, " I 
 have joined the Church, and I owe it to the impres- 
 sions made by you " A gray-haired man said lately, 
 " He will never know the influence he has exerted 
 over me these many years. When almost hating man- 
 kind, and ready for deeds of violence, the thought of 
 
38 
 
 his life restrained me." There are also testimonials of 
 gratitude from those who had been taught without re- 
 numeration and at reduced prices. But time and space 
 are wanting for further enumeration. Two of these 
 former pupils and the son of another bore him to the 
 grave, with reverence and love. 
 
 Among Mr. Smith's pupils at Clarens were Gen. 
 G. W. Custis Lee, now President of Washington 
 and Lee Univ^ersity; Gen. W. H. Fitzhugh Lee, both 
 sons of Gen. Robert E. Lee ; and Gen. Fitz Lee, the 
 present Governor of Virginia. Gen. Robert E. Lee 
 wrote a letter to Mr. Smith, acknowledging the obli- 
 gations of his son Custis for his training in the school, 
 when the latter was examined at West Point. The 
 Rev. Dunbar Brooke, Col. John M. Patton and Gen. 
 Edwin Slaughter were pupils of the Fairfax Institute. 
 He now devoted his time to the Soutliern Churchman 
 (whose charge he had assumed in 1847), in connection 
 with a school for girls. He continued the editorship 
 of the Southern Ghiirchinan (which we have antici- 
 pated) until 1855. Several years passed in seeking a 
 more propitious climate for an invalid daughter, and 
 in teaching a school for boys in Alexandria. 
 
 THE CHURCH UNDER MARTIAL LAW. 
 
 And now the war cloud, which had been slow- 
 ly gathering, darkened the horizon, and Cicero's say- 
 ing, Intel' arma silent leges, was sadly fulfilled in 
 
39 
 
 Alexandria, and his other, Maxim arma cedunt togea, 
 was reversed, as we shall see. 
 
 In May, 1861, the Federal army occupied Alex- 
 andria. A large proportion of its citizens had re- 
 tired, the young men rallying to the call of their na- 
 tive State, and the non-combatants, unwilling to bear 
 the humiliations which they apprehended, and which 
 those who remained suffered, the clergymen followed 
 their scattered flocks, and the churches were closed.* 
 Mr. Smith remained, chiefly to be in communication 
 with an invalid daughter, who was trying the climate 
 of Iowa. He kept house, attended by an old colored 
 family servant. Aunt Betty, who was loyal and true, as 
 were all his servants, whom he freed; but some of 
 them were in his service to the day of his death. He 
 received his meals from a married daughter, Mrs. Corse, 
 next door. 
 
 Having sons in the Southern army, he was an ob- 
 ject of suspicion, and detectives dogged his steps. Be- 
 ing a Southern man in every fibre of his soul and body, 
 he was thoroughly convinced of the righteousness of 
 their cause, and willing if need be to seal his convic- 
 tions with his blood. And yet he was meek, gentle, 
 courteous, and inoifensive as a lamb, and with a charity 
 that could suffer long and be kind, praying for his ene- 
 
 * This is the first time the Church in Virginia has been under martial 
 law since 1612, when Sir Thomas Dale brought over from the Low Coun- 
 tries the bloody code entitled. " For the Colony in Virginia, Laws, Moral 
 and Martial." These were so cruel that they were seldom if ever enforced. 
 
40 
 
 mies and doing good to those that despitef ully used 
 and persecuted him. For such a man, with the courage 
 of a martyr and the tenderness of a woman, who would 
 have sooner died than bend the hinges of the knee 
 where thrift might follow fawning, to be exposed to 
 the wanton insults of rude men dressed in a little brief 
 authority, and who delighted in chafing the sensibili- 
 ties of those subject to their power, the situation' was 
 the severest possible test of the faith and patience of 
 the saints. His severe passage through this furnace of 
 fiery trial was more sublime than that of heroes in the 
 intoxication of battle. 
 
 I have no desire or purpose to revive the fading 
 memories, or to rekindle the smouldering embers of a 
 time of war ; but the truth of history demands that 
 some incidents should be related. Mr. Smith could 
 not live without trying to do good to all within his 
 reach. Accordingly, he visited the sick, baptized 
 children, administered the Holy Communion, and 
 obeyed the command " not to forsake the assembling 
 yourselves together." The Federal authorities had 
 taken possession of Christ Church, and instituted, ac- 
 cording to martial law (shall we call it cannon law?), 
 one of their ministers, who retained possession of it 
 during the war of arms and of reconstruction. Of 
 course, no Southern man could worship there. He 
 had been asked to take charge of Grace Church, Dr. 
 Sprigg having removed the Southern Oliurchinan to 
 Richmond. But it was thought to be more expedient 
 
41 
 
 to worship, like the primitive Christians in the time of 
 persecution, in a less conspicuous place, and as there 
 were no catacombs accessible, a hall was opened for 
 Divine service. 
 
 When the Rev. Dr. K. Johns Stewart, a nephew 
 of Bishop Johns, and whose wife was a daughter of 
 Edmund J. Lee, of Alexandria, proposed to Mr. Smith 
 to join him in opening St. Paul's Church, saying that 
 as the United States was not warring against the 
 Church, the officers could not take exception to a ser- 
 vice which omitted all political matter, Mr. Smith con- 
 sented, and on February 2, 1862, St. Paul's Church 
 was opened for Divine service. As this led to a very 
 dramatic scene, and as I do not wish to misrepresent 
 it in any respect, 1 have asked Dr. Stewart, who still 
 survives, to narrate the facts as they occurred under 
 his own eyes. The following is his statement: 
 
 " I notified the people that while we took the 
 liberty of omitting a political prayei", we would not, 
 under penalty of death, permit any force outside the 
 Church to compel us to insert any other petition ; that 
 we were law-abiding citizens, and the Church only had 
 authority in this matter. A detective was in the gal- 
 lery, and he notified Mr. Stanton that Mr. Smith and I 
 had a congregation of F. F. V.s, naming some of them 
 — Lees, Daingerfields, Smoots, Smiths, etc. 'Let me 
 break the spirit of that congregation, and the border 
 clergy will be quiet.' The detective and Capt. Farnes- 
 worth were in one of the first pews. Mr. Smith and I 
 
42 
 
 were in the chancel. I was reading the Litany. Sud- 
 denly the detective's voice was heard, ordering me to 
 pray at his dictation. As I paid no attention to the or- 
 dei', he or Capt. Farnesworth offered a political prayer. 
 By a sign, soldiers with loaded revolvers and drawn 
 sabres surrounded the chancel. Two officers entered, 
 presented their revolvers at my breast, seized the book 
 and threw it at Mr. Smith's feet. I went on from mem- 
 ory — 'From battle and murder, and from sudden death, 
 Good Lord, deliver us.' Mr. James Green, the warden, 
 seized an officer who laid his hand on my shoulder 
 while I was still kneeling, and threw him out of the 
 chancel. The man drew a revolver, and I heard the 
 voice of a lieutenant, the only self-possessed man, say- 
 ing, ' Don't fire ; the time has come to prevent blood- 
 shed.' There was a confusion which no words can 
 describe. 
 
 " In the midst of all this, Mr. Smith calmly 
 laid his hand upon an officer's arm, saying, ' Please re- 
 member where you are ; this is the Lord's day, and we 
 are His ministers.' Capt. Farnesworth then said to me, 
 ' I arrest you by authority of the United States.' I re- 
 plied, ' And I summon you before the bar of the King 
 of kings for interfering with His ministers while pre- 
 senting the petitions of His people to His throne.' 
 The Colonel and T stood facing each other. He said, 
 ' You will go with this officer to prison.' I replied, ' I 
 will go under protest and by force, but as you arrest 
 me as a minister, you must not make it a personal 
 
43 
 
 matter ; you must take me in my surplice.' On the 
 street I found Miss A. surrounded by armed soldiers, 
 and, with her Prayer Book in hand, was giving them 
 her opinion. Mr. AVells, a lawyer, had taken Mrs- 
 Stewart out, but my daughter insisted on going 
 through the surging crowd of negroes, and to the 
 guard-house of the 8th Illinois Cavalry. Mr. Wells 
 had gone to Christ Church, where Dr. McMurdy was 
 installed by military authority, and told Gen. Mont- 
 gomery that there was mischief afloat, and the good 
 General hastened to my relief. The streets were 
 crowded with sympathizing people, and in the midst 
 of an argument between the Provost Marshal and my- 
 self. Gen. Montgomery came to my prison, and asked 
 me to give my parole. When I declined, he said he 
 would be forced to send me to the slave-pen. I told 
 him to do his duty and I would do mine. As I passed 
 along the street, people crowded to shake my hand, 
 and I begged them not to do it, as it annoyed the 
 General, who seemed to be acting as a gentleman ; 
 only Mrs. Daingerfield put a roll of bank notes in my 
 hand, saying it had been hastily collected and I would 
 need it. While I was a prisoner in the General's 
 office, Mr. Smith came and openly expressed his con- 
 currence with me, and reasoned and remonstrated, as 
 did many other citizens. Gen. Montgomery tele- 
 graphed the situation to Mr. Lincoln, who instructed 
 Mr. Stanton to reply that the General had authority 
 
44 
 
 to do as he pleased iu the premises, and I was 
 released." 
 
 This is all that concerns Mr. Smith. Dr. Stewart 
 adds as to himself: 
 
 " A mob surrounded my house and ordered me to 
 display the United States flag at the upper window, 
 and when I refused, an officer raised the flag on the top 
 of the house. I wish I had that flag as a memorial. 
 I was warned not to leave my house, but being sent 
 for to baptize a child, in a lonely street, my friends, 
 including Mr. Smith, begged me not to take the risk. 
 It was a trap, but I went; and I own that I had many 
 misgivings. And when several stout women led me 
 up a dark stairway, into a secluded room, I was rather 
 ill at ease ; but when I said, 'Name this child,' and the 
 response was ' Lee Beauregard,' all my apprehensions' 
 were gone. But I had my revenge when Gen. Grant 
 thanked me in the White House for services done 
 prisoners of war in the Libby, and when ex-Sec- 
 retary of State Fish sent me a sum of money in 
 acknowledgment of this service. Again, when the 
 Confederate army occupied Hagerstown, the colonel 
 commanding said to me, ' As Dr. McMurdy has been 
 installed by force in Christ Church, and you have been 
 dragged from the altar of St. Paul's, you are requested 
 to preach in the Episcopal church here to-day.' As 
 this would have been a forcible entry, and would have 
 led to the' arrest of a worthy minister, I declined, and 
 begged that a guard might be placed at the church, 
 
45 
 
 and tliat the minister might be assured of not being 
 interfered with when he prayed for the President of 
 the United States. It was a sweet revenge to be able 
 to do good to one's enemies. Pardon me, my dear 
 brother. This statement may seem to savor of self, 
 whereas, I assure you, that but for Mr. Smith there 
 might have been no history of it. 
 
 "Truly yours, 
 
 "Kensey Johns Stewart.* 
 " Washington, Oct. 5, 1889." 
 
 When one of Mr. Smith's sons procured a pass to 
 leave the city, Mr. Smith, finding that it required an 
 oath, promptly returned it to the officer. After a 
 threat to burn his house, he sent his wife and daugh- 
 ter away, but could not get a pass for himself without 
 conditions with which he could not conscientiously 
 comply. But the wife of a Baptist minister having 
 procured a pass, she took him as an escort, and he, 
 buying a horse, drove her in a buggy ; so he joined his 
 family in Amherst County, where they had taken ref- 
 uge. Like a bird loosed from the cage, he rejoiced in 
 breathing again the free air, in contemplating the love 
 of God in the mirror of the mountains, and joining in 
 
 * Since the foregoing was written, I have received a printed copy of 
 a statement of this affair, signed by Eev. G. A. Smith and many citizens, 
 which is in substance the same as that of Dr. Stewart. The arrest was 
 made without the knowledge of Gen. Montgomery, who strongly condemned 
 it. The only offence alleged was the omission of the prayer for the President 
 of the United States, the offering of which would have been an act of 
 hypocrisy and mockery. 
 
46 
 
 the canticle, " Oh, all ye gi-eeii things of earth, bless ye 
 the Lord ; praise Him, and magnify Him for ever." 
 But natural religion did not satisfy his aspirations — 
 he longed for the courts of the Lord, where he could 
 see the King in His beauty in the face of Jesus Christ. 
 And this privilege was not denied him, for here he 
 found four vacant churches, St. Mark's, St. Luke's, 
 Ascension and Elon, with a people scattered and 
 peeled, hungering for the bread of life. He took 
 charge of these churches gladly. Silver and gold, the 
 people had none, but such as they had they gave un- 
 to him. The custom of free-will offerings which pre- 
 vailed in the primitive Church was renewed, and the 
 people tithed themselves with the tenth pig and lamb, 
 and the fruits of the earth in their several kinds. 
 Luxuries were unknown, except what Goldsmith calls 
 " the luxury of doing good." Tea and coifee were as 
 scarce as in the middle of the seventeenth century, 
 when, according to Macaulay, " it was handed round 
 to be tasted and stared at, and touched with the lips." 
 But necessity is the mother of invention, and the wits 
 of the Confederates were taxed to find substitutes for 
 them, which they did in decoctions of toasted corn and 
 rye and potatoes, raspberry and divers other leaves 
 and herbs, of which many of us have bitter memories.* 
 
 * Botanists hereafter should add to the coffea Arabica the coffea and 
 thea Virginiaca. See Porcher's " Medical Botany of the Confederate 
 States." 
 
47 
 
 Never was one better fitted than Mr. Smith to be 
 the pastor of a shorn flock, feeding in scant pastures. 
 Spare in person, and seldom if ever tasting meat, he 
 was as content with toasted bread and apple butter 
 as was John the Baj)tist with locusts and wild honey, 
 in the wilderness of Judea. Faithfully and affection- 
 ately he tended the flock in the mountain. The 
 author of this memoir visited him and held a mission 
 at Amherst Court House, and can bear witness to the 
 reverence with which he was regarded by the parishion- 
 ers, and to the edification and comfort his ministiy 
 was to this stricken people. At the end of the war 
 he returned from his exile to his home in Alexandria, 
 but continued his ministry to them until they secured 
 another pastor in the person of Dr. McBride, and then 
 he said, pathetically, " The words of David, the son of 
 Jesse, are ended." 
 
 Mr. Smith's active ministry in the office of pastor, 
 editor and teacher now ended. But his passive minis- 
 try only ended with his life. I emphasize the word 
 passive, in the sense of suffering from increasing 
 bodily infirmities, from compassion for his own and 
 other flocks, scattered without a shepherd to care for 
 them ; grief for homes of friends and countrymen de- 
 spoiled and dilapidated, churches in ruins, and his na- 
 tive land desolated by the tread of grand armies, and a 
 whole people stricken with poverty, straitened for 
 food and clothing, and burdened with the pains and 
 penalties of so-called reconstruction ; wives widowed 
 
48 
 
 and weeping for husbands and sons untimely slain. 
 All these sad sights and sounds, to one so sensitive to 
 every phase and tone of suffering, was a great strain 
 upon his mind and body, and the subject of his 
 thoughts by day and his dreams by night. 
 
 His correspondence throws a flood of light upon 
 his daily life, hidden from the public eye, and would 
 make an interesting volume in itself. It reveals his 
 sympathies with all these forms of suffering, and his 
 untiring efforts to bind up broken hearts, pour the oil 
 of joy into bruised spirits, and give the garments of 
 praise for the spirit of heaviness. Letters lie before 
 me, written to support the weak, comfort the feeble- 
 minded, cheer the despondent, raise the fallen, with 
 words of tender sympathy, of wise counsel and affec- 
 tionate pointing to the Man of sorrows, who endured 
 the Cross, and in sweetest tones invites the weary and 
 heavy laden to come to Him and find rest for their 
 souls. 
 
 In his letters to absent friends and relatives he 
 reports incidents in the workings of the several 
 churches in Alexandria, and this reveals the lively in- 
 terest he took in the Bible-classes, Sunday-schools, 
 mothers' meetings, measures for visiting the sick, feed- 
 ing the hungry, clothing the naked, and all the other 
 wheels and pulleys and levers in the machinery of a 
 modern parish. It is delightful to read the kindly 
 way in which he speaks of the pastors of the several 
 churches in Alexandria, his appreciation of their ser- 
 
49 
 
 mons and his sympatliy with their work. Indeed, his 
 habit seems to have been that recommended by his 
 old friend, George Herbert : 
 
 ■' In time of service shut up both thine eyes, 
 And send them to thine heart. 
 He that gets patience and the blessing which 
 Preachers conclude with, hath not lost his pains." 
 
 When these pastors went away for recreation, how 
 glad he was to take their places in part, how thankful 
 to God he seemed to be for an opportunity of minis- 
 tering again in desk and pulpit, and even of making a 
 little address when his strength was not equal to a ser- 
 mon, and what a cordial it seemed to be to his spirit 
 when they happened to recognize, by a word of thanks, 
 his humble service ! The childlike artlessness in 
 which he speaks at other times of the privilege of as. 
 sisting in the administration of the Holy Communion 
 is very touching and beautiful. After these seasons 
 of refreshing, he has said, in the abandon of confi- 
 dential converse, that he had been enabled to overlook 
 the immediate celebrant, and took the bread and wine, 
 as it were, from the Saviour's own hands. When he 
 was no longer able to officiate in any way in public, he 
 rejoiced in being permitted to offer the morning sacri- 
 fice of prayer and praise in his family ; and when he 
 was disabled for that office, he said, with a pathos 
 which started the tears in our eyes, " I am thankful 
 for the privilege of asking a blessing at meals." 
 Another channel for the outpouring of his sympathies 
 
50 
 
 was the Infirmary founded by Julia, daughter of 
 Bishop Johns, and presided over by Miss Davison. 
 This was a godsend to our friend, who acted as 
 Auditor-Treasurer and disburser of the funds, in 
 which and in visiting its inmates he took great de- 
 light, receiving from the managers cordial thanks. 
 
 But his sym]3athies could not be pent up in 
 Alexandria. Independently of his interests in Do- 
 mestic and Foreign Missions, of which I have already 
 spoken, a special object of his love and service was 
 the Jaffa Mission. He was attracted to it by his re- 
 lations, and those of his family, to Miss Baldwin 
 and the Misses Davison, who were intimately connected 
 with it. Mr. Smith and his daughter contributed 
 valuable articles to Mrs. Pitman's " Mission Life in 
 Greece and Palestine," and co-operated in many other 
 ways in this good work. From his retirement he 
 watched with an eagle eye the proceedings of the 
 Diocesan Councils and General Conventions, and 
 scanned the columns of our Church journals, not from 
 mere curiosity or a spirit of controversy, but from the 
 loving interest with which one follows the fortunes of 
 a dear friend or near relative, whose weal is a personal 
 joy and whose woes we feel as a personal wound. 
 
 DEPAKTING SPIKITS AND MINSTERING ANGELS. 
 
 I have called our friend's latter years a passive 
 ministry. Some of the objects of his compassion have 
 been enumerated. But he had sorrows in the inner 
 
51 
 
 sanctuary of his home with which a stranger could 
 not intermeddle. In 1866, soon after the downfall of 
 the Confederacy, the aged mother of his wife, who had 
 been an exile from Culpepper during the war, was 
 borne back in her casket and buried in Alexandria. 
 This revered mother in Israel, a woman of masculine 
 intelligence and much culture, had been for generations 
 an oracle of wise counsel to her children, who listened 
 to her responses with reverence. On May 80, 1871, 
 his lovely, loving and beloved daughter, Eleanor, upon 
 whose damask cheek consumption, like a worm in the 
 bud, had been preying before his weeping eyes, was 
 suddenly cut down like a flower. As her pastor closed 
 her eyes with the words, "Asleep in Jesus," her 
 father's voice responded reverently from the adjoining 
 room, " The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken 
 away ; blessed be the name of the Lord." 
 
 In 1879, August 5, the wife of his bosom, with 
 whom he had lived in wedded bliss for more than 
 half a century, the partner of his joys and the solace 
 of his sorrows, departed this life. He read the com- 
 mendatory prayer with wailing tones as her spirit 
 passed away, and when it was gone he mournfully 
 said to his assembled children, " For your sakes only, 
 I am willing to live on." 
 
 Melville has beautifully said, " The harp of the 
 human spirit never makes such sweet music as when 
 its framework is all shattered and the strings are all 
 torn." Although our friend's frame was shattered 
 
' 50. 
 
 and the strings of bis heart were all torn, yet they 
 never failed to respond when touched by the hand of 
 the widow and the fatherless, the sick and the poor, 
 the weary and the heavy laden who sought rest for 
 their feet and solace for their sorrows. The many 
 letters which lie before me, sounding every note of 
 sorrow, and the responses, breathing every form of 
 comfort, warrant what may seem exaggerations to the 
 reader. 
 
 These vacant rooms in his home and these empty 
 niches in his heart must needs be filled with other 
 guests, and the angels came in bodily form, as they 
 did to the old patriarch. And as he had been mind- 
 ful of the injunction, " Be not forgetful to entertain 
 strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels 
 unawares," they too came, in the form of missionaries 
 from the Old World. Among them Grarabed, the 
 Armenian, and Friedlander, the Jew. The latter was 
 a man of rare gifts and ripe culture, speaking many 
 languages, a veteran missionary of the Church of Eng- 
 land for twenty-three years to the Jews in Africa and 
 at Jerusalem. Coming to this country on some liter- 
 ary errand, his heart was moved by the fifty thousand 
 Jews that darkened the streets and lanes of New York, 
 and he resolved to become a voluntary missionary to 
 them. He had known the Misses Davison at Jaffa, and 
 highly appreciated their character and fitness for the 
 work. Hence he came to Alexandria, and by special 
 invitation to Mr. Smith's house, and told the story of 
 
53 
 
 Russian persecutions of the Jews, and of their dis- 
 persion, and of his own labors among those suffering 
 ones who found refuge in the Holy Land. He con- 
 trasted vividly the ideal pictures of Jerusalem with 
 the degradation he had seen, and spoke with enthusi- 
 asm and wonder of the open field of usefulness in New 
 York, and of the harvest which might be reaped from 
 seed sown there, and scattered thence over the land. 
 Mr. Smith greeted him as a ministering spirit, and 
 gave him one of the vacant niches in his heart. I 
 cannot forbear quoting some passages from a letter, 
 the childlike beauty and humility of which drew tears 
 from my eyes: 
 
 *' Though [ cannot say with Peter, 'You know that it is an 
 unlawful thing for a man that is a Jew to come unto one of 
 another nation,' I have a right to say, it is so unusual a thing 
 for a Jew to be so overwhelmed with undeserved kindness, that 
 you must allow me to write to you a few words of acknowledg- 
 ment. . . . When you were not satisfied with all the pres- 
 ent pleasure I experienced in Alexandria, but surprised me with 
 the oifer of a friendly reception here in Philadelphia, I felt 
 somewhat like David when on one occasion he exclaimed, 'And 
 this was yet a small thing in Thy sight, but Thou hast spoken of 
 Thy servant for a good while to come,' or some such words. 
 But in one thing you were mistaken — your calculation as to 
 how manifold the warmth of the welcome would be. It was far 
 below the mark. 
 
 " And strangely enough, a little conversation I had in the 
 train yesterday with a Jew from Philadelphia brought out the 
 c )rrect sum. Seeing me read a Hebrew letter I had received in 
 the morning, he could not forbear speaking to me. I found 
 him to be a sceptic, who was especially set against the possi- 
 bility of prophecies being true predictions. ' Why,' I said, 'if 
 I could make you understand what I have experienced in the 
 
54 
 
 last few days, you would see the literal fulfillment of an old 
 prophecy : " Every one that has forsaken brothers, or sisters, 
 or father or mother for My sake " (I had to leave out, as not 
 referring to me, houses and lands, and wife and children,) 
 ^' shall receive an hundredfold.'" 
 
 '' When, late last night, I came to Mr. ff ubbard's, T did real- 
 ize that this prophecy has been literally fulfilled to me. Miss 
 H.'s kindness in sending a letter ahead of me wa? in keeping 
 with all I have experienced since T came to Baltimore, and if 
 there is anything to regret, it is this, that the letter of commen- 
 dation was, no doubt, tinged with that sensationalism vhich 
 Miss Davison unfortunately introduced into her account of me. 
 " My conscience is not at all at ease at my allowing these 
 so flattering assumptions to pass unchallenged, but it is not 
 easy to steer clear of the Scylla of self-depreciatioa, which is 
 often but another form of self-laudation, and the Charybdis of 
 accepting by silence undeserved praise. I feel, however, bound 
 to make one statement, which will keep you from attributing 
 an undue value to the knowledge of many languages, supposing 
 I possessed it to the extent attributed to me by Miss Davison's 
 indulgence, which I do not. In Turkey the knowledge of vari- 
 ous languages is at a discount, belonging to the commonest 
 acquisitions of the people. We had an old Jewish man servant 
 who fluently conversed in twelve languages, several of which he 
 read and wrote fairly well, yet I had often to make the observa- 
 tion that he did not seem to have a single thought 'to blow 
 himself with' in any of the twelve languages. To sum up all I 
 wished to say to you, and to you all, I feel very grateful for all 
 you have done for me, whatever be the exaggerated opinion you 
 may have of my merits. I feel something like the despair of 
 gratefulness, not being able to do more than to express my 
 gratefulness. But stop, I can do one thing that David did 
 when he was in like despair. ' What shall I render for all 
 God's benefits ? ' he asked, and he answered, ' I will take 
 . . .' Gratefully to take what is kindly given is what we all 
 can do, and if such accepting could ever appear to me like 
 encroaching upon friends, I will remember the very last words 
 of the Bible I read at your house, ' It is more blessed to give 
 than to receive,' which settles the account in the most equitable 
 
55 
 
 manner. I do cot know yet whether I can finish my business 
 here to-day and proceed to New York. But if I do stay on, I 
 am to remove to Mr. Hubbard's and preach in his church next 
 Sunday. 
 
 "Yours gratefully, 
 
 "H. Feibdlander." 
 
 Friedlander began his missiou in Norfolk Street, 
 New York, which, he describes as black with people 
 lounging on Saturdays and Sundays. Among these he 
 found many of his former pupils in London and Jeru- 
 salem. He could only get a tenement house, where 
 he had a reading-room to which Jews resorted in the 
 evening. There was a " shut-up church " at which he 
 looked with longing eyes, but he found that, like 
 other houses, it could not be had without rent and 
 " silver and gold had he none." He communicated 
 every ray of light to Mr. Smith, and called it " a 
 glorious prospect." He protested against the habit of 
 making the work of God " shine in brighter colors 
 than the truth warrants." Good people ought to 
 know better than to pander to the craving for hope- 
 ful reports. "I strive to keep myself from everything 
 but interest in the victory of truth." His experience 
 tauo:ht him that it was a mistake to make Jewish 
 Christians missionaries to Jews, if the office improved 
 their condition financially and socially. The Jews are 
 keen to note the fact, and sure to suspect such. They 
 must be constrained by the love of Christ, and not the 
 love of money and position. His idea was to pay ex- 
 penses by doing extra work. This, by the way, is a 
 
56 
 
 thought worth consideration by those who would 
 offer premiums for the increase of the ministry, and is 
 specially applicable to a certain class of our popu- 
 lation. Alas ! after six months' work in his self-deny- 
 ing mission, this Apostolic man died one night, on his 
 knees by his simple cot, in a lonely room in a lodging- 
 house in New York. And the surging millions of 
 that great city, revolving in the whirlpool of business 
 and pleasure, knew not that one " of whom the world 
 was not worthy" had fallen in Israel. But Mr. Smith 
 and the favored few who had known him mourned for 
 him as did Elisha for the rapt prophet when he went 
 to Heaven in a chariot of fire. 
 
 " There are in the loud, stunning tide 
 
 Of human care and crime, 
 With whom the melodies abide 
 
 Of the everlasting chime. 
 Who carry music in their heart 
 Through dusky lane and wrangling mart, 
 
 Plying their daily task with busier feet 
 Because their secret souls 
 
 A lowly strain repeat." 
 
WHIT-SUNDAY, JUNE 9, 1889. 
 
 « 
 
 " Listen, sweet Dove, unto my song, 
 And spread thy golden wings in me." 
 
 This was a memorable day in our friend's life, a 
 Sabbath's journey toward Heaven. To make it intel- 
 ligible, I shall have to use the personal pronoun 
 more than accords with my taste and that of the 
 reader. On the 5tli of May it was my lot to preach in 
 Christ Church, on the text "God is love." The sub- 
 ject seemed to take hold of Mr. Smith to a degree that 
 surprised me. He referred to it repeatedly during 
 my sojourn in his house, where I was detained for 
 several weeks by illness. After my return to my own 
 home the subject passed from my mind, until I re- 
 ceived the following letter, dated June 10, 1889, the 
 last letter he wrote : 
 
 Dear Beothee: — I have been sick for several days from a 
 complication which, though not attended with danger, requires 
 great care for the future, which is, of course, uncertain. . . . 
 I read nothing yesterday (Whit-Sunday) but the Collect, Epis- 
 tle and Gospel. The last recalled a quotation I had occasion to 
 make to you, which occurs in the first verse, "If ye love Me, 
 keep My commandments," etc. I did not express all I had in 
 mind, but thought you would take it as representing many 
 others in our Lord's teaching, and including the great truth, 
 "■ God is love," which you were enabled so truly, precisely and 
 fully to set forth as the one great axiom of Christianity. I 
 thought if we could rest on that simple representation, no more, 
 no less, we should have all we could desire for the present and 
 
58 
 
 the future. In the continuation of this subject, the trait of 
 love is especially repeated, and more fully represents the general 
 truth. Finally, ''Peace I leave with you. My peace I give unto 
 you." I was led to consider the whole subject of the meeting of 
 our Lord with Peter, A look such as we can realize restored 
 the latter, and when he stood before his Lord, silently waiting 
 for the greeting which he reverently believed was to be pro- 
 nounced, what must have been his feeling? "Simon, son of 
 Jonas "—what more ? *' Lovest thou Me ? " You can readily 
 fill up the whole aspect of the subject. I never saw it in such 
 a light before. It brought the tears to my eyes, and filled me 
 with peace. Then I remembered that our Lord clothed the 
 Decalogue with the garment of love. St. Luke and St. Paul 
 (not to speak of St. John) recognized the truth : *'If there be 
 any other commandment, it u briefly comprehended in the say- 
 ing, Thou shalt love thy neighbar as thyself." There is no 
 reduction, no modification of the one word of the Gospel, " God 
 is love." Stat in eternum. 
 
 Affectionately }ours, 
 
 George A. Smith. 
 
 When I read this letter, I said to my family, '' It 
 has an unearthly ring about it ; the prophet must be 
 putting on his ascension robes." The next tidings we 
 heard was that he was ill, nigh unto death, and then 
 that he was dead. His last illnes was brief and in- 
 tensely painful, and his death was evidently unex- 
 pected to himself, so much so that among the few 
 words spoken in the paroxysms of pain was the ques- 
 tion why his attendants did not retire — " It must be 
 past bedtime." The popular creed craves a dramatic 
 deathbed for the Christian like that of a tragedy hero 
 on the stage, and estacies and raptures are thought to 
 attest a high degree of grace. It is forgotten that out- 
 
59 
 
 ward manifestations are often gross delusions, as in the 
 case of criminals of the deepest dye, who talk fluently 
 of going home to glory, and call upon their friends to 
 meet them in Heaven, and the like. I would not un- 
 dervalue what are called triumphant deaths, if they 
 are the consummation of holy lives. It was not so 
 with the Master. Our admirable Office for the Sick 
 tells us truly that Christ went not up to joy, but first 
 he suffered pain, so our way to eternal joy is to suffer 
 here with Christ. 
 
 The chamber where the good man meets his fate 
 is privileged, and we would not, to gratify morbid 
 curiosity, invade that sanctuary. I will only lift the 
 veil so far as to say that in his intense pain he would 
 say, in seeming remonstrance, to his weeping family, 
 whose sympathy for his sufferings oppressed him, 
 " God's will must be done." This was Christlike. 
 The sublimest height the human spirit, inspired by 
 breath from Heaven, can reach is submission of the 
 individual will to the will of God. This puts it in 
 harmony with the Divine order of the universe, and 
 all things work together for its good. Doubtless, if 
 our brother had been conscious that the time of his de- 
 parture was at hand, the flickering lamp, ere it went 
 out, would have flashed some rays towards Heaven 
 that it would have been pleasing to see and hear. 
 But such a sign was not needed as a seal to " a living 
 epistle, seen and read of all men," any more than a fit- 
 ful flush at sunset to attest a long sunshiny day. 
 
60 
 
 The funeral took place from CLrist Church, so 
 rich in memories of him. After the reading of the 
 grand burial service by Dr. Suter and Mr. Sharpe, and 
 a brief, but appropriate and touching address by Dr. 
 Packard, the Dean of the Seminary, whose life ran 
 parallel with his for half a century, he was buried in 
 the Presbyterian Cemetery, by his wife, near the tomb 
 of his father and mother. On a marble stone will be 
 inscribed these words : 
 
 Sacred to the Memory 
 
 OP 
 
 George A. Smith, 
 
 Aged 87. 
 
 In Christ. 
 
 "jBis turneth the shadoiv of death into morning. — Canticles ii. 17. 
 
 On Mrs. Smith's : 
 
 Sacred to the Memory 
 
 of 
 
 Ophelia A., 
 
 Wife of George A. Smith, 
 
 Aged 79. 
 
 In Christ. 
 
 " Until the day break, and the shadows flee away.^^ — Canticles ii. 17. 
 
 There are some things touching his relations to 
 his children too sacred to be ex23osed to the public 
 eye — his appreciation of the "love of his daughters, 
 who would keep him away from Heaven, burdened 
 
61 
 
 here by life's many sorrows"; of tlie devotion of his 
 sons, in their far-away homes in Oregon and California, 
 and of his deep sense of their self-sacrifice for his 
 comfort ; how he stood daily between them and their 
 God, pleading for their weal here and hereafter. 
 
 But there are some passages in his will which I 
 cannot refrain from printing, not only as illustrations 
 of his character, but, as it were, a sermon from beyond 
 the grave, to be often read and pondered by those to 
 whom it is addressed : 
 
 " No interest in life is more important, nor more 
 the subject of my prayers, than that all my children 
 and grandchildren may respect the injunction and 
 realize the promise, ^ If any man will do His will, he 
 shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God.' 
 I specify this saying of our Lord's because the obser- 
 vation of life has shown me that the objection to re- 
 ligion is the life which it enjoins, and »o question with 
 unbelievers is decided against it, at the start. I mean 
 the whole life enjoined by Christ. If we do not know 
 or understand it on a first trial, it is only necessary to 
 practice what we do know, and what is plain. The 
 common sense of mankind renders it plain to all men 
 that no one will eyer be a proficient in either knowl- 
 edge or practice of a profession who does not begin, 
 as it were, in the dark as to the future. What we all 
 want is a guide to lead us on, step by stej^, and he 
 who will not take the first will never reach anything 
 beyond." 
 
02 
 
 The same sense of delicacy restrains me from 
 reproducing passages from the very many letters 
 of condolence with the family, from the clergy, and 
 the laity of both sexes, far and near, beautiful and 
 fragrant as the flowers laid upon his tomb, but like 
 those flowers would lose all their fragrance if applied 
 to other uses. But, fearing that looking at him 
 through the magnifying glass of personal affection, I 
 might color my portrait of him too highly, I have asked 
 the pastors of the Episcopal churches in Alexandria 
 how he looked and lived from their more disinterested 
 point of view. I extract some paragraphs from their 
 responses for my own justification in the public eye. 
 
 Alexandria, September 24, 1889. 
 My dear Slaughter : — Most gladly would I do anything 
 to honor the memory of our beloved friend. It would be im- 
 possible to tell yo^l anything of his life and character. Aside 
 from his elevated tone of thought and feeling, to me the most 
 wonderful thing was his simplicity and unselfishness. I cannot 
 recall the slightest indication, during forty years, that word and 
 manner did not express his sincere meaning. His unselfishness 
 was beypnd anything that has come under my observation in 
 mankind. I have seen women who were like him. But his 
 sympathy for the trouble of others, every way better off and 
 more comfortable than himself, was simply wonderful. The 
 freshness of his interest in others did not aba<^e in old age ; to 
 the last he was the one friend we could 'always feel sure would 
 share our joys and sorrows. 
 
 Yours affectionately, 
 
 Geo. H. NoRTO^r, 
 St. PauVs Church, Alexandria. 
 
63 
 
 My dear Dr. Slaughter: — You have asked me for a 
 brief statement of the character of the late Rev. George A. 
 Smith, as it appeared to me through his life under my eye, in 
 this parish. 
 
 Of course, no man could be associated with Mr. Smith as I 
 was, without being impressed with his deep and consistent piety. 
 As he sat under my ministry, during the first ten years of it, I 
 often noticed his manner, its reverence and its humility. Near 
 me he sometimes knelt, when his health permitted, at the ad- 
 ministration of the Lord's Supper, and his voice of confession 
 was touching in its simple and heartfelt earnestness. These 
 were occasions of pleasure to my aged friend, for he felt that he 
 was still doing somethir)g for Him whom he loved to serve, and 
 I am sure they were reminders to me of the truth of the saying, 
 " The hoary head is a crown of glory, if it be found in the way 
 of righteousness." 
 
 One thing often struck me — namely, the interest Mr. Smith 
 took in all things connected with the welfare and honor of 
 Virginia, and of the whole country. He often quoted the 
 maxims of Washington, and dwelt upon the connection between 
 the following of his advice and example, and the safety of the 
 country. He was indeed, like " Paul, the aged," full of interest 
 in the things of the day; no mere praiser of times gone by, 
 but a strenuous worker, cherishing a quick sympathy and an 
 eager interest which kept him young to the end. This interest 
 in all current history was for the Church of his love, as well as 
 for his people and country. He watched closely the theological 
 thought, and, though averse to controversy, would sometimes, 
 as you know, bring out of his treasures wise counsels for us 
 all. . . . 
 
 I feel it to be a difficult thing to write as I ought of this 
 good man. His character as a friend and father and Christian 
 is so fully and beautifully displayed in his letters, already in 
 your hands, that I fear to speak of his life in these relations, 
 lest I should mar the beauty which these witnesses reveal. But 
 sure I am that his like we will not see soon again, when we look 
 at the combination of piety, wisdom and scholarship which 
 marked him. 
 
 H. SUTER, 
 
 Christ Church, Alexandria. 
 
64 
 
 Dear Dr. Slaughter: — You ask me for my conception of 
 the character of Eev. George A. Smith. 
 
 In a character so symmetrical as Mr. Smith's, it is difficult 
 to single out any salient points. There was no one element 
 that stood out prominently above the rest. I never knew any 
 one whose character was more uniform. I could say of him 
 what Bishop Burnet said of Archbishop Leigh ton, '^ In a familiar 
 intercourse, extending over many years, I never knew him to 
 say an idle word, and I never once saw him in any other temper 
 but that I wish to be in in the last moment of my life." 
 
 He was very clear and distinct in his theological convictions. 
 He kept the faith as he found it in the Scriptures and in the 
 Articles of our Church. He was a well-read theologian, espe- 
 cially in the old English divines. . . . 
 
 Though for many years before his death incapable from in- 
 firmity of the active duties of the ministry, yet he brought forth 
 fruit in old age. He was a blessing to the Church and the com- 
 munity in which he lived. Men pointed to him as a "living 
 epistle, known and read of all men" — a living and walking 
 Bible. The city is poorer, this Church is poorer, the world is 
 poorer for his loss; but what is loss to us is gain to him. He 
 has seen the brow which was pierced for him. He has been 
 joyfully reunited to parents and wife and children, who went 
 before him. The grave is dark and dreary, but we must look 
 
 beyond. 
 
 Joseph Packard, 
 
 Dean of the Seminary. 
 From Dr. McKim : 
 
 My acquaintance with Mr. Smith began more than twenty 
 years ago, when, the year after my ordination to the priesthood, 
 I entered on my duties as rector of Christ Church, Alexandria. 
 
 Three words come to me as expressive of the most salient 
 features of Mr. Smith's character — humility, fidelity, charity. 
 I never knew a man who so habitually and naturally " took the 
 lowest seat." No one could be in his company without perceiv- 
 ing in every act and word that he was one of those rare men, 
 who are really " lowly in their own eyes." And so it came to 
 pass that humility, of which St. Augustine says that it is the 
 first, and also the second, and also the third thing in religion. 
 
65 
 
 sat habitually upon his brow, *'a crown of glory and a diadem 
 of beauty" in the sight of angels and men. 
 
 Equally was he characterized by fidelity. Humility, when 
 it is genuine, has no kinship with timidity. He was not of a 
 combative disposition. The gaudium certaminis was not his 
 under any circumstances. But while he abhorred controversy, 
 he was a man of strong convictions, and courageous in defend- 
 ing them; lion-hearted when what he held sacred was assailed, 
 whether in sanctuary of the home, or of the state, or of the 
 Kingdom of God. Looking over his long life of eighty-seven 
 years, and considering his relations to his family, to his friends, 
 to the commonwealth, to the Church and to the revealed truth 
 of God, it may be truly said that he has deserved the encomium. 
 Semper fidelis, — yea, faithful unto death. 
 
 To humility and fidelity he added charity — the " charity 
 that sufferetli long and is kind.^' Nothing envious, nor unjust, 
 nor harsh, nor censorious, nor malicious, could live in the pres- 
 ence of that serene face of his, shining with/the light from the 
 mount of God. He loved everything that was good and tended 
 to good. His interest and his sympathies, though most warmly 
 enlisted in the work of his own communion, were not limited by 
 its boundaries, but went out freely to all who preach Christ and 
 Him crucified. Especially was it true of the great missionary 
 fields of Christendom, in which he took, to his dying day, a 
 lively interest, and for which he not seldom employed his pen. 
 His heart never grew old in its capacity to sympathize with his 
 brethren who were laboring for the spread of Christ's Gospel. 
 His home was open and his hospitality was free equally to the 
 stranger from the far East, who came seeking light that he 
 might carry it back to Persia, or to Armenia, and to the Jewish 
 convert who heard the Lord calling him to go to the Jewish 
 colony in New York with the message of the Messiah, and to 
 live, as the great Apostle to the Gentiles lived, by the sweat of 
 his brow. The friendless found in him their friend, and the 
 homeless in his house a welcome, when they came in the name 
 of the Lord. 
 
 Lord Peterborough is reported to have said of Fenelon, 
 " If I stay in his house any longer I shall become a Christian 
 in spite of myself." We may truly say of Mr. Smith, that to 
 
66 
 
 stay in his house was to have before one's eyes a most persuasive 
 evidence of the power of the Christian religion. Only two days 
 ago, at a large meeting for men in Washington, a man who had 
 formerly been a tradesman in Alexandria, said to me, " If ever a 
 man went to Heaven from that town, it was the Kev. George A. 
 Smith/' K. H. McKm, 
 
 Church of the Epiphmiy, Washington. 
 
 From the Rev. Henry Sharpe : 
 
 Perhaps there are few who pass into Paradise to meet more 
 sweet surprises than that veteran soldier of the Cross, the Rev. 
 George A. Smith, A man of strong sense and wisdom, of rare 
 courtesy and delicacy, of broad culture, resolute, tender and 
 gentle as any woman, such was his lowliness of heart that he 
 was always retiring, with an utter absence of self-assertion, and 
 never realized how helpful his learning, his counsels, his sym- 
 pathy had proved to those who sought the blessings ready to be 
 bestowed. He knows now how much illumination came from 
 the daily shining of his life ; at last he has been told of the com- 
 fort imparted to many a heavy-laden soul, and has met a 
 welcome from those he won for Christ who went home before 
 him. 
 
 " Humility is like a star that trembles while it shines, 
 And through its trembling brightest seems to be." 
 
 For our part, there would seem to be no higher and no 
 more fitting tribute to the memory of the dear old man so many 
 of us loved, than to say that humility was the most consj^icuous 
 grace of his Christian character — "like the veil thrown over the 
 face of beauty, that brightens the loveliness it seeks to hide." 
 Even Christ pleased not himself, and our aged father stead- 
 fastly followed the Master. His hope of active ministry crushed 
 before his armor had been well tried, his faith strained by the 
 consciousness of power that he was seemingly forbidden to ex- 
 ercise, so he bent to the will of the Chief Bishop of the Church 
 he cherished, and made the rich offering of a life of love and 
 patience. But at the dawning of the day, June 28, he had an 
 abundant entrance into the eternal rest, and saw the Saviour 
 he so long had served. 
 
 Henky Sharpe, 
 Grace Church, Alexandria. 
 
67 
 
 From Rev. Dr. Sprigg, formerly rector of Grace 
 
 Churcli, Alexandria : 
 
 *'It is with pain and sorrow we record the death of Kev. 
 George A. Smith, which took place in his home in Alexandria on 
 Friday morning, June 28, in the eighty-seventh year of his age. 
 ' With pain and sorrow/ we say, but only because we shall see 
 his face no more in this life, and not because he will see the 
 face of his Lord in glory and in beauty ; for his life had been 
 one of simple faith in Christ and of living beauty towards his 
 fellow-men, from his boyhood to his death having been marked 
 with the seal of the Divine Spirit, through whom he lived the 
 life of faith and died the death of a sincere believer of the Lord 
 Jesus, by whom he has been received into the everlasting 
 habitations." 
 
 Dr. Walker, of tlie Theological Seminary, says : 
 
 "As to Mr. Smith's general character, I always found him 
 equal to his reputation, a wise, judicious adviser, sound in his 
 judgments and views as to Church matters and parties, and 
 not carried away by words of temporary excitement." 
 
 Let me conclude tliese testimonials with the art- 
 less tribute of his colored servants, whom he had freed 
 long ago, but who served him lovingly to the last. 
 
 One said, " I have been looking up into master's 
 face all my life, and now he is gone." And another 
 responded, "I never knew but one who never had 
 spells of temper, and that was master," as they per- 
 sistently called him. 
 
 Thus, by the mouth of more than two or three 
 competent and disinterested eye-witnesses, my words 
 are confirmed, and I am warranted in commending to 
 our clergy and laity, and to all Christian people, the 
 example of our Virginian partriarch, who, having all 
 
68 
 
 his life taken the lowest seat, has been called by the 
 Master to "go up higher," and sit down with Abra- 
 ham and Isaac and all the saints, at the marriage sup- 
 per of the Lamb, who will feed him and lead him to 
 the fountains of living water ; and God has wiped 
 away all tears from his eyes. 
 
LITEKARY EEMAINS. 
 
 The chief literary remains of Mr. Smith were 
 printed in the columns of the Philadelphia Recorder 
 and the Southern Clviircliman. As a register of passing 
 events and a critic of current opinions, a religious 
 newspaper has the whole world as its field, and em- 
 bracing all the branches and fruit of the tree of knowl- 
 edge and of good and evil, is a rich depository from 
 which might be culled materials for a miscellaneous 
 library. 
 
 In the Theological Hepertory and in the columns 
 of other contemporary periodicals are sermons, ad- 
 dresses and essays of merit on divers subjects. 
 
 " A Scriptural Examination of the Church Cate- 
 chism, designed as a Plain Manual of Divinity for 
 Sunday-school, Catechetical and Bible-classes, and 
 General Use. By Joshua Dixon. Revised and adapt- 
 ed to the Liturgy of the Protestant Episcopal Church, 
 with Notes and Appendix, by the Bev. George A. 
 Smith, A.M." Philadelphia : W. Marshall & Co., 1836. 
 18mo, pp. 231. The English edition of Dixon is one 
 of the best manuals, but Mr. Smith's American edition 
 is enriched by much new matter, including historical 
 notes and illustrations, all adapted to the Church in 
 America. 
 
70 
 
 Dr. Suter and Dr. Packard have both spoken with 
 approbation of the article of his in the Seminarij 
 Magazine on "The Sabbath, the Lord's Day, — in 
 which he refuted some views of Dr. Hessey. In 
 this article Dr. Packard says he laid great stress upon 
 the testimony of Eusebius, " That the word Christ, by 
 the New Covenant, translated and transferred the feast 
 of the Sabbath to the saving Lord's day." This 
 article shows that the force of his mind in his eighty- 
 sixth year was not abated. Dr. Packard also signalizes, 
 amonof his other communications to the Southern 
 Churchman, some articles on the genuineness of the 
 book of Daniel. 
 
 Mr. Smith contributed to Mrs. Pitman's " Memoir 
 of Mary B. Baldwin" an appendix, entitled "Remarks 
 on the Missionary Work of the American Church." 
 Mr. Smith's letters in his later years show to the last 
 how he kept abreast of the doings of the day, and in 
 living sympathy with the fortunes of his friends and 
 relations, and with all important movements in Church 
 and State. The secession of Bishop Cummins filled 
 him with grief and amazement, as a needless and 
 profitless rending of the Church, and it called out all 
 the loyalty that was in his heart. He was impatient, 
 too, with the revisers of the Prayer Book, each one, 
 with his psalm and doctrine, " thinking he could im. 
 prove the work of the giants who built this wonderful 
 work, and sealed it with their blood." Granting that 
 it was susceptible of enrichment, the good attained 
 
71 
 
 would be a small compensation for unsettling the 
 minds of tlie people and keeping our Ark at sea, 
 where she was liable to be driven about by every 
 wind of doctrine, and "anchored ne'er shall be." He 
 thought it well to remember that the General Conven- 
 tion was not the Church, and that the usefulness of 
 the Church depends most of all upon the blesing of 
 the Divine Head in giving spiritual life to the mem- 
 bers. 
 
 He had a righteous indignation at the Romanizers 
 in the Church, and thought it was humiliating that so 
 many thought they should be acknowledged to be 
 harmless. But he doubted if it was possible to guard 
 against the devices with which they evade the laws of 
 the Church and shelter themselves against their penal- 
 ties. The remedy for our troubles was not so much 
 legislative, but in prayer and work. If each one 
 would do his duty in his sphere with existing facilities, 
 it would soon work all the change we want, " Physi- 
 cian, heal thyself, and then shalt thou see clearly," etc. 
 
 He sympathized with the Bishops in their arduous 
 work, and said, "I think the office of Diocesan 
 Bishop is the most undesirable possible. In general, 
 to do his duty he must sacrifice himself, and if he does 
 so he will have his reward, but not here." He quoted 
 Dr. Milnor as saying that he had observed that the 
 piety of many when they became Bishop seems to 
 deteriorate, and that he had none to spare. 
 
Y2 
 
 He thought that the Virginia Council of 1874 
 was a marvel of wise conduct. Dr. Norton, a man 
 not given to extravagant utterances, says reverently 
 that the repoi't of the committee must have been 
 framed with the aid of the Holy Spirit, and Dr. Sprigg 
 thinks it is the wisest paper he ever read. He was 
 shocked at what seemed to him the utter abandonment, 
 by our Council of 1879, of principles which he sup- 
 posed were common to all Evangelical men and mod- 
 erate High Churchmen. He thought the laity would 
 never abandon their constitutional right to share in 
 the legislation of the Church, etc. It haunted him day 
 and night. 
 
 Another subject which gave him great concern 
 was the wave of worldliness which has flooded the 
 Church of Grod, in such contrast with the times of re- 
 freshing which marked the old Conventions and 
 associations. 
 
 " Explain it as you may, and make all the reser- 
 vations, if any, it will bear, the truth remains that the 
 fi-iendship of the world is enmity with God. But 
 self-denial is the essential mark of the Christian life 
 and the plain requisition of our Lord, while to avoid 
 it to the utmost extent within the limits of salvation 
 is the aim of the world and of so-called Christians 
 conformed to the world." 
 
 As an example of how times are changed, he re- 
 calls an incident in 1825, when he was going in a 
 steamboat from Baltimore to the General Convention 
 
73 
 
 in Philadelphia. Among the passengers he mentions 
 Bishops Kemp and Bowen, and Mr. Ravenscroft, who 
 was going to be consecrated ; Rev. Messrs. Meade, 
 Mcllvaine, AVilmer, Hawley, etc. In the evening all 
 the passengers met in the cabin. Mr. Meade gave out 
 a hymn and read the twentieth chapter of Acts, and 
 Mr. Mcllvaine prayed fervently, the company being 
 all respectful and attentive. He mourned that the 
 State of Virginia, from a complication of untoward 
 events which her best people could not control, had 
 the stain of repudiation cast upon her escutcheon. 
 
 Such are a few items from his letters about im- 
 portant current events of Church and State. To de- 
 scend from great to small matters, I will give one item 
 of his interest in the latter. When I was writing the 
 " Life of Bishop Meade " I had occasion to reproduce 
 a quotation from Ovid's Tristia, which the Bishop had 
 repeated to me on the eve of my going to Europe. 
 I happened to mention it to Mr. Smith in a letter, to 
 which he replied thus : 
 
 " I stepped up (from Alexandria) this morning 
 to Washington, and found in the library of Congress 
 a beautiful London edition of the Tristia, and copied 
 your quotation carefully, with special attention to 
 punctuation. I have two editions of the Metamor- 
 phosis, containing one (the tenth) Elegy of the Tristia. 
 I doubt if they are in any American edition. I 
 thought it worth while for you, and for the Bishop's 
 classical reputation, and I do not like to stay puzzled 
 
74 
 
 myself. I enclose some notes from the London edition, 
 and the response of Ovid's wife, which is (as all is) 
 very touching." 
 
 This calls to mind Michael Angelo's ingenious 
 device, representing an old man in a go-cart with an 
 hour-glass upon it, with this inscription, Ancora 
 imparo. The patriarch pupil will be learning still. 
 
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