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 LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. | 
 
 Chap. 
 
 
 E UNITED05TATES OF AMERICA. 
 
"llSiivi -■:■:. 
 
ORATION 
 
 ON THE 
 
 DEATH OF GEN. GEORGE WASHINGTON 
 
 Addressed to the Catholic Congregation of StyMary's 
 Church of Albany, by the Rev. Matthew O'Brien, 
 D.D., Pastor of the same, for February 22, 1800, 
 the day appointed by Congress. 
 
 [From the Albany " Gazette," February 27, 1S00.] 
 

 
 Oration on the Death of Gen. George Washington, 
 
 Addressed to the Catholic Congregation of St. Mary's Church of 
 Albany, by the Rev. Matthew O'Brien, D.D., Pastor of the 
 same, for February 22, 1800, the day appointed by Congress. 
 
 We are come together, my friends, agreeable to wish of 
 government and equally so to our own inclinations to com- 
 memorate the deceased founder of America's freedom; we 
 are come to mingle our tears with those of the friends of vir- 
 tue ; to combine our lamentations this day with the testimony 
 of the public feelings at the sad catastrophe that has deprived 
 the United States of the important services of the illustrious 
 General Washington, and committed his mortal part to the 
 silence of the tomb. 
 
 Who is the man in the annals of the ancient world who has 
 been wept by his country with sorrow more sincere? Where 
 is the character that adorns the page of history so enlightened 
 in council, so judicious in plan, so successful in public contest, 
 and so temperate in triumph, as that which is now held up 
 for your gratitude and admiration ? Oh, had his genius in- 
 fluenced the destinies of France the tears and the blood of 
 Europe had not been seen to flow ; the scale of public justice 
 had been held with equal hand, and the cottage and the palace 
 had shared a common safety. Oh, France, unhappy France, 
 how has thy gold become dim, how is the most line gold 
 changed, the stones of the sanctuary are poured out in the top 
 of every street, from the daughter of Sion all her beauty is 
 departed,* for the days of thy visitation have passed by thee 
 unregarded ; now tyrants lord it over thee — thy faith trans- 
 ferred to strangers. From thy fall may America be confirmed 
 in truth and temperance, and take lessons against the woes 
 that irreligion must produce. 
 
 * Lamentations of Jeremiah, eta. 4 and I. 
 
Inadequate to the task and unqualified by ray character for 
 -the business of political dissertation, I shall not attempt a por- 
 trait of the illustrious man, nor enumerate his achievements 
 whose loss we now deplore : the former has nearly exhausted 
 the power of human eloquence ; the most brilliant tints of 
 oratory have yet left it incomplete ; the latter is engraven, not 
 in letters of marble, my brethren, which time might crumble 
 out or ignorance mistake, but in the never-fading characters 
 that speak a nation's gratitude — in the praises that have been 
 echoed from the boundaries of the universe. 
 
 Hence, my brethren, I shall only beg to fix your attention, 
 in a few words, on the duties of citizens as they peculiarly re- 
 gard our countrymen, and shall close this admonition with 
 some religious considerations. 
 
 We have come into this country from motives of preference, 
 and in common we experience the advantages of protection : 
 whether our own country could serve us and would not ; 
 whether she could befriend us and would not ; in a word, the 
 nature of the causes that have fixed our residence here, makes 
 nothing essential in our political predicament ; nor can it af- 
 fect the good wishes we owe to the government. America 
 has opened her bosom to receive us ; she is scrupulously at- 
 tentive to the claims of the industrious ; she is the protectress 
 of arts and sciences ; the asylum of the helpless, and she covers 
 all our rights with the arm of equal justice. 
 
 Where is the country, my friends, where liberty is better 
 defended or the clime more propitious to her progress and 
 luxuriance than this in which we now prosper and find secu- 
 rity ? Here power is deprived of the destructive faculty of 
 perpetuating insult and the brow of opulence is unclouded 
 and serene ; here wretchedness is scarcely known even to the 
 indolent and undeserving, and activity and temperance are 
 the certain springs of fortune ; here the uniform rotation of 
 the political machine returns the lofty statesman to the hum- 
 ble situation of the private citizen, and raising him in his turn 
 through the points of public confidence, gives talent a fair trial, 
 
prevents the fends and jealousies that exceptions would pro- 
 duce and the arrogance and oppression that might grow from 
 stationary greatness. 
 
 Could in y feeble accents convey well to your minds the 
 abundant advantages of this constitution ; the justice and the 
 fortitude that presided at her birth ; the temperance that 
 formed her strength, and the prudence that marked her prog- 
 ress in the unshaken magnanimity and disinterested councils of 
 the illustrious General Washington, whose hand has directed 
 the flight of the Eagle and whose virtues increase the brill- 
 iancy of the Hesperian constellation, with me you would de- 
 voutly wish that our country had produced him. Yet not so, 
 my brethren, your well wishes are too affectionate to your 
 adopted country ; envy can have no place in the bosom that 
 glows with gratitude; God"s providence has produced him to 
 confer him on our friends, and our virtues will entitle us to a 
 share in what he purchased. 
 
 What then can be desired to engage our affections to the 
 constitution of the United States of America, and excite our 
 respect and gratitude for the work of the great Washington ? 
 do not the emigrations almost from every country here and 
 the rapidity of the increase of opulence and population, speak 
 more than many volumes the prerogatives of this country 
 which the Almighty has thought good to point out for our 
 abodes ? are not our individual fortunes integral parts of the 
 public weal? must not then their ruin be nearly menaced in 
 the misfortunes that would reach the government, since the 
 general welfare must be the aggregate of individual loyalty, 
 and general calamity in the corruption of the social parts ? is 
 it not evident, my friends, that the various individuals of 
 which society is composed must look to the joint effort of all 
 as to the means of preservation and happiness ? has not the 
 social compact for object the protection of the weak against 
 the encroachments of the strong, and the assurance of those 
 assistances which our necessities require ? Whatever, there- 
 fore, tends to disunite must prove pernicious to the entire, 
 
and destructive of the objects it would be given to pro- 
 mote. 
 
 How then, my brethren, give our confidence to the enemies 
 of public happiness, and not close our ears against their im- 
 pertinent murmurs, who would instil into every mind the 
 poison of disaffection by misconstruing the intentions of our 
 most exalted public characters and miscoloring their best 
 actions '. do we not know that the collective wisdom of a gov- 
 ernment is more to be relied on than the turgid declamations 
 of those political quacks who are scattered about our streets, 
 and crammed into every drinking-house ; who are sported off 
 as puppets by the hand behind the curtain ; whose accents are 
 the dictates of the tongue, which is not theirs, whilst the drift 
 is to dissension, to irreligion and to anarchy ! Can men certainly 
 pronounce on the nature of any action without weighing the 
 motives that have concurred to excite it? Is it probable that 
 the complicated connections between country and country, 
 the variety of incidents that must occasionally affect them ; the 
 urgency of their interests, and the diversity of their wants, 
 can be known to the private citizen as they are to the State : 
 if not, my friends, and that it is not the case all rational men 
 must allow, the presumption of the individual must be in 
 favor of the administration, and his disdain should always 
 meet the asseverations of her enemies. 
 
 If here, it should be objected, that these principles would 
 prove too much, and go to inculcate the doctrine of passive 
 obedience to the will of the legislature, I must candidly allow 
 that when they apply to any special portion of the comin unity 
 they rigorously enforce them ; but they preclude not at the 
 same time neither the right nor the exercise of respectful ex- 
 postulation, should any part of the entire feel itself neglected 
 or aggrieved, nor do they apply to the hypothesis of a glaring 
 and evident conflict between the will of man and the law of 
 God, which since the extinction of the tyranny which scourged 
 the primitive church, has been principally realized in the 
 methodical abominations of our modern illuminati, who sac- 
 
6 
 
 rilegiously calumniate the gospel of Christ and stupidly ob- 
 trude that death is an eternal sleep. 
 
 Convinced, Christian auditors, of your heartfelt detestation 
 of their infernal sophistry ; of the love you bear your adopted, 
 country, and of the importance you attach to the duties of 
 subordination, I shall refrain from many words on the subject 
 now before you ; I shall not urge your attention to the anarchy 
 that has torn the bosom of France; to the impiety that has 
 overturned her altar and her throne ; nor to the tears and the 
 blood that have flowed from every part, to prepare her un- 
 happy soil for the roots of her bastard liberty ; to excite your 
 abhorrence for the upshot of her refinements, and guard you 
 against the wiles of her tinselled philosophists ; I need not 
 stimulate your loyalty by the example of our countrymen 
 who bled for America's freedom under the banners of her 
 hero ; nor tell you that the constitution of the eighteen 
 hundredth year is the same which they cherished with 
 persevering fervor ; to revive in you their sentiments which 
 you glory to inherit ; but pray you to attend to the coinci- 
 dence of your religious principles with the duties you resolve 
 to practice. Our hoi\ 7 religion informs us that all power is 
 from God ; * that every soul must be subject to superior 
 powers; that resistance against power is rebellion against 
 Heaven ; we see that these doctrines are not confined to times 
 or persons, but that they are general in their import, for the 
 entire as for the part, and have their lustre and coniirmation 
 in the conduct of Jesus Christ, though the gifted with intrinsic 
 royalty and judge of the living and dead, rigourously con- 
 formed to pay tribute to the sovereign prince, f and com- 
 manded his disciples to observe all what he had done. 
 
 These practical maxims of our Saviour are among the most 
 distinctive traits of the religion you profess, for, as she is 
 Catholic in the approved application of the term, her prin- 
 ciples are friendly to every established government, nor can 
 
 * Rom. 13. t Luke 30. 
 
they be affected by any difference of worship or stamp of 
 administration ; her soul is tilled with charity for all men ; 
 enlightened by the faith she has received from Christ Jesus, 
 she treads the narrow path which conducts to his blessed 
 realms; her hopes are in his promises; her strength is in his 
 merits ; she dreads no censorial dictate, because she is con- 
 scious of her internal rectitude ; her countenance is only 
 bright when she is encircled by all the virtues. 
 
 Shield any man, my friends, from the shafts of public 
 justice, and banish from his bosom the blessed principles of 
 the gospel, what security can you have for his loyalty, his 
 probity, or any other of the social or private virtues ? Yainly 
 shall you display the beauties of a constitution, the wisdom of 
 its ministers, the advantages she insures, and the wicked and 
 black intrigues of her atrocious and vile opponents, if religion 
 has not the guidance of his sentiments and conduct. Let the 
 frigid philosophist argue as he chooses about the sufficiency of 
 his sense of honor, the eternal distinction between right and 
 wrong, virtue's intrinsic charms and amiability, the horror of 
 the aspect and the odiousness of vice, no impressions can 
 be lasting and invariably correct, but those which are in some 
 manner ordinate to conscience ; and as the energy of civil 
 law arises either from the fear of punishment or hope of re- 
 ward, it can never prove efficient when darkness covers the 
 place of operation : he, therefore, alone will prove faithful to 
 every duty who is every moment conscious that he moves in 
 the presence of a scrutinizing God, with whom the most 
 secret thought puts on the publicity of the mid-day action, 
 the Hash of whose omniscience pervades both heaven and 
 hell, and the rigor of whose judgments shall be known to 
 men and angels. 
 
 Here, therefore, my brethren, while we acknowledge the 
 conscientious necessity of being observant of the law, and the 
 influence of our religious principles on the accomplishment of 
 our civil duties, we surely ought not to forget the more im- 
 portant considerations that should prepare us for the here- 
 
after : For we have not in this world a permanent abode, 
 but are called to an eternal residence in the heavenly Jeru- 
 salem. Look back, I beseech you, to the variety of objects 
 that have disappeared before you, and conclude from their 
 baseless fabric, to the short-lived vapor of those that shall 
 succeed them. Oh ! whither have flown our past pleasures 
 and our hopes? Alas! nothing of them is ours, but there- 
 morse they have entailed ! The time will shortly come 
 when this remnant of our existence shall prove ideal as the 
 past, and our sublunary all shall be a coffin and a winding 
 sheet; then religion alone shall advocate our interests, and 
 nothing shall count for us but the works we shall have done 
 for God ! 
 
 It has been decreed by heaven that all men once must die. 
 We feel the seeds of death now jar within our bosoms ; the 
 tide of life flows rapidly away, and death shall close the scene 
 of all ambition's prospects. Raise, therefore, our affections, 
 O Almighty and beneiicent God, and fix them on the happiness 
 thou hast prepared for us beyond the grave. Impress upon 
 our hearts the dread of thy just judgments, and prepare us 
 for our inheritance in thy Kingdom, which is Heaven. Con- 
 firm America's lawgivers, in the wisdom of her Washington t 
 Convert her enemies, or confound their machinations ! Bless 
 and increase her friends, and animate her Heroes.