198 LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF THE {M"^^ 



respond also with the title in the eleventh page of the journal of Con- 

 vention. When shall we have books ? Our clergy and laity complained 

 much that they should have been obliged to judge of the book on a 

 hasty reading, during the sitting of a Convention. 



Yours, W.M. Smith. 



Rev. Dr. White to Rev. Dr. Smith. 



Philadelphia, April 12, 17S6. 



Dear Sir: I think the proposed alterations of your Con- 

 vention will render our service more complete. 



With this I shall send you the sheets that were wanting when you went 



down. Mr. W -will furnish a parcel this week. As there is a vessel 



soon to sail for Charlestown, you will approve sending to the most dis- 

 tant States first. Be assured, you shall have a parcel, before a single 

 book is sold here. 



I am yours, etc., 



Wm. White. 

 Dr. Smith. 



Rev. Dr. Smith to Rev. Dr. White. 



Chester, April 17, 17S6. 



Dear Sir : In the preface at the bottom of page 4, there is 



an error, viz., "construction" for "misconstruction." It is the last 

 word of the page, and is a capital mistake indeed ! I think it could 

 not have been in the copy. In the last page of the preface, second 

 paragraph, "Visitation oi prisons,'' should be '■'■ piisoneis.''' I believe 

 there is little else to be observed in the preface, although I cannot say 

 I have read it critically, yet it seems to read sufficiently correct for the 

 present. I shall before June next take the whole book, and make every 

 correction which I think may be necessary in future editions, and lay 

 them before the Convention.* I hope you and perhaps others of our 

 brethren will do the same. 



I Avish you had taken my advice respecting David's 114th Psalm, 

 which stood before as our 21st, and only have made a note at the end 

 of the book that the psalm was misplaced, and ought in future editions 

 to come in under its proper metre, as Psalm 16, and that the metres of 

 148 and 149 should be exchanged if such correction be necessary; for 

 it is merely arbitrary which we call 5th and which the 6th metres, if 

 the Gloria Patri's be arranged accordingly. 



As you have taken our 24th Psalm or David's 149th from the sheet 

 Gg and placed it Ff, the mere reprinting that one sheet Ff (which you 



* Dr. Smith's own copy of the Proposed Book, with the manuscript corrections re- 

 ferred to in this letter, is now in the library of the Right Rev. William Bacon Stevens, 

 D. D., of PhiLidelphia, to whom it was given by the present writer. — H. W. S. 



