206 LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF THE [1785 



the Proposed Book was made, in its substance, and in its main 

 form also, in and by tne Convention of 1785; and the service as 

 set forth in the book had been actually used at the conclusion of 

 that Convention before the book was itself in prmt at all. It had 

 been all brought into the Convention by a committee, the names 

 of whose members we have already give-n;* men who, both as re- 

 spects the clerical and the lay part of it, were men who, in general, 

 thought and acted for themselves, though a spirit of conciliation 

 towards each other, no doubt, on this occasion, largely prevailed 

 among them. It is impossible, therefore, to say that the book 

 was the work of any one man or of any three men. All that the 

 committee, consisting of Dr. White, Dr. Smith and Mr. Wharton, 

 did — so far as we know with certainty — was to carry out, with a 

 liberal interpretation of their powers, the business of fitting the 

 work for the press. Nevertheless, I do, as I have said, suppose 

 that to my ancestor. Dr. Smith, as chairman of the committee in- 

 trusted with the work of the alterations, and as the person who 

 reported them to the Convention, is due much of the frame-work 

 of that book. Dr. White was President of the Convention and 

 took no part in debate there upon the book except on a single 

 occasion ; which was to oppose the introduction of one feature — a 

 service of thanksgiving for the 4th of JuLy.f The work of the 

 large committee appointed by the Convention was done in a sub- 

 committee, of which Dr. White was not a member. The work 

 of the sub-committee was not debated in the full committee, nor 

 much in the Convention.^ 



From the first coming of Dr. Smith to this contment he had a 

 profound conviction of its great destinies; and he expressed, early 

 and often, these convictions both in poetry and prose. At a later 

 day, 1790, embodying some of them, he writes: 



In my expanded view these United States rise in all their ripened 

 glory before me. I look through and beyond every yet peopled region 

 of the New World, and behold period still brightening upon period. 

 Where one continuous depth of gloomy wilderness now shuts out even 

 the beams of day, I see new States and Empires, new seats of wisdom 

 and knowledge, new religious domes spreading around in places now 



* Supra, page 1 19. 



■)■ •' White's Memoiib." Second Edition, pp. 104-105. 



X Id., 103. 



