212 LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF THE [1785 



Crusoe, Thomson's Seasons, and Young's Niglit Thoughts, at a 

 time, as they appeared."* It is, therefore, under Dr. Smith's sug- 

 gestion that those old words, " the good estate of the Cathohc 

 Church," which, in these days when old furniture has been hauled 

 out of garrets to decorate the parlors, enchant our ecclesiologists, 

 disappear. The churchmen in Maryland, he feared, would see in 

 them the likeness of " glebes," and of a three-fold crown. f From 

 this same wish to make the book acceptable to the people, Dr. 

 Smith made and was energetic in introducing the form of thanks- 

 giving for the 4th of July ; a service which as the people of the 

 United States valued their independence of Great Britain, and if 

 they did really value it, he felt no doubt was not only proper for 

 tliem but obligatory on them to use ; however little it might be 

 appropriate to. such of the clergy and to such of the congrega- 

 tions committed to their charge as had been loyal in act or feeling 

 to Great Britain ; a class of persons, he well knew, not numerous 

 in 1785, daily growing smaller and in a few years certain to dis- 

 appear altogether. To Dr. Smith and to his distastes for all un- 

 necessary polemical and conjectural divinity — that light bread 

 which satisfieth not — we apparently owe the Articles of Religion 

 as given, ^•//'/r^, pages 1 27-1 31, and the omission of such meta- 

 physical dogmas as are contained in them as found in the old 

 Prayer Book of the Church of England, and as have been re- 

 instated in our own of 1789. They were not, however, in their 

 new form, Dr. Smith's own work, but were taken for the most 

 part from a book of an anonymous English Church Reformer. 



It is quite certain that the articles in their present form, like 

 some parts of the English liturgy, are put in with such " cunning" 

 language as to mean things almost directly opposite, according as 

 you read them with a point or without a point, or as the hearer or 

 reader may choose to listen to them or fancy that they are read. 

 They are the ''Ibis Pcribis non Rcdibis," given as answer by the 

 old oracles, to the inquirer, who sought to know if he might safely 

 go to the wars ; an answer which, if the pause was made after the 

 .second word, meant that he should be slain ; but, if after the 

 third, meant the opposite, and that he should return in safety. 

 These passages of the old Prayer Book are " the dark and mys- 



'-^ Dr. Smith's W.jiks. Maxwell's Edition. Vol. II., page 487— note. 

 ^ See supra, page 150. 



