250 LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF THE [l/^S 



We have now a letter from an old friend remaining in Penn- 

 sylvania : 



Dr. Muhlenberg to Dr. Smith, 



New Providence, Penna., May 7th, 1785. 

 ViRO Maxime Reverendo, 



DocTORi Smidio, Fautori Suo Honoratissimo, 

 S. Pi. D. H. M. P. T. Candidatus Mortis. 



To my comfort, your worthy son. Juris Consultus, isque nobilissimus, 

 condescended to see me at my journey's end, being no more fit to con- 

 verse with learned gentlemen, because I have almost lost the orgaua 

 sensoria and spiritus vitalis. I am glad to understand that your noble 

 son intends to reside here in our neighborhood, since it may, as often 

 I shall see him, revive my memory with gratitude to remember the 

 benevolence of his honorable parents towards me in times past. 



In the month of October last I received a letter from the Rev. Dr. 

 Wrangel, dated at Sahle in Sweden, in which he demandeth of me as 

 follows : 



If ihe Rev. Dr. Smith liveth, present my liest compliments to him. I have wrote 

 to him several times. I translated his sermon into Swedish on the beginning of the 

 war, and presented it to His Majesty the King, who read it with much pleasure and 

 called it a masterpiece, nicely handled.* 



ary to the Moravian Indians in New York and Connecticut. He first married Rachel, 

 an Indian of the Wampanoag tribe, and after her death, Agnes, a Delaware. Having 

 become a widower a second time, he in 1751 returned to Europe. Hence he sailed 

 for Labrador in 1752, engaging in an unsuccessful attempt to bring the Gospel to the 

 Esquimaux. Having returned to Bethlehem in 1754, he was sent to Wyoming, where 

 he preached to the Indians until in November of 1755. In the summer of 175S Post 

 undertook an embassy in behalf of Government to the Delawares and Shawanese of 

 the Ohio country, which resulted in the evacuation of Fort Du Quesne by the French, 

 and the restoration of peace. In September of 1761 he engaged in an independent 

 mission to the Indians of that distant region, and built him a hut on the Tuscarawas, 

 near Bolivar, in Stark county, Ohio. John Heckewelder joined him in the spring of 

 1762. But the Pontiac war drove the missionaries back to the settlements, and the 

 project was abandoned. Impelled by his ruling passion. Post now sought a new field 

 of activity in the southern part of the Continent, and in January of 1764 sailed from 

 Charleston, via Jamaica, for the Mosquito coast. Here he preached to the natives for 

 upwards of two years. He visited Bethlehem in July of 1767, returned to Mosquito, 

 and was in Bethlehem, for the last time, in 1784. At this date he was residing with 

 his third wife, who was an Episcopalian, in Germantown. Here he died May 1st, 

 1785. On the 5th of May his remains were interred in the Lower Graveyard of that 

 place, Rev. William White, D. D., of Christ Church, saying the funeral service. The 

 following inscription is upon his tombstone : 



"In Memory of | the Rev. Christian Frederick Post, | Missionary for Propngatinp | 

 the Gospel among the Indians | in the Western Counti-y, on the Ohio, | at Labrador 

 and the Mosquito | Shore in North America. | After laboring in the Gospel forty-five 

 years | with distinguished Zeal, Prudence and Fidelity, | He departed this Life | on 

 the first day of May, 1785, | Aged 75 years." 



* Dr. Muhlenberg here refers to the sermon of 1775 on " The Present Situation of 

 American Affairs," of which we have given a full account on pages 507-523 of Vol. I. 



