1789] REV. WILLIAM SMITH, D. D. 3OI 



On this occasion it would ill become me to conceal the joy I have felt 

 in perceiving the fraternal affection which appears to increase every day 

 among the friends of genuine religion. It affords edifying prospects in- 

 deed, to see Christians of different denominations dwell together in more 

 charity, and conduct themselves, in respect to each other, with a more 

 Christian-like spirit than ever they have done in any former age, or in 

 any other nation. 



I receive, with the greatest satisfaction, your congratulations on the 

 establishment of the New Constitution of Government ; because I be- 

 lieve its mild, yet efficient, operations will tend to remove every remain- 

 ing apprehension of those, with whose opinions it may not entirely coin- 

 cide, as well as to confirm the hopes of its numerous friends ; and be- 

 cause the moderation, patriotism, and wisdom of the present Federal 

 Legislature seem to promise the restoration of order and our ancient vir- 

 tues — the extension of genuine religion — and the consequent advance- 

 ment of our respectability abroad, and of our substantial happiness at 

 home. 



I request. Most Reverend and respectable Gentlemen, that you will 

 accept my cordial thanks for your devout supplications, to the Supreme 

 Ruler of the Universe in behalf of me. May you, and the people whom 

 you represent, be the happy subjects of Divine Benediction both here 

 and hereafter ! 



George Washington. 

 August 19, 1789. 



Address No. II. 



kn Address to the Most Reverend the Archbishops of Canterbury 



and Yorli. 



Most Venerable and Illustrious Fathers and Prelates : 

 We, the Bishops, Clergy, and Laity of the Protestant Episcopal 

 Church in the States of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, 

 Maryland, Virginia, and South Carolina, impressed with every sentiment 

 of love and veneration, beg leave to embrace this earliest occasion, in 

 General Convention, to offer our warmest, most sincere, and grateful 

 acknowledgments to you, and (by your means) to all the venerable 

 Bishops of the Church over which you preside, lor the manifold 

 instances of your former condescension to us, and solicitude for our 

 spiritual welfare. But we are more especially called to express our 

 thankfulness for that particular act of your fatherly goodness, whereby we 

 derive, under you, a pure Episcopacy and succession of the ancient Or- 

 der of Bishops, and are now assembled, through the blessing of God, as 

 a Church duly constituted and organized, with the happy prospect before 

 us of a future full and undisturbed exercise of our holy religion, and its 

 extension to the utmost bounds of this continent, under an ecclesiastical 



