1/93] ^^^- IVILLIAAI SMITH, D. n. 379 



manifested in our late deliverance ; praying, with solemn zeal, that the 

 same Mighty Power would be graciously pleased to instil into our minds 

 the just principles of our duty to Him and to our fellow-creatures ; to 

 regulate and guide all our actions by his Holy Spirit' to avert from all 

 mankind the evils of war, pestilence and famine ; and to bless and pro- 

 tect us in the enjoyment of civil and religious liberty, etc. 



We come now to make mention of certain discourses found in 

 Maxwell's edition of his works, which were preached by Dr. 

 Smith in Christ Church in the last month of 1793 and the earlier 

 part of the following year — sermons suggested by the terrible 

 pestilence from which the city was at last, by God's mercy, de- 

 livered. The first of these sermons was preached on the day 

 appointed for the general humiliation, thanksgiving and prayer, 

 by the proclamation of which some abstract has just been given. 

 Dr. Smith, however, has himself given so interesting an account 

 of the origin of the sermons and of some particulars connected 

 with them, especially of President Washington's reverential at- 

 tendance and deportment in connection with their delivery, that I 

 offer to my readers an account all in his own language : 



During the chief rage of the first great epidemic called the yellow 

 fever, in Philadelphia, in the year 1793 — ^^'^- '• froii"! the latter end of 

 September till towards the end of November — the churches had been 

 generally shut up, except Christ Church and St. Peter's, which had 

 been kept open by Bishop White and Dr. Blackwell, unless on the 13th 

 and 20th of October, when the illness of the clerk and sexton of Christ 

 Church and sexton of St. Peter's prevented their being opened. Bishop 

 White was preserved in tolerable health, and never slept out of the city 

 during the whole calamity, which some of his friends, myself among 

 others, told him they considered as a great and needless risk. Dr. 

 Blackwell was taken ill with the fever on the 27th of October, and re- 

 moved across the river, into the Jerseys, near Gloucester. After about 

 a month's severe illness he begun falmost beyond expectation) to appear 

 on the recovery, although with but little hopes of being able soon to 

 resume his pastoral duties in the churches. Those duties, therefore, 

 were like to fall heavy, at least for some time, on good Bishop White, 

 whose kind visits to myself and his other friends in the city were con- 

 tinued during the whole time of the affliction. 



But the goodness of God now giving a prospect of a near termination 

 of the disorder, the Bishop paid me a short visit a few days before the 

 ist of December, and told me that on that day the churches under his 

 care, after the short interruption of a week or two, as mentioned above, 

 would be on the usual footing of public service twice a day in each 



