1803] KEV. WILLIAM SMITH, D. D. 45 I 



malignant persecutions, the apostle declares to us should not be 

 made bishop. And the reason of the apostle's view is obvious. 

 The work of evangelizing the world is a work to be done among 

 the ignorant, the prejudiced, the obstinate, the wilful, the slander- 

 ous, the wicked and profligate of every sort, and among them only 

 or chiefly. It is a practical work. However blameless, vigilant, 

 sober, patient, and of whatever good behavior, the apostle's injunc- 

 tion would forbid us to appoint a man to this office who would be 

 politically obnoxious to any in his diocese, however much more 

 marked by obedience to the Scripture his political conduct might 

 have been than theirs; or to appoint one who, however fit by all 

 other qualities, by weight of years could not possibly be longer 

 "apt to teach." 



In Dr. Smith's case his years alone were such as were likely to 

 make him soon unfit for "the office of a bishop." In 1789, only 

 three years after the earliest date at which he could have been 

 consecrated, he resigned, "on account of his advanced age," the 

 presidency of a society created largely by himself, in which for 

 thirty years he had been the most active, intelligent and efficient 

 administrator, and of which the duties in 1789 had ceased to be 

 laborious.* Moreover, there was no salary attached to the Epis- 

 copate of Maryland. Dr. Smith was too old to find one in the 

 rectorship of a parochial church. His productive property was 

 small. The means of sustaining life were therefore wanting to 

 him in the good work of a bishop's office. 



2. Without doubt Dr. Smith had not favored a Revolution which 

 involved the separation of the colonies from the mother country. 

 He had both written and spoken against our declaring ourselves 

 independent ; and, in common with not a few of the most upright 

 and honorable citizens of Philadelphia, respected then and 

 venerated now, including names like those of the Willings, 

 the Tilghmans, the Chews, was looked upon with some dis- 

 favor during much of the whole war. The Church of England 

 had been so long and so intimately associated in popular estima- 

 tion with the Crown and the British army — which, in September, 

 1777, had landed on or near the soil of Maryland, had, by its 



* The Corporation for the Relief of the Widows and Children 'of Clergymen. See 

 Wallace's Century of Beneficence — 1769-1S79. 



