1803] REV. WILLIAM SMITH, D. D. 455 



chairman; the friend and companion of the most virtuous and 

 most honored men of his age and country. 



We may add, that no journal of the convention shows that Dr. 

 Smith ever desired consecration, whatever his friends and admirers 

 may have urged; and none of his correspondence which I have 

 seen, either in print or in MS., shows that he ever intended so to 

 apply. He preached, as we know, and with graceful alacrity, in 

 1792, at the consecration of Dr. Clagget to the Episcopate of 

 Maryland ; and, in the sermon then delivered, speaks before the 

 assembled bishops and clergy and lay deputies, of the humble 

 station which he himself had chosen to hold in the church during 

 the remaining space in his life. 



I may add that Dr. Smith, from the year 1779 till the year 

 1789, when it was restored, had in view, notwithstanding his resi- 

 dence and activity in Maryland, one great object — dearer, far, to 

 him, I think, than a mitre — and that was the restitution to his 

 college of its charter. For this, wherever he was and in whatever 

 pursuit engaged, he was continually laboring. He never closed 

 his residence nor took from it its furniture, at the Falls of Schuyl- 

 kill, even when a citizen of Maryland, both as the head of a college 

 and as the rector of a parish there. He left it in charge of his 

 sister Isabella, a sister devoted to his fame, who kept it with care, 

 subject to his wishes and interests alone. He was constantly at 

 Philadelphia, laboring in his great object. In 1789, the year in 

 which the charter was restored. Dr. Smith had become so much 

 advanced in years, and ecclesiastical ambitions had so little hold 

 on his affections, that he seems to have been indifferent to the 

 subject. 



I suppose that in times like these, when the church is agitated 

 with much discussion upon its proper characteristics, I shall be 

 expected to say something upon what will be called Dr. Smith's 

 "Churchmanship" — of what sort it was: high, low, or what else. 



I have already said, in different parts of this book, that Dr. 

 Smith's cast of mind did not lead him into any of the subtleties 

 of divinity. He was not a recluse, nor by distinction a student of 

 divinity. H^ was not, except by occasion, and only then tem- 

 porarily, even a parish priest, bound to set before his hearers his 

 views upon topics important, no doubt, to be taught from the 



