456 LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF THE [1803 



pulpit, but not in their nature relating directly to practical duties. 

 His distinction, so far as preaching was concerned, was as a pulpit 

 orator, wherein he was, I think, the first of his time in Phila- 

 delphia; for, though his pupil Duche was, so far as mere elocution 

 was concerned, his equal, possibly his superior. Dr. Smith, in 

 mental power and richness of material, was so far above him that 

 no comparison could be made between them. 



I may further say that nothing would have been so unwise in 

 Dr. Smith as to have been largely enforcing, during his time, any 

 one special class of views which good men in our church have, in 

 all its history since the Reformation, entertained, in opposition to 

 other views entertained by other men as good, and, in my view — 

 assuming the liturgy, the rubrics, the articles and the homilies, all 

 united, as expressing her views — as much within the church's pale 

 as they. It must be remembered that when Dr. Smith first came to 

 Philadelphia there was but a single church of the Church of Eng- 

 land in all the city — old Christ Church. The Quakers, still 

 writhing under the attacks of Keith, who had left them, were em- 

 bittered towards the very name of the Church of England. // was 

 the great object of their hatred, and Dr. Smith himself tells us 

 that it was by acting on the maxim Divide et impcra, that they 

 hoped to destroy it.* 



At a later day came on the Illuminati, the infidelity of France 

 and the assaults of its revolution upon every sort of religion, 

 and even upon the existence of a God ; when all who named the 

 name of Christ were in some degree compelled to unite, the one 

 with the other, in order to preserve Christianity among the people 

 at all. How inappropriate in either epoch would have been dis- 

 cussions, elevate though they were, upon topics not in their nature, 

 perhaps, identical with those upon which "the others reasoned 

 high," of providence, foreknowledge, will and fate, fi.xed fate, free- 

 will, foreknowledge absolute, but ending, often much like theirs, 

 which "found no end, in wandering mazes lost." 



Indeed, during most of Dr. Smith's term of clerical life there 

 v/as, if my ideas of church history are right, no great agitation 



* See Vol. I. of this biography, page 220. We can in this day haPdly form an idea 

 cf the power of the Quakers in old Philadelp]iia. Think of Bishop White devoting 

 many months of his lile to writing an answer to Barcl.ay's Apology ! He considered 

 this ans.ver his ablest and most finished work. 



