10 M E M I R F 



afforded by the glorious tidings of the blessed Scrip- 

 tures ! It is my opinion there has never one of these 

 modern deists died as their writings would lead us to 

 believe; nor are but few of their writings read at 

 the present day." 



About this time he appears to have left the 

 printing-office, and became a sailor on board the 

 flotilla stationed in Chesapeake bay, under Com. 

 Barney. It was while in this situation that an in- 

 cident occurred to which he has himself attributed 

 much of the buoyancy and energy of his character. 

 A raw sailor, who had been sent aloft by the captain, 

 and was busy in performing some duty which required 

 him to stoop, was observed to falter and grow dizzy. 

 "Look aloft" cried the captain; and the feinting 

 landsman, as he instinctively obeyed the order, reco- 

 vered his strength and steadiness. The young phi- 

 losopher read a moral in this trifling incident which 

 he never forgot, and which frequently animated and 

 aroused him in the most adverse circumstances. It 

 is not treating the subject with undue levity to add, 

 that in the last and closing scene of his life, when 

 the earth was receding from his view, and his failing 

 strength admonished him of his peril, the watchword 

 was still ringing in his ear. At that awful period he 

 " looked aloft" to "worlds beyond the skies/' and 

 therein derived strength and hope, which supported 

 him in his passage through the narrow valley 



At the close of the war, young Godman received 

 an invitation from Dr. L., the physician already men- 

 tioned, to come to his house in Elizabethtown, Pa. ; 



