THE ART OF BARTRAM 113 



The glorious sovereign of day, cloathed in light refulgent, rolling 

 on his gilded chariot, speeds to revisit the western realms. Grey pen- 

 sive eve now admonishes us of gloomy night's hasty approach: I am 

 roused by care to seek a place of secure repose, ere darkness comes on 

 (Travels, 50). 



It2t kam der Abend heran, und erinnerte mich, einen sicheren Ruheort 

 2u suchen {Reisen, 53). 



Along with the echoes of eighteenth-century poetic diction 

 Bartram's style carries a coloring of biblical expression. He was 

 brought up in an atmosphere of simple piety and reverence for 

 God, in a home where the Bible was read regularly and religi- 

 ously. To the very end of his life John Bartram exhorted his 

 children to " Love God & one another; extend charity to the 

 necessitous and mercy to the distressed." ^^ William Bartram's 

 writings echo these sentiments in almost identical terms. In his 

 letter to his nephew, Dr. James Bartram, he urges him to " Fear 

 and adore the Divinity " and to "be charitable ... to the poor 

 and distressed." In his petition on Negro slavery he admonishes 

 his fellow citizens to "do justice," to show "mercy" and to 

 " fear God." And throughout his Travels he speaks of the 

 " glorious display of the Almighty hand," " the most acceptable 

 incense we offer to the Almighty," "... our God, who in due 

 time will shine forth in brightness," " universal Father . . . with 

 an eye of pity and compassion," " the wisdom and power of the 

 supreme author of nature," " nature, at the command of the 

 Supreme Creator," " thanksgiving to the Supreme Creator and 

 preserver," " celestial endowments," " great altars and temples 

 similar to the high places and sacred groves anciently amongst 

 the Canaanites and other nations of Palestine and Judea." Some 

 of his rhapsodic passages read like the spontaneous evocation 

 of Quaker prayer, such, for instance, as the following: 



How glorious the powerful sun, minister of the Most High, in the 

 rule and government of this earth, leaves our hemisphere, retiring from 

 our sight beyond the western forests ! I behold with gratitude his depart- 

 ing smiles, tinging the fleecy roseate clouds, now riding far away on the 

 Eastern horizon; behold they vanish from sight in the azure skies 

 {Travels, 158) ! 



^' MS. of eighteen pages in the Bartram Papers, in handwriting of John 

 Bartram, but unsigned and undated. 



