the morning, for they hazard the loss or discomposure of the whole day after.

"Be obstinately constant to your devotion at certain set times, and be sure to spend the Lord's day entirely in those religious duties proper for it; and let nothing but an inevitable necessity divert you from it.

"Be industrious and faithful to your calling. The merciful God has not only indulged' us with a far greater portion of time for our ordinary occasions than he has reserved for himself, but also enjoins and requires our industry and diligence in it. And remember, that you observe that industry and diligence, not only as the means of acquiring a competency for yourself and your family, but also as an act of obedience to his command and ordinance, by means whereof, you make it not only an act of civil conversation, but of obedience to Almighty God; and so it becomes in a manner spiritualized into an act of religion.

"Whatever you do, be very careful to retain in your heart a habit of religion, that may be always about you, and keep your heart and life always as in His presence, and tending towards him. This will be continually with you, and put itself into acts, even though you are not in a solemn posture of religious worship, and will lend you multitudes of religious applications to God, upon all occasions and interventions, which will not at all hinder you in any measure, in your secular concerns, but better and further you. It will make you faithful in your calling, through reflection of the presence and command of Him you fear and love. It will make you thankful for all successes and supplies; temperate and sober in all your natural actions; just and faithful in all your dealings; patient and contented in all your disappointments and crosses; and actually consider and intend His honour in all you do; and will give a tincture of religion and devotion upon all your secular employments, and turn those very actions which are materially civil or natural, into the very true and formal nature of religion, and make your whole life to be an unintermitted life of religion and duty to God. For this habit of piety in your soul will not only not lie sleeping and inactive, but in almost every hour of the day will put forth actual exertings of itself in applications of short occasional prayers, thanksgivings, dependence, resort unto that God that is always near you, and lodgeth in a manner in your heart, by his fear, and love, and habitual religion towards him. And by this means you do effectually, and in the best manner, redeem your time."

The part of the volume, quoted by Mr. McGuire, in his Religious Opinions and Character of Washington, as having exerted the most perceptible influence on Washington's mind and character, is that in which the author supposes all mankind to be standing before the bar of God, who submits to each a charge, and receives from the "good steward" an account of his life.

The following passages form a portion of the charge.

"1. I have given unto you all your senses, and principally those two great senses of discipline, your sight and your hearing. "Item. I have given unto you all, understanding and reason, to be a guide of your actions, and to some of you more eminent degrees thereof.

"Item. I have given you all, memory, a treasury of things past, heard, and observed.

"Item. I have given you a conscience to direct you, and to check you in your miscarriages, and to encourage you in welldoing; and I have furnished that conscience of yours with light, and principles of truth and practice, conformable to my will.

❝Item. I have given you the advantage of speech, whereby to communicate your minds to one another, and to instruct and advantage one another by the help thereof.

❝Item. I have given over to you the rule and dominion over my creatures, allowing you the use of them for your food, raiment, and other conveniences.

"Item. Besides these common talents, I have enriched some of you with special and eminent talents above others. I have given such great learning and knowledge in the works of nature, art, and sciences; great prudence and wisdom in the conduct of affairs; elocution, excellent education. I have given you a firm and healthy constitution, strength, beauty, and comeliness; also great affluence of wealth and riches, eminence of place, and power and honour; great reputation and esteem in the world; great success in enterprises and undertakings, public and private. Christian and liberal education you have had; counsel and advice of faithful and judicious friends; good laws in the place and country where you live; the written word of God acquainting you with my will, and the way to eternal life; the word preached by able and powerful ministers thereof; the sacraments both for your initiation and confirmation:" &c. &c.

The good steward is represented as giving his answer to this charge. The following passages form a part of what he is represented as saying:

"As to all the blessings and talents wherewith thou hast intrusted me, I have looked up to thee with a thankful heart, as the only Author and Giver of them. I have looked on myself as unworthy of them. I have looked upon them as committed to my trust and stewardship, to manage them for the ends that they were given, the honour of my Lord and Master. I have therefore been watchful and sober in the use and exercise of them, lest I should be unfaithful in them. If I have at any time, through weakness or inadvertence, or temptation, misemployed any of them, I have been restless till I have in some measure rectified my miscarriage, by repentance and amendment.

"As touching my conscience and the light thou hast given me in it: It has been my care to improve that natural light, and to furnish it with the best principles I could. Before I had the knowledge of thy word, I got as much furniture as I could from the writings of the best moralists, and the examples of the best men; after I had the light of thy word, I furnished it with those most pure and unerring principles that I found in it. I have been very jealous either of wounding, or grieving, or discouraging, or deadening my conscience. I have therefore chosen rather to forbear that which seemed but indifferent, but there might be somewhat in it that might be unlawful; and would rather gratify my conscience with being too scrupulous, than displease or disquiet it, by being too venturous. I have still chosen rather to forbear what might probably be lawful, than to do that which might be possibly unlawful; because I could not err in the former, I might in the latter. If things were disputable whether they might be done, I rather chose to forbear because the lawfulness of my forbearance was unquestionable.

Concerning my speech, I have always been careful that I offend not with my tongue; my words have been few, unless necessity or thy honour required more speech than ordinary; my words have been true, representing things as they were; and sincere, bearing conformity to my heart and mind. . . I have esteemed it the most natural and excellent use of my tongue to set forth thy glory, goodness, power, wisdom and truth; to instruct others, as I had opportunity, in the knowledge of thee, in their duty to thee, to themselves and others; to reprove vice and sin, to encourage virtue and good living, to convince of errors, to maintain the truth, to call upon thy name, and by vocal prayers to sanctify my tongue, and to fix my thoughts to the duty

about which I was: to persuade to peace and charity and good works.

"Touching thy creatures, and the use of them, and the dominion over them, I have esteemed them thine in propriety; thou hast committed unto me the use, and a subordinate dominion over them; yet I ever esteemed myself accountable to thee for them, and therefore I have received them with thankfulness unto thee, the great Lord both of them and me. When the earth yielded me a good crop of corn, or other fruits; when flocks increased; when my honest labours bought me in a plentiful or convenient supply, I looked up to thee as the giver, to thy providence and blessing as the source of all my increase. I did not sacrifice to my own net, or industry, or prudence, but I received all as the gracious and bountiful returns of thy liberal hand; I looked upon every grain of corn that I sowed as buried and lost, unless thy power quickened and revived it; I esteemed my own hand and industry but impotent, unless thou hadst blessed; for it is thy blessing that maketh rich, and it is thou that givest power to get wealth.

"I esteemed it my duty to make a return of this my acknowledgment, by giving the tribute of my increase in the maintenance. of thy ministers, and the relief of the poor; and I esteemed the practice enjoined to thy ancient people of giving the tenth of their increase, not only a sufficient warrant, but instruction to me, under the gospel, to do the like.

"Concerning human prudence, and understanding in affairs, and dexterity in the management of them, I have always been careful to mingle justice and honesty with my prudence; and have always esteemed prudence, actuated by injustice and falsity, the arrantest and most devilish practice in the world, because it prostitutes thy gift to the service of hell, and mingles a beam of thy Divine excellence with an extract of the devil's furnishing, making a man so much the worse by how much he is wiser than others. I always thought that wisdom, which in a tradesman and in a politician was mingled with deceit, falsity, and injustice, deserved the same name, only the latter is so much the worse, because it was of the more public and general concernment; yet because I have often observed great employments, especially public affairs, are sometimes under great temptations of mingling too much craft with prudence, and then to miscall it policy, I have, as much as may be, avoided such temptations, and if I have met with them, I have resolutely rejected them.

"I have always observed, that honesty and plain dealings in transactions, as well public as private, is the best and soundest prudence and policy, and commonly at the long-run overmatches craft and subtlety; for the deceived and deceiver are thine, and thou art privy to the subtlety of one, and the simplicity of the other; and as the great observer and ruler of men dost dispense success and disappointments accordingly.

"As human prudence is abused if mingled with falsity and deceit, though the end be ever so good, so it is much more debased, if directed to a bad end; to the dishonour of thy name, the oppression of thy people, the corrupting of thy worship or truth, or to execute any injustice towards any person. It hath been my care as not to err in the manner, so neither in the end, of the exercising of thy Providence. I have ever esteemed my prudence then best employed, when it was exercised in the preservation and support of thy truth, in the upholding of thy faithful ministers, in countermining, discovering, and disappointing the designs of evil and treacherous men, in delivering the oppressed, in righting the injured, in preventing of wars and discords, in preserving the public peace and tranquillity of the people where I live; and in all those offices incumbent upon me by thy providence under every relation.

"When my end was most unquestionably good, I ever then took most heed that the means were suitable and justifiable. Because the better the end was, the more easily are we cozened into the use of ill means to effect it. We are too apt to dispense with ourselves in the practice of what is amiss, in order to the accomplishing of an end that is good; we are apt, while with great intenseness of mind we gaze upon the end, not to take care what course we take so we attain it; and we are apt to think that God will dispense with, or at least overlook, the miscarriages in our attempts, if the end be good. Because many times, if not most times, thy name and honour do more suffer by attempting a good end by bad means, than by attempting both a bad end and by bad means. For bad ends are suitable to bad means; they are alike; and it doth not immediately as such concern thy honour. But every thing that is good hath somewhat of thee in it; thy name, and thy nature, and thy honour is written upon it; and the blemish that is cast upon it, is, in some measure, cast upon thee; and the evil, and scandal, and infamy, that is in the means, is cast upon the end, and doth disparage and blemish it, and consequently it dishonours thee. To rob for burnt offerings, and to lie for God,