Wharton; and, at his death in 1754, it became my property, and continued so until I took orders in the Roman Catholic Church, and then I conveyed it to my brother,* -after whose death it became the property of his son, C. H. Wharton, now residing in Washington. My mother was Anne Bradford, descended, like my father, from one of the respectable and first settlers in the province. She was a woman of sweet manners and of uncommon beauty: and many of her maternal precepts and tender caresses are still fresh in my memory, and frequently present her dear image to my mind. I was put first to a mistress, and then to a very competent school-master in the neighbourhood-so that when it was determined that I should be sent to St. Omers, in 1760, I could read and write tolerably well, and was fonder of my book than boys at that age generally are. One signal instance of a protecting Providence, which I well remember, occurred before I left home. Being one day with my father at the house of his overseer, I was amusing myself with shooting a cornstalk about the yard, when a very large and fierce dog standing over it, I attempted to drive him away. He immediately threw me down, and had torn off part of the scalp from my head, when my father perceived my danger, and seizing a loaded gun which stood behind

Some time after Dr. Wharton had renounced the communion of the Church of Rome, it was discovered that the conveyance was not complete. It was promptly and cheerfully re-conveyed, and an estate of considerable value, the chief of his patrimony, given the second time to a younger brother.

the door, shot the dog while he stood over me, and left me untouched. I was then about seven years old, and my dear father died shortly after.

"In the year 1760, I was sent to the Jesuits' College at St. Omers, a seminary at that time very deservedly celebrated for teaching the Greek and Latin classics with great accuracy, and for its strict discipline in all literary and religious duties. The students at that time amounted to more than a hundred, and were divided into six schools or classes, under that number of preceptors, to each one of whom was assigned one of the schools, to be taught by him for six years, from the first rudiments of a classical education, to the theory and practice of rhetorical compositions. The schools were denominated Little-figures, Rudiments, Grammar, Syntax, Poetry, and Rhetoric. My master, or preceptor, was the Rev. Edward Walsh, to whom, as a most amiable and affectionate man, as well as a good classical scholar, I was attached by the most unlimited confidence, and the warmest sentiments of gratitude and love, which I shall never cease to cherish.* the end of two years, the college at St. Omers was broken up by the banishment of the Jesuits from all the French dominions.† For this most iniquitous and tyran

At

*I have in my possession, by the gift of Mrs. Wharton, a Latin copy of the 'Imitation of Christ,' which had been for seventy years Dr. Wharton's daily companion. It has his name on a blank page, written at Bruges, May, 26, 1763, as "the gift of the Rev. Father Edward Walsh, his most beloved preceptor."

+ The following singular passage, which may almost be called a predic. tion, extracted from a sermon preached in Christ Church, Dublin, by Dr.

nical measure, I could never discover any plausible pretext, unless, indeed, it was their unlimited devotedness to the Roman Court and Church. This, I know, was the ostensible ground of their banishment; but its real motive lay much deeper: for the spirit of infidelity was working powerfully in France at this time, which afterwards burst out in the enormities of the revolution. Against this spirit, the Jesuits came forward with great zeal, and while Voltaire, Rousseau, Helvetius, and a host of other infidel writers, were labouring to crush what they termed the monster of revealed religion, they met with such powerful opponents among the

George Brown, Bishop of that See, in 1551, I find copied into a little book of extracts, in the hand-writing of Dr. Wharton. "But there are a new fraternity of late sprung up, who call themselves Jesuits, which will deceive many; who are much after the Scribes and Pharisees' manner. Among the Jews they shall strive to abolish the truth, and shall come very near to do it. For these sorts will turn themselves into several forms; with the heathens a Heathenist, with the Atheist an Atheist, with the Jews a Jew, with the Reformers a Reformade”—(here the good Bishop seems to have forgotten that many Jesuits chose rather to suffer the most cruel deaths, than to become either Heathens or Protestants)-" purposely to know your intentions, your minds, your hearts, and your inclinations, and thereby bring you at last to be like the fool, that said in his heart there was no God. They shall spread over the whole world, shall be admitted into the councils of princes, and they never the wiser; charming of them, yea, making your princes reveal their hearts and the secrets therein, and yet they not perceive it; which will happen from falling from the law of God, by neglect of fulfilling the law of God, and by winking at their sins; yet in the end, God, to justify his law, shall suddenly cut off this Society, even by the hands of those who have most succoured them, and made use of them; so that at the end, they shall become odious to all nations. They shall be worse than Jews, having no resting place upon earth, and then shall a Jew have more favour than a Jesuit."

Jesuits, that nothing short of the abolition of that order

The order was accordingafter, by a temporizing

could promise them success. ly suppressed a few years Friar,* who had been raised to the Popedom by the most palpable intrigues, and was induced by allegations the most unfounded and contradictory, to dissolve a religious body, which Monks and Friars of every denomination had long regarded with jealous and envious eyes. As the champions of revealed religion, they have always been detested and calumniated by philosophical infidels; while Protestants must rejoice in their fall from their having been, (as the old king of Prussia styled them,)" the life-guards of the Pope," and the inveterate enemies of the Reformation. Having long ago renounced those discriminating doctrines of the Romish Church, which the Jesuits were always foremost in defending by their writings, enforcing in their Colleges, and recommending by the strictness of their moral and regular conduct,† I cannot be considered as an apologist of

* Ganganelli.

+The manuscript volume before alluded to, contains also the following extract. I do not know the author :

THE JESUITS.

"A Society, which raised on powerful, but unnatural principles, and supported by an early and correspondent education, became first the wonder, then the terror of the Christian world; asserting rights independent of civil government; and possessed of art to elude, or influence to defy it. Their patron first carried the flambeau of enthusiasm through the colleges he founded. Worldly ambition he had none; aiming only at the mistaken glory of his Maker. But as time and succession gave entrance to men of far different genius, then it was that worldly ambition began to build her

that Society, by acknowledging that among many superstitious observances, unscriptural tenets, and unfounded legends, they endeavoured to lay the foundations of strict morality, nay, of Christian piety, in the minds of the youths who were entrusted to their care; and as to myself, I feel a pleasure in the indulgence of recollections, that at that early period of my life, many great principles of religion were planted in my mind, which, when afterwards depurated from all extraneous matter, have continued to be the guides of my religious conduct, and my support. These grateful feelings to my early instructors, I shall ever cherish, and the expression of them at this time, I trust, will be readily excused; since an unequivocal symptom of sincerity in abandoning a system of religious opinions must appear,

views on the enthusiastic visions of Ignatius of Loyola. Thus, while their leaders are guided by worldly policy, their subalterns are actuated by enthusiastic zeal. By the most unbounded influence of command and obedience, which their education naturally produces, self-love thus compasses its ends by the means of generous prejudices. Formed for external command by the power of internal obedience: perverting private harmony into the instru ment of public discord. Their virtue overrated by some: their faults by others. Not void of wisdom, nor yet of charity: yet their wisdom often foolish and their charity cruel. Destined to form and overturn empires; propitious to barbarous tribes, whom they could entrust and rule; fatal to established states, whom they must rule or destroy. Assuming the most contradictory shapes, while actuated by unvarying self-consistent principles. Princes in Italy; rebels in Portugal; statesmen in Spain; spies in England; assassins in France; martyrs in Siam; traders at Canton; talapoins in India; courtiers at Pekin; savages in Canada; in Europe, the enemies of their species; in Paraguay, the friends and legislators of mankind."