so graciously supported by its truths and consolations. It remains for me to sketch with rapid, faltering hand, the portraiture of our departed friend; and set him before you, as the time and my ability permit, faithfully, though faintly, in the beautiful traits of his personal character, in the rich and rare accomplishments of his mind, and in the faithful discharge of the several relations and offices of his private and public life.

The first characteristic of Dr. Wharton which arrested your attention, was his singular purity of character. He was single-hearted and single-eyed beyond almost all men whom I ever knew. He had neither guile, nor the suspicion of it. Long as he had lived in the world, he seemed to have suffered little from its contact. There was a delicacy of sentiment and feeling in him, which not only bespoke his own purity of heart, but kept the atmosphere about him pure. He meant ill to no man, and he distrusted none. He seemed habitually to entertain, and make his own, that loveliest attribute of love," charity thinketh no evil."

It was this habitual purity which gave to all his conversation and conduct an air of such engaging simplicity. In speech and manner he was artless as a child. His character was perfectly transparent. He concealed nothing, because he had nothing to conceal. You read his heart at once. It was the result of this uncompromising simplicity of purpose and of action, that when he began to doubt the soundness of the faith in which he

was first nurtured, he was impelled, without the possibility of resistance, to pursue the inquiry to the end. Satisfied of his error, it was equally impossible to conceal it. To confess, to retract, to renounce, were links in the chain which admitted of no separation. To proclaim his conversion, cost what it might; to assert, through evil report, and through good report, the cause which he had espoused, were parts of the same character. In one other respect, he preserved the same beautiful consistency. Renouncing the errors of his early youth, he deemed it no part of his duty to denounce the men who held them. The great lights of the Church of Rome he regarded with unaffected reverence. Of Archbishop Carroll, his antagonist in controversy, as he was his kinsman in the flesh, he spoke, to the very last, with warm affection. "It was a remarkable trait in the character of the deceased," says Bishop White, "that from the beginning to the end of my acquaintance with him, he was a decided advocate of Jesuits, with the exception of the tenets of the Roman Catholic creed. In argument he was prepared at all points, in any controversy concerning them, touching the crimes of which they are accused." I myself have never heard him speak of the suppression of the order but with strong reprobation. Was not this the result of his own guile. less simplicity, determined to think no evil of them to whom he was so indebted? And was not a youth of his exquisite purity, one whom their policy would keep in ignorance of the truth?

Kindred with these virtues, was his rare humility. With the best education that Europe could afford; as a divine, second, by the allowance of all, to none in America; as a controversialist unanswered and unanswerable; he was not only unconscious of his distinction, but he would not be made conscious of it. He never lent a sermon, without wondering that any person should wish to read his "poor effort," when there were so many superior discourses in print. I obtained with the greatest difficulty his promise,—which, alas! he did not live to fulfil,-that he would draw up a sketch of the progress of his mind in the rejection of the errors of the Church of Rome;-" for of what value," said he,

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can my opinions be to any one?" From his most intimate friends he was unwilling to hear the voice of praise; and if in any thing he could be rude, it was in the rejection of those expressions of approbation, which even to Christians are the allowed reward of excellence, and encouragement of effort,—as delightful too to them who sincerely offer, as to them who worthily receive them. In him, all this was the result of true humility before God. He knew the deceitfulness of the heart, and he therefore feared the praise of men. To him, man's judgment was but a light matter. It was his effort and his prayer, so to judge himself, that he might not be judged of the Lord.

There grew out of all this, or rather there existed in him, as a fruit of the Spirit, in connexion with it all, a wonderful disinterestedness. The principle of self

seemed in him, as nearly as in humanity it can, to have been absorbed and lost. His whole course of life had reference to all other interests more than to his own. He lived for the Church first, and then for those whom he loved. He never sought advancement. When offered, he refused it, lest he should not do justice to its responsibilities. And when he had consented, he shrunk back, as if distrustful of himself,-the only being whom he seemed capable of distrusting.

Thus conqueror of himself, he was full of kindness and charity to others. He thought well of all men, and therefore he spoke well of them. He desired good to all men, and therefore he ever sought to do them good. He was the kindest husband, and most devoted friend. He was emphatically a man of peace. To the poor his attentions were most exemplary. They rise up and call him blessed. The cause of Missions was always near his heart. The annual contributions of the people of his parish gave evidence of what manner of spirit their pastor was. In his last will he has nobly remembered the General Missionary Society; and by the provision which he has made for supporting the ministry of the Gospel, at the altar where he himself served so long, generations yet unborn will, I trust, be blessed with spiritual blessing. *

*By his last will, his library is left for the use of the Rector of St. Mary's Church; and on the decease of Mrs. Wharton, his whole estate, after the payment of one thousand dollars to the General Missionary Society, is given to the parish of St. Mary's, as a fund for the increase of the Rector's salary.

And, as the crowning and completing grace of all, our departed friend was exemplary in piety. The faith by which he triumphed in his death, had made him conqueror through life. It had given him the victory over himself not only, but over the world. The Cross in which he gloried, had crucified the world unto him, and him unto the world. His piety was deep, fervent, and unostentatious. It did not burn with fitful and uncertain flame, but with a pure, sustained, and steady lustre. The aliment on which it fed was the sincere word of God. It was enkindled in him by the Holy Spirit. He nourished and cherished it by daily intercourse with heaven. For seventy years he had made a little copy of the "Imitation of Christ" the companion of his first morning meditations. And daily, at a set hour, as since his death I have been informed, he retired for self-examination and prayer. These he well knew were the means, however, and not the end of religion. In love to God, and love to man, he ever strove, by divine grace, to manifest its fruits. And it was the experience of his life, as it was the

testimony of his

death, that "the kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost."*

Of Dr. Wharton as a scholar, I have before cursorily spoken. I now allude to his profound and various learning, chiefly with reference to the true devotion with which he consecrated it to God, and, in the language

* Romans xiv. 17.