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paid by the public, are the servants of the public, that they are accountable to the public, and of course punishable for their neglect of duty, are now considered as axioms, as indisputable as any in geometry; and the writings of Dr. Price have contributed more than those of any other person, I may almost say, living or dead, to make them generally understood, and what is more, to their importance being truly felt.

It may be considered as a universal truth, that no man can rise to great eminence without having enemies in proportion to it; and few men have had more of this honorable appendage to real merit than Dr. Price. He long stood the object of reproach and calumny to the interested tools of power, to the prejudiced and to the timid. And on this account some may think it necessary to apologize for his conduct, in the writings to which I now refer, especially as his profession was that of a preacher of the gospel of peace. But I cannot apologize for public virtue and public spirit, in any man. It is universally praiseworthy, and a just subject of encomium.

Whatever else we be, we are all members of society, and citizens of the world; and as such, we are bound to consult the public welfare, as far as we have an opportunity to promote it; which was eminently the case of Dr. Price. His character and his writings gave him access to men in power, and who have influence in public affairs, not only in England, but also in America, and in France, not to mention other countries; and his wise counsels were not always without effect. But persons in less conspicuous situations are justifiable, and more than justifiable, for their endeavours to serve the public, be they more or less attended to; and in every free, that is, in every equitable and just government, the voice of every man interested in it will be heard and attended to in proportion to his interest.

These duties respecting the public need not to interfere with those of a more private nature. Did our deceased friend, notwithstanding his attention to politics, neglect any part of his duty as a minister of the gospel, or a member of

society in any other respect? You know that he was ever exemplary in them all. Was the strain of his pulpit discourses ever factious? Did they tend to make you discontented with government, or inflame your passions against those who had the administration of it? You know the contrary. The mild but warm benevolence of his own heart he diffused into yours. It was his business and delight, on all occasions, to inculcate the great duties of piety and resignation to God, and good-will to all men, together with that happy equanimity which prepares the mind for all events, prosperous or adverse, public or private. You could not, I am confident, leave this place, after attending his services in it, without feeling yourselves more meek and placid, more disposed to forbearance and forgiveness, than to revenge.

But from one species of reproach and abuse, to which most declaimers against government are subject, Dr. Price was universally exempted. His bitterest enemies, in their greatest violence, never taxed him with it. I mean his having interested views. His patriotism, though warm, was ever of the purest kind, looking to nothing for himself; and when he had the freest access to men in power, never using it for his own emolument, or that of his nearest friends. In this situation he conferred favors, but never received any. So generally was his character in this respect known, that when he gave a great part of his time to the service of his country, in calculations, for judgment and accuracy in which he was the only man particularly looked up to by those who composed the legislature of his country, no pecuniary reward was ever thought of by him, or for him. He gave his labors in the same disinterested manner to several private societies who wished to establish funds for the benefit of their posterity, and in return had nothing but the warmest acknowledgments for the most important services. In calculations of this kind the merit of Dr. Price stands unrivalled, and would be alone suf

ficient to transmit his name with the greatest respect to future ages.

In this disinterested manner did Dr. Price uniformly act, though his circumstances were by no means what the world would call affluent, considering that he lived near the metropolis, and in the society of the most opulent in it. But his style of life was of the simplest kind, and he was rich, as almost any man may be, by his moderation and economy. From a moderate income he had a very considerable surplus, in the distribution of which he was most judicious and liberal. When, in my great intimacy with him, I was some years ago remonstrating against one particular instance of his liberality, he told me he made it a rule to expend one fifth of his income in some form of charity, and only wished to produce the greatest good by it; but that, had he had children, he would have contented himself with giving a tenth.

Here, my brethren, is an example worthy of imitation by the most opulent among you, and which, as Dr. Price is now dead, I think it not amiss to hold out to you, and to the world. But, alas! the greater part of those who are possessed of wealth, instead of enlarging their fortunes and their means of doing good, by diminishing their wants and their expenditure, are ever stretching them to the utmost bounds and` beyond the bounds of their incomes; though the evident consequences of this conduct, is their own infinite embarrassment, and a total incapacity of doing good to others. This, however, is a duty incumbent upon all who have, or who might command, the means of it; a duty enjoined by the great Being who, for the wisest purposes, viz. for promoting general virtue, for the exercise of patience, humility, and gratitude in some, and of generosity in others, has appointed that inequality which we see to prevail in the conditions of men on the face of the whole earth.

Such glorious characters, however, there are in the world, though little known in the bustle and glitter of public life;

persons who spend even more on others, than they do on themselves; who really consider themselves as merely stewards of the bounty of Divine Providence and almoners of the Almighty, entitled only to their portion for their care of the distribution. Such was Mr. Howard, the intimate friend of Dr. Price; and such are others, whose names it is their wish to remain unknown, but which will be proclaimed at the resurrection of the just, when they who have sowed bountifully shall also reap bountifully, and when they who are rich now, but who make no generous or wise use of their riches, will wish that they had been poor. The good deeds of such men, though buried in oblivion now, all live unto God. They are preserved in the book of his remembrance, and in that book the characters are indelible, as the volume is imperishable.

Dr. Price's piety, which is the surest foundation of all virtue, was no less, though it was less conspicuous, than his be nevolence. The peculiar fervor of his devotion, ever expressed in the most natural and unaffected manner, you must have constantly observed in the pulpit, and in all his public services of which prayer made a part; and the deep sense that he had of the constant presence and providence of God was always apparent in his conversation on religious subjects. But such marks of strong devotional feelings as he discovered when he was under less constraint, in the more private devotions of his family (of which some of his more familiar religious friends must have been occasionally witnesses), I have seldom seen in any other person; and as he was too apt to look at the dark side of things, sentiments of the deepest reverence, and the most entire submission to the Divine will, were most predominant on such occasions. I can compare the earnest manner in which he always expressed himself at those times, to nothing but what we may conceive to have been that of our Saviour in the garden, when, in prayer to his Almighty Father, he said, Not my will, but thine be done. No doubt he felt more intensely still in his more private

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devotions, when, with or without the use of words, he poured out his whole heart to his Father who seeth in secret. It was evident to all his acquaintance, that his devotion was both intense and habitual, the idea of God and his providence being never long absent from his mind. No person well acquainted with Dr. Price could say, that rational sentiments of Christianity are unfriendly to devotion.

Perhaps the sentiments of no man's mind were ever more clearly perceived in the natural expression of them, than those of Dr. Price. It was impossible to converse with him, and not apply to him the character which our Saviour gave to Nathaniel, of a man without guile. Such simplicity of manners, with such genuine marks of perfect integrity and benevolence, diffused around him a charm, which the forms of politeness can but poorly initate. Accordingly, his society was coveted by those who were bred in courts, as superior to any thing they found in the most polished circles.

As a preacher, without any thing that is termed oratory, he never failed to gain universal attention; and what he delivered in his plain and artless manner, coming evidently from the heart, made a deeper impression than those discourses which are heard with the loudest bursts of applause. I am confident that all that you who have attended upon his ministry can wish for in a speaker, is such a delivery as his, which to appearance had nothing in it that was striking, or peculiarly excellent, because it was unstudied.

Notwithstanding Dr. Price's ability, which however was the least article in his praise, and the confidence which, on that account, he might be supposed to place in his own judgment, which no man took more pains to form, he was remarkably diffident of himself, and in public controversy his naturally ingenuous temper led him to express his doubts in the frankest manner; and though, when he thought his argument well-founded, he made use of pretty strong language, he did not think the worse of his antagonists in a moral respect.

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