10. V:30. Sunday.
Morning service at the Presbyterian Church. Mr
Bishop preached from Matthew 5.16. Let your light so shine
before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your father
which is in heaven— Mr Wardwell was in my pew; but
the congregation was very thin— This young man preaches good works too
much for the taste of a Presbyterian Calvinistic Society— His discourses
are all practical. They rivet the attention of his hearers, and are
never tedious— He preaches more to my satisfaction than any other person
whom for many years I have heard in this City— After Church I called
successively upon Mr Bankhead, the Charge
d’Affaires from Great Britain, and upon Coll. Aspinwall, who is
at Fullers, to enquire if either
of them could give me any further information respecting Mr James
Smithson, but they could not— I was desirous of obtaining
it for the purpose of introducing into the Report of the Committee upon
his bequest some complimentary notice of the donor— But so little are
the feelings of others in unison with mine on this occasion, and so
strange is this donation of half a million of dollars, for the noblest
of purposes, that no one thinks of attributing it to a benevolent
motive. Vail intimates in his
Letter that the man was supposed to be insane— Bankhead thinks he must
have had republican propensities, which is probable— Coll. Aspinwall conjectures that Mr Smithson was an antenuptial son, of the
first duke and duchess of
Northumberland; and thus an elder brother of the late duke— But how he came to have a
nephew named Hungerford, son
of a brother named Dickinson
and why he made this contingent bequest to the United States of America,
no one can tell— The report if it hazards any reflection upon the
subject must be very guarded. Mr Bankhead
thought it was a fine windfall for the city of Washington, and hoped if
a professor of divinity should be wanted, we should remember his friend
Hawley.— Mrs
Bankhead was in admiration of the splendid edifice that
might be erected with the money— Coll.
Aspinwall said it would be easy to obtain the information which I
desired in England; but that he had made no enquiries at the time when
he had procured, and forwarded to the Department of State a copy of the
Will, because the bequest was then contingent, and it was very uncertain
whether it would ever take effect.— The will was made in 1826— The year
before which the Testator’s nephew, the present Duke of Northumberland, had been upon a
magnificent Embassy Extraordinary, at the Coronation of Charles the 10th.
of France. There seems to have been a
determination in the mind of the Testator, that his Estate should in no
event go to the Duke of Northumberland or to any of his family— But
certainly in the bequest itself there is a high and honourable sentiment
of philanthropy, and a glorious testimonial of confidence in the
Institutions of this Union. A stranger to this Country, knowing it only
by its history, bearing in his person the blood of the Percy’s and the
Seymour’s, brother to a nobleman of the highest rank in British
heraldry; who fought against the Revolution of our Independence at
Bunker’s Hill, that he should be the man to found at the City of
Washington for the United States of America an establishment for the
increase and diffusion of knowledge among men, 160is
an event in which I see the finger of Providence compassing great
results by incomprehensible means— May the Congress of the Union, be
deeply impressed with the solemn duties devolving upon them by this
trust, and carry it into effect in the fullness of its Spirit, and to
the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men— After dinner I
attended at St. John’s Church. Mr Hawley read prayers for the first Sunday
after the Epiphany—with only the second Lesson of the day, and gave a
brief discourse upon a text from the Psalms— Heavy Gale of wind, and a
light snow.
