GOD alone is immortal—Jehovah alone liveth forever.—Were immortality the lot of man; were it not appointed unto man once to die; could the practice of the sublim­est virtues; could the prayers of the pious, or the blessings of a grateful nation have averted the stroke of Death; we should not, my fathers, friends, and fellow citizens, have met to mourn the death of our beloved WASHINGTON. We should not, at this time, have attuned our voices to mournful melody, or raised our pray­ers for comfort to the Great Source of consolation in this day of our sorrow. For our nation would yet have rejoiced in his life; [Page 4] and our children's children would have seen the man who gave them that liberty, which, I trust in a merciful God, our children's children will ever enjoy.

BUT never ending length of days are not the laurels, with which the Supreme Being crowns virtue; and WASHINGTON, the great and the good, is mingled with the clod of the valley. That voice, which inspired us with courage in the hour of danger, shall no more be heard in the land; and that invincible arm, so often raised for our protection, is laid low in the dust. But, though his voice is forever silent, yet he shall forever speak to us by his great example. Gather then ye children of our political father, around his tomb, and hear the instructive lesson of your parent's life.

TRUE, my friends, no children of his loins lifted their little arms and raised their suffused eyes around his dying bed, to catch a father's last blessing; but WASHINGTON was not childless; he was the father of his country, the parent of millions; and who is there so mean among you, that is not of the happy number?

[Page 5] ON this day, sacred to family sorrow, let every jarring passion be hushed; and let the tomb of WASHINGTON be the grave of political animosity. Often, fellow citizens, may we turn the his­toric page, often may we read lessons of virtue in the volumes of the moralist; but alas! a thousand volumes are too few to teach us what is virtuous and honourable. But the life of WASHING­TON is a compendium of instruction. His life is a practical treatise of the cardinal virtues. Would you learn how, to live? Read his life. Would you learn how to die? Visit his dying bed.

HE taught us how to live, and oh! too high a price for human knowledge, taught us how to die. Point me out a virtue which adorns man, and I will shew it to you brilliantly illuminated in his life.

WOULD our youth learn that vigour of mind which incites to deeds of pith and moment, see the youthful WASHINGTON, in the dawn of life, pursuing alone his hardy career through the trackless desert, to avert the tomahawk of the savage from the vi­tals of his countrymen; or see him protect the baffled troops of the expiring Braddock on the banks of the Monongahela.

[Page 6] WOULD our fellow citizens be soldiers? Are they ambitious to command the armies of their country? View WASHINGTON on the heights near Boston, teaching the hands of the untutored yeoman to war, and his fingers to fight.

WOULD you possess that martial courage which com­mands success? Pass the Schuylkill with WASHINGTON, on that tremendous night, when, warring with the embattled ele­ments and superior forces, he led in triumph the troops of Heffer.

WOULD you imitate that fortitude which sustains the hero in the dreadful hour of adversity? Follow WASHINGTON through the Jersies, at the head of his discomfited troops, when the last spark of American hope was coruscated from his freeled breast.

WOULD you learn that Christian, that divine grace of forgive­ness to your enemies? See him save the youthful ASGIL from ignominy and a disgraceful death.

WOULD you possess that dignified virtue of equanimity, in the possession of Dictatorial power, and humility in the resignation of it? Pursue WASHINGTON to the tented field, and read his Re­signation of his high Commission of Commander in Chief of the armies of the United States.

[Page 7] WOULD you impress modesty, that seal of all the Virtues, up­on all your actions? Peruse his official Letters.

WOULD you entwine the laurels of glory round deeds like these? Then, like him, serve your country without pecuniary re­ward

DOES civil life delight you? Are you ambitious of serving your country with reputation in the civil grades of Society? Re­member that gloomy, distracting period, which succeeded the close of our War with Great Britain, when Americans knew not how to enjoy, in peace, that Liberty and Independence which their valour had won in war; when our nerveless general govern­ment could only recommend measures, and the States receiv­ed their recommendations with indifference or contempt; when our American Government was trampled upon at home, and in­sulted from abroad; when the jarring States lost sight of the na­tional good in their own individual interest; when all was tu­mult and confusion; then remember how WASHINGTON, like the fabled god of the Ocean, raised his majestic head amidst the political storm, and stilled the madness of the people. Remem­ber how he associated with the Fathers of our land; traced the [Page 8] principles of our Government with his pen; and signed that great Charter of our Freedom, the Federal Constitution; and, as the First President of the United States, reduced to practice the transcendent theory of Government, which his wisdom had con­ceived: and when he retired to private life, to prepare to mount to a world more congenial with his spirit, remember how like the prophet Elijah he dropt his mantle upon us in his last legacy to the people. Would you learn the true interest of America? Study attentively this precious relic; and as you study, bless, gratefully bless, the sainted lips which pronounc­ed it.

WOULD you learn to devote your whole lives to the service of your country? See Washington, when new dangers threatened our country, again issue from the peaceful scenes of domestic life, from the bosom of his family, and inspired by a love for you, a­gain arm his aged limbs for battle, and close his well spent life in your service.

BUT there are many in this assembly, who may despair of imi­tating these illustrious deeds; but to the meanest of you, in the humblest walks of private life, I repeat, copy WASHINGTON; [Page 9] for he was not only the glory the wonder of public, but the brightest ornament of private life.

IF it be not your ambition, my humble friends, to be elevated in the armies or the councils of your country, yet would you fill the minor offices of society? I point you to the great WASH­INGTON, once the leader of our armies; once and again the First Magistrate of our Union; with all his blushing honours thick up­on him, selling the place of a common juryman at a State Court in Virginia, and humbly thanking his fellows for raising him to the importance of their foreman.

WOULD you excel as farmers? See WASHINGTON, the husbandman, following his own plough, and tracing the furrow in his native fields.

WOULD you become estimable in married life? Would you be loved and respected as affectionate husbands? Where shall I shew you a brighter example of conjugal excellence? Would you know what a husband WASHINGTON was; go to the mournful halls of Mount Vernon; seek there the sorrowing widowed mat­ron, who, with our nation this day, deplores her mighty loss.—Oh! she will tell you that though the same of her hero, his wis­dom [Page 10] in council, his might in battle, have delighted her ears; yet it was the milder virtues of the husband which touched her heart.

MINGLE your tears with hers, my fair country women. They are the tears of virtue: and they adorn the fairest cheek. Man may admire her fortitude, but it is the female heart alone which can participate in her griefs. When she lost a husband, you lost a friend. It was his arm which protected you, and the helpless innocence of your babes in the rage of battle; he respected your sex in the person of this amiable woman; and will you not sym­pathize with her in her affliction and sorrow? Some of you per­haps have been separated from excellent men by the stroke of death. Oh! at those solitary moments, when busy, meddling memory, in barbarous succession, musters up the fond endear­ments of your tender heart; at those cheerless moments when you recollect pressing the clay cold hand of a dying husband, wiping the clammy sweat from his forehead, while his fixed eye balls gave the last look of affection upon you, and closed forever; when you remember that heart rending hour, when you thought all happi­ness flown from you forever, and you felt yourself alone, and the world was a blank before you; then, while your agonized bo­soms [Page 11] throb with anguish at your own loss; think on the pangs of her who mourns a WASHINGTON.

BUT, to return to the delightful theme of his virtues, would you, my friends, practise charity?

He was the kindest neighbour, the humanest master, and the firm­est friend the world ever saw. In a word, he loved his country and reverenced his God. His belief in the Christian verity was not ostentatiously displayed from his lips; but he conformed to the outward duties of Religion; he reverenced the holy ministers of the Gospel, and I trust his deeds are recorded in the Lamb's Book of Life.

SUCH was the man whom we lament; and such was the man whom the world applauds. The would is filled with the fame of our departed hero; and the sighs we this day raise, and the lamen­tation we utter, will be reechoed across the broad Atlantic. The citizens of France will weep over the corse of their great precep­tor in the school of Liberty; and British generosity, in spite of British pride, will deplore the death of the man who, with strong [Page 12] arm rent asunder their empire.—While on the distant shores of Africa, if they are saddened with the report of his death, the sooty native shall bless the memory of the man who, with his last breath, emancipated hundreds of their countrymen from the shackles of slavery. But though the world may do jus­tice to his transcendent merit, it is we alone who can truly feel his loss. Perhaps the ungenerous policy of European Courts may profit themselves by our loss; and sudden invasion may succeed his decease. If, my fellow citizens, we of this generation should be again exposed to the ravages of foreign invasion; if we should again see our towns sacked, and our wives and children again driven from their peaceful habitations by a ferocious, foreign soldiery; then shall we truly bemoan the death of WASHING­TON; for then, citizens of America, and then only, will you know the worth of the man you have lost.

BUT let us not spend our breath in unavailing sorrow: let it be ours to profit by his great example.

LET the aged among us, whose gray hairs give certain presage that they shall soon follow him, console themselves with the sure and certain hope that they shall see him in the world of spirits.—

[Page 13] LET those, who are engaged in the active scenes of busy life, when they would serve their generation, remember WASH­INGTON: and though they may justly despair of imitating this great exemplar, let them reflect that the man who can achieve one solitary deed, or practise one virtue of WASHINGTON, will deserve well of his country. Let our youth be taught to look to his conduct as their polar star, in their passage through the boisterous ocean of human life. And even, my little friends, who came with your parents to weep over the grave of your po­litical father; though you are too young to value his worth, or know your loss; yet, if you would become the comfort of your parents, and the pride of your country, reflect, and let it ex­cite your emulation, that this unrivalled hero, this delight of every heart, this matchless WASHINGTON was once an infant in the cra­dle. Those lips, which spake a language which would have adorn­ed the Roman Forum in Rome's proudest days, once lisped his native tongue with infantine accent. Once like you he was a pu­pil of the schools, and his expanding virtues were marked only by his preceptors, and perhaps only appreciated by parental affection. Who, at that early day, could have foretold the revolution of our [Page 14] country? What prophetic spirit, "rapt into future times," could have pointed to the blooming boy, and said, in that child you see the saviour of his country? Five millions of happy people shall bless him while he lives; a nation shall lament him when he dies.

And who but the Omnifcient can declare that I do not, among the smallest of you, see some future statesman who shall give energy to our public councils; some warrior who shall free our country from invasion; or some little WASHINGTON, who, like his great predecessor, shall unite all talents and all hearts?

THE hopes of our country, fellow citizens, are in the rising gen­eration. In a few more hasty revolving years, the sages, the warri­ors, the statesmen, who conducted our American revolution, will be numbered with the mighty dead. WASHINGTON is not; and Ad­ams stands on the summit of the age of man, plumes his wings, and prepares to mount to glory. Where are Greene, Warren, Mercer, and Montgomery? Where is the good Chittenden, who founded our state? Alas! the places which once knew them shall know them no more. Where are the brave Starks and Warner, under whose banners many of you, who now hear me, fought the [Page 15] battles of your country in yonder field of victory, and gave the first check to British superiority in arms?

WHERE are Fay and Walbridge; those youthful heroes, who, when the desolating Hessians hung over you like a black cloud surcharged with destruction, though new in arms, girded them­selves for war, and, in defence of your property, your wives, your little ones, this pleasant town, and this temple went forth to the fight, fought like veterans, and sealed their country's liberty with their blood. Their precious memory is embalmed in our hearts; but we shall see their faces no more. Their hope in the hour of dissolution was fixed on God and the rising generation. The consolation of WASHINGTON in his dying hour was, that he saw the defenders of Liberty growing up around him—and that the Independence he had established would be maintained by our posterity to the latest generation.

LET us not disappoint his dying hopes. On this day, fellow citizens, on this wide extended continent, men of adverse, politi­cal sentiment have drowned their animosity in the tears shed for our common loss. On this day, good men, unhappily differing about the interests of their country, perhaps, equally dear to them [Page 16] all, have forgotten their dislike; and, like the children of one great family, are come to weep over their father's grave.

THUS united in affliction, let us be united in love; and at this moment, while we recline over his bier, let us resolve never more to separate; but to inhabit the goodly heritage, which God has giv­en us, like a band of brothers; and let it add to the glory of our lamented WASHINGTON, that he, who in his life, obtained for us Freedom and Independence, by his death bound us together in one bundle of fraternal love; "So,". shall it be said of him as it was of the Ifraelitish man of might, "the dead which he slew at his death, were more than those which he slew in his life."

FINALLY, brethren, farewel—retire to your habitations; and if, perchance, your homes salute you with a father's honoured name; go, call your sons; tell them of WASHINGTON; in­struct them what a debt they owe their ancestors, and make them swear to pay it, by transmitting down entire, those sacred rights which WASHINGTON obtained.