Page:History of the University of Pennsylvania - Montgomery (1900).djvu/413

Rh sary ; every one of whom, being near two hundred we must see within this fortnight, and before they can read the Brief, which we are to give them with our own hand. Many principal People are also to be waited on before the Brief is read in their particular Parish because we hope they will give more to one of ourselves than to a Brief, which some Persons have resolved never to contribute to on account of Abuses which they conceive are committed by the Brief Layers. * * * From the above account you will see that neither our plan, nor our time would permit us to collect much Money, yet we have not been unsuccessful even in this respect And the Provost submits an account showing that Dr. Jay had collected from their parting to their meeting again on 20 November, .121.12.6; Dr. Smith, in the same period had collected .187.6.0. At the University of Oxford they had jointly collected .161.18.0, and in the same manner at Glou- cester, 3 5.10.0. Dr. Smith collected " among the clothiers at Stroud, where he preached and had the Brief read" ^49.11.6, and at " Uley, Dursley, and Weston Underedge, other cloathing towns, independent of the Brief" 65. 6. 6. And Dr. Jay at Hamton, Tetbury and Painswick, collected ^"33.4.6. The Brief was read at St. Paul's Cathedral on Sunday, 6 March, 1763, and a sermon preached by Dr. John Brown, Vicar of St. Nicholas', New Castle, on Religious Liberty, whose greatest and most extensive effect, joined with true Christian Zeal, would be a free and powerful Communication of the Glad Tidings of the Gospel to those many and distant Nations who as yet sit in Darkness and the Shadow of Death ; a duty which I should at all times be glad to Recom- mend, but particularly when we are entering on a Peace, which throws into our Hands immense savage Nations, as the greatest object of civilization ; and more especially at a Time when a laudable Brief is on Foot (and on this day read in many of the Churches of this great city) which calls on every Christian to contribute his share to the success of this important work. 7 7 A copy of this Sermon, " published at the Request of the Managers of the Charity," is with the Pennsylvania Historical Society. Dr. Brown was a well- known writer of his day; his Essays, on Shaftesbury's Characteristics, London, 1751, which were suggested to him by Warburton, and to Warburton by Pope, reached a fifth edition in 1764. The work which earned him the greatest reputa- tion was " An Estimate of the Manners and Principles of the Times," London, 1757, and which reached seven editions in a little more than a twelvemonth. Allibone.