Page:Sketches of the life and character of Patrick Henry.djvu/426

402 chaste. He never swore. He was never heard to take the name of his Maker in vain. He was a sincere christian, though after a form of his own; for he was never attached to any particular religious society, and never it is beheved, communed with any church. A friend who visited him, not long before his death, found him engaged in reading the bible: "here," said he, holding it up, " is a book worth more than all the other books that were ever printed: yet it is my misfortune never to have found time to read it, with the proper attention and feeling, till lately. I trust in the mercy of heaven, that it is not yet too late." He was much pleased with Soame Jenyns' View of the internal evidences of the christian religion; so much so, that about the year 1790, he had an impression of it struck at his own expense, and distributed among the people His other favourite works on the subject were Doddridge's " Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul," and Butler's "Analogy of Religion Natural and Revealed." This latter work, he used at one period of his life, to style by way of pre-eminence, his bible. The selection proves not only the piety of his temper, but the correctness of his taste, and his relish for profound and vigorous disquisition.

His morals were strict. As a husband, a father, a master, he had no superior. He was kind and hospitable to the stranger, and most friendly and accommodating to his neighbours. In his dealings with the world, he was faithful to his promise, and punctual in his contracts, to the utmost of his power.

Yet we do not claim for him a total exemption from the failures of humanity. Moral perfection is not the property of man. The love of money is said to have been one of Mr. Henry's strongest passions. In his