yours, * * *

small vessel, like John Randall's at Stratford, and pass the oceau. To freight this will cost little; and to get the cabin entirely, I shall be forced to go to the expense of freighting. While here, I indulge every hour I am able in reading, more with a view of Smith's, and Robert's good than any satisfaction to myself. You have been told that I have for you 'Newton's Principia.' This great and good man, like man, has erred evidently in some important facts, in which a great and good Frenchman has set him right,— St. Pierre. His book has been promised me; if the promise is fulfilled you shall have both. Newton had the great honor to put down all previous systems of philosophy from Aristotle to his own time; by introducing a system founded on observation, and experiments geometrically demonstrated, giving to the sun its pre-eminence which Pythagoras had established. Sir Isaac admits not hypothesis; but proceeds analytically and synthetically, deducing from the appearances of nature, the forces of nature; and thence demonstrating the character of the rest. He was the first who showed the existence of gravity, although its cause remains hidden; and has made it the foundation of his wonderful system, the principle of which others before him had suspected. Sir Isaac has not only been an eminent benefactor to the human mind in opening to its view the frame of the universe and the action of all the primary parts, but by so doing has contributed more than any other man, to knock down fate and confirm Providence, destroying atheism and upholding theism; thus crowning his labors. by enabling and guiding man to limit his misery and extend his happiness. Indeed, the man must be blind, who, after understanding Sir Isaac's works, cannot discover the infinite goodness and wisdom of Almighty God; and he must be a brute or an idiot, who can hesitate in believing that the Deity is the Alpha and Omega of the universe, the Ruler and Benefactor of all beings, to whom we men can only be acceptable by the practice of virtue and abhorrence of vice. I tire, my dear Carter, and must stop.

"A week has passed; I seize an hour comparatively free from pain to resume, and will give specimens of St. Pierre, whose morality I admire as much as I do his luminous correction of philosophic error. He is a profound and devoted servant of the Most High, in all his labors when pointed to natural or moral philosophy; and he greatly honors the great Newton.

"Admiration is not a relation of the understanding or a percep

So,

tion of our reason; but a sentiment of the soul, which arises in us from a certain, indescribable instinct of Deity, at sight of extraordinary objects, and from the very mysteriousness in which they are involved. All the works of nature have the wants of men for their end, as all the sentiments of men have God for their principle. The final intentions of nature have given to man the knowledge of all her works, as it is the instinct of Deity which has rendered man superior to the laws of nature. It is this instinct, which differently modified by the passions, engages the inhabitants of Russia to bathe in the ices of the Neva, during the severest cold of winter, as well as the natives of Bengal, in the waters of the Ganges; which, under the same latitude, has rendered women slaves in the Philippine Islands, and despots in the Isle of Formosa; which makes men effeminate in the Moluccas, and intrepid in the Macaria; and which forms in one and the same city, tyrants, citizens, and slaves. 'The sentiment of Deity is the first mover of the human heart.' St. Pierre gives to the word 'sentiment' a fuller meaning than I am used to give, and I vainly have struggled to find it out. for then this high and novel first-principle of man will be understood, and the sequent system can be fairly judged of. It charms 'It was the instinct of the Deity which first assembled men together, and which became the basis of the religion and of the laws whereby their union was to be cemented. On this, virtue found support in proposing to itself the imitation of the Divinity; not only by the exercise of the arts and sciences, which the Greeks. for this effect denominated the petty virtues, but in the result of the Divine power and intelligence which is beneficence. It consisted in efforts made upon ourselves for the good of man, in the view of pleasing God only. It gives to man the sentiment of his own excellence by inspiring him with the contempt of terrestrial and transient enjoyments, and with a desire of things celestial and immortal. It was this sublime attraction which exalted courage to the rank of virtue, and which made man intrepidly advance to meet death amidst the many anxieties to preserve life. * Religion places all on a level. She humbles the head of the mighty by showing the vanity of their power, and she raises up the head of the unfortunate by disclosing the prospect of immortality.' 'If I manifest a disregard for religion, I enfeeble the hope which sustains us under the pressure of misery.'

me.

*

* * *

"I must quit my pen, and I leave you in good company, two of

the most virtuous, as well as learned, of philosophers. Be like them, virtuous, and as far as you can, like them, useful.

*

*

I seldom have an opportunity to write to your dear mother,—often to you. Tell me how she is, and how my sweet girls and good boys are. Farewell, my son.

GENERAL HENRY LEE TO C. C. LEE.

“H. LEE.”

"MY DEAR SON,

"NASSAU, January 24, 1818.

'Learn from yon orient shell to love thy foe

And store with pearls the hand that brings thee woe:
Free, like yon rock, from base vindictive pride,
Emblaze with gems the wrist that rends thy side;
Mark, where yon tree rewards the stony shower
With fruit nectareous or the balmy flower;
All nature cries aloud, shall man do less
Than heal the smiter and the railer bless?'

"Where, my dear Carter, think you, the above delightfully-conveyed cardinal moral axiom was indited? In Arabia, and by a Mussulman, the poet of Shiraz-the immortal Hafiz. The two great maxims of right taught by our religion were, happily for the human race, ages before our era, the themes of enlightened legislators. Thales, Pittacus, and many others in Greece taught the doctrines of morality, which these maxims inculcate, and repeated them almost in our words: Do unto others as you would they should do unto you,' and instead of returning evil for evil confer benefits on those who injure you. Long before their day, and before the Christian era some centuries, Confucius taught the same doctrines. The beautiful Arab couplet written three centuries before Christ announces the duty of a good man, even in the moment of destruction, not only to forgive but to benefit the destroyer; as the sandal-tree, in the instant of its overthrow sheds perfume on the axe that fells it. The verse of Vadi, of the same day, represents the return of good for good as a slight reciprocity; and enjoins the virtuous man to confer benefits on his injurer. Why these ancient scraps? only to bring you in love with oriental books, the store-houses of human knowledge obscured, too much obscured for our happiness by their fashion of conveying wise precepts in allegory. *** In all my letters I urge you to habits of virtue in mind and body as the

only path to happiness in this life, and as the most probable security to happiness in another world. But, my dear Carter, what is happiness? Hoc opus, hic labor est. Peace of mind based on piety to Almighty God, unconscious innocence of conduct with good will to man; health of body, health of mind, and prosperity in our vocation; a sweet, affectionate wife; sana mens in corpore sano; children devoted to truth, honor, right, and utility, with love and respect to their parents; and faithful and warm-hearted friends, in a country politically and religiously free;-this is my definition. We see it around us in various instances; but as Solon, the Athenian legislator, told the king of Lydia, upon being asked, if he did not reckon him happy, Wait till you die,' deducing as a positive truth that such are the changes of mortal condition as long as life continues, that sentence must be suspended until death. You know the last scene of the king, and never can forget Cyrus's magnanimity.

"Weeks have passed since the above; such is your poor father's condition. Now it is Shrove-Tuesday, and to-morrow will be AshWednesday. To-day men, women, lads, and lasses are all with joy, singing, kissing, and dancing. To-morrow our holy religion reminds us of death, and dust to dust,-two days in each year giving to Christians the enjoyments congenial to nature, and reminding them of their humility and nothingness. * * *

"February 9th, I resume my pen, and add more scraps from oriental authors, showing that the immortality of the soul has been generally believed by all nations from our first records of man; so also has been the belief in an Almighty God; two truths so fixed in the mind of man, that I cannot believe there ever was, or ever will be, an atheist, unless some poor being unsound in mind. Homer, Virgil, Lucan, and other poets recognize both principles, as do Pythagoras, Plato, Empedocles, and other ancient philosophers. Cæsar and Strabo tell us that the Greeks believed the soul imperishable. Of the Indian Brahmins, Strabo quotes from their creed as follows: 'We are to think of this life as of the state of a child before it is born, and of death as a birth to that which is truly life and happiness to wise men.' Herodotus, concerning the Egyptians, says especially, they believed in the immortality of the soul; and Tacitus in his history, speaking of the Jews,' they buried, rather than burned their bodies, after the manner of the Egyptians; they having the same regard and persuasion concerning the dead.' Mata and Socinus writing of the Thracians, mention, some of them

think the souls of those who die, return again; others that they do not die, but are made more happy.' As to our God, when every thing we see, hear, or know, assures us of His real existence, it is ridiculous to dilate on the subject; I will therefore only recite the opinions of the wise men of antiquity, to show how they concur with Moses and the learned of modern times. Sophocles says:

'There is really but one God,

The maker of Heaven and Earth
And sea and wind.'

So sing Homer, Hesiod, and Ovid, &c. Maximus Tyrius, on the same subject, says: Great as is the discord, debate, and confusion among men, the whole world agree in this one opinion, that God is the sole Father of all; but there are many other gods, his sons, who share in his government.' * * Confucius, Plato, Varro, Cicero, and hundreds of others, hand down the same opinion; though pagans, and admitting secondary gods, one Supreme they avow as the Almighty Father. *

* *

*

"I send this letter to Mr. Goddard, and with it two books for you, worthy of your best attention; one of them the inimitable Cervantes. At length I get off. The ship Betsey is in harbor, taking in her cargo, and is destined to some Southern port; which, not yet decided. In her, I go; and shall be landed, I dare say, as soon as you get this letter. I fear you will be puzzled to read it, but it cannot be altered by one afflicted as I am daily.

"God bless my dear Carter.

"H. LEE."

Thus ended these letters of love and wisdom, in establishing the sublime doctrine of the immortality of the soul; and soon after, ended the life of the writer. Instead of landing at Savannah, he only reached Cumberland Island, on the coast of Georgia, where he was received by Mrs. Shaw, the daughter of General Greene, at the last home of his beloved commander.

This lady met in Boston the son to whom these letters were addressed, in the autumn following the death of his father, and gave him an account of his last moments. One incident is worth recording, as showing how his veneration for Washington and his fondness for expressing it, clung to him to the last. "A surgical operation was proposed, as offering some hope of prolonging his life; but he replied, that the eminent physician to whose skill and