would be in Charlsvl on the 1st inst, on your way to Congress. I went there to have the pleasure of paying you my respects, but after staying some hours, met with a person lately from Staunton who assured me you had passed that place & gone on by the way of Winchester. I comforted myself then with the French adage that what is delayed is not therefore lost; and certainly in your passages to & from Washington should your travelling convenience ever permit a deviation to Monto. I shall receive you with distinguished welcome. Perhaps our University which you visited in it's unfinished state when finished & furnished with it's scientific popln, may tempt you to make a little stay with us. This will probably be by the close of the ensuing year, when it may appear to you worthy of encouraging the youth of your quarter as well as others to seek there the finishing complement of their education. I flatter myself it will assume a standing secondary to nothing in our country. If I live to see this I shall sing with cheerfulness the song of old Simeon's nunc dimittis Domine.

I recall with pleasure the remembrance of our joint labors while in Senate together in times of great trial and of hard battling. Battles indeed of words, not of blood, as those you have since fought so much for your own glory & that of your country; with the assurance that my attamts continue undiminished, accept that of my great respect & considn.

TO THOMAS JEFFERSON GROTJAN

I

MONTICELLO, Jan. 10, '24.

Your affectionate mother requests that I would address to you, as a namesake, something which might have a favorable influence on the course of life you have to run. Few words are necessary, with good dispositions on your part. Adore God; reverence and cherish your parents; love your neighbor as yourself, and your country more than life. Be just; be true; murmur not at the ways of Providence and the life into which you have entered will be one of eternal and ineffable bliss. And if to the dead it is permitted to care for the things of this world, every action of your life will be under my regard. Farewell.

MONTICELLO Jan. 18. 24. I thank you, Sir, for the copy you were so kind as to send me of the revd. Mr. Bancroft's Unitarian sermons. I have read them with great satisfaction, and always rejoice in efforts to restore us to primitive Christianity, in all the simplicity in which it came from the lips of Jesus. Had it never been sophisticated by the subtleties of Commentators, nor paraphrased into meanings totally foreign to it's character, it would at this day have been the religion of the whole civilized world. But the metaphysical abstractions of Athanasius, and the maniac ravings of Calvin, tinctured plentifully with the foggy From the Historical Magazine, xviii., 50.

dreams of Plato, have so loaded it with absurdities and incomprehensibilities, as to drive into infidelity men who had not time, patience, or opportunity to strip it of it's meretricious trappings, and to see it in all it's native simplicity and purity. I trust however that the same free exercise of private judgment which gave us our political reformation will extend it's effects to that of religion, which the present volume is well calculated to encourage and promote.

Not wishing to give offence to those who differ from me in opinion, nor to be implicated in a theological controversy, I have to pray that this letter may not get into print, and to assure you of my great respect and good will.

TO GEORGE THACHER

J. MSS.

MONTICELLO Jan. 26. 24. SIR,-I have read with much satisfaction the Sermon of Mr. Pierpoint which you have been so kind as to send to me, and am much pleased with the spirit of brotherly forbearance in matters of religion which it breathes, and the sound distinction it inculcates between the things which belong to us to judge, and those which do not. If all Christian sects would rally to the Sermon on the mount, make that the central point of Union in religion, and the stamp of genuine Christianity, (since it gives us all the precepts of our duties to one another) why should we further ask, with the text of our sermon "What think ye of Christ?" And if one should answer "he is a member of the God-head," another "he is a being

of eternal pre-existence," a third "he was a man divinely inspired," a fourth "he was the Herald of truths reformatory of the religions of mankind in general, but more immediately of that of his own countrymen, impressing them with more sublime and more worthy ideas of the Supreme being, teaching them the doctrine of a future state of rewards and punishments, and inculcating the love of mankind, instead of the anti-social spirit with which the Jews viewed all other nations," what right, or what interest has either of these respondents to claim pre-eminence for his dogma, and, usurping the judgment-seat of God, to condemn all the others to his wrath? In this case, I say with the wiser heathen deorum injuriæ, diis curæ.

You press me to consent to the publication of my sentiments and suppose they might have effect even on Sectarian bigotry. But have they not the Gospel? If they hear not that, and the charities it teacheth, neither will they be persuaded though one rose from the dead. Such is the malignity of religious antipathies that, altho' the laws will no longer permit them, with Calvin, to burn those who are not exactly of their Creed, they raise the Hue & cry of Heresy against them, place them under the ban of public opinion, and shut them out from all the kind affections of society. I must pray permission therefore to continue in quiet during the short time remaining to me; and, at a time of life when the afflictions of the body weigh heavily enough, not to superadd those which corrode the spirit also, and might weaken it's resignation to

continuance in a joyless state of being which providence may yet destine. With these sentiments accept those of good will and respect to yourself.

DEAR SIR, I duly received your favor of the 13th, and with it, the last number of the North American Review. This has anticipated the one I should receive in course, but have not yet received, under my subscription to the new series. The article on the African colonization of the people of color, to which you invite my attention, I have read with great consideration. It is, indeed, a fine one, and will do much good. I learn from it more, too, than I had before known, of the degree of success and promise of that colony.

In the disposition of these unfortunate people, there are two rational objects to be distinctly kept in view. First. The establishment of a colony on the coast of Africa, which may introduce among the aborigines the arts of cultivated life, and the blessings of civilization and science. By doing this, we may make to them some retribution for the long course of injuries we have been committing on their population. And considering that these blessings will descend to the "nati natorum, et qui nascentur ab illis," we shall in the long run have rendered them perhaps more good than evil. To fulfil this object, the colony of Sierra Leone promises well, and that of Mesurado adds to our prospect of success. Under