And in addition to these sentiments, uttered and published by our philosopher himself, let the testimony of Dr. Rush, who had long and intimately known him, be quoted, from the learned professor’s Eulogium: “He believed in the Christian Revelation,” says the Doctor; and then subjoins—“Of this he gave many proofs; not only in the conformity of his life to the precepts of the Gospel, but in his letters and conversation.”
[304]. Equivalent to 36,066⅔ American or Spanish dollars.
[305]. The elder of these ladies became, in the year 1788, the second wife of Jonathan Dickinson Sergeant, Esq. late an eminent lawyer in Philadelphia, and sometime attorney-general of Pennsylvania. This gentleman was one of the five persons delegated, on the 20th of February, 1776, by the convention of New-Jersey (where he then resided,) to represent that colony in congress: his colleagues were, the late governor Livingston, and John de Hart, Richard Smith, and John Cooper, Esquires. Mr. Sergeant died of the yellow fever in Philadelphia, on the 8th of October, 1793; after having been many weeks actively and benevolently employed, with a few other gentlemen of humanity, in the prosecution of such measures, as the sufferings of those of the citizens who had not fled, and the general welfare of the city required, at that calamitous period. He left issue a son and two daughters, by this marriage, besides several children by his first wife.
The other daughter of Dr. Rittenhouse was married in the year 1790, to Nicholas Baker Waters, M. D. of Philadelphia, a young physician of respectable talents and amiable disposition. Dr. Waters died of a pulmonary disease, in August, 1794, at a very early age, leaving one son, an only child.
Dr. Rittenhouse named his second daughter, Esther, in compliment to his sister Barton. In a letter to the Rev. Mr. Barton, written on the occasion of the birth of this younger child, he says—“To me, it is a matter of indifference, but to my Eleanor it was a great disappointment, to have a girl, having promised herself a boy; and it had long since been resolved that this child, if a son, should be called Thomas, after yourself.” The eldest daughter was named Elizabeth, after his own mother.
[306]. Dr. Rush has very beautifully expressed the same sentiment, in a passage of his Eulogium on our philosopher. After remarking, that his bodily infirmities “contributed much to the perfection of his virtue, by producing habitual patience and resignation to the will of heaven, and a constant eye to the hour of his dissolution,” he says: “It was a window through which he often looked with pleasure towards a place of existence, where, from the increase and perfection of his intuitive faculties, he would probably acquire more knowledge in an hour, than he had acquired in his whole life, by the slow operations of reason; and where, from the greater magnitude and extent of the objects of his contemplation, his native globe would appear like his cradle, and all the events of time, like the amusements of his infant years.” Such, too, must have been the ideas, impressed on the mind of Rittenhouse himself, when, in the morning of his life, he imagined the angel Gabriel looking down from the seat of perfect knowledge, and viewing, benignly, far from beholding with a smile of contempt, the efforts of Newton, to demonstrate the actual motion of our earth. W. B.
[307]. See Eulog. on Ritt.
[308]. About twenty-six years and an half.—Dr. Franklin was President from the institution of the society, in Jan. 1769, until his death, on the 17th of April, 1790; and Dr. Rittenhouse, who succeeded him in Jan. 1791, continued in the office until he died, the 26th of June, 1796. W. B.
[309]. See Mr. Malone’s Account of the Life and Writings of Sir Joshua Reynolds, prefixed to the works of Sir Joshua.
[310]. See Rush’s Eulog. on Ritt.