The year 1793 is memorable in the history of Philadelphia. During the prevalence of the yellow fever, in the summer of that year, Mr. Rittenhouse wrote to me a note requesting me to visit a number of poor people, in his vicinity, labouring under the malignant fever; and making it a condition of my attendance upon them, that I should charge him for my services.
In the month of March of the same year, I had a good deal of conversation with Mr. Rittenhouse, on the subject of penal laws. He did not think that the late judge Bradford, whose essay on this subject he greatly admired, and recommended to my perusal, was too lenient in his views of the subject. He observed, that although he had often served on juries, he thanked God, that he never had in any case where life and death were immediately involved; observing, that his conscience would ever reproach him, if he had, in any instance, given his verdict for death. “Of all murders (he added) legal murders are the most horrid.” He did not think that death ought to be the punishment for any crime.
The union of sensibility with benevolence is frequently observed. The sensibility of Rittenhouse was exquisitely nice; perhaps, I might say, it was somewhat morbid. In a conversation which I had with him on the subject of the analogies between animals and vegetables, when I had observed to him, that the further we push our inquiries into this interesting subject, the more reason we have for supposing, that those two series of living beings constitute, as many eminent naturalists have supposed, but one vast family, he said it appeared so to him, but he hoped it would never be discovered that vegetables are endowed with sensibility. “There is, he observed, already too much of this in the world.”
His religion was sublime and pure. It had no tincture of superstition or credulity. Accustomed, from an early period of his life, to contemplate the largest and the smallest objects of Creation; and with respect to the former to view their arrangement and harmony in the construction of a system of immeasurable extent; in these objects and in these places, he beheld one of the revelations of our Creator. He could not be insensible of the ills, infirmities, and miseries of human life, and even of the life of inferior animals. But still he discovered, as he often observed to me, the existence and even the dominion of much benevolence through the world. He was wont to consider our benevolent dispositions, and our virtuous affections, as among the strongest proofs of the existence of a Creator. These dispositions, these affections, and our intellectual powers, are the genuine emanations of a God.
Benjamin Smith Barton.
Philadelphia, December, 1813.
Letter from Lady Juliana Penn to the Rev. Peter Miller, Ephrata.
Septr. 29th. 1774.
Sir,
Your very respectable character would make me ashamed to address you with words merely of form. I hope therefore you will not suspect me of using any such, when I assure you I received the favour of your letter with very great pleasure. And permit me, sir, to join the thanks I owe to those worthy women, the holy sisters at Ephrata, with those I now present to you, for the good opinion you, and they, are pleased to have of me. I claim only that of respecting merit, where I find it; and of wishing an increase in the world, of that piety to the Almighty, and peace to our fellow-creatures, that I am convinced is in your hearts: and, therefore, do me the justice to believe, you have my wishes of prosperity here, and happiness hereafter.