rds:

"Cease, sons of America, lamenting our separation: go on, and confirm
by your wisdom the fruits of our joint councils, joint efforts, and
common dangers; reverence religion, diffuse knowledge throughout your
land, patronize the arts and sciences; let Liberty and Order be
inseparable companions. Control party spirit, the bane of free
governments; observe good faith to, and cultivate peace with all
nations, shut up every avenue to foreign influence, contract rather
than extend national connection, rely on yourselves only; be Americans
in thought, word and deed;--thus will you give immortality to that
union which was the constant object of my terrestrial labors; thus
will you preserve undisturbed to the latest posterity the felicity of
a people to me most dear, and thus will you supply (if my happiness is
now aught to you) the only vacancy in the round of pure bliss high
Heaven bestows."

MASON LOCKE WEEMS.

~1760=1825.~

MASON LOCKE WEEMS was born at Dumfries, Virginia, and educated in
London as a clergyman. He was for some years rector of Pohick Church,
Mt. Vernon parish, of which Washington was an attendant. His health
demanding a change of occupation, he became agent for the publishing
house of Matthew Carey of Philadelphia, and was very successful, being
"equally ready for a stump, a fair, or a pulpit." He played the
violin, read, recited, and was humorous and interesting in
conversation.

His writings are attractive and often very eloquent and forcible; but
we know not how much of his narratives to believe. His "Life of
Washington" is the most popular and widely read of the many lives of
that great man; to it alone we are indebted for the Hatchet Story.

WORKS.

Life of Washington.
Life of Franklin.
Life of Marion.
Life of Penn.
The Philanthropist, [a tract prefaced by an autograph letter from
Washington.]

THE HATCHET STORY.

(_From Life of Washington._)

The following anecdote is a case in point; it is too valuable to be
lost, and too true to be doubted, for it was communicated to me by the
same excellent lady to whom I was indebted for the last, [a relative
of the Washington family.]

"When George," she said, "was about six years old, he was made the
wealthy master of a _hatchet_! of which, like most little boys, he was
immoderately fond, and was constantly going about chopping everything
that came in his way. One day, in the garden, where he often a