Boston.

DURING the year 1755 died the Rev. William Stith, president of the
College of William and Mary, and author of an excellent "History of
Virginia," from the first settlement to the dissolution of the London
Company. He was of exemplary character and catholic spirit, a friend of
well-regulated liberty, and a true patriot.

The Rev. Samuel Davies, during the year 1754, went on a mission to
England and Scotland for the purpose of raising a fund for the endowment
of a college at Princeton, New Jersey. His eloquence commanded
admiration in the mother country. The English Presbyterians he found
sadly fallen away from the doctrines of the Reformation, and their
clergy, although learned and able, deeply infected with the "modish
divinity"--Socinianism and Arminianism. In Scotland, where he met a warm
welcome, he found the young clergy no less imbued with the "modish
divinity," and the cause of religion and the spiritual independence of
the kirk lamentably impaired by the overweening influence of secular
patronage. Davies was of opinion that in genuine piety the Methodists,
who commenced their reform in the Church of England, ranked the highest.
He returned to Virginia early in 1755, and during the French and Indian
wars he often employed his eloquence in arousing the patriotism of the
Virginians.

After Braddock's defeat, such was the general consternation that many
seemed ready to desert the country. On the 20th of July, 1755, Davies
delivered a discourse, in which he declared: "Christians should be
patriots. What is that religion good for that leaves men cowards upon
the appearance of danger? And permit me to say, that I am particularly
solicitous that you, my brethren of the dissenters, should act with
honor and spirit in this juncture, as it becomes loyal subjects, lovers
of your country, and courageous Christians. That is a mean, sordid,
cowardly soul that would abandon his country and shift for his own
little self, when there is any probability of defending it. To give the
greater weight to what I say, I may take the liberty to tell you, I have
as little personal interest, as little to lose in the colony, as most of
you. If I consulted either my safety or my temporal interest, I should
soon remove with my family to Great Britain, or the Northern colonies,
where I have had very inviting offers. Nature has not formed me for a
military life, nor furnished me with any great degree of fortitude and
courage; yet I