Mr. Hardinge
took charge of the Major, an intimacy beginning to spring up between
these two respectable old men. There were, indeed, so many points of
common feeling, that such a result was not at all surprising. They
both loved the church--I beg pardon, the Holy Catholic Protestant
Episcopal Church. They both disliked Bonaparte--the Major hated him,
but my guardian hated nobody--both venerated Billy Pitt, and both
fancied the French Revolution was merely the fulfilment of prophecy,
through the agency of the devils. As we are now touching upon times
likely to produce important results, let me not be misunderstood. As
an old man, aiming, in a new sphere, to keep enlightened the
generation that is coming into active life, it may be necessary to
explain. An attempt has been made to induce the country to think that
Episcopalian and tory were something like synonymous terms, in the
"times that tried men's souls." This is sufficiently impudent, _per
se_, in a country that possessed Washington, Jay, Hamilton, the
Lees, the Morrises, the late Bishop White, and so many other
distinguished patriots of the Southern and Middle States; but men are
not particularly scrupulous when there is an object to be obtained,
even though it be pretended that Heaven is an incident of that
object.
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