Page:History of the University of Pennsylvania - Montgomery (1900).djvu/408

The recounting to the Trustees of these important prelimi- nary steps made them ready to respond to Dr. Smith's sugges- tions that suitable acknowledgments be made to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Penn, and Rev. Dr. Chandler, for their zealous aid and influence on behalf of his plans. At the meeting of 14 December, Messrs. Peters, Stedman, Chew, Edward Shippen and Duche, were appointed a committee to prepare suitable addresses, and at the meeting of 1 1 January "the President on behalf of the Committee brought in the Draughts of the Addresses and Letters which they were desired to prepare, and the same being read were settled." To the Archbishop they said : It gave us singular Pleasure and Satisfaction to hear of the extraordi- nary Countenance and Encouragement which our worthy Provost met with from your Grace, that you not only contributed generously yourself, but that it is owing principally to your good offices that our pious Design hath attracted the regard of the best of Kings, who hath been graciously pleased to make the Charity more universal by granting to us his Royal Brief. * * * We are willing to flatter ourselves, that our Infant Institution will be the Means, under a wise and good Providence, of spreading the glorious light of Gospel Truth over a considerable part of this untutored Continent. These were our sincere and Christian motives at the first erection of this Seminary, and by these we are still most zealously actuated in our Endeavors to sup- port and establish it Encouraged by your Grace's kind and condescending Regard, and ambitious of being patronized by a Prelate of such distin- guished Piety, Learning and Knowledge, we will pursue with Industry unwearied these benevolent Purposes. To the Rev. Samuel Chandler, D. D., the eminent non- conformist Divine, whose friendship with Dr. Smith had begun in his correspondence as Secretary of the Society founded in London in 1/54 for the Education of Germans in Pennsylvania with him, they manifest their Gratitude for your kind Zeal and Influence in obtaining a Royal Brief to render the Charity universal [and proceeding in a more catho- lic vein than to the Archbishop :] this Institution was founded upon the most generous and charitable principles. Our views were confined to no particular Party, Sect or Denomination. The advancement of Learning, a sincere and Christian regard for the Souls of our Countrymen together with an inviolable attachment to that Religion and Liberty which we enjoy under the best of Governments were the Sole Motives by which we were influ-