deathbed he vowed to her that he would give her children no new mother, and for four and forty years he kept his vow.

I have grouped together these sentimental episodes in Jefferson's life that we might feel their potency in the tempering of his character and the moulding of his life. His years of hearthappiness were the rich years of his constructive statemanship. If of all the great men of his epoch he was the best endowed with patience and charity; if he alone among them knew how to touch the souls of men with a man's firmness and a woman's gentleness; if his faith in the deep wellsprings of goodness and wisdom in his fellow-men never faltered; it was in large measure because of his own heart, already formed by nature to love and to trust, had been nourished and strengthened by these three perfect loves; the perfect friend, the perfect sister, and the perfect wife. In men of supreme wisdom we find always united these two-the wisdom of the heart and the wisdom of the head.

CONGRESSMAN JEFFERSON.

Jefferson's life enters now upon its period of noblest activity. He had served in the House of Burgesses of 1769, dissolved after five days by the Royal Governor on account of their treasonable sentiments, and had participated in the Non-Importation Agreement, then promulgated as Virginia's reply to the tyrannical action of the king and the Parliament. Of the eighty-eight signers of this agreement Jefferson was one.

In 1773 the House of Burgesses, exasperated still further by the encroachments of the crown, passed with practical unanimity the resolution creating the Committee of Correspondence, which should invite the appointment of a like committee in each of the other colonies and should take counsel with them on "various rumors and reports of proceedings tending to deprive his Majesty's faithful subjects of their ancient legal and constitutional rights." Jefferson drew these resolutions, Dabney Carr supported them with equal eloquence and force, and both Carr and Jefferson were named on the Virginian Committee. The Royal Governor again dissolved the House.

In May, 1774, the Boston Port Bill precipitated Virginia into further defensive measures. The House of Burgesses resolved that the 1st day of June, on which the bill was to go into effect,

should be set aside "for a day of fasting, humiliation and prayer, to implore heaven to avert from us the evils of civil war." Jefferson drew up the resolution, Nicholas introduced it, and it passed without opposition. The Royal Governor again dissolved the House. The members met in the Apollo Room, instructed their Committee of Correspondence to ask for an Annual Congress of deputies from all the colonies and further called a convention to meet in Williamsburg on August 1st to elect the Virginian members of the Congress.

In August, 1774, the convention met. Jefferson was detained by illness, but sent two copies of a draft of instructions, such as he hoped to see given to the delegates to the Congress. This draft seemed too bold for the more conservative members. It was printed, however, as "A Summary View of the Rights of British America," was circulated through the colonies and sent to England. It was the first truly revolutionary paper issued by the American patriots, and was in fact the glowing ignot from which was forged the Declaration of Independence. The delegates to the Congress were elected and a new convention called to meet in Richmond.

On 20th March, 1775, the Richmond Convention assembled in St. John's Church, Jefferson being one of the two delegates from Albemarle. It was here that Patrick Henry moved that the Colony "be immediately put into a state of defense," and after listening calmly to the earnest expostulations of almost every leading man in the convention, supported his resolutions in an oration of such superhuman eloquence as men had never listened to before and never since have heard. The resolutions were passed by a decided majority, the committee was appointed to carry out their provisions, and on this committee Thomas Jefferson was placed. Before adjournment the delegates to the former Congress were re-elected but as Peyton Randolph would probably be called back to Virginia to preside over the House of Burgesses, Thomas Jefferson was chosen as alternate in that event. The convention adjourned 28th March, 1775.

On June 1st, 1775, the House of Burgesses assembled in Williamsburg. Thomas Jefferson, now a member of both the House and the Congress, was present and at the request of the Speaker delayed his departure until the reply of Virginia to the

"Conciliatory proposition" of Lord North could be formulated. At the Speaker's request Jefferson drew the paper, which on 10th June, 1775, was accepted by the House. Jefferson at once set out for Philadelphia, carrying with him a copy of this spirited and unanswerable reply. He reached Philadelphia on the 20th June, the day on which Washington received his commission from Congress. With a certain dramatic fitness the news of Bunker Hill reached Philadelphia the next morning.

On 21st June, 1775, Thomas Jefferson took his seat in Congress. John Adams records the fact that he brought with him a "reputation for literature, science, and a happy talent for composition. Though a silent member of Congress, he was SO prompt, frank, explicit, and decisive upon committees and in conversation, that he soon seized upon my heart." Five days later he was placed upon the committee to draw up for the united colonies a declaration of the causes of taking up arms. His paper was too radical in its statements for the more conservative members and was turned over by Jefferson to Dickinson for amendment. Dickinson made a new draft, into which he incorporated the last four and a half paragraphs of Jefferson's paper. The document thus drawn was approved by the committee, passed by Congress, and published to the world.

On 22nd July, 1775, the Congress took up the "Conciliatory Proposition" of Lord North. A committee was elected by ballot to draft their reply. Franklin, Jefferson, Adams and Lee constituted this committee. The work was intrusted to Jefferson, who was known as the framer of the Virginia resolutions. This paper, which is wholly Jefferson's work, was adopted by Congress in the 31st July and on 1st August an adjournment was taken until 5th September following. Jefferson returned to Virginia, was re-elected to Congress 11th August, 1775, and spent the next eight months, partly in Philadelphia attending the sessions of Congress, and partly in Virginia pressing forward the revolutionary movement among his own people. The loss of an infant daughter, September, 1775, and of his mother, March, 1776, were grave additions to his public sorrow and his public cares.

On 13th May, 1776, Jefferson was again in his seat in Congress. The Virginian Convention adopted their resolution in favor of American Independence on 15th May, 1776, and this

was at once transmitted to the Virginian delegates in Congress. On 7th June, 1776, Richard Henry Lee moved that Congress declare that "These United Colonies are and of right ought to be free and independent states. On 10th June, 1776, Congress appointed Jefferson, Adams, Franklin, Sherman and Livingston to draw up such a declaration. The work was devolved on Jefferson, his draft was approved by the committee, and on 28th June, 1776, was reported to Congress. It lay on the table until the appointed date, 1st July, 1776. It was then taken up, debated for four consecutive days, amended in sundry particulars, and finally passed on 4th July, 1776.

The history of political development offers no parallel to this extraordinary catalogue of state papers of basic importance issuing from one brain within a period of two years. There were five of them, each a vital document for its time and a permanent addition to the literature of state-craft.

(a) The Summary View of the Rights of British America. (b) The Reply of Virginia to the Conciliatory Proposition of Lord North.

(c) The Congressional Declaration of the Causes of Taking up Arms.

(d) The Reply of Congress to the Conciliatory Proposition of Lord North.

(e) The Declaration of American Indepedence.

Four of these were Jeffersonian in toto, and Jefferson furnished the supremely significant sections of the other. They have been criticized for their rhetorical fervor, for the glow of passion which suffused them, for the deep undertone of a familiar and a common faith, which brought home their doctrines to the hearts and souls of American patriots. That fervor was the flame which kindled into a blaze of invincible energy the dormant fires of resistence to tyranny. That passion was the molten logic which taught Americans how to value truly their birthright of freedom. That faith in the bald commonplaces of political oratory turned those dead bones of rhetoric into living engines of power and wrath. He who criticises the Declaration of Independence as a web of familiar sophistries, would say that the diamond is a mere bit of charcoal, or that the pearl is nothing but the ooze and slime of the ocean. The Apostles'

Creed contains nothing but what was familiar to the earliest Christians, and yet it has crystallized the articles of the Christian faith into precious and immortal forms. What the Apostles' Creed is to Christianity, that the Declaration of Independence is to Democracy.

When we ask ourselves how Jefferson came to formulate these immortal postulates of his political faith, we can give no complete answer. Creative work, be it divine or human, has always been and will always be a beautiful and solemn mystery. We know not nor shall ever know how Homer sang his Iliad; how Shakespeare wrote his Hamlet; how Newton discovered his Law of Universal Gravitation; how Watt invented his Steam Engine.

So in our contemplation of Jefferson's creative work there must always remain a residuum of mystery. But we approximate a solution of the problem when we remember that here was a man who was born into a heritage of freedom; who had learned the lesson of ordered liberty from his father's life; who had grown to man's estate in full view of two irreconcilable ideals of citizenship, the democratic ideal, which was subduing the wilderness, and building homes, and creating a commonwealth, and over against this the aristocratic ideal, which was already moribund in its self-generated sloth and debauchery and conceit; who having set before him two contrasting models— brave old farmer Peter Jefferson and brilliant Royal Governor Fauquier had resolved to follow the one and eschew the other; who had fitted himself for his destined work by patient years of profound study and earnest years of devotion to his chosen profession; who had read more profoundly into the laws and institutions of the Anglo-Saxon race than any living man; and whose native gift for love and sympathy and trust had been broadened and deepened by the richest experiences of human life.

Thomas Jefferson early learned that he could never be an orator. Nature had denied him the gift of eloquence. But for this parsimony she richly atoned. She gave him a broad, comprehensive, foreseeing mind. She gave him a pen rarely equalled for facility and felicity and fluency. She gave him all the gentle arts of friendship, that other tongues might promul