the Bishop of London will send one or more of a different stamp as an antidote against them."

Information of Welton's privily exercising the functions of a Bishop in Pennsylvania was sent to the Lords-Justices of Great Britain, who ordered a writ of privy seal to be served on him, commanding his return forthwith to England. He left Philadelphia in March, 1726; and, rather than obey the writ, retired to Lisbon, Portugal, where, in the August following, he died, refusing to commune with the English clergyman. Among his effects was found an Episcopal seal.

Talbot was discharged from the service of the Society, and ordered to "surcease officiating." True to the doctrines of non-resistance and passive obedience, he went to Maryland; where Commissary Wilkinson reports, that he "behaved very modestly, avoided talking very much, and resolved to submit quietly to the orders sent from England to prohibit his public officiating in any of the Churches, or to set up separate meetings.

The friends of Talbot, and they were pretty much everybody that knew him, lost no time nor opportunity to remonstrate. The Rev. Mr. Cummings had no sooner arrived in Philadelphia, than he was importuned by numbers of people from Burlington, and by some of the Province of Pennsylvania, to write to the Bishop of London in favor of Talbot. "They made me," he says, "promise to mention him, otherwise I would not presume to do it. He is universally beloved, even by the Dissenters here, and has done a great deal of good. Welton and he had differed, and broke off correspondence, by reason of the rash chimerical projects of the former, long before the Government took notice of them. If he were connived at, and could be assisted by the Society (for I am told the old man's circumstances are very mean), he promises by his friends to be peaceable and easy, and to do all the good he can for the future." The following winter, a most urgent memorial was addressed to the Society by the leading laymen of Philadelphia, Bristol, and Burlington, in which occurs this testimony: "Mr. Talbot, who for nigh thirty years past, has behaved himself with indefatigable VOL. III.-4

pains, and good success in his Ministry among us, under your Honour's care, has by some late conduct (nowise privy to us), rendered himself disagreeable to his superiors, and departed from us. We cannot, without violence to the principles of our Religion, approve of any acts, or give in to any measures inconsistent with our duty and Loyalty to his Majesty, whom God long preserve; yet in gratitude to this unhappy Gentleman, we humbly beg leave to say, that by his exemplary life and ministry, he has been the greatest advocate for the Church of England, by Law Established, that ever appeared on this shore."

No response, so far as we can learn, was ever returned to this memorial.

Talbot, who hitherto had been wedded only to the Church, and lived with great frugality, married a widow with some property. The age, position, and character of Mrs. Anne Herbert, made her, in every way, a suitable companion for him. "Her civil deportment and courteous behavior," remarks her biographer, "bespoake her a Gentlewoman in all respects. "She had so much goodness as justly rendered her an Example worthy of Imitation." "She always lived in the fear of God, and had nothing more at heart than to please Him, so that by her Christian life and sober conversation she honored the holy religion she professed, and gave no occasion for the enemies of God to blaspheme." "She delighted always to be near God's altar, was constant in her attendance on the Divine ordinances, and had a great esteem and respect for the Clergy. She was a good Neighbour, pitiful, compassionate, and merciful to the needy."

The venerable couple went to Burlington, where they lived in refined simplicity. This serene retirement did not last long. The American Weekly Mercury contains the following: "Philadelphia, Nov. 30, 1727. Yesterday, died at Burlington, the Reverend Mr. John Talbot, formerly Minister of that Place, who was a Pious, good man, and much lamented." How like the record of the protomartyr! "Devout men carried Stephen to his burial, and made great lamentation over him." The weeds which his widow wore till the day

of her death, and her request to be buried by his side, showed the strength of her affection for him. She removed to Philadelphia, where she met her final sickness. She sent for a scribe, and dictated a will, whose value as a historical paper cannot be overestimated. Almost every line of it throws light on some important point otherwise unknown. She desires to be "buryed by the Body of her late Husband," in the Church at Burlington, and "that a Decent plain Monument be erected in the sd Church with a proper inscription, to be composed by the Reverend Mr. Vaughan, of Elizabeth Town, & the Rev. Mr. Skinner, of Amboy, or either of them." She bequeaths £20 each, to Samuel Hasel and Charles Read, merchants of Philadelphia, whom she appointed her Executors; and, after the payment of her funeral expenses, debts, and legacies, she bequeaths all her estate, goods, and effects whatsoever, to her "Dutyfull & well-beloved Son, Thomas Herbert, of the Island of Mevis [Nevis?] Planter." George Roth and Mary Jacob united with Edward Warner, who drafted it, in witnessing this will. The testatrix was too weak to do more than make the first letter of her Christian name, but her husband's privy signet was produced, and on the warm surface of the black wax there an impression made, which brings us here to-night-a mitre, with flowing ribbons, and beneath it, in large script letters, ingeniously intertwining one another in bold relief, the full name "JOHN TALBOT."

This act, famous henceforth in American history, was on the 30th of July, 1730. Ten weary months she yet survived. And when she spoke of her departure as very near," it was," "it says one who saw and heard her, "with all the Chearfulness of a Christian who earnestly desired to die yo death of the Righteous, & had made it the business of her whole life to make her latter end like his."

Within the octave of Ascensiontide her soul was released from the burden of the flesh. And, on Whitsunday, June 6, 1731, her remains were placed in the Church at Burlington. A funeral sermon was preached, the original MS. of which is now in my possession. It is a mingled strain of

courage and caution. The preacher said: "I shall only make mention of such things as I am sure all that knew her will Justify, for those yt knew her not, I am sure it will be highly uncharitable in them to Contradict. Therefore, I hope it will not be thought that I have other than a pious end in being Just to this our Sister's memory so far as it is Consistent with my own knowledge and good Acquaintance with her."

But where is the spot in which this holy pair repose? Where is the "decent plain monument" which Mrs. Talbot ordered in her will? Her assets were ample to cover its cost. But no monument can be found, and-no grave! Of Talbot it may be said, "No man knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day."

Mrs. Talbot's son by her former marriage, Thomas Herbert, it is believed, from the records of Christ Church, this city, came here to settle her estate, and died the September following his mother. This may account for inattention to her will; while the circumstances attending the last years of Talbot would raise the suspicion of disloyalty to the Establishment in any to do him honor. Though, it is reported that he took the oaths and submitted, there was no unclasping of his fetters.

The cold shackles of Hanoverianism were imposed upon him, and he was buried with them on.

Thirty letters, besides many other documents, to which his signature is attached, are now before me, and no one can study these, and weigh them in all their bearings, and point out in them any vanity, self-seeking, or personal ambition. Nor can any one dispassionately consider his career, and not reach the conclusion that in being secretly consecrated, he was actuated by the purest desire to advance the real interests of religion in the colonies. His motives, scrutinized through the most powerful lenses, fail to furnish him with a harsher epitaph than "The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up."

But what, it will be asked, were his Episcopal acts? Where did he confirm? Whom did he ordain? These points are involved in profound obscurity. The parish register which

Talbot kept from 1702 to 1720, has no entries in his hand after he became a Bishop. Yet he officiated for two years and a half. He baptized many during that time-nineteen in one day, he writes in a letter-but any acts, even these baptisms, if recorded, must have been in a book as secret as his office, and may yet be traced through the legal representatives of his widow. There is absolutely nothing, that can be shown beyond question, to have been on his part an Episcopal act.

In one of his letters there is this announcement, "I have set up one Mr. Searle, a schoolmaster, to read prayers, and preach on Sundays, at Springfield; I lent him some sermons of Drs. Tillotson and Beveridge; several Quakers came to hear him, and are much taken with him; they say they never thought the Priests had so much Good Doctrine. I am sure he is a much better Clerk than Mr. H-n, saving his orders, therefore, I commend him to the Society for their encouragement, and hope they will count him worthy to be a half-pay officer in their service." Was this the appointment of a layreader, or an ordination?

There is a tradition which is thus given by Hawks, in his "History of the Church in Maryland:" "The venerable prèlate, who was so long our Presiding Bishop [Bishop White, of Pennsylvania'], was accustomed to relate a story which he heard from his elder brethren, when he was but a youth. The story was this: A gentleman who had been ordained among the Congregationalists of New England [Mr. Whittlesey, of Connecticut, perhaps Wallingford, says The Churchman's Magazine, vol. v. p. 40], and who had officiated among them as a minister for many years, at length, to the surprise of his friends, began to express doubts about the validity of his. ordination, and manifested no small trouble of mind on the subject. Suddenly, about the time of the arrival of Talbot and Welton, he left home without declaring the place of his

1 Drs. William White and Samuel Provoost were consecrated in the chapel of Lambeth palace, England. Feb. 4, 1787, by Dr. John Moore, Archbishop of Canterbury, assisted by three other Bishops of the Church of England.