able that he did not differ essentially from Washington, Adams, or Franklin in his religious opinions, except that he was far more interested in religion than any of these. It is difficult to imagine a reverend stranger discussing religion for hours with the grave Washington or the pompous Adams or the canny Franklin, and departing under the impression that he had been conversing with a trained theologian. But, then, these men were not "Jacobinical," therefore their heterodoxy was not dangerous. It was really Jefferson's political opinions that were persecuted in the New England pulpits under the head of "atheism and infidelity."

Least of all was Jefferson a propagandist in religion. He never attempted to make a convert or wished to change another's creed. So sacredly private a matter did he consider the individual's relation to God that he hesitated to communicate his religious ideas even to his own family and intimate friends. His eldest grandson and the administrator of his estate, Thomas Jefferson Randolph, wrote to his biographer, H. S. Randall, in 1856: "Of his relig

a certain order of time and subject. A more beautiful and precious morsel of ethics I have never seen. It is a document in proof that I am a real Christian, i. e., a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus, very different from the Platonists who call me infidel and themselves Christians and preachers of the Gospel, while they draw all their characteristic dogmas from what its author never said or saw. They have compounded from the heathen mysteries a system beyond the comprehension of man, of which the great reformer of the vicious ethics and deism of the Jews, were he to return to earth, would not recognize one feature."

ious opinions his family know no more than the world. If asked by any one of them his opinion on any religious subject his uniform reply was that it was a subject each was bound to study assiduously for himself, unbiassed by the opinions of others . . . that after a thorough investigation they were responsible for the righteousness not the rightfulness of their opinions." At the same time he was patient and courteous with those who tried to "convert" him out of honest solicitude for his salvation. "I must ever believe that religion substantially good," he wrote to one such apostle in 1814, "which produces an honest life, and we have been authorized by One whom you and I equally respect, to judge of the tree by its fruits. . . . .. Let us not be uneasy, then, about the different roads we may pursue, but following the guidance of a good conscience let us be happy in the hope that by these different paths we shall all meet in the end. . . I salute you with brotherly esteem and respect."

In a word, Jefferson's religion was a system of practical ethics, built, as he believed, on the teachings of the Nazarene and supplemented by a deliberately undefined faith in a guiding Providence and a future state. "I have never permitted myself," he wrote to that rarest type of friend, a New England clergyman, "to meditate a specific creed. These formulas have been the bane and ruin of the Christian church, its own fatal invention." In the midst of the busy

first term in the White House, Jefferson found time to write a syllabus of the doctrines of Jesus compared with the moral codes of the Hebrews, the Greeks, and the Romans, to show the superiority of the Christian ethics. He sent the syllabus to Benjamin Rush with the comment: "These [views] are the result of a life of inquiry and reflection, and very different from that anti-Christian system imputed to me by those who know nothing of my opinions. To the corruptions of Christianity I am indeed opposed,1 but not to the genuine precepts of Jesus himself. I am a Christian in the only sense he wished any one to be; sincerely attached to his doctrines in preference to all others, ascribing to him every human excellence, and believing he never claimed any other." It was on these ethical principles that Jefferson based a life which was noble, kindly, generous, dignified, sympathetic, and true. There is but one testimony from the host of friends, acquaintances, and visitors who enjoyed the hospitality of the master of Monticello, that he himself was the pattern of the righteous man described in his own favorite Psalm:

"Lord, who's the happy man that may to thy blest courts repair,

Not stranger-like to visit them, but to inhabit there?

1 He wrote to Colonel Pickering in 1822, thanking him for a copy of Channing's sermons: "Had there never been a commentator there never would have been an infidel."

'Tis he whose every thought and deed by rules of virtue

moves,

Whose generous tongue disdains to speak the thing his heart disproves."

Nevertheless, Jefferson's life at Monticello, for all the love and veneration that surrounded it, was not free from care. Debt dogged his footsteps to the grave. The portion of the Wayles property which his wife brought him as a dowry was heavily encumbered, and before he had finally paid off his English creditors over a period of depreciated currency and depressed land values, the debt “swept away nearly half of the estate." During his forty years of frequent absence from Monticello in his country's service his farms were left in the hands of overseers. When he returned in 1809 to take charge of his property in person a series of misfortunes awaited him. Cold weather and the ravages of the Hessian fly reduced the crops of 1810 and 1811. The interruption of our foreign trade by the Embargo and Non-Intercourse Acts closed valuable markets to his tobacco and raised the price of necessary commodities, like farm implements and clothing for his slaves, to a ruinous figure. The war with Great Britain still further aggravated the distress by its close blockade of Chesapeake Bay. And when the war was over an entirely new economic adjustment followed. The fluid capital of the North was turned into mills and factories. The planters of the South

carried their slaves across the Alleghanies into the rich Gulf and river lands of the Mississippi Territory. The value of the upland acres sank, and the farming gentry declined before the rising barons of the cotton plantation. There is no more pathetic picture in our economic history than the gradual decay of the splendid estates of the old families of Virginia, whom neither poverty nor penury could wean from their generous traditions of social dignity and limitless hospitality.

It was not alone the inexorable laws of economic displacement that brought Jefferson into financial straits. Rigid economy in his household and on his estate would have allowed him to finish his days in ease and comfort, if not in affluence. But Jefferson could not practise economy. He had expensive tastes. He loved rare books and fine horses. Even so complete a connoisseur as Daniel Webster waxed enthusiastic over the quality of his wines. He was still spending considerable sums on his beloved mansion of Monticello, thirty years after he had brought his bride to its new chambers through the deep snow of New Year's night, 1772. The doors of Monticello were never closed to friend or stranger. Besides his own numerous family of dependants, sisters, nephews, nieces, sons-in-law, and grandchildren, he supported a constant train of guests, invited and uninvited. They came with their families and servants and horses and carriages. They stayed for