The extract from a letter to one of his friends, which Dr. Rush has quoted in his _Eulogium_ on Rittenhouse, furnishes additional testimony, if, indeed, any were wanting, of the exalted sense of Divine Goodness, that was entertained by our pious philosopher: “Give me leave,” says he, “to mention two or three proofs of infinite Goodness, in the works of Creation. The first is, possessing goodness in ourselves. Now it is inconsistent with all just reasoning to suppose, that there is any thing good, lovely or praiseworthy, in us, which is not possessed in an infinitely higher degree by that Being who first called us into existence. In the next place, I reckon the exquisite and innocent delight, that many things around us are calculated to afford us. In this light, the beauty and fragrance of a single rose is a better argument for Divine Goodness, than a luxuriant field of wheat. For, if we can suppose that we were created by a malevolent Being, with a design to torment us for his amusement, he must have furnished us with the means of subsistence, and either have made our condition tolerable, or not have left the means of quitting it at pleasure, in our own power. Such being my opinions, you will not wonder at my fondness for what Mr. Addison calls _The Pleasures of Imagination_: they are all, to me, so many demonstrations of Infinite Goodness.” That such were also the sentiments of one of the greatest philosophers of the seventeenth century, a man alike celebrated as a profound Mathematician, and a learned and pious Divine, is apparent from the following passage, in the first of Dr. Barrow’s two _Discourses on the Goodness of God_. “Every pleasant object we view, every sweet and savoury morsel we taste, every fragrancy we smell, every harmony we hear; the wholesome, the cheering, the useful, yea, the innocent and inoffensive qualities of every thing we do use and enjoy,” said this excellent person, “are so many conspicuous arguments of Divine Goodness.” ----- It is an observation of a judicious biographer,[A] that “nothing can awaken the attention, nothing affect the heart of man, more strongly, than the behaviour of eminent personages in their last moments; in that only scene of life where we are all sure, later or sooner, to resemble them.” The writer of these Memoirs feels a sort of pensive gratification, in having it in his power to announce the manner in which the great American Astronomer deported himself, during the closing scene of his life: The following information on this head, was communicated by the writer’s brother, Professor Barton, the deceased’s nephew and friend,—for some years, also, his family-physician; and who, in his medical capacity, attended him in the whole of his last illness. ----- Footnote A: Mr. Mallet, in his Life of Lord Chancellor Bacon. ----- ---