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THE PIONEERS.
115

ject of grace and free-will amongst the tenantry of Marmaduke; and, when we take into consideration the variety of the religious instruction which they received, it can easily be seen, that it could not well be otherwise.

Soon after the village had been formally laid out, into the streets and blocks that resembled a city, a meeting of its inhabitants had been convened, to take into consideration the propriety of establishing an Academy! This measure originated with Richard, who, in truth, was much disposed to have the institution designated a University, or at least a College. Meeting after meeting was held, for this purpose, year after year. The resolutions of these assemblages appeared in the most conspicuous columns of a little, blue-looking newspaper, that was already issued weekly from the garret of a dwelling-house in the village, and which the traveller might as often see, stuck into the fissure of a stake, that had been erected, at the point where the footpath from the log cabin of some settler entered the highway, as a post-office for an individual. Sometimes the stake supported a small box, and a whole neighbourhood received a weekly supply, for their literary wants, at this point, where the man who "rides post," regularly deposited a bundle of the precious commodity. To these flourishing resolutions, which briefly recounted the general utility of education, the political and geographical rights of the village of Templeton, to a participation in the favours of the regents of the university, and the salubrity of the air, and wholesomeness of the water, together with the cheapness of food, and the superior state of morals in the neighbourhood, were uniformly annexed, in large Roman capitals, the names of Marmaduke Temple, as chairman, and Richard Jones, as secretary.