Page:History of the University of Pennsylvania - Montgomery (1900).djvu/299

This man devoted to the duties of his profession, faithful in all social relations, of a winning influence in the community, was yet without firmness in the hour of his country's trial, for which he had strange inconsistency offered such fervent prayers to Heaven. His brother-in-law Francis Hopkinson writes him: Our intimacy has been of a long duration, even from our early youth; long and uninterrupted without even a rub in the way; and so long have the sweetness of your manners and the integrity of your heart fixed my affections. In December following Duche sailed for England, and his wife and family followed in 1780. In 1779 Mr. Duche published two volumes of Sermons, and in time he received the appointment as Chaplain of the Asylum in St George's Fields. He sought a return to Philadelphia at the close of the war, but it was not encouraged, as time alone could allay the bitter feelings aroused among his old people by his course in 1777. Yet when William White went to England for consecration in 1787 he sought out his former Rector and Pastor, who was present at Lambeth on 4 February to witness the consecration of White and Provoost. When he returned finally to Philadelphia, in May, 1792, he was the guest of Bishop White, during which time the latter arranged his visit to President Washington who had been apprised of it and consented to it. He died 3 January, 1798, and was buried in St. Peter's churchyard. Of his oratorical powers Bishop White records: The next best reader of the Prayers [after Whitefield], within the sphere of the acquaintance of the present writer, was a gentleman already mentioned under the head of preaching, the Rev. Mr. Duche. He was perhaps not inferior to Mr Whitefield in the correctness of his pronunciation. His voice was remarkably sweet; although short of the voice of the other gentleman in the compass of its powers, and especially in modulation. Mr Duche was frequently oratorical in his sermons, but never so in the reading of the prayers; although always read by him with signs of unaffected seriousness and devotion. 2 2 Commentaries Suited to Occasions of Ordination, New York, 1833, p. 183; On his memorising his sermons, caused by near sightedness, v. p. 169. "The only clergyman here known to have derived advantage from memorising his sermons