Page:History of the University of Pennsylvania - Montgomery (1900).djvu/353

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History of the University of Pennsylvania.
349

who were now honored with the College degree. Dr. Smith's sermon, preached before the Convention on the day subsequent to the Commencement, forms the sixth in the Volume of his Discourses of 1762. A second Convention was held in 1761, and the clergy who were attending it went to the Commence- ment of that year which was held on Saturday, 23 May, in a body, when Dr. Smith preached in the College Hall before them. 2 This was held in the College of this City, before a vast concourse of People of all Ranks. * * * There was performed in the Forenoon an elegant Anthem composed by JAMES LYONS, A. M., of New Jersey College, and in the afternoon an Ode, sacred to the Memory of our late gracious Sov- ereign George II., written and set to Music in a very grand and masterly Taste by FRANCIS HOPKINSON, Esq., A. M., of the College of this city. A sett of Ladies and Gentlemen in order to do Honour to the Entertain- ment of the Day, were kindly pleased to perform a Part both of the Anthem and Ode, accompanied by the Organ, which made the Music a very compleat and agreeable Entertainment to all present. An all day Commencement in our time would not be per- mitted in the busy life of the present ; but certainly the young graduates of that time must have had a higher esteem and love for their Alma Mater who thus made the occasion of their entering upon their first Degrees the scene of a two sessions' entertainment which was so " compleat and agreeable " to all present. At this commencement there graduated, William Flem- ing, Marcus Grimes, James Hooper, John Huston, William Kinnersley, the son of the Professor, Matthew McHenry, Abraham Ogden, Richard Peters, the nephew of Dr. Peters, Joseph Shippen, a nephew of Dr. William Shippen, Tench Tilghman, Washington's Aide-de-Camp, Henry Waddell, Alex- ander Wilcocks, and Jasper Yeates, 3 afterwards a Justice of the 2 Smith, i. 276. Pennsylvania Gazette, 28 May, 1761. This is Sermon XVIII, of Smith's Works of 1803, ii. 337, and is there described as "first preached before the Trustees, Masters and Scholars of the College and Academy of Philadel- phia at the Anniversary Commencement, May, 1761 ; " but it is the same sermon which he preached at the first commencement, and is known as No. V. in his Discourses of 1759. 3 His daughter Mary married in 1791, Charles Smith, the son of Provost Smith.