Page:History of the University of Pennsylvania - Montgomery (1900).djvu/409

enced in the Foundation of this Seminary. * * * Slavery and irreligion were too frequently the offspring of Ignorance, and that the best and surest preservative from both was the good and careful Education of our Youth. This was the Plan upon which we set out at first, and we trust that we have ever since invariably adhered to it. [To Thomas Penn, they wrote grace- fully accepting his decision in regard to the Perkasie lands and conclude :] Dr Smith in all his Letters mentions the ready Assistance which you have been pleased from time to time most cheerfully to afford him. We have indeed experienced repeated Instances of your paternal regard for our Semi- nary, from its very Foundation. But your kind Patronage and Countenance of our present pious Design, your late exemplary Contributions, your warm and affectionate Recommendations of it to persons of the highest Rank and Fortune in the Kingdom by which you have prepared the way for the Suc- cess with which it has been and is like to be attended, together with the Zeal and Influence which you have exerted in obtaining a Royal Brief in order to render the Charity universal, call for the highest returns of Grati- tude that we can possibly make. But meanwhile the Provost was busy in preparations for his journeyings in England, heralded by the Brief. This was sent by the instrumentality of what were known as Brief Layers, men who were appointed attorneys for the purpose by Dr. Smith and Dr. Jay to send a duly stamped copy of the Brief to each clergy- man in the Kingdom, and as there were eleven thousand five hundred of these in the Kingdom, even to furnish a majority of these with a certified copy of the Brief was a labor to the Brief Layers and so much revenue to the government. 1 John Byrd, John Hall and John Stevenson, in the Borough of Strafford, Gen- tlemen, were on 24 August appointed the Brief Layers, who from the " money thereon collected," were to deduct out of the same the sum of Six Pence a Parish Chapel or meeting for every Brief duly certified and endorsed which shall by them be col- lected and received back from all Places (except within the city of London and weekly Bills of mortality and therein the sum of twelve Pence, ) as the full salary and charge for Laying down, collecting and receiving back the said Briefs. On 26 August Dr. Smith wrote to the Archbishop of York, ask- ing his aid in the Northern Province : these things are most honestly and dutifully submitted to your Grace, 1 Smith, i. 306.