tives, they may be made rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom. Thus all their afflictions may issue in their unspeakable gain.

Such losses teach those who are the subjects of them, to trust not in the creature, but in the Creator. They tend to draw off their affections from sublunary enjoyments and objects; to show them the vanity of all hopes from them and dependence on them; and to excite them to seek another and a better portion. Deprived of their parent, their friend, their guardian, they have strong motives set before them to seek a better friend, a more bountiful benefactor, a more able protector, and a more excellent father. When our friends or relatives are removed by death, it strongly reminds us of our own death. When they are gone into the eternal world, this naturally leads us to think more of that world, and to realize that we ourselves must shortly go thither, and that therefore we ought to prepare.

3. When we are under public frowns and calamities, we ought to remember, that God reigns over nations as well as over individuals; that we may as safely leave our national, as our private concerns with him; and that with respect to these and all other things we ought to make him our refuge and our strength.

4. Under spiritual troubles our obligation to have recourse to God for help is, if possible, still greater, than when we are under troubles of any other kind. For our dependence on him in this case is more immediate and more manifest than in any other. Who but he can heal the broken spirit, can forgive sins, can sanctify the soul or can save from eternal perdition? And he is abundantly and infinitely able and is ready to grant these spiritual and inestimable blessings to those who truly apply to him for them.

III. It was proposed to show, that he is a very present help in trouble.

He is always immediately present with us both as to time and place. We cannot escape from his presence. He therefore is always at hand to receive our applications, to hear our prayers, and to afford us help. This is certainly a very great advantage. Help at a very great distance either of time or place is not to be compared to that which is present. Before it shall arrive, we may be wholly overwhelmed and ruined.

Thus I have briefly considered the several subjects, which seemed naturally to arise from our text; I am now to apply these general observations to the present mournful occasion. The present is a time of trouble and affliction. The death of that eminent and excellent man, whose remains are now to be laid in the dust, is a source of affliction in several respects; it is so to his family, to all his friends, to the church of which he was a mem

ber, to this city, to the State and to the United States. In this death they have all sustained a loss.

That we may rightly estimate this loss, and be properly humbled under the divine chastisement, let us take a brief survey of his life and character.

He was born at Newtown in Massachusetts, April 19, 1721. He was the son of Mr. William Sherman, the son of Joseph Sherman Esq., the son of Capt. John Sherman, who came from Dedham in England to Watertown in Massachusetts, about the year 1635. He was not favored with a public education or even with a private tutor. His superior improvements arose from his superior genius, from his thirst for knowledge and from his personal exertions and indefatigable industry in the pursuit of it.* By these he attained to a very considerable share of knowledge in general, particularly in his own native language, in logic, geography, mathematics, the general principles of philosophy, history, theology and above all in law and politics. These last were his favorite studies, and in these he excelled. If he in this manner attained to the same improvements and capacity of usefulness, to which others attain not without the greatest advantages of education, how far would he have outstripped them, had he been favored with their advantages?

His father died when he was but nineteen years old, and from that time the care of his mother, who lived to a great age, and the education of a numerous family of brothers and sisters, were devolved on him. In this part of his life filial piety to a parent at length worn out by age both as to body and mind; and fraternal affection to his brothers and sisters now in a good measure dependent on him, appeared in an unusual degree. Though cramped in his own education, he assisted by advancements of his own property, two of his brethren to a liberal education.

Before he was twenty-one, he made a public profession of religion, which he adorned through life.

He came to this then Colony of Connecticut and settled at New Milford in June, 1743, being then twenty-two years of age; and at the age of twenty-eight was married to Miss Elizabeth Hartwell of Stoughton in Massachusetts, by whom he had seven children, two of whom died young at New Milford, and two since he resided in this town. His wife died in October, 1760. At New Milford he was much respected by his fellow citizens

* Hence with great propriety the poet speaking of the declaration of independence by Congress, in which Mr. Sherman acted a distinguished part, says,

The self-taught Sherman urged his reasons clear.---Humphreys' Poems.

and much employed in public business. In 1745, within two years of his removal into the Colony, and when he was of the age of twenty-four, he was appointed a surveyor of lands for the county in which he resided; which is a proof of his early improvement in mathematical knowledge.

Although he was not educated a lawyer, yet by his abilities and application he had acquired such knowledge in the law, and such a reputation as a counsellor, that he was persuaded by his friends to come forward to the bar, and was accordingly admitted an attorney at law, in December, 1754. The next year he was appointed a justice of the peace and was chosen by the freemen of the town to represent them in the legislature, as he was generally thenceforward, during his continuance at New Milford. Also he sustained the office of a deacon in the church in that town.

He continued to practise the law with reputation, till May, 1759, when he was appointed a justice of the court of common pleas for the county.

He removed to this town in the year 1761. Having lost his wife, as was before observed, he was in May, 1763, married to Miss Rebecca Prescot of Danvers in Massachusetts, by whom he had eight children, seven of whom are now living.

After his removal to this town, he was made a justice of the peace for the county of New Haven, frequently representing the town in the legislature, and in 1765 was appointed one of the justices of the court of common pleas for this county. He was for many years the treasurer of the college in this city, and received an honorary degree of Master of Arts.

In 1766 he was by the voice of the freemen of the Colony at large, chosen an Assistant, and in the same year was appointed a Judge of the Superior Court. This last office he sustained for twenty-three years, and the office of an Assistant for nineteen years; after which the law was enacted rendering the two offices incompatible and he chose to continue in the office of a Judge.

He was a member of the first Congress in 1774; he was present and signed the glorious act of Independence in 1776; and invariably continued a member of Congress, from the first Congress till his death, whenever the law requiring a rotation in the representation admitted it.

In the time of the war he was a member of the Governor's Council of safety of this State.

About the close of the late war, the legislature of this State resolved, that the laws of the State should be revised and amended; and Mr. Sherman was one of a committee of two, to whom

this service was assigned; their proceedings being subject to correction by the legislature itself; and he performed this arduous service with great approbation.

In 1787 he was appointed by the State a delegate to the General Convention to form the federal constitution of the United States; and he acted a conspicuous part in that business. In the convention of this State to deliberate concerning that constitution, he had great influence toward the adoption of it by this State.

On the general adoption and ratification of the constitution, he was elected a representative of the State in Congress. As this office was incompatible with the office of a Judge, he then resigned the latter and sustained the former till the year 1791, at which time a vacancy for this State happening in the Senate of the United States, he was elected to fill it; and in this office he continued till his death.

On repeating thus briefly the history of this eminent and excellent man, it is worthy of remark, that though he sustained so many different offices in civil government, to all which he was promoted by the free election of his fellow citizens, and in most of which he could not, without a new election, continue longer than a year; and in the rest, except one, he could not, without a new election, continue longer than two, three or four years; and although for all these offices there were, as there always are in popular governments, many competitors at every election; yet our deceased friend was never removed from any one of them, but by promotion or by act of legislature requiring a rotation, or rendering the offices incompatible with each other. Nor with the restriction just mentioned, did he ever lose his election to any office, to which he had been once elected, excepting his election as a representative of the town in the legislature of the State; which office we all know, is almost constantly shifting. This shows to how great a degree and how invariably he possessed the confidence of his fellow citizens. They found by experience, that both his abilities and his integrity merited their confidence. Beside this brief history, perhaps some further account of Mr. Sherman will on this occasion be expected.

I need not inform you, that his person was tall, unusually erect and well proportioned, and his countenance agreeable and manly. His abilities were remarkable, not brilliant, but solid, penetrating and capable of deep and long investigation. In such investigation he was greatly assisted by his patient and unremitting application and perseverance. While others weary of a short attention to business, were relaxing themselves in thoughtless inattention or dissipation, he was employed in prosecuting the same

business, either by revolving it in his mind and ripening his own thoughts upon it, or in conferring with others.

It has been observed, that he had a taste for general improvement and did actually improve himself in science in general. He could with reputation to himself and improvement to others converse on the most important subjects of theology. I confess myself to have been often entertained, and in the general course of my long and intimate acquaintance with him, to have been much improved by his observations on the principal subjects of doctrinal and practical divinity.

But his proper line was politics. For usefulness and excellence in this line, he was qualified not only by his acute discernment and sound judgment, but especially by his knowledge of human nature. He had a happy talent of judging what was feasible and what was not feasible, or what men would bear, and what they would not bear in government. And he had a rare talent of prudence, or of timing and adapting his measures to the attainment of his end. By this talent, by his perseverance and his indefatigable application, together with his general good sense and known integrity, he seldom failed of carrying any point in government which he undertook and which he esteemed important to the public good. His abilities and success as a politician were successively proved in the legislature of this State and in Congress; and his great and merited influence in both those bodies, has been, I believe, universally acknowledged.

As he was always industrious, he was always ready to discharge the various duties of his various offices. In the discharge of those duties, as well as in the more private offices of friendship, he was firm and might be depended on.

That he was generous and ready to communicate, I can testify from my own experience. He was ready to bear his part of the expense of those designs, public and private, which he esteemed useful; and he was given to hospitality.

As he was a professor of religion, so he was not ashamed to befriend it, to appear openly on the Lord's side, or to avow and defend the peculiar doctrines of grace. He was exemplary in attending all the institutions of the gospel, in the practice of virtue in general and in showing himself friendly to all good men. Therefore in his death, virtue, religion and good men have sustained the loss of a sincere, an able and a bold friend, a friend who was in an elevated situation, and who was therefore by his countenance and support able to afford them the more effectual aid.

In private life, though he was naturally reserved and of few words, yet in conversation on matters of importance, he was free