We cannot, we must not, Sir, omit to give our public testimony of your unwearied diligence and attention to cultivate and improve our minds in solid learning and useful knowledge; and, Gentlemen, it would be unjust, if we did not make the same acknowledgment for your constant care to make our situation, in regard to our bodies, easy, comfortable, and every way convenient, and as we have nothing to repay you, but our prayers for your welfare, both in time and eternity, and our best thanks, we hope you will kindly accept this tribute of our grateful hearts.
¹ The Tutor and the Managers.
_Young Gentlemen_, (the Boarders.)
You are happy in having parents, who have both inclination and means to pay for your education. I have none. But to you, Gentlemen, I must own my obligation for having the opportunity of an education I could not, from my situation, have expected, had not your parents enabled our worthy Executor to employ so able a Tutor, as we now have, to instruct us, and I hope we shall shew, that his assiduity, care and pains, will have the desired effect.
_My fellow Orphans_,
What shall I say to excite your gratitude? I hope the memory of our late Benefactor, who has laboured incessantly for me, for you, and many others, who have partaken of the benefit of this institution, since its first foundation, will be deeply engraven in our hearts, and remembered with the greatest reverence and gratitude. This is all we have in our power, in return for such unmerited favours, and if this, our small tribute, should be wanting, we must, we shall be justly deemed the most ungrateful to our deceased Benefactor, who encountered innumerable, uncommon, and unknown difficulties, in carrying on this institution, notwithstanding he was maligned, traduced, and persecuted, with unrelenting virulence, as a cheat, an impostor, a public robber, and as one, who, under the specious pretence of promoting a charitable design, was amassing great wealth to himself; all which he bore with an uncommon degree of patience. Let me add, that GOD has been graciously pleased to provide for you, and for me, beyond many, very many in our circumstances. We are _here_ daily taught the great and fundamental truths of the gospel of the Son of GOD, have plenty of the necessaries of life, and are carefully educated to qualify us to get a comfortable subsistence, and make us useful members of society. Let us therefore make a proper improvement of these mercies, and let us, my dear fellow Orphans, be thankful to GOD, the Father of all, for them, not only with our lips, but in our lives, by giving up ourselves to his service, and by walking before him in holiness and righteousness all our days, through JESUS CHRIST our LORD.
_May it please your Excellency, Reverend Gentlemen, Gentlemen and Ladies_,
I fear I have trespassed on your patience, and humbly entreat you to pardon the poor attempt of a youth unaccustomed to speak before so respectable an audience.”
After this the Rev. Mr. _Edward Ellington_, minister of the parish of _St. Bartholomew_, in _South Carolina_, read prayers, and preached a sermon very suitable to the occasion, from _Matthew_ xviii. 20. Divine service being ended, the young gentlemen of the academy repeated several passages taken from some of the most approved _English_ authors, in such a manner as appeared agreeably to engage the attention and to meet with the entire approbation of the company. Then Mr. _Edward Langworthy_, their Tutor, addressed the company as follows:
“_May it please your Excellency, Gentlemen and Ladies_,
Having observed the attention of your Excellency to the exercises of this morning, and the marks of pleasure and approbation so visible in all the Gentlemen and Ladies now present, I think it my duty, with the warmest gratitude, to acknowledge the honour your Excellency and this respectable audience have conferred on this institution. The young gentlemen that just now spoke before your Excellency, have not been long under my tuition; they are indeed _young_, and scarce initiated in the first principles of literature; however, I flatter myself that these feeble attempts will be favourably received, and that hereafter they will be enabled to exhibit something more worthy of your attention and approbation.