, and to maintain
their confidence undiminished in the wisdom and integrity of their
functionaries. _Macte virtute_ therefore. Continue to go straight
forward, pursuing always that which is right, as the only clue which can
lead us out of the labyrinth. Let nothing be spared of either reason or
passion, to preserve the public confidence entire, as the only rock
of our safety. In times of peace the people look most to their
representatives; but in war, to the executive solely. It is visible that
their confidence is even now veering in that direction; that they are
looking to the executive to give the proper direction to their affairs,
with a confidence as auspicious as it is well founded.

I avail myself of this, the first occasion of writing to you, to express
all the depth of my affection for you; the sense I entertain of your
faithful co-operation in my late labors, and the debt I owe for
the valuable aids I received from you. Though separated from my
fellow-laborers in place and pursuit, my affections are with you all,
and I offer daily prayers that ye love one another, as I love you. God
bless you.

Th: Jefferson.

LETTER LXXXVII.*--TO SAMUEL KERCHEVAL, February 19,1810

TO SAMUEL KERCHEVAL.

Monticello, February 19,1810.

[* This letter is endorsed, 'not sent.']

Sir,

Yours of the 7th instant has been duly received, with the pamphlet
enclosed, for which I return you my thanks. Nothing can be more exactly
and seriously true than what is there stated; that but a short time
elapsed after the death of the great reformer of the Jewish religion,
before his principles were departed from by those who professed to
be his special servants, and perverted into an engine for enslaving
mankind, and aggrandizing their oppressors in Church and State; that
the purest system of morals ever before preached to man, has been
adulterated and sophisticated by artificial constructions, into a mere
contrivance to filch wealth and power to themselves; that rational men
not being able to swallow their impious heresies, in order to force
them down their throats, they raise the hue and cry of infidelity, while
themselves are the greatest obstacles to the advancement of the real
doctrines of Jesus, and do in fact constitute the real Anti-Christ.

You expect that your book will have some effect on the prejudices
which the society of Friends entertain against the present and late
administrations. In this I think you will b