Old  men  of  the  neighborhood  used  to  remember  young  Jefferson
riding  over  to  the  service  on  Sunday  morning,  with  a  small  folding-
chair of  his  own  contriving  hung  to  his  saddle,  upon  which  he  sat
in  the  court-room.  By  and  by,  when  the  Episcopalians  were  ready
to  build  their  church,  he  drew  the  plan  ;  and  the  edifice  which  re-
sulted, Bishop  Meade  testifies,  was  better  adapted  to  the  purposes
of  a  church  than  many  modern  buildings  much  more  costly.  This
church  still  stands.
We  may  say,  therefore,  that  if  the  church  of  his  youth  and
early  manhood  did  not  materially  assist  in  the  formation  of  his  char-
acter, it  did  not  place  obstacles  in  the  way  of  his  mental  growth.
He  was  unrestricted  in  his  reading.  It  would  not  have  been  so  if
he  had  come  to  college  twenty  years  sooner.  Bishop  Meade  men-
tions that  when,  about  1740,  *'  the  first  mfidel  book  was  imported
into  Virginia,"  it  created  such  excitement  that  the  governor  and
president  of  the  college  wrote  to  the  authorities  in  England  about


60  MFB  OP  THOMAS  JEFFERSON.
it.  Governor  Fauquier  would  not  have  taken  so  much  tronble.
They  had  such  works  in  Boston  as  early  as  1720,  as  Franklin
records,  who  read  and  was  convinced  by  them.  Jefferson,  when  a
law-student,  could  not  have  had  many  books  at  Williamsburg ;  but
we  know  that  among  his  books  was"  an  edition  of  Hume's  Essays,
because  ho  speaks  of  having  lent  two  of  the  volumes  to  Patrick
Henry.  Few  young  men  of  Jefferson's  cast  of  mind  have  ever  read
Hume's  "Essay  on  Miracles  "  without  being  much  influenced  by  it,
at  least  for  a  time.
