In closing, Washington referred to the character of Jesus, “the Divine author of our blessed religion.”32 It was a fitting ending: despite his paean to the Enlightenment, the entire circular had the pastoral tone of a spiritual father advising his flock rather than a bluff, manly soldier making a dignified farewell. The ending rose to the fervor of a benediction: “I now make it my earnest prayer that God would have you, and the state over which you preside, in his holy protection; that he would incline the hearts of the citizens to cultivate a spirit of subordination and obedience to
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