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must have been very much advanced, for her talent of expression caused considerable astonishment in the educated circles of New England. Her poem on Harvard was written in 1767. In 1768 she composed verses addressed to "The Kings Most Excellent Majesty." In 1770, little older than sixteen years, she published "An Elegiac Poem on the Death of George Whitefield," a poem that has been reprinted quite a number of times, oftener perhaps than we know of. A little later her mistress became the wife of the Rev. John Latrop, Pastor of the Second Church in Boston.
Soon after this Phillis was received into the bosom of the Holy Church. Rev. Samuel Sewall christened her and as Phillis, the servant of Mr. Wheatley, she became a member of the Old South Church in Boston. Her religious life and her life as a member of the Church are truly remarkable. The sublimity of her thoughts, her comprehension of the subtlest ideas of the Christian Church are clearly shown in her poems and letters. I cite a poem:
"T was Mercy brought me from pagan land,
Taught my benighted soul to understand
That there's a God, that there's a Saviour too;
Once I redemption neither sought or knew,
Some view our race with scornfull eye--
"Their colors is a diabolic dye"
Remember, Christians, Negroes black as Cain,
May be refined and join th' angelic train."
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