Thomas Jefferson was fiercely assailed by the Federal party,
including nearly all of the clergy of the country, as not only
depraved in heart and life, but as a blatant infidel, for whom
the yawning abyss of wo, with its eternal torments, was none
too severe a doom. Not long since a man died at Rhinebeck who,
when an infant, was taken into the Reformed Dutch Church in that
town to be baptized. After the clergyman had received the child
in his arms the father gave the name to be applied as “Thomas
Jefferson,” who was then President. “It would be blasphemy,”
said the minister, “to call that name in the house of God; this
child’s name is John,” and he finished the christening, the boy
bearing the name thus given to the day of his death.--New York
_Journal of Commerce_.
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