Although John Durburrow Blair's place in literary history depends solely on a relatively small number of published sermons, he also deserves remembrance for the tenor of rational enlightenment which he fostered in most aspects of his life, which, besides the ministry, also included his work as an educator and a patriot. An urbane rationalist who clearly enjoyed the social pleasures of Richmond, where he lived for the last thirty years of his life, Blair was distinctly one of the gentlemen theologians who inhabited most cities in Virginia and surrounding states during the early years of the nineteenth century. Perhaps no single circumstance of his life better illustrates the reasonable temperament of the man than his sharing with Rev. John Buchanan the pastoral duties of St. John's Church in Richmond; for many years they alternated Sundays as preacher to the congregation, which seemed not to mind that Blair was...