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ft.!re Statb of Jttr. fflclistcr: 
 
 SERMON 
 
 PREACHED 11* 
 
 HOLLIS-STREET MEETING-HOUSE, 
 
 ON SUNDAY, OCT. 31, 1852. 
 
 BY THOMAS STARR KING, 
 
 ft 
 
 PASTOR OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 
 BENJAMIN H. GREENE, 
 
 124, Washington Street. 
 
 1852. 
 

 BOSTON: 
 
 PRINTED UY JuIlN (7ILS05 IKD BOK, - rRPFT. 
 
 
SERMON 
 
 Daniel vi. 3 : — " Then* this daxiel was preferred above the presi- 
 dents AND PRINCES, BECAUSE AN EXCELLENT SPIRIT WAS IN HIM J AND 
 THE KING THOUGHT TO SET HIM OVER THE WHOLE REALM." 
 
 There is but one subject that can engage our 
 thoughts in the church to-day. A great sor- 
 row saturates the air. The solemn sense of 
 irreparable loss weighs down the spirits of the 
 American people. Out from the heart of the 
 land has burst a grief, of which the official 
 symbols — the sobbing of cannon, the mourn- 
 ing drapery, the lowered flags, the public reso- 
 lutions — are, for once, the honest and feeble 
 signs. The whole feeling of the nation, like a 
 conscious weeping willow, arches its vast re- 
 spect, and droops its sensitive foliage over one 
 new-made grave. 
 
The words I have selected from the Old 
 Testament are perfectly applicable as an ex- 
 pression of the greatness which has recently 
 been stricken from the living forces of our 
 country. He was preferred above all presi- 
 dents and princes. The highest office would 
 have been nothing but the proper pedestal, to 
 set the proportions of his greatness in their 
 appropriate position and relief. The largest 
 honors would have been onlv the natural dra- 
 pery of his broad shoulders. If all the great 
 men of this generation could have been col- 
 lected from all nations, it is probable that no 
 one would have been found to deserve the pre- 
 eminent place for massiveness and majesty of 
 mind, and to stand forth, by honorable elec- 
 tion, as " the foremost man of all this world," 
 so much as he whose mortal life lias re- 
 cently been quenched. 
 
 But, however this may be, it cannot be 
 questioned that the crown of our national 
 genius has been snatched away by death. By 
 commou consent of the most eminent in our 
 land. — the orators, the lawyers, the states- 
 
.^ 
 
 men, — he was their leader, whose supremacy 
 they cheerfully allowed. His brow was, for 
 more than a generation, a prominent part of 
 our natural scenery. His was the great gra- 
 nite face, like that on the Franconia Mountain 
 in New Hampshire, standing out from the 
 solid ridges of our New England intellect and 
 character, and overlooking the land. Him and 
 the great cataract of the lakes, we boasted of to 
 other states as the chief glories of our country. 
 It would have been grand, if, in the fulness of 
 his vigor, and before any controversies of his 
 political honor arose, he could have stood in 
 the most eminent place of our country, — the 
 magnificent entablature, dignifying and com- 
 pleting the various columns of its genius. 
 He did not have this proper setting for his 
 powers; but he did stand highest by his 
 native sublimity. In the regard of those 
 whose opinion is lasting fame, in the respect 
 of foreign eyes, he stood, as he will stand 
 in history, preferred, for mental greatness, 
 above all the presidents and princes that were 
 more distinguished by office. 
 
" Pygmies are pygmies — r ill , though perched on Alps ; 
 And pyramids are pyramids in vales." 
 
 How can it be otherwise than that the sud- 
 den disappearance of this colossal greatness 
 
 from the moral landscape of the world should 
 shock all hearts with emotions thai affecl the 
 
 lowest strata of our sensibility ! [f the tidings 
 had been borne to us that some of the perma- 
 nent wonders of nature had been obliterated, 
 that an earthquake had shaken down the 
 great range of the Himalayas, or ingulfed the 
 majesty of Mont Blanc in its black bosom, or 
 had levelled the rock over which Niagara has 
 roared for ages, our minds could not have been 
 so startled with a feeling of the mysterious 
 power that envelopes us, as now that we 
 learn — 
 
 *' This mighty spirit is eclipsed ; this power 
 Hath passed from day to darkness ; to whose hour 
 Of light no likeness is bequeathed, no name, — 
 Focus at once of all the rays of fame ! " 
 
 What visitation of Providence can thrill the 
 citizens of our country, especially of New 
 England, with more solemn thoughts than to 
 know that the majestic presence — " how 
 
noble in reason ! how infinite in faculty ! in 
 form and moving how express and admirable ! 
 in action how like an angel ! in apprehension 
 how like a god! " — is never more to be seen 
 of men ; that the greatest nature our land has 
 reared since Washington was born is never 
 more to guide our councils and ennoble our 
 Capitol ; that the book of his activity is 
 sealed ; and that he is now to be a treasure of 
 memory, a silent grandeur, in the quiet halls 
 of history, — a force and an ornament belong- 
 ing to the past ? 
 
 This is not the place, of course, for any 
 eulogy, or even an analysis of the powers, of 
 the departed statesman. That which would be 
 extravagance if said of most great men is the 
 simple statement of his intellectual power. 
 And yet, in speaking of his genius, we should 
 be careful not to weaken our eulogium by 
 doing injustice to the breadth of the field of 
 genius. There are kinds of greatness of 
 which his mental constitution did not largely 
 partake. To the rank of explorers and dis- 
 coverers, — men who anticipate history and 
 
8 
 
 hasten destiny, and who stand far ahead of the 
 vanguard of humanity, holding up the flame 
 of a new truth, winch their intellectual Are 
 had kindled, that flashes light into the unex- 
 plored pathway of the future. — he did not 
 belong. He was made to be an institutional- 
 ist, rather than a prophet. His mission was to 
 comprehend, purify, conserve, and strengthen 
 the good structures which society has already 
 gained, to widen and confirm their possible 
 blessings for the race, rather than to meditate 
 a new order, even though it might be a higher 
 one, which could be reached only by disruption 
 of established ties, and through the turmoil of 
 revolution. The natural attitude of his mind 
 was reverence for the beneficent truth and 
 institutions which the past bequeathed. He 
 was the profound interpreter of the practical 
 wisdom embodied in political systems, and the 
 potent defender of it against the misappre- 
 hension of ignorance, the perversion of party 
 interests, and the hand of heedless innovation. 
 He estimated the positive social good which 
 rooted institutions disburse, even though many 
 
evils wore incidental to them, of really more 
 account than the ghastly theories of perfect 
 good, which beckon away so many flighty and 
 adventurous intellects from the solid road of 
 slow and steady progress. 
 
 He had the combination of powers, temper, 
 and discipline, that make a safe and successful 
 administrative statesman ; and his intellect 
 was just the ally which our system of govern- 
 ment most needed, at the time when he entered 
 public life, to set forth its wisdom, to unfold the 
 beautiful symmetry of its structure and powers, 
 and to hold it up to the admiration and grati- 
 tude of the country, that the affections of the 
 people might fasten upon it, like the tendrils 
 of the ivy upon the solid castle- wall. 
 
 The whole structure of our Constitution ; the 
 grandeur and marvel of its combinations, as 
 relieved against the miserable patchwork of 
 the old confederation ; its originality among 
 the political edifices of history ; the skill with 
 which its forces are balanced, and the oase of 
 their working, — were comprehended in his 
 intellect as the mind of a mechanic compre- 
 2 
 
10 
 
 hends the idea of a machine which his genius 
 has invented. He was the epic poet of th< 
 Convention of 1787. His sympathies were 
 less with the Eevolution than with the builders 
 and the erection of our present national polity. 
 Our whole governmental America; the bands 
 that connect the State forces with the vivify- 
 ing power of the central administration ; the 
 complex harmony of judiciary and executive, 
 military and legislative powers ; the ligaments 
 that could sustain the greatest strain, and 
 the delicate tendons where it needed the 
 most tender handling and the most perma- 
 nent safeguards ; the safe vents supplied in it 
 for popular passion, and the cylinders that 
 must constantlv condense the force of unre- 
 lenting law, — all played in his brain as a 
 vital and complicated conception, whose ni; 
 nificence he revered, and whose beauty was the 
 constant inspiration of his heart. The work 
 of the great Convention that framed our go- 
 vernment seems nobler as reflected in his 
 capacious understanding, and as its ideal reds 
 and beams and valves worked without friction 
 
11 
 
 in the bright medium of his imagination, than 
 it probably seemed to the hot intellects of 
 those who had just completed their task, and 
 left it outlined on immortal parchment. 
 
 The idea of the Union, which to many minds 
 is an abstraction, and too often is the custo- 
 mary expletive of a demagogue's vile morality 
 and feeble thought, Avas with him the vivid 
 and adequate symbol of the greatness and 
 the privileges, the power and the peace, of 
 the republic. It seemed as though his eye 
 always took in the moral and civil scenery of 
 the country, — its thousands of happy homes, 
 its schools and churches, its factories and 
 workshops, the vast fleets of its commerce, 
 and the widening line of civilization, before 
 which the wilderness was falling ; and then, 
 when he spoke, made the word Union embody 
 all the gladness and grandeur which so much 
 prosperity and plenty, so much order and 
 happiness, awakened in his breast. For this 
 reason it was, we must believe, that he called 
 on his countrymen to cherish the sentiments 
 that should make that word sacred. For this 
 
12 
 
 reason he used continually the awful imagery 
 of the breaking up of constellations, and of 
 
 anarchy in the firmament, to state the tenors 
 and the woes that would attend an explosion 
 of the forces that hind our states together. 
 EQs intellect appreciated the wisdom of their 
 combination, and felt, too, the delicacy of their 
 pois . Not that he was indifferent to the 
 evils which are covered and partially main- 
 tained by our great national bond: but lie 
 would not look at the evils exclusively or 
 minutely. He saw an immense overbalance 
 of good, — benefits more various, more sub- 
 stantial, and more precious, than any polity 
 on earth had ever secured to men. These the 
 word Union represented; these, to his mind, 
 the blotting of that word annihilated, and in 
 their place introduced discord, contention, and 
 bloody strife. 
 
 Add to this, that the great future of America 
 (if explosive passions could only be kept down) 
 charmed his imagination. He comprehended 
 what the country would be, centuries hence. 
 In swelling speech he bade future generations 
 
13 
 
 hail ; and there were times when he seemed to 
 see the upturned faces of the Saxon millions 
 yet to come, beseeching him, by their looks and 
 by their prayers, to pledge all the resources of 
 his intellect and his influence to preserve the 
 unity and peace of a nation, upon which their 
 fortunes and their happiness were cast. It 
 may be a sign of the secondary grade of his 
 genius, that the idea of right, in its abstract 
 holiness and majesty, did not burn constantly 
 before him. But no abstract principle or sen- 
 timent withdrew him from a careful measure 
 of the good which an actual system would 
 secure to men in the long run. He was not 
 led away by any enthusiasm for liberty as an 
 unbodied idea, but rejoiced in the liberties 
 which the Constitution steadily secured to a 
 continent ; and, no doubt, felt that the law of 
 right commanded him to defend and perpetuate 
 that charter, in the hope that the evils it shel- 
 tered would die out in time, while its good 
 would widen and be everlasting. 
 
 The prophetic men, who stand above all 
 systems in immediate communion with eternal 
 
u 
 
 truth and justice, command the deepest grati- 
 tude and worship of after-times. But God has 
 a use for these Herculean heroes of society. 
 And among the crowd- of legislators who have 
 no larger vision than sectional and partisan 
 passions disclose', and the -warms of politicians 
 that act only with reference to self, let us 
 gratefully confess the eminence of this man, on 
 whose brain were stamped the features of an 
 empire, whose imagination personified a go- 
 vernment, and who felt that he spoke and 
 voted for the interests of millions and the 
 hopes of posterity. 
 
 Mr. Webster was a statesman. His great- 
 ness did not consist in a capacity of concentra- 
 ting and leading the passions of large bodies 
 of people. Clay and Chatham were eminent 
 for this power. But he was a philosophical 
 statesman. He had a clear and vigorous com- 
 prehension of truth in the domain of public 
 affairs. When he succeeded, it was by the 
 force of his statement in the senate or the 
 cabinet; and his power over the people re- 
 sulted from the majesty with which lie robed 
 
15 
 
 the truth, by his argument and utterance, and 
 by the dominion which he made it exercise over 
 their reason and heart. His ample mind was 
 a spiritual state-house or capitol, rich with the 
 annals of constitutional history, tilled with 
 the stately lore of national and civil law, 
 studded with apartments that were crowded 
 with records of diplomatic wisdom, freighted 
 with the principles and statistics of public 
 economy. His eye was constructed to see the 
 truth and proprieties of national relations. He 
 knew the coasts, the shoals, and the soundings 
 of the ocean of national experience ; and his 
 arm had the vigor to grasp and guide the helm 
 of a state. His eloquence, too, had the serious 
 and self-assured strength that made it compe- 
 tent to the utterance of a nation's thought and 
 purpose. It was fit in language and manner 
 for a congress of kings. Even in his simplest 
 passages, the power of a great personality was 
 manifest. His common sense was ponderous 
 and sublime, by the momentum which his arm 
 gave it, and the dignity which his diction 
 imparted to it. Within the limits of his ge- 
 
10 
 
 nius, his powers were unsounded. No triumph 
 that he ever won seemed to require the whole 
 of his resources, or to drain the hiding-] tlaees 
 of his strength. The movement of his mind 
 was like the sluggish might of the sea. His 
 genius has thrown up into literature the most 
 brilliant spray of rhetoric and imagination; 
 but its natural manifestation was the majestic 
 ground-swell of a resistless, undeveloped, un- 
 fathomable power. 
 
 Other elements and indications of his won- 
 derful greatness would arrest our notice, in 
 any thins; like a fall treatment of the theme. 
 — the truthfulness of nature and sincerity of 
 spirit which hindered even his reason from 
 being a powerful advocate in a bad cause : the 
 dignity of his speech and bearing in all public 
 seeing, and the strenuous influence of his 
 example against the vulgar degradations of 
 congressional debate; the strong moral and 
 religious reverence that pervaded his public 
 words; the fast fidelity to Ins friends; and 
 i he tenderness which made the majesty of his 
 presence sweet and cheering in his home. 
 
17 
 
 But we cannot critically measure the outline 
 and bulk of liis nature, standing so near Lis 
 new -made grave. In what I have thus fal- 
 sa id, I have kept you too long from the grate- 
 ful and practical religious lessons that are 
 unveiled by such a life and such a death. 
 
 The great Teacher has said, "He that is 
 greatest among you, let him be your servant." 
 We are called on now devoutly to recognize 
 the beneficent ordering of Providence, that 
 makes all true wisdom and greatness generous, 
 and compels it to be a public advantage. 
 Selfishness is in the heart of the world ; but 
 the best portion of the power of pre-eminent 
 genius is saved, by a law of Providence, from 
 the control of selfishness, even if that temper 
 is in the heart of the possessor. The thoughts 
 of a large reason, the creations of a rich 
 imagination, the heroic activity of a irreat 
 patriotism, are for the people, for mankind, for 
 all time. What gratitude is due from us to 
 Heaven that it is so! A mind like Bacon- 
 burns with the passion for truth, and braces 
 up its brain to the strenuous search and 
 
18 
 
 careful demonstration of new principles that 
 rule the domain of science But he cannot 
 keep those principles for his exclusive use, 
 He cannot put a price upon them, and say, 'I 
 
 will sell them only to the rich, only to feed my 
 purse and my pride." The moment he proves 
 mid utters them in his intellectual joy, the air 
 bears them on its wings, and makes them 
 universal. It turns out that the toils and 
 victories of that intellect in its library were 
 for the benefit of humbler men, for the ad- 
 vancement of knowledge and the improvement 
 of civilization. In his desire to satisfy the 
 thirst of his own intellect, Bacon harnessed 
 himself to the whole fabric of society, and 
 strained his sinews to start the world on the 
 path of progress. The greatest of all, he was 
 the servant of all. 
 
 So, too, Shakespeare cannot patenl his 
 creations, and say. "Those only shall enjo\ 
 the fruits of m.\ genius who will pay my price 
 for the great luxury.'" The all-merciful God 
 will not sutler that, but admits the poor to 
 enjoy them, and scatters the leaves that bear 
 
11) 
 
 them into almost every home. Newton does 
 not think of the sailor, or the interests of 
 navigation, when he toils till lie lifts the moon 
 by the muscles of his logic and weighs it, and 
 proves on what pillars of law the sky-roof is 
 upheld ; but he is the intellectual attorney of 
 future ages and the human race, in all those 
 wearisome labors to unlock the hieroglyphic 
 
 O «/ XT 
 
 cipher of celestial law ; and the pay he gets is 
 gratitude, and a name printed in star-type on 
 the firmament. The patriot, when he resolves 
 to resist oppression, and peril his life rather 
 than bear the finger-weight of tyranny upon 
 his soul, lifts up the heavy mesh that holds a 
 people in its toils, in his struggles to free 
 himself, and so becomes the saviour of a 
 land. 
 
 Every magnificent brain scatters light like 
 the sun. The ample intellect that has just 
 been withdrawn from us, illustrated, in its 
 way, the beneficence of God. The nation is 
 bereaved; the people mourn; for the nation 
 has lost a great servant, the people a majestic 
 friend. God gave him a glorious mind, fit to 
 
20 
 
 do national service ; and it is compelled to do 
 that service. Whatever interests or desires 
 might draw him towards a strictly professional 
 or private Life, he cannot stay there. He rises, 
 by the natural upsoaring of his powers, to the 
 Capitol. The whole land has the benefit of 
 bis private discipline, his thought, his speech. 
 Countless farms, workshops, counting-rooms, 
 and homes, that have the deepest interest in 
 peace, have the benefit of his insight, his 
 knowledge of public law, and his cool, just 
 temper, to save them and civilization from the 
 detriment of war with our mother-land. The 
 Greeks, struggling for liberty, catch the inspi- 
 ration of his eloquence, which strengthens the 
 public opinion of the world in their behalf. 
 His fellows, that need justice, have the aid of 
 his understanding and his lips in the solemn 
 precincts of the temple of law. The whole 
 North has the advantage of his mature powers 
 to silence the malice and the taunts of southern 
 envy. Public order, that has been shocked l»y 
 a barbarous midnight murder, has the aid of 
 his arm to tear the accomplices of an assassin 
 
21 
 
 from the subtle technicalities that seem to 
 hide them from the reach of justice, and drag 
 them to their doom. And the moral sense of 
 humanity possesses his frame, and breaks out 
 through his lips, to impeach the Czar for his 
 cruelty to Hungary, and arraign him for trial 
 at the bar of the civilized world. 
 
 His work is a public one. With a hero's 
 strength he must do the hero's labor. The 
 ambition which he felt, the desire to stand 
 eminent in the world's history that was in his 
 heart, the noble emulation that stirred him, 
 were the intellectual thongs and traces by 
 which Providence kept him fastened to the 
 great public burdens which it required his 
 strength to draw. 
 
 There is nothing in public life to attract the 
 eyes and the heart of one that would taste 
 the purest and constant pleasures of life. 
 How much did the great statesman enjoy of 
 that privacy, those relaxations, the satisfac- 
 tions of those agricultural pursuits, the affec- 
 tions and repose of home, which most attracted 
 his heart? How slight the opportunities 
 
og 
 
 granted to him to retreat from the national 
 arena, and taste the happiness of life! 
 
 "He who ascends to mountain-tops shall find 
 The loftiest peaks most wrapped in clouds and snow ; 
 lie who surpasses or subdues mankind 
 Must look down on the hate of those below. 
 Though high above the sun of glory glow, 
 And far beneath the earth and ocean spread, 
 Round him are icy rocks, and loudly blow 
 Contending tempests on his naked head, 
 And thus reward the toils which to those summits led." 
 
 The tax is so severe upon political greatness 
 that no man would pay it, — the world would 
 be deprived of the benefit of such greatness, 
 if the Almighty had not provided that it 
 cannot escape the toils by which its service 
 may accrue to the human race. On the 
 score of pleasure, the powerful servant of 
 the country, whom we mourn, would not have 
 looked a moment upon all the pecuniary 
 recompense he gained for his devotion to 
 public life; but fortunately there were provi- 
 dential motives constantly weighing down the 
 yearnings of the heart, and keeping him 
 pledged to the service of society. 
 
 And then think of the detractions and slan- 
 ders, the open defamation and insult, which 
 
23 
 
 public character must bear from partisan ho- 
 stility and malice. \\ 'hat hut the order of God, 
 demanding great service from great talents, 
 could keep a man in public life against this 
 terrible warning, — the certainty of the shower 
 of arrows, many of them poisoned arrows, 
 against which he must stand? 
 
 M The secret enemy, -whose sleepless eye 
 Stands sentinel, accuser, judge, and spy ; 
 The foe, the fool, the jealous, and the vain ; 
 The envious, who but breathe in other's pain ; 
 Behold the host ! delighting to deprave, 
 Who track the steps of Glory to the grave, 
 Watch every fault that daring Genius owes 
 Half to the ardor which its birth bestows, 
 Distort the truth, accumulate the lie, 
 And pile the Pyramid of Calumny '. " 
 
 "With what fearful accuracy does this describe 
 what the eminent man we deplore was com- 
 pelled to endure! The foulest ink has been 
 cast at him in his latter years. And so much of 
 it bv reformers too, — men that stood forth as 
 the patrons of virtue, humanity, and the sacred 
 law of God! We all know the chief and the 
 sad occasion for most of these attacks. We 
 know how many ciood men were forced to with- 
 draw their sympathies from the great states- 
 
2-1 
 
 man by his speech and course towards the 
 close of his senatorial career. But is the war- 
 fare of a pirate upon a prominent man's motives 
 the natural expression of virtuous dissent ': Is 
 it essentia] that a reformer in opposition shall 
 be the assassin of character? Is it necessary 
 thai all dignity of temper and charity of criti- 
 cism shall die oul of the nature that holds an 
 advance-idea, and that the cause of humanity 
 must be defended in the disposition of a 
 friend? AVe arc gathered in a church dedi- 
 cated to God; and his law is supreme over 
 the highest genius, as over the humblest man. 
 Let us not hesitate to say, that, if at the time 
 I allude to, the great man, now gone, did bow 
 his magnificent brain unworthily to the Slave- 
 power, which he had always opposed, from 
 the dictate of a personal ambition, forget- 
 ting the awful trusts of genius and the service 
 it owes to humanity, he fell; and his intel- 
 lectual greatness only darkens his degradation. 
 
 CD *■ <•- 
 
 But who has demonstrated this hypothesis? 
 Who has looked into that large heart, and 
 found such black treason there? AYhat if he 
 
25 
 
 did feel all the trusts of senatorial office and 
 intellectual power; if he felt that the preser- 
 vation of his country from the imminent 
 danger of disruption was the comprehensive 
 duty of a statesman, and the best permanent 
 legacy to all races in our 1 >orders ? I prefer to 
 believe this theory. It accords with the prin- 
 ciples that always governed him. Then his 
 action was conscientious and heroic ; and, 
 although it may fail to commend itself to the 
 conscience and wisdom of many, although they 
 find it impossible as Christians to obey the sta- 
 tute which he defended, let them remember, in 
 justice to him, that he was placed in the Capi- 
 tol to act, not from their light, but from his 
 own. Let the passions of politics be silent, 
 let the heats of hatred cool, at his grave. 
 He went with religious calmness to meet Him 
 who judges with blended charity and justice. 
 And as we bow before the mystery of the vast 
 Providence, let us unite in adoration of his 
 ordinance, that the most gifted of his creatures 
 shall be the servants of all. 
 
 The allusion just made to the religious 
 
 4 
 
26 
 
 majesty and calmness of Mr. Webster's death 
 -i- the second point which the contem- 
 plation of his career should impress upon us, 
 — the strength and support which religion de- 
 rives from the convictions and loyalty of such 
 an intellect. I put out of the question here 
 every tiling that concerns loyalty of life and 
 religiousness of character. It is not our pro- 
 vince to search for and put together the proofs 
 or the disproofs of that. But it cannot be de- 
 nied that we have buried a great man. whose 
 heart was alive with religious feeling, and 
 whose mind was reverent in its recognition of 
 religious truth. If proof is needed to establish 
 the chief ideas of religion, — the existence of 
 God, the supremacy of moral principles, and a 
 future life, — we may turn for it, with equal 
 confidence, to the mystic intimations of nature, 
 or to the faith and tlie convictions which the 
 greatest men of the world have cherished and 
 expressed. The pre-eminent men of the world 
 have not been atheists or doubters, but reve- 
 rent believers and worshippers. WTiere, 
 atheist! where, scoffer! will yon point us t<» 
 
27 
 
 the large-limbed nature, the encyclopedic soul, 
 that dignifies your miserable creed? Some 
 slender, cold-hearted, third-rate, or perhaps 
 second-rate man, here and there in history, 
 has babbled some skeptical folly, or darkened 
 his name by the shadow of atheistic thought; 
 but, when we look up to the first rank of 
 -cuius, — to Socrates and Plato and Pythago- 
 ras, to Paul and Luther, to Bacon and Leib- 
 nitz and Newton, — we find they are men who 
 bow before the infinite sanctities which their 
 souls discern. 
 
 You have heard of the great reflecting tele- 
 scope, built by a nobleman of Great Britain, 
 whose tube, by the aid of ponderous machi- 
 nery, is pointed towards the night-sky. What 
 if it threw doubt upon the reports which our 
 eyesight and ordinary glasses make concerning 
 the glories of the sky ? What if it scattered 
 the stars into mist, made Sirius nothing but a 
 huge heap of fog, and banished all our associa- 
 tions of grandeur and glorious law that have 
 been connected with the heavens ? But it 
 confirms all the visions of the ordinary in- 
 
28 
 
 struments thai search the upper space; and, 
 besides that, it breaks up the misty light of 
 the nebuhe into sand-heaps of suns, and re- 
 ports firmaments, far in the depths above us, 
 
 which other lenses cannot reach. Tims the 
 greatest souls of the race confirm the views 
 and faith of ordinary minds: reflect more of the 
 glories of God; disclose, by their more search- 
 ing vision, fresh galaxies of mystery ; and 
 make our thoughts of the Providence that eiu- 
 1 >i aces us, and comprehends all things, more 
 reverent and profound. 
 
 What a shock it would srive the world's 
 order, if such minds as Mr. Webster's -aw no 
 (noofs of the divine existence, felt the strain 
 of no law of duty, thrilled with no emotions 
 of worship, but found the thoughts of their 
 own genius sufficient company for their lone- 
 liness; lifting their proud and flinty summits 
 above the superstitions thai shade the valleys 
 of human nature, into a bleak, atheistic air! 
 It is not so. Religion is commended with 
 the more earnestness to men by their con- 
 sciousness of its truth. There was a fitting 
 
29 
 
 commentary on the glorious eighth Psalm of 
 
 David, when our statesman stood under the 
 elm, at night, on his estate in Marshfield, and, 
 lifting his solemn eyes to the light that blazed 
 on the firmament, said, "When I consider thy 
 heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon 
 and stars which thou hast ordained, Lord, 
 what is man that thou art mindful of him, or 
 the son of man that thou visitest him?" 
 That is the soul's astronomy. Overs weeping 
 the skeptical chatter of irreverent mathemati- 
 cians, there was an echo of the truth that 
 sprang, ages ago, out of a great Hebrew heart. 
 Jura answered to the voiee of the Alps. 
 
 We do not mean to say, or to hint, that a 
 taste for the literature and elegance of the 
 Scriptures is a saving grace of character ; but 
 we have a right to rejoice in all the unprofes- 
 sional veneration which is offered to the sacred 
 writings. It is well for the world to have 
 eminent witnesses, that it is not an inter- 
 ested and a clerical taste alone that bows to 
 the sublimity of the great book. Is it not 
 proof of the majesty of Job and Isaiah and 
 
30 
 
 Habbakuk, thai they were the chosen teachers 
 uf such a mind; that he retreated from care and 
 sorrow into their society, and was strengthened 
 and softened by their lofty and mystic speech? 
 It is sufficient testimony to the greatness of 
 these biblical geniuses, that the largest na- 
 tures seek inspiration from them: it is equal 
 proof of the loftiness of an intellect, that it 
 rises into near acquaintance with these emi- 
 nent souls. What if a great man does not 
 always live in harmony with the truth he 
 venerates? What if the stern characters he 
 invites to his library sometimes rebuke him 
 with their prophetic austerity, and the truths 
 spoken from the sacred mount, to Avhich he 
 Lifts adoring eye-, flash warning upon his infi- 
 delity? Is not this a still more impressive 
 revelation of their supremacy? and does not 
 (he -rcat man's reverence, which their occa- 
 sional denunciation does not impair, point to 
 their royalty over conscience, which we should 
 hasten practically to confess? 
 
 We have a right, therefore, to ask. Is the 
 Bible, which Mich men as Mr. Webster and 
 
31 
 
 President Adams revered and made a constant 
 study, a shallow book ? Is the Christian faith 
 which such men as they adored as the supreme 
 
 truth, and the only regenerative power of the 
 world, a secondary matter? Are the religious 
 relations of the soul, which such men affirmed 
 were of first importance, and which no levity 
 of their speech, at least, ever slighted, matters 
 which we may safely disregard ? The answer 
 we shall be forced to give these questions 
 makes the most solemn truth practical, and 
 sheds a searching ray into our hearts. The 
 supreme benefaction to humanity of such an 
 intellect as we have lost is the testimony it 
 bears to the reality and the necessity of reli- 
 gion. Now that he is gone, in the momentary 
 gloom of his departure, I know not but these 
 words stand out the most luminous of all the 
 great words he uttered, — these words so sim- 
 ple but sublime : " Religion is necessary and 
 indispensable in any great human character. 
 There is no living without it. Religion is the 
 fie which connects man witli his Creator, 
 and holds him to his throne. If that tie be 
 
32 
 
 all sundered, all broken, he floats away, a 
 worthless atom in the universe; its proper 
 attractions all gone, its destiny thwarted, and 
 its whole future nothing but darkness, desola- 
 tion, and doath. A man with no sense of 
 religious duty is he whom the Scriptures de- 
 scribe in such terse but terrific language as 
 living 'without Grod in the world." Such a 
 man is out of his proper being, out of the 
 circle of all his duties, out of the circle of all 
 his happiness, and away, far, far away, from 
 the purposes of his creation.'* 
 
 It is worthy of remark in this connection. 
 thai so comprehensive and reverent a student 
 of the Scriptures as Mr. Webster was nol the 
 partisan of any intricate and narrow theolo- 
 gical theories. The broad, plain, primary 
 truths of religion were sufficient for his reve- 
 rence and his conscienc . 1 have heard it said 
 that he disliked the word ''Christianity.'* and 
 preferred the simple phrase, "the religion of 
 Jesus." The spirit of penitence, faith, and 
 Love, and a reverential gratitude for the mis- 
 sion of Christ as the channel of redeeming 
 
33 
 
 truth and life to the world, — these were the 
 outlines of his theology; these were the defini- 
 tions of Christian character which satisfied his 
 mind. The report which a friend has made of 
 
 his last hours assures the world, that there 
 was nothing in his utterances of faith and 
 hope " of a technical character. No expression 
 escaped him which would mark him as of this 
 or that theology, or of any church save the 
 universal church of Christ." Thus his life and 
 death give us an original illustration of the 
 difference between theology and religion. What 
 the smallest satellite of our system needs is the 
 controlling force of the sun, and its bounteous 
 heat and light; and the majestic Jupiter, as 
 he ploughs his grand orbit, needs no more. 
 Whatever system of astronomy be true, the 
 regal planet requires nothing more than the 
 check and the charity of the central orb, and 
 the smallest asteroid receives no less. So the 
 feeblest and the mightiest minds require alike 
 the central and simple forces of religion, and 
 rind their strength, not in artful theologies, 
 but in the common and generous light and 
 
34 
 
 influence from God that fall equally upon 
 all. 
 
 And without the solemn light of religion 
 around it, and the greal background of reli- 
 gious truth to relieve it, how utterly must the 
 last hours of Mr. Webster have lost the majesty 
 which was upon them! If he had died sim- 
 ply a worn-out and disappointed man, look- 
 ing with sadness at the blighted hopes of the 
 earth, and lifting no thought to scenes beyond, 
 how sad the last days would have seemed, — 
 the wreck of a noble and weather-stained bark 
 upon the rocks of death! But now, what a 
 grandeur in the close of his career ! The 
 deepening feeling that he was floating out 
 beyond the reckonings of earth and the outline 
 of human charts ; the calui fulfilinent of every 
 duty, and the reining up of every faculty to 
 obey the mastery of the will; the solemn tones 
 of prayer, laden with the riches of his Language 
 and humble with penitence; the majestic and 
 tender farewell to family and friends; and 
 then, after the broken ejaculations of the 
 psalm for the divine rod and stall', the silent 
 
35 
 
 close! — not a wreck on the desolate coasts of 
 
 mortality, but the fueling of a noble ship into 
 the mists that curtain the horizon, its sails all 
 set, bearing one great and serene form beyond 
 our gaze into the everlasting light! The spirit 
 of such grandeur there should be in every 
 death. Are we prepared thus to gather our 
 robes about us ; thus to look up to Heaven for 
 help ; thus to express our confidence in the 
 truth of the Bible and the divine mission of 
 Christ ; thus to feel the support of the rod 
 and the staff which the feeblest need, and 
 which does not bend under the weight of the 
 mightiest arm ? 
 
 I must ask you to bear with me while I 
 refer to one more impressive lesson of such a 
 life and death : I mean the solemn truth of 
 immortality. When the news of such a loss 
 breaks upon society, the first feeling is that of 
 the mystery of death itself. It is as though 
 we had never before realized it. And then it 
 opens anew the problem of eternal life. It 
 seems as if the departure of such a spirit must 
 break the monotonous silence, — must open 
 
36 
 
 for the moment some rift in the cloud, and let 
 in a beam from the all-surrounding day. We 
 ought to reflect upon this death, in regard to 
 that question of immortality. If such a faith 
 is ii<»t u fixed habit of our mind, we ought to 
 pause, and set the vastness of his powers in 
 our thought, and seriously ask the question, 
 •• What has become of them ? whither are they 
 gone?' This life cannot be what it ought to 
 be, — man cannot be What he ought to be, 
 — duty cannot be as sacred as it should be, 
 unless >ve have convictions, settled as those 
 which Christ had and which he would inspire, 
 of the everlasting duration of our souls. And 
 now is the time for us to think on that point. 
 God calls on us to meditate. When he reinoN 
 from the earth such men as Washington and 
 Webster, his providence puts the question to 
 every unsettled mind, "Do you believe that 
 they are annihilated, swallowed up by the 
 dark?' There is not a particle less to-day of 
 the substance that made up the noble frame 
 of Washington, than there was when he dig- 
 nified the capital. Ages hence, the matter 
 
:>>7 
 
 that clothed his spirit will still exist, un wasted 
 by a grain. And does the mind, the virtue, 
 the character, die, while not a hair of his 
 bodily substance is suffered to slip out of the 
 treasury of mattery Of that greal brow which 
 was laid recently in the sepulchre, not a par- 
 ticle will ever drop from the grasp of physical 
 law. It may moulder, but it cannot be de- 
 st roved. And do you believe that the reason 
 of which it was the fortress, and from which 
 it played the lightnings of argument and elo- 
 quence, will be less permanent ? Does God 
 think more of such a brain than of the under- 
 standing that made its arch sublime? Was 
 that soul an ephemeral thing of threescore 
 years and ten, while the body is beyond the 
 possibility of destruction ? It must be a dark- 
 ened mind that can believe that, — a mind not 
 quickened with a proper sense of God. Death 
 is visibly defeated, to the eye of every reflective 
 mind, when it drags into its darkness such a 
 nature as that. The prey is too great. His 
 hunger is not suffered to appease itself, even 
 on the matter which the spirit inhabited; and 
 
38 
 
 we know that the soul cannot slip into his 
 ia\ Over the mystery of that tomb near 
 which the ocean moans, we may hear the 
 chant of nature, according with that of revela- 
 tion. — "0 death! where is thv sting? 
 grave ! where is thy victory ? " 
 
 This is no mere speculative question, but 
 the most practical of all questions. For, it" 
 we answer the question of immortality aright 
 for this man, we answer it for all men. If we 
 feel that it is proved by his genius, then we 
 lift the whole race, with which he was kindred, 
 into the light and the responsibilities of an 
 infinite existence. Then human life is not a 
 mean thing, not a trivial thing, but a solemn 
 grant, a moral trust. Then we are all living 
 with the eye of God upon us, and an eternal 
 future before us, the conditions of whose for- 
 tunes our own habits arc deciding now; and it 
 behooves each of us to ask ourselves before the 
 tomb that has just opened. "In what spirit 
 am 1 working? Is it (.no 1 am willing to carry 
 into the light of eternity, and submit to the 
 scrutiny of God ? " 
 
39 
 
 A friend said, when the news of the great 
 death readied us, that it seemed to him as 
 though such a brain should have had two 
 
 bodies to wear out. I believe that the limits 
 of its earthly frame were not the limits of its 
 existence. I should believe, on evidence in- 
 dependent of revelation, that there are myste- 
 ries in the universe for such a mind to revere 
 eternally; great studies to engage its interest ; 
 profounder laws than were opened here for it 
 to grasp ; divine splendors to kindle deeper 
 faculties than were here developed. If there 
 were heroic virtues which were not appreciated 
 or rewarded fully in his mortal career, I believe 
 that he is gone into a state where the recom- 
 pense is not affected by human injustice. If 
 there were great errors and violation of trusts 
 committed here, I believe that he has gone 
 into the dominion of a justice that executes 
 searching and righteous judgment on every 
 soul, in view of the spirit's final welfare. And 
 so, let us lift our thoughts from that grave to 
 God and eternity. Let us be grateful to the 
 Providence that sends great genius to us, and 
 
40 
 
 bids it work in our service ; that reveals truths 
 to us which the mightiest minds adore with 
 the humility of children; and that intimates, 
 through the death of such, the great destiny 
 and privilege of every soul. In the light of 
 that Providence and that eternity, let us pray 
 that we may be faithful; let us resolve to 
 redeem our time. 
 
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