^HHl ,i4 L96 •l - ■ LIBRARY OF CONGRESS DDDDSD23T3E >» ^^'"- ^^ ^^*^"- ^^<^^ o Or/* •^W^P''^* <0 • j^ir^^ - ^ o* ; ''- .' .^^'^'^ '. »* DISCOURSE DELIVERED IN QUINCY, MASSACHUSETTS, 1 J ON THANKSGIVING DAY, NOV. 25, 1852, COMMEMORATIVE OF DANIEL WEBSTER BY WILLIAM P. LUNT, PASTOR OF THE FIRST CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH IN QUINCY. BOSTON: LITTLE, BROWN AND COMPANY. 1852. £7340 Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1853, by LITTLE, BROWN AND COMPANY, in the Clerk's Office of the District Com-t of the District of Massachusetts. CAMBRIDG E : ALLEN AND FAKNHAM, PRINTERS. QuiNCT, Nov. 26, 1852. Kev. and dear Sir: — The undersigned, inhabitants of tliis town, deeply impressed with the inter- esting, touching, and admirable character of your yesterday's discourse on the late Daniel Webster, respectfully solicit a copy for publication. By complying with this request, you will confer an obligation on the com- munity, and especially on Your friends and servants. JOSIAH BRIGHAJI, GIDEON F. THAYER, ISRAEL W. MUNROE, LEMUEL BRACKETT, DANIEL BAXTER, ADAM CURTIS, SAMUEL CURTIS, NATHANIEL WHITE, BENJAMIN CURTIS, LEWIS BASS, To the Kev. Wm. P. Lunt. GEORGE NEWCOMB, JOSIAH QUINCY, Jk. S. G. WILLIAMS, NOAH CUMMINGS, JOSEPH W. ROBERTSON, GEORGE WHITE, FRANCIS WILLIAMS, WILLIAM B. DUGGAN, STEPHEN BATES, WHITCOMB PORTER. QuiNCT, Dec. 2, 1852. To JosiAH Brigham, Esq., and others : — Gentlemen, — In conformity with the request communicated, in such kind terms, in your favor of November 26th, I submit to the public the discourse delivered on Thanksgiving day, November 25th. I am, gentlemen, very respectfully, Your friend and servant, WILLIAM P. LUNT. DISCOURSE. The burden of the word of the Lord for Israel. Zech. 12 : 1 . Behold, the Lord doth take away from Jerusalem and from Jiidah the stay and the staff; the mighty man, and the prudent; the honorable man, and the counsellor, and the eloquent orator. Isa. 3 : 1, 2, 3. Thus saith the Lord God ; in the day when he went down to the grave, I caused a mourning. Ezek. 31 : 15. Behold, at eventide trouble ; and before the morning he is not. Isa. 17 : 14. His heart is fixed, trusting in the Lord. Ps. 112 : 7. When he cried unto Him, He heard. Ps. 22 : 24. I will go to them that are at rest. Ezek. 38 : 11. My flesh shall rest in hope. Ps. 16 : 9. My work is with my God. Isa. 49 : 4. Lord, I believe ; help thou mine unbelief. Mark 9 : 24. The gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ. Rom. 6 : 23. Hide thy face from my sins, and blot out all mine iniquities. Ps. 51 : 9. Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I Avill fear no evil : for thou art with me ; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Ps. 23 : 4. And when he had said this, he fell asleep. Acts 7: 60. The Lord givetli his beloved sleep. Ps. 127 : 2. The dust shall return to the earth as it was : and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it. Eccl. 12 : 7. How is the strong staff broken ! Jer. 48 : 17. Shall a trumpet be blown in the city, and the people not be afraid ? Shall there be evil in a city, and the Lord hath not done it ? Amos 3 : 6. 1* 6 Wailing shall be in all streets ; and they shall say in all the highways, Alas ! alas ! and they shall call the husbandman to mourning. Amos 5 : 16. There is sorrow on the sea. Jer 49 : 23. All that handle the oar, the mariners, and all the pilots of the sea, shall come down from their ships ; they shall stand upon the land ; and they shall weep for thee. Ezek. 27 : 29, 31. At that day sliall a man look to his Maker, and his eyes shall have respect to the Holy One of Israel. Isa. 17:7. Let us now praise famous men ; men renowned for their power, giving counsel by their understanding, leaders of the people by their counsels, wise and eloquent in their instructions ; All these were honored in then- generations, and were the gloiy of their times. There be of them that have left a name behind them, that their praises might be reported. Their glory shall not be blotted out. The people will tell of their wisdom, and the congregation will shew forth their praise. Their bodies are buried in peace ; but their name liveth for evermore. Ecclesiasticus 44 : 1, 3, 4, 7, 8, 13, 14, 15. Among the topics suitable to an occasion like this, when Ave are met together to " offer unto God Thanksgiving/' may very properly be reckoned the services of distinguished public benefactors. In all ages such individuals have been celebrated. Their acts are recorded in history. Their fame becomes a part of the glory of their country. Their elo- quence, when it ceases to resound from living hps ujDon the ears of living auditors, is added to the literature of their language. Their pleadings are preserved in judicial reports, and form 2Drecedents for future decisions. The institutions which they frame or administer remain as monuments of their wisdom, and influence. The treaties they negotiate are reposited in the archives of States. The exposi- tions they make of international justice become part of the common law of the world, and help to narrow the occasions for war. The burning words which they speak for liberty embolden the feeble, and intimidate the oppressor. And the testimony which they bear to Christianity, as the truth of God and the only rule of life for man, circulates among their contemporaries, and is handed down to after times, to promote the cause of religion and morality. Assuredly we may say of such individuals in the language of the ancient writer : " Their bodies are buried in peace; but their name liveth for ever- more." The Providence of God, through a recent event, has called the people of our whole country to the performance of a high duty. As a portion of that people, standing in the shadow of that event, and bowing to that mysterious but benignant Provi- dence, we are assembled now and here, to discharge our part of that duty. The united sentiment that beats in all our hearts proves that we are together under no ordinary circumstances. The departure out of life of a great man, this it is that has impressed us; — of one whose place was on the highest watch-tower of our Israel, whence he could survey the nations ; — one to whom we have long been accustomed to look up with the anxious question, " Watchman, what of the night ? " and whose clear- 8 toned response, all 's well, has given a feeling of secu- rity to our hearts, and whose portentous silence now may well carry our thoughts above mortal vigilance, even to Him w^ho has declared, " Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain." The magnetic angel that conveys intelligence, upon the hghtning's wings, to the four corners of our land, has been charged with no message of more moving and mournful import than that which was borne from the death-bed of Daniel Webster to the impressible milhons of this Union, Let us yield our minds to the subject wdiich claims our undivided attention on this occasion. Let us call up the image of him whose mortal great- ness has put on an immortality of renown. Let us recount the chief incidents of his life. They may be familiar to many w^ho are here present. It is well that they should be familiar to all. Let us 2)onder the meaning of that life. Let us review the services which he has rendered to his country. We may do it with a just pride. We should do it with grati- tude to the Creator who conferred on him such transcendent powers. We can do it as Americans, without regard to sectional or party preferences. To use his own eloquent words on an occasion similar to that which has convened us: "It is fit that, by pubHc assembly and solemn observance, by anthem and by eulogy, we commemorate the services of national benefactors, extol their virtues, and render thanks to God for eminent blessings early given and long continued, through their agency, to our beloved country." But what are we to commemorate ? Do we come together merely or principally to eulogize great- ness ? I need not ask the question concerning that poor form of greatness associated with place and authority, which are often held and exercised by individuals more indebted to fortune or to popular favor than to any merit of their own. Of course this kind of distinction deserves and should receive no consideration in a republic where power belongs to the people, and changes hands almost as fre- quently as the moon changes its disc. Even in regard to that nobler species of greatness which makes out a clear title to celebrity in virtue of large mental endowments, the genius that as- tonishes and delights, the eloquence that convinces, moves, mflames, and the influence which belongs to minds of this class, a question might still be raised whether such powers, let them be as extraor- dinary as they are admitted to have been in the individual whom we seek to honor, would alone justify the tribute which it is our purpose on the present occasion to render. K we proposed nothing more than to celebrate the triumphs of genius, the panegyric would more properly be pronounced 10 in a place where " the stone " * does not " cry out of the wall," reminding us that he who would secure the lasting esteem of the world must give pledges, and redeem them at any hazard, to maintain the great interests of the world; and where the records of christian truth do not teach that "whosoever will be the chiefest " among his fellow men, " shall be servant of all;" that they alone deserve commen- dation, in this christian age of the world, who confer benefits on theu^ country and their race; that he to whom five talents are given is accepted only when he uses them profitably, for the honor of God and for the advantage of his fellow men, and by such employment makes them other five talents. We meet, therefore, to honor a benefactor whose services to his country and to the world have been as valuable as his abilities were preeminent. Else there would be no meaning to christian minds in the use we are to make of this occasion and in these services. I do not assert — no one will assert — that a great intellect, whether that intellect be appHed to the j)romotion of good or of evil, does not naturally inspire a sentiment of admiration. We must admire genius, eloquence, learning, the power to move, persuade, kindle the hearts of a multitude. We * The allusion is to the monument, in memory of John Adams, in the church in which this discourse was delivered. 11 may trace an analogy in the impressions made on us by natural scenery. We are impressed by the grandeur and beauty of the visible creation, long before we inquire to what uses the powers around us may be applied. The lightnings of heaven have always been looked at by human eyes with wonder, even when, as of old, they were conceived of as the "arrows" of God, which He "shot out" to "discom- fit" his enemies, and before men had learned, as now, to send them, " that they may go, and say unto us. Here we are." The cataract of Niagara has never been made available for any practical pur- poses. It turns no gigantic wheels to aid human industry. The only evidence it gives of its power, besides the spectacle it presents to the eye, is the destruction to which it plunges whatever comes within its reach. But there it is pouring down, now as ever, its immense volume of water, one of the most impressive objects on the surface of the earth. So it is with a mind of great natural capacity. It may be, through neglect, so much intellectual power lost, or it may be, owing to a wrong direction given to it, so much power for mischief It may be employed to pull down, to corrupt, to perplex, to blast, to destroy. Still a great mind even when overlaid by sloth, or when perverted and misapplied to pernicious ends, is among the grandest and rarest 12 products of God's creative spirit. Whether the picture we look at be of Michael or of Satan, the idea of an archangel's intellect is before us, and it naturally inspires a sentiment of admiration, blended with a species of awe. But admiration is not the highest tribute that a human being can receive from his fellows. Nor is it what a right-minded man will most highly prize or wish most earnestly to secure. Respect, esteem, confidence, — these are the feelings which one will seek to inspire who "loves himself last," who takes care that " all the ends he aims at should be his country's, his God's, and truth's." It is not bare power, but power mastered by a steady control, directed to good objects, under an abiding conviction of responsibleness ; 2^ower wisely ex- erted to bind men closely together in social union, to enact wholesome laws, to administer justice without partiality, to cause social restraints to be regarded as blessings, and to keep the peace of the world undisturbed; this is that form of great- ness which we have been taught by Christianity to commend and honor. Consider the well-known facts of Mr. Webster's pubHc life, the admitted services which he has rendered to his country, to Christendom, to the world; the contributions he has made to letters, to the great branches of industry, to poHtics, to 13 jurisprudence, to international law, to liberty, to morals, to religion. These services are recorded where no expunging process, if there were a dis- position to resort to such a j)rocess, could blot them out of the memory of men. They are regis- tered in his writings, in the reports of courts, in the archives of the nation, in the history of the civiUzed world during the period in which he lived; and, above all, they are embodied in our institutions, and A^dll ]3e more widely known as these institutions shall extend their influence among the nations and races that occupy the earth. No ingenious pleadmg is needed here to make out a case. No eloquence is called for to burnish a few scanty facts, that they may shine with a bor- rowed lustre, and hke a thin plate of silver may conceal the base metal which they overlay. In estimating true greatness there is never any mis- take. What is genuine, approves itself at once to all judgments. The humblest acknowledge it, ap- preciate it, bow to it, bless it. It is only those whose title to distinction is uncertain, those who are great by sufferance, or great by courtesy, that require the skill of an apologist to secure for them the favor of the public. It evinces less presump- tion, when a humble individual undertakes to speak of an illustrious life like that which has recently been closed, than if the same individual should o 14 venture to pronounce upon the merits and assign the place of one who never spoke or acted very distinctly for himself . No such task is laid upon us by the present occasion. No such difficulties embarrass us. The merits of the statesman whose loss we deplore are not questioned. His place is already adjudged by common consent. We have nothing to settle. We simply propose, in what is now to be said, to revive in our minds the image of one whose commanding presence is no longer to mingle in earthly scenes, and to prepare for our own use a memorial, imperfect as it may be, of a career which has shed glory upon the country to which we belong and upon the period in which we Hve. The hmits of the occasion will allow only a brief notice of the leading incidents in Mr. Webster's life. At the head-waters of the Merrimac, in the State of New Hampshire, and in the town of Salisbury, Dan- iel Webster was born on the 18th of January, 1782. His cradle was rocked while the last guns were firing in the war of Independence ; and the tidings of his recent death were announced by the loud- mouthed heralds of that country, which commenced its career at the same time with him, and has ad- vanced with equal steps in the same bright path of growing renown. His father, Ebenezer Webster, a man of strong 15 native sense and sterling virtues, had served in the old French war, and had risen to the rank of Captain. At the conclusion of that war, Captain Webster became one of the original settlers of the town of Sahsburj, and there built his house and reared his flxmilj^ on the edge of the wilderness. Mr. Webster alludes, in his own touching and impressive manner, to his birth-place, in a speech dehvered m the year 1840. "It did not happen to me to be born in a log cabin ; but my elder brothers and sisters were born in a log cabin, raised amid the snow-drifts of New Hampshire, at a period so early that, when the smoke first rose from its rude chimney, and curled over the frozen hills, there was no similar evidence of a white man's habitation between it and the settle- ments on the rivers of Canada. Its remains stiU exist. I make to it an annual visit. I carry my child- dren to it to teach them the hardships endured by the generations which have gone before them. I weep to think that none of those who inhabited it are now among the living ; and if ever I am ashamed of it, or if I ever fail in affectionate veneration for him who reared and defended it against savage vio- lence and destruction, cherished all the domestic virtues beneath its roof, and, through the fire and blood of seven years' revolutionary war, shrunk from no danger, no toil, no sacrifice, to serve his country, 16 and to raise his children to a condition better than his own, may my name, and the name of my pos- terity be blotted forever from the memory of man- kind!" When the war of the Revolution broke out, Mr. Webster's father was among the foremost to espouse the cause of his country. In the year 1776 the inhabitants of the town of Salisbury were collected, and all, with the exception of two, signed a promise or pledge that they would, " to the utmost of their power, at the risk of their hves and fortunes, with arms, oppose the hostile proceedings of the British fleets and armies against the United American Col- onies." Mr. Webster refers to this incident with evident satisfaction, in his able address delivered in the early part of the present year before the Historical Society of New York. His words are, — " In looking to this record, thus connected with the men of my own birth-place, I confess I was gratified to find who were the signers, and who were the dissentients. Among the former was he, from whom I am immediately descended, wdth all his brothers, and his whole kith and kin. This is sufficient em- blazonry for my arms; enough of heraldry for me ! " Nor were Mr. Webster's veneration and affection less for his other parent. In the mansion at Marsh- field, the visitor will not fail to be attracted, among portraits and busts of distinguished characters, by a 17 small profile, done in the homeliest style, of a New England matron of a former age, bearing these words, written by a hand that probably never traced any letters with more heart-felt pleasure, "My excel- lent mother." As he called up in later years, by the help of that rude profile, the image of one most dear to his heart, it cannot be doubted that the sentiment, and it may be, the words of one of England's purest poets were suggested by it : — My boast Is not that I deduce my birth From loins enthroned, and rulers of the earth ; But higher far my proud pretensions rise, — The son of parents passed into the skies. We have seen what Mr. Webster's parentage was ; and where was the place of his nativity. He came of those who held the plough for their daily bread, and who knew how to hold the sword in defence of the acres which they tilled. He was born to a humble lot, and his destiny apparently was to a limited sphere. Shall this mind, whose capacities are not yet revealed even to their possessor, be left to learn what it may accidentally j^i^k up in the intervals of labor, or shall it be brought within reach of the springs of knowledge, that it may drink, and grow, and feel its strength? The parental mind would revolve with anxiety this question of an edu- cation, the means of which sixty years ago were 2* 18 scanty anywhere in our country, but especially so in the most northern of the colonies, hard by the line where savage and civilized life met and mingled. By the fireside of his humble home the boy's heart would be well provided for. No school for patriot- ism could be l^etter than for an impressible youth to sit long winter evenings by the blazing hearth, and Usten with eager ears, to gather stuff for dreams and food for waking thought from the tales of the vete- rans of two wars. And, assuredly, no school for faith and morals could be desired other than he enjoyed who was brought up at the feet of believing, rever- ent parents, and who learned his lessons of truth and virtue out the one Great Book, — the Book of the soul, the Bible which he studied and loved to the last hour of his life. But the question still remained, how should an education be obtained for the mind of this youth. There was nothing in his native jAace but the common school, to which he must walk two miles or more when it was kept, which did not al- ways ha23pen, so near to his father's dwelling. Or he might obtain a book occasionally from the small circulating library in the town. But this portion of Mr. Webster's life is so interesting, and the mstruc- tion it furnishes for the young is so valuable in the way of encouragement, that I gladly resort to his own words to describe the privations and difficulties which marked his early years. 19 As late as the year 1846, in a letter to a friend written on the spot where he was born, and con- taining reminiscences of his childhood and youth, he says : — " Of a hot da}^ in July — it must have been one of the last years of Washington's administration — I was making hay, with my father, just where I now see a remaining elm tree, about the middle of the after- noon. The Hon. Abiel Foster, M. C, who lived in Canterbury, six miles off, called at the house, and came into the field to see my father. He talked awhile in the field, and went on his way. When he was gone, my father called me to him, and we sat down beneath the elm, on a haycock. He said, " My son, that is a worthy man, — he is a member of Congress, — he goes to Philadelphia, and gets six doUars a day, while I toil here. It is because he had an education, which I never had. If I had had his early education, I should have been in Philadelphia in his place. I came near it as it was. But I missed it, and now I must work here." " My dear father," said I, "you shall not work. Brother and I will work for you, and wear our hands out, and you shall rest," — and I remember to have cried, and I cry now, at the recollection. " My child," said he, " it is of no importance to me, — I now hve but for my children ; I could not give your elder brother the advantages of knowledge, but I can do something for 20 you. Exert yourself, — improve your opportunities, — learn, — learn, — and when I am gone, you will not need to go through the hardships which I have un- dergone, and which have made me an old man before my time. " The next May he took me to Exeter, to the Phillips Exeter Academy, — placed me under the tuition of its excellent preceptor. Dr. Benjamin Abbott, still living. "My father died in April, 1806. I neither left him, nor forsook him. My opening an office at Bos- cawen was that I might be near hmi. I closed his eyes in this very house. He died at sixty-seven years of age, after a life of exertion, toil, and ex- posure, — a private soldier, an officer, a legislator, a judge, — every thing that a man could be, to whom learning never had disclosed her " ample page." This simple and touching narrative would only be marred by the addition of any jooor words of mine. Although it may be familiar to most of those who are present ; it will bear to be repeated, especially in the ears of the young. But the advantages of a college education were, in that early period of the country, confined to a still smaller number; in fact only a few aspired to the privilege, or were able to secure it. The father informed his son, then fifteen years of age, of his intention to send him to colleo-e. And here again I 21 borrow Mr. Webster's own words, as given by the Editor of his works, from " an autobiographical mem- orandum of his boyhood." "I remember," he says, " the very hill which we were ascending through deep snow, in a New England sleigh, when my father made known his purpose to me. I could not speak. How could he, I thought, with so large a family and in such narrow circumstances, think of incurring so great an expense for me. A warm glow ran all over me, and I laid my head on my father's shoulder and wept." It may not be out of place to remark in this con- nection, that the origin of Mr. Webster, and the humble circumstances out of which he raised himself, had a marked influence upon his tastes and habits through life. He never lost that love of rural occu- pations, of the "innocent pursuits of husbandry," which he had gained with the sweat of his youthful brow. He retained through life that sympathy and fellowship, which true greatness always feels, with humble poverty, with strong uncultivated sense, with intellect in the ore, with sentiments and affections as they gush pure from the wells of the heart, with manners plain, honest, unsophisticated, with the virtues of nature as distinguished from those of cul- ture and art. This may have been one of the attractions (for the question is often asked what it was) that drew him many years since from yonder capital, away from the crowded resort of the culti- 22 vated, learned, and high-bred, to the retirement of the Old Colony, and induced him to fix his residence among a jDCople, part of whom remain through the year on the land, making up by sunplicity of life and frugal habits for the poor returns which the ground yields to patient industry, and a part of whom plough the deep, and " wet the line " of seamen's labor anj^where between the poles. There he could revive the scenes of his youth. There he called up the images of parents and early friends long dead, in the weather-beaten, toil-stained faces of neighbors with whom he held daily and cordial intercourse. There his "talk" might be as he chose to have it, " of bullocks," and of the produce of the garden and the field, and of " treasures hid in the sand," and of the tribes of every wing or fni that fly in the air or ghde through the waters. There he could sleep in the night as nature dictates, and obey •' The breezy call of incense-breatliing morn." There he could look out upon the ocean, the sight of which always makes one feel as a neighbor to those who dwell in "the uttermost parts of the earth." There amidst healthful exercise, on flood or field, he constructed those arguments which be- long to the jurisprudence of the country, or medi- tated that eloquence which ran like lightning along the massive chain of reasoning that grappled mind 23 to mind as with links of steel, transmitting the elec- tric thrill of a common sentiment from heart to heart. There, like the eagle perched on a lonely crag, his mind might, from time to time, plume its ruffled pinions, and prepare for a higher and bolder flight. Mr. Webster completed his college course in August, 1801, having not only applied himself diligently to the studies prescribed in the institu- tion, but having employed his vacations in keeping school that he might thereby obtain pecuniary means to enable his brother to enjoy the same advantages for an education with himself After graduating he entered the office of Mr. Thompson,* a neighbor of his father, and commenced the study of the law, a science to which he contributed so largely in his subsequent career. About this time his necessities obliged him to resort again to school- keeping, and he took charge of an academy in Fryeburg in Maine, upon a salary of one dollar per day. In July, 1804, he took up his residence in Boston, * Hon. Thomas W. Thompson, a highly respectable lawyer, and succes- sively a member of both branches of Congress, had early discovered the talents of young Webster, who at the age of thirteen years was with Mm awhile as an office boy. By his recommendation the father was induced to send his son to Exeter Academy, and afterwards to give him a hberal education. 24 and after pursuing his legal studies for six or eight months in the office of the Hon. Christopher Gore, afterwards Governor of Massachusetts, was, in the spring of 1805, admitted to the practice of the law in the Court of Common Pleas for Suffolk County, Boston. Immediately upon this he returned to New Hampshire, to be near his father, then advanced in life, and opened an office at Boscawen. In May, 1807, he was admitted as an attorney and counsellor of the Superior Court in New Hampshire, and in September of that year, removed to Portsmouth. He remained in Portsmouth nine successive years in the practice of his profession, and in that period, by his unremitted study and labor, laid the founda- tion of his subsequent unrivalled eminence as a lawyer. Having been chosen a representative in Congress from New Hampshire in the election of November, 1812, Mr. Webster took his seat for the first time in the National Legislature, in an extra session called in May, 1813. He was immediately placed by the speaker, Mr. Clay, on the committee of Foreign affah"s, a very prominent and important post in time of war, and he at once occuj)ied a position of equahty among the able men who were assembled in that Congress from all parts of the country. Of his first speech in Congress it is sufficient to repeat the fact mentioned by his biographer, that " Chief 25 Justice Marshall, writing to a friend some time after says : ^At the time when this S23eech was dehvered, I did not know Mr. Webster, but I was so much struck with it, that I did not hesitate then to state, that ]VIi\ Webster was a very able man, and would become one of the very first statesmen in America, and perhaps the very first.' " Mr. Webster was reelected to Congress in 1814, and served part of the term for which he was chosen. But at the close of the first session of that Congress, in August, 1816, he removed to Boston, where or in its vicinity his home has since been. He brought to Massachusetts a reputation for abihty, gained in the courts of his native State and in the National Legislature, which has been constantly increasing in each of the thirty-six years during which his fame has been the treasure of this Com- monwealth. For some years after his removal to Boston Mr. Webster was separated from pohtical life, and wholly devoted to his profession. It was in this period that he won for himself, by a succession of most powerful arguments, the character of the first constitutional jurist of the country. In 1820 he was a member of the State Convention, in which the venerable John Adams had a seat for the last time in any pubhc body, and took a leading part in the discussions in that body relating to the amendment 3 26 of the Constitution of this Commonwealth. It was while he belonged to that Convention that he delivered his discourse at Plymouth, commemorative of the Landing of the Pilgrims on the 2 2d of Decem- ber, the thrilling effect of which is still remembered distinctly by many who were present, and who saw and heard him on that occasion, when he was in the maturity of his manhood. In 1822, Mr. Webster having previously declined repeated soHcitations of the sort, consented to be a candidate for Congress and was elected to represent the town of Boston. From that date till his recent death, with the exception of a short interval, he has continued in the service of the nation, either in the Legislative or Executive branches of the gen- eral government. It is understood that Mr. Webster was reluctant to relinquish a constantly increasing practice, which gave him the prospect of securing an independence, for the toil, excitement, and uncertainty of political life. But the time had come when he could no longer oppose private interests and personal preferences to what seemed an imperative caU to the service of the pubhc. A mind of such an order was plainly de- signed to reach beyond what is local and Hmited. With such a power of vision, there should be some- thing distant to look at and an extensive circle to measure. There would be as much fitness in using a 27 telescope of the highest power to observe objects within the reach of the unaided eye, as to confine such a mind to offices which can be as well dis- charged by ordinary agents. He was made for the whole country ; and the tune when he devoted him- self to the service of the country must be looked back to as an epoch in our national history. Those who survive of his early supporters, will congratulate themselves for any exertions they may have made to place in his right position one capable of such dis- tinguished usefulness. There still lives in the neighboring metropolis a venerable citizen, whose name is known and honored wherever public spirit is valued, whose ships have brought to him wealth which no one envies, because so many j)artake of its benefits ; whose " charities," to use the words of the dead, "have distilled, like the dews of heaven ; who has fed the hungry, and clothed the naked ; who has given sight to the blind." And probably no record made on his memory gives him, in the review of the past, more true satisfaction, than the reflection that he was himself so instrumental in securing to the country the continued services of her greatest statesman, the circle of whose career he has lived to see gloriously completed. In 1827, Mr. Webster was transferred to the Senate of the United States, and in that body he has achieved the greatest triumphs of his eloquence. 28 His celebrated speech,* in the Great Debate, so called bj way of distmction, which marks au epoch not only in his own life, but in the Parhamentary history of the country, was delivered in the Senate on the twenty-sixth of January, 1830. In that speech, be- sides a noble vindication of New England which had been unjustly assailed by her opponents, he over- threw, by a train of unanswerable reasoning, the doctrine of nullification, and his arguments on that occasion and in similar debates in subsequent years, have acquired a permanent value as expositions of the true construction of the Constitution, which binds us together as one people, and which makes us, for certain specified purposes, one nation. From this time till 1841, Mr. Webster's senatorial career was illustrated by a succession of masterly * A few days after tlie sijeecL in reply to Col. Hajme "was delivered, Judge Storj-, haidng then just returned from Washington, came into an Insurance office in Boston. The President of the office asked him what was thought of the speech at the capital. The Judge observed that the members of the Court were unable to be present as hsteners. " But," said he, " we have all read it. I asked Judge Marshall what he thought of it. His reply was, ' Mr. Webster, perhaps, has told me of no doctrine I had not before thought of But for the life of me I could not have stated it so well. And if there is any man who can answer that speech, I should like to see that man.' " Judge Story further remarked, " I called upon Mr. Webster, the even- ing before he dehvered this speech, and said to him, ' my friend, I have come to ^ve you a piece of advice. You have a good deal to do to-mor- row ; and my advice is to keep yourself cool.' ' I shall keep myself cool, sir,' was the answer, ' I know my subject.' " 29 efforts too numerous to be named even on this occa- sion. On the accession of President Harrison, he was aj^pointed Secretary of State, which office he con- tinued to hold under President Tjder, until the Treaty of Washington was negotiated, when he retired and remained in private life till, in 1845, he again took his seat in the Senate. There he remained through a part of the ^^ear 1850, delivering his sentiments from time to time, calmly, but fearlessly, during that period of unexampled and perilous excitement. Upon the accession of President Fillmore, after the death of President Taylor, Mr. Webster, to the great satisfaction of the whole country, was once more made Secretary of State, and that office he held until his death, which took place, as is too well known, on the twenty-fourth day of October, of the present year. It remains only to submit some thoughts suggested by the more obvious and prominent points in the illustrious hfe, which has been rapidly traced from its commencement to its close. A full and just estimate of Mr. Webster's absolute as well as of his comparative merit demands a familiar acquaintance with many subjects which I have no disposition to arrogate. Such an estimate will be made by those who are competent for the office. But there are certain aspects of his genius which may be appre- ciated by persons of an ordinary range of intellect ; 3* 30 and therefore it may not be deemed presmnptuous even in the voice that now addresses you to venture a few remarks ujDon what he was and wdiat he ac- comphshed as an orator, a jurist, a statesman, a diplomatist, a christian behever, and a man. One of the leading excellences of Mr. Webster's mind was his power to render every subject, however complex, intelligible to common understandings. He approached his subject directly, and his statements are so lucid, his diction is so exact, his premises are so uniformly drawn from experience and the actual relations of life rather than from abstract specula- tion and theory, and his reasoning is so convincing, that we feel no jealous apprehension that we may be yielding our minds to the influence of a powerful sophist, or of an ingenious advocate of a school of opinions, or of an eloquent champion of a party. A distinct talent seems to be requisite to qualify a person to be an instructor of his fellow men. The number is large of those who understand a subject thoroughly, but who are entirely impotent when they attempt to communicate their ideas upon that subject to other minds. What they lack is first an exact knowledge of the condition of the minds they wish to influence, and more than all else they lack a medium of communication. The algebraic signs by which their own mental operations are conducted, will not gain them access to other minds. The pro- 31 ficient in any science who should discourse to the uninstructed in his own technical, professional terms, would be as one using an unknown tongue. Great power is evinced by him who induces other minds to accept his opinions. A still greater power is wielded by the man who can so unfold and present a subject as to enable others to form just opinions for them- selves. This talent is especially valuable in a republican country like ours, where interest and duty alike urge upon every citizen the importance of forming cor- rect judgments of many matters upon which the people of other countries do not trouble themselves to think at all. And I suppose it will be generally conceded that no public man among us has done so much as Mr. Webster, in the discussions of legislative bodies, and in his direct addresses to the people, to make clear and intelligible the intricate subjects which come up for consideration in the conduct of our national affairs. Whether his opinions were adopted or not, whether the measures which he pro- posed and the policy which he advocated were accepted or rejected, he poured a flood of light upon the questions which he discussed, and contributed largely, through his whole career, to form an enlight- ened public opinion. This he could do with the more success, because he was never a mere partisan, nor was he so regarded by his countrymen. It is 32 true that he acted with a party uniformly, steadily ; and that he was a leader and ornament of the party to which he belonged. And that party will yet learn, if the lesson has not already been made suffi- ciently familiar, how necessary he was to their pros- perity. But there were always, in his view, interests higher than those of party. Truth and justice and the good of the country* were paramount objects in his estimation, never to be sacrificed to the advance- ment of a party. To his honor it may with truth be said that on more than one occasion he gave a cor- dial and effective support to measures originating with his jDolitical opponents, withou at the same time quitting his owti ground, or seeki ii to promote his own interests by the concessions which patriotism obliged him to make. Who will be disposed to deny that a civilian of this class, of so clear-sighted, com- prehensive, and serene an intellect, is a benefactor ? As an orator Mr. Webster ranks among the fore- most, and has some merits pecuharly his own. Elo- quence is a rare gift, and a powerful agent in human affairs. But it has so frequently been perverted to bad ends that there is ground for questioning whether on the whole it has been an instrument of more mischief or advantage to the world.* * Saepe et multum hoc mecum cogltavi, bonine an mali plus attulerit hominibus et civitatibus copla dicendi, ac summum eloquentiae studium ; nam, cum et nostrae reipublicae detrimenta considero, et maximaram 33 It does not often happen that the outward requi- sites for eloquence — figure, voice, fluent utterance, action, are united with the higher mental qualifica- tions, memory, unagination, sentiment, and the rea- soning faculty. Stni more rarely are these physical, personal, mental, and sentimental qualities combined with habits of research, with accurate knowledge and copious resources for enlightening those whom the orator addresses. But the rarest form of endoAvment is exhibited when to physical, mental, and acquired gifts of the first order are added corresponding moral qualities, a scrupulous regard to cardinal prin- ciples, a desire to convey only right impressions, and to promote some useful, patriotic, humane, or reUg- ious end. Hence the maxim which has been adopt- ed by the judgment of the world, that none but a clvitatiim veteres animo calamitates colligo, non niinimam video per diser- tissimos homines invectam partem incommodorum. Cum autem res ab nostra memoria, j^i'opter vetustatem, remotas, ex literarum monimentis repetere instituo ; miiltas urbes constitutas, pliirima bella restineta, fiiinis- simas societates, sanctissimas amicitias intelligo, cima animi ratione, turn facilius eloquentia, comparatas. Ac me quidem, diu cogitantem, ratio ipsa in banc potissimum sententiam ducit, ut existimem, sapicntiam sine elo- quentia panmi prodesse ci^-itatibus, eloquentiam vero sine sapientia nimium obesse plenimque, prodesse nunquam. Quare, si quis, omissis rectissimis atque honestisslmis studiis rationis et officii, consumit omnem operam in exercitatione dicendi, is inutilis sibi, perniciosus patriae, civis alitur ; qui vero ita sese ai-mat eloquentia, ut non oppugnare commoda patriae, sed pro liis propugnare possit, is mibi vir et siiis et publicis rationi- bus utilissimus, atque amicissimus civis, fore vidctur. — Cicero, de Inven- tione. 34 good man can be an orator. The highest species of eloquence requires for its chief condition, that the aim of the speaker should be to do good, to avert some impending calamity from his country, to advo- cate some righteous cause, to clear men's minds of some jDcrnicious error, to recommend measures hav- • ing for their object the public welfare, to move men to honorable, just, generous, patriotic action, or to elucidate and enforce those momentous truths of religion upon which all social morality rests. Viewed in this light Mr. Webster's eloquence is entitled to the highest commendation. He never spoke to mislead his fellow men, or " to make the worse appear the better reason." He never misused his wonderful powers to mystify a subject. He never played the orator to glorify himself He never sought to influence men's passions, and to carry by sinister means selfish designs. He appeared among the thousands who listened to his words, not as a tribune whose office it was to defend the liberties of a particular class of citizens, but as the counsel- lor of the whole people, using his massive intellect and his unequalled power of expression to conduct the minds of his countrymen to sound practical con- clusions. And his manner gave assurance that the force of every statement he made had been de- liberately and even conscientiously weighed. Such an orator is a benefactor. 35 In estimating an effort of forensic or parliamentary eloquence, we are to consider, as in regard to a cam- paign or a battle, not so much the immediate result, the present triumph, but the consequences that grow out of it, the permanent advantage to which it leads. Such speeches as those made by Mr. Webster on various occasions in reply to Col. Hayne or to Mr. Calhoun, and such argmnents as he addressed from time to time to the Supreme Court of the United States, are not to be looked at as temporary tri- umphs over his opponents, or as successful efforts to gain a cause ; much less are they to be regarded as brilliant specimens of art. Such eloquent speech becomes a fossil, and, hke the Flora of a former period, helps to form the sohd substance of that which it once adorned. Such eloquence moulds pub- lic sentiment ; it settles prmciples ; it not only cites good precedents, but makes precedents for the direc- tion of after times. When Mirabeau declared that words are things, he spoke truly. Literature can do no more than to preserve the signs. The things themselves are to be sought for in the revolutions which words dictate, in the institutions which they build up, or in the ruins of those governments which they pull down, in the wars which they provoke or prevent. The tongue of a great orator is a little member, but it blesses or curses a nation, a genera- tion, an age. 36 As a statesman, Mr. Webster spent thirty years of his hfe in studying and administering that govern- ment which the fathers of the Eepubhc framed. Instead of seeking to construct, by the help of his own reason, a constitution which would be ideally perfect, he aimed to maintain that which had been established, which was the best that could be agreed on at the time when it was adopted, and far better than we should be likely to gam, if the question were now an open one. This constitution had approved itself by the benefits it had already diffused ; this it was which he had solemnly sworn to support ; and to the defence of this his whole hfe was devoted. In the view of one so thinking and acting patriotism would be raised to a high rank among the virtues. It is to be feared that a w^ay of thinking has gamed some considerable currency of late years among us, which has had the effect to bring patriot- ism into disesteem. By many of the transcendental philanthropists of our day it is regarded as a ^drtue of questionable value. There w^as a time when piety and patriotism were identical. In the case of the Hebrew this was eminently true. God and the coun- try were to his mind the same. He was taught to love the one with the same fervor with which he worshipped the other. Jerusalem was not only the capital of liis native land, but thither the tribes of Israel went up to render homage to the Most High. 37 But the doctrine of some at the present day is, that patriotism is a narrow sentiment unworthy of a period of high civLlization, when the inhabitants of all lands are brought together in frequent inter- course ; and that it is uiconsistent with that order of sentiments, that philanthropy, and cathohc charity which Christianity inculcates. The consequence of this effort to grasp at too much is, that those who make the effort fail to retain in their minds any affection or sentiment that is strong enough to move or influence them, except under the temporary stimulus of fanaticism. Human nature is so constituted, that the affections of the heart must be limited, or they have no power as motives to action. He who attempts to love the whole human race ahke, without alloT\dng himself to cultivate any particular affection for kindred, for neighbors, for fellow countrymen, violates the order of nature, and the result of his unnatural attempt is, that he will love nobody, and care for nobody, and that his thoughts and what affections are left to him will centre in himself. Mr. Webster believed in patriotism as a virtue which society cannot outgrow, and which Chris- tianity did not aim to supplant ; and he was a true patriot himself He loved hberty, but it was no ideal, imaginary hberty, which, hke poetical justice, exists only in the brain of the dreamer. It was 2 38 liberty made practicable ; brought within the reach and offered to the enjoyment of men by institutions, the opportunity to establish which seldom occurs in the history of the world. Constitutional, American hberty — this is the great reality, which, after ages of waiting and longing, and at the cost of labors and sacrifices too great to be estimated in a period of ease and abundance, has been secured ; and the de- parted patriot taught us, once and agam, in his own impressive manner, that to hold fast to this, although it may not realize all that we can conceive or may desire, is the leading, the imperative duty of our generation, Mr. Webster's patriotism was the point where his forensic and senatorial efforts met and united in a connnon aim. He is one of the very few who have united through life and to the close of life, the labors of the lawyer and of the statesman, and which is more rare, he was equally great in each of these departments of service. The secret of this union and of his twofold distinction is to be found in his patri- otism. Under the influence of this master-sentiment of his heart, whether as pohtician or as jurist, he pro- posed to himself one and the same end, to strengthen the constitution of the country, and to perpetuate the Union of the States. Had he been a selfish partisan in politics, he would not willingly have exchanged the feverish excitement of popular gatherings for the o 9 calm atmosphere of courts of justice. Had he been a mere lawyer, thinking of nothing but legal forms, and aiming at nothing more than to conduct skil- fully the causes which might be intrusted to him, he could not have turned from the routine of ^^rofes- sional life to the study of principles, and their appli- cation to the ever-varying condition of a vast com- munity. Every constitutional argument which he addressed to the supreme tribunal of the country, not merely contributed to settle the point immedi- ately in dispute, but added another stone to the arch of the national union, by refuting the miserable doctrine of State Rights, and by establishing in the minds of men the truth that there is a central sovereignty perfect within its limited sphere, to which all local and sectional authorities must yield. The time must come, as soon as the passions which now agitate and blind the public mind shall have subsided, when Mr. Webster's political career wUl be acknowledged to be, from beginning to end, one consistent and glorious whole, the parts of which are like plates of iron so closely fitted together, that it will require the nicest scrutiny to detect the joints. There is a unity in his public life which makes it resemble a finished work of art, the complete ex- pression of the idea of the contriver. The time must come when this will be the univer- sal judgment respecting the much-criticized speech 40 of the 7tli of March, 1850. There was not a single position taken in that speech which might not have been anticipated, which did not, in fact, necessarily follow from the principles which he had once and again enunciated and advocated. The speech re- sulted from his whole previous life, with the rigid necessity of his own logic. He could not have done other than he did on that occasion, without aban- doning the ground for which he had always contend- ed. He " took no step backwards," to use his own terse and significant phrase. What he has done and said, — all has been put on record. History cannot perpetuate calumny. History must state facts. History must and will compare him mth himself; and in that comparison, which he ever invited, and for which he has furnished the world ample materials, he vindicated. In reviewing Mr. Webster's illustrious career, jus- tice requires more than a passing notice of his last great senatorial efibrt. On the 7th of March, 1850, he delivered in liis place in the Senate of the United States, his celebrated speech on the Union and the Constitution. Whatever may be thought by some of the course pursued by the great statesman on this occasion, certain it is that the speech had an immedi- ate and wonderful effect. A most extraordinary state of things existed at the seat of government. A succession of occurrences of unexampled character 41 rapidly following each other, had introduced a fear- ful amount of excitement into the public councils. The necessary business of legislation had been for months suspended. The machinery of government was clogged, and its proper movements impeded, wellnigh stopped. The condition of the country at that time is best described in the words used by the orator in the introduction of his speech. " The im- prisoned winds are let loose. The East, the North, and the stormy South combine to throw the whole sea into commotion, to toss its billows to the skies, and disclose its profoitndest depths." In the angry controversies which have arisen in reference to the course which Mr. Webster felt it to be his duty to take on that occasion, I do not pro- pose to involve myself A few remarks only will be offered on this part of my subject. And the first remark is, that we are bound to believe that Mr. Webster was influenced by the clear- est views and the deepest convictions of pubhc duty. In this respect the calmness and dignity of his man- ner and words gave him a decided advantage, as con- trasted both with the passion that was boiling around him when he spoke, and also with the intemperate and noisy denunciations that have been directed against him since. But his motives have been im- peached, and it is noticeable that this has been done, in some cases without much self-respect, by those 4* 42 who profess and undertake to expound a religion which commands its disciples not to judge, lest they be judged. This disposition to arraign motives is an expedient frequently resorted to by those who are driven to make out a case, or to carry a point, by attempting to injure the character of an oppo- nent. The rule which Mr. Webster proposed to him- self in his public life was, to discuss measures and to examine opinions which he considered unwise or false, with the utmost freedom and boldness, but not to impugn the motives of those who differed from him. And seldom have thirty years been spent on the arena of heated strife, in the course of which so few, if any, deviations from this golden maxim of life can be pointed out. He is one of the hon- orable exceptions, in this respect, among his contem- poraries. In looking back over the printed reports of the debates, often on the most exciting topics, in which he took a prominent part, and gave utterance to his opinions in the most unreserved manner, it is gratifying to find such an almost entire absence of personal denunciation. And it ought to be added, that when the new edition of his writings which has recently been published was in the course of prepar- ation, under the care of a distinguished and accom- plished friend, his injunction was, " My friend, I wish to perpetuate no feuds. I have lived a life of strenu- ous pohtical warfare. I have sometimes, though 43 rarely, and that in self-defence, been led to speak of others with severity. I beg you, where you can do it without wholly changing the character of the speech, and thus doing essential injustice to me, to obliterate every trace of personality of the kind. I should prefer not to leave a word that would give unneces- sary pain to any honest man however opposed to me." One thing is certain, therefore, that if any have been disposed to pursue him with virulence, they have been provoked thereto by no example set by him ; and their bitterness must stand for its justification, if it can be justified, on some other ground than the plea of retahation. They have the whole field of invec- tive and abuse to themselves. If we were prepared, as the community is not yet prejDared, to look at the subject with minds entirely divested of passion, the only question to be considered would be, could Mr. Webster, consistr ently with his well-known principles, always openly maintained and everywhere known and associated with his name, have pursued a different course from that which he took calmly and deliberately on the 7th of March, 1850, without exposing himself to a charge of the grossest inconsistency, nay, without a mournful dereliction of duty, and a sudden disavowal of the leading ideas of his political life ? But he might have done nothing, say 44 some. Done nothing ! When every motive that can operate upon a patriot urged him to propose some course that would extricate the country from a most dangerous condition? There are junctures when to say nothing and to abstain from action is a crime. Such a prudent hiding of himself from diffi- culty is allowable to the man of humble station. It is a privilege enjoyed by men below the highest, that they may avoid the responsibility of great pubHc emergencies by skulking among the crowd, and watching the course which things are left to take. But this refuge cannot with impunity be sought by those who are marked out by Providence to be leaders and guides of their fellow men. What would be prudence in the humble would be censurable in them. The principles which they have advocated and persuaded other minds to adopt oblige them to advance to the line which themselves have drawn, although that line may bristle with dangers. Every prominent public man who has, at one period of his career, published certain well-defined opinions, and who repeats and reiterates those opin- ions on various occasions, has virtually signed a bond with the community whose servant he is, and has registered that bond in the memory of the world ; and he cannot cancel it ; he cannot run counter to it or violate it, without being justly held to account. II he openly repudiates the bond, he must be set down 45 as a political swindler who has obtained credit of the people on false pretences. Or if he turns about and changes his opinions, and alleges that he has lost his means to meet the engagement into which he entered with the pubhc in good faith, he is in that case a political bankrupt, and must wind up his affairs and retire. Mr. Webster stands before us, as we review his consistent and glorious career, in neither of these characters. He kept the bond which he had signed. When, twenty years ago, in the celebrated debate in the Senate, he combatted the doctrine of nulhfica- tion, and afterwards, with equal power and success, exposed the kindred doctrine of secession, his match- less reasoning covered and included the whole ground taken by him in 1850. And it might have been con- fidently predicted, from his construction of the Con- stitution exactly how he would act hi the circum- stances in w^hich he was placed two years since. The one followed from the other as a necessary conse- quence. In taking the ground which he did in for- mer years against the Carolina Senators that the Constitution of the United States is not a compact, as they held, between sovereign States, and which any State had reserved to itself a right to judge of, and to secede from, or to abrogate at its pleasure, but a fundamental agreement made by the whole people, and ratified by the people as such, by wdiich they constituted themselves one vast body politic for 46 certain specified purposes, and by which full power was granted to the general government to carry into effect the provisions and accompHsh the objects set forth in the instrument ; — in taking this ground, he declared by necessary implication, that Congress was bound to see that every provision of the Constitution was enforced. And it was a necessary consequence of his doctrine that, if ever circumstances should arise making it necessary or advisable that a law should be passed to enforce the provision for the rendition of fugitives from service, he should feel as much bound to give his consent to such a law as to an act for the regulation of commerce, or for the coining of money. This, it would seem, is the simple view of the matter which history must take. The variety of Mr. Webster's services, and his sur- passing ability in all, will not fail to command the at- tention of those who would estimate his claims. If as an orator, a patriot, a jurist, and a statesman, he has gained for himself a name and place among the highest in his country's annals, as a negotiator he was a benefactor to the world. He who can prevent a bloody contest among the nations, not by skilfully holding in check the passions of men, until the time comes to cry havoc, And let slip the dogs of war, but by a wise and mutually advantageous and per- 47 manent adjustment of differences, executes the most beneficent office that can be intrusted to human agency. And as the responsibihty attached to such an ofl&ce must be fearfully great, the satisfaction which arises from success in administering the trust will not fail to bring a proportionate reward. He who enjoyed the privilege of living in the world and of passing out of the world, with the conscious- ness and the remembrance that Heaven had granted him ability and op23ortunity to accomplish such a work as the negotiation of the Treaty of Washing- ton, which settled the chief questions in dispute between two mighty nations of kindred blood, could have expected nothing better from earth. Of the preeminent talent displayed in that negotiation, I do not presume to judge. It is sufficient, in regard to that point to remark, that the late President Adams declared publicly his " confidence in Mr. Webster, while the matters involved in the treaty were under consideration, and that his confidence reposed not less upon the temper with which he was conducting it, than upon his talents." I sim- ply speak of the pure, unmixed pleasure that must have been derived from reflecting upon so much good accomplished by the most glorious act of a glorious life. If there be within the reach and enjoyment of fallen man any satisfaction greater, purer than this, it must be something that "eye 48 hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived," in reversion for him among the blessed. But more than all else the fact deserves to be gratefully recognized, that the statesman whose mind had pondered so many subjects connected with the temporal prosperity of men, gave some of his selects est thoughts to moral and religious themes ; and that he left on record unequivocal testimonies to the truth and value of Christianity. He has thus fur- nished a new illustration of the truth that no human being, however gifted, is above the need of religion. The more highly an individual may be exalted, by the endowments of his intellect, above the range of common mortals, the more must he crave the solace which comes from " things unseen and eternal." He whose genius lifts him to the sum- mit at the foot of which his fellows look up and tremble, must dwell in a cold and dreary region, if he have no society above him. When he comes down from such mountain solitudes, his face will not shine, there will be no light in his eye, no radiant smile will sufiuse his features, unless, hke Moses and Christ, he has been conversing with God. The distinguished man who has recently been taken from us felt deeply, and acknowledged, in his own impressive manner, this want of the soul. He was a dihgent student of the Bible, whose inspired 49 pages he consulted with a dehght which no other book afforded. He alluded to it frequently in his public addresses and in conversation, not with cold respect, but in a manner to prove, that its sacred teachings had entered into and become part of his mind, and that he drew thence his faith and his hope. Often with startling emphasis he exhibited the terse significance of scriptural phrases, and made the words which are dead through familiarity, " ahve and power- ful" to affect the heart. The tribute which he paid to the memory of an eminent contemporary contains language which has been quoted often, and which deserves to be repeated. " Pohtical eminence and professional fame fade away and die with all things earthly. Nothing of character is really permanent but virtue and per- sonal worth. These remain. Whatever of excel- lence is wrought into the soul itself belongs to both worlds. Eeal goodness does not attach itself merely to this life ; it points to another world. Pohtical or professional reputation cannot last forever; but a conscience void of offence before God and man is an inheritance for eternity. Rehgion, therefore, is a necessary and indispensable element in any great human character. There is no Hving without it. A man with no sense of refigious duty is he whom the Scriptures describe, in such terse but terrific lan- guage, as living * without God in the world.' Such 5 50 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." These are weighty and solemn words, and it is to be hoped they may reach some minds that are deaf to the suggestions of the professional morahst. Among the valuable services rendered by Mr. Webster to the cause of rehgion, ought to be men- tioned his admirable argument, addressed to the Su- preme Court of the United States, in the case arising out of the will of Mr. Girard. That part of the argu- ment which enforced the necessity of founding edu- cation on rehgion made a deep impression at the time when it was dehvered. It was pubhshed in a pamphlet form for circulation, and ought to be in the hands of every American citizen. It has been affirmed, I know not with what truth, that the great statesman valued that argument more than all else he had written or said in the course of his pubHc life. However this may be in point of correctness, I weU remember having my attention directed to it by the late Mr. Adams ; and the manner in which he spoke of it, as the best production of Mr. Webster's which he had seen, was emphatic. He who could so advo- cate the cause of Divine truth must be pronounced, by the united sufifrages of Christendom, a benefactor. Nor did he, who gave to the world such eloquent 51 and con\dncing testimony to the value of the Chris- tian rehgiou, fail to experience its sustaining power when his life was drawing to its close. He leaned upon the staff of God as his feet went down into the dark valley. The particulars of the death-scene are famihar to all. I need not repeat them. They are an " epistle known and read of aU men ;" and our aspiration should be that this epistle may be " wrilr ten, not with ink, but with the spirit of the Hving God in the fleshly tables of the heart " of a nation. The dying ^Jatriot retained his mental vision, in all its clearness, to the end. He was able to note the exact point where time connects with eternity. Hardly had the accents of earthly friends become inaudible, when his ear must have caught the voices of the angels sitting upon the farther bank of the river which divides the world that now is, from the world of spirits. The door of this life was closing behind him, when " on golden hinges turning " the portals of immortality opened and admitted him to the presence of his God, with the words yet linger- ing on his lips, I still live. He has left us. While he mingled in these earthly scenes he was a king of men, not through any in- herited, much less any usurped title, but by virtue of his acknowledged superiority He did not misuse that superiority. That is his eulogy. He was great, not for selfish purposes, but for the benefit of his country. 62 His fame cannot die so long as there are Ameri- can hearts beating in American bosoms. No one who has lived in liis period and Hstened to his elo- quence, as he expressed in his own Doric Saxon the thoughts of a capacious intellect, or the conceptions of a chastened imagination, or the large senti- ments of friendship, of patriotism, of religion, — no one who enjoyed such a privilege can ever forget him. He inhabits "the chambers of" our "imagery" with elder and kindred shades. No one that stood, at the commencement of the third century from the landing of the Pilgrims, in the old church in Plymouth, and heard him, in tones that had the ring of sonorous metal, and with a face and form inspired by the occasion, welcome like a prophet the future generations of the free ; no one who was within reach of his voice on Bunker's hill, when the corner- stone of its monumental shaft was laid, or afterwards when it was completed, and when daylight Hngered and played upon its summit ; no one who listened to him in Faneuil Hall, when he personated the elder Adams, with words of his own which spoke the spirit of the patriot whom he eulogized, can ever forget him. These personal recollections will, indeed, soon be lost, as time, in its ceaseless ebb and flow, rolls gene- ration after generation, like successive waves upon the shore of being. But personal recollections and tradition are not the only means to preserve and 53 perpetuate his idea. He made himself one A\'ith his country. His image is wrought into the majestic structure of the Repubhc, and cannot be removed without destroying the Repubhc itself. Nay more ; individual fame sometimes outlasts mighty empires, Tidly survives, though Rome has fallen. Every man owes a debt to the place of his nativ- ity, to the seat of learning where he was educated, to « the profession of which he is a member, to his State, to his comitry, to Christendom, to his race ; and this debt increases in amount, as his jDosition becomes more prominent, and the circle of his influence is enlarged. Mr. Webster paid the debt which he owed to the place of his birth, by retaining in his possession and cultivating through life the same paternal acres on which he had toiled as a boy, and by the contribu- tions which his rural tastes, early formed on the banks of the Merrimac, enabled him to make to the agriculture of the country. He paid his debt to the institution within whose walls he was trained, by his celebrated argument in the Dartmouth College case, which not merely bene- fited that College, but settled important principles of American Jurisprudence. He paid the debt which he owed to his native State, as in other ways, so directly by the addition of one hundred thousand acres of land secured to New 6* 54 Hampshire by the treaty which he negotiated with England. He paid the debt which he was always ready to acknowledge to his adopted Commonwealth, — I need not say how. His fame is a part of our fame. We have shared in the glory of all his trimnphs. We have been benefited by his public counsels. Our industrial interests, commerce, manufactures, agricul- ture, all attest the wisdom of the policy which he advocated. He has paid the debt which he owed to his profes- sion. Is there a jurist in the land, in whatever school he may have been trained, who will not be ready to rise up and declare that he is under obliga- tions to the gifted dead ? He has paid the debt which he owed to his coun- try. Not to speak of his fame which belongs to the whole American people, he has contributed millions to her material wealth, and saved millions upon mil- lions, by the wars which his far reaching wisdom and world-wide influence have prevented. There is not a vessel of our sea-shading marine, now floating on the ocean, be it fisherman anchored on the Banl^s, or whaler wallowing among the icebergs, or swift- winged clipper flying before the gales, or Indian argosy " with portly sail That does o'er peer the petty traffickers ; " 55 or powerful steamer, working its way against wind and tide, or mighty admiral commissioned to bear to distant shores the thunder-messages of the Re- public, — not one upon whose deck there will not be sad countenances and heavy hearts, when the tidings are received of the death of him who has established, in the world's opinion, the doctrine that " in every regularly documented American merchant-vessel, the crew who navigate it will find their protection in the flag which is over them." There is, and will be " sorrow on the sea," while the mournful intelli- gence shall circulate from one deck to another round the globe. He has paid his debt to freedom. AVill not Greece and Hungary attest the payment ; and will not Russian and Austrian autocrats confess that the bond has been cancelled ? He has paid the debt which he owed to Chris- tendom. Nowhere in the range of literature can we find clearer attestations than he gave to the truth and value of Christianity, and nowhere a bet^ ter illustration of its power than in his death. Do I say that he had no faults as a man? I affirm no such thing. He affirmed no such vain thing himself; but with the humility of a Christian cast himself upon the mercy of God through his Son. I am not his judge. You are not his judges. His case has been carried up to the Supreme tribunal of 50 the universe. And that Court — we may well be thankful for the assurance — is a Court of Equity, and we have an Advocate with the Father. He sleeps near by the Rock on which the Pilgrim exiles of freedom, weary with wandering, stepped when they landed on the shores of the New World. Fit resting-place for the great American. We may imagine the shades of Winslow and White and Standish, rising from their graves, mantled in the mists of the sea, to receive this kindred spirit to a common sepulchre. The bow of promise, springing from that tomb, and spanning our national sky, bends midway over Mount Vernon, until it reaches the extreme South, measuring mth stripes of celestial light the bounds of our glorious inheritance, token of the covenant by which Providence gives assurance that passing clouds will leave a serene heaven, and that no po- itical deluge shall wash away the strong-built fabric of " Liberty and Union." ORDER OF SERVICES. 1. Vokmtary on the Organ. 2. Anthem. 3. Prayer. 4. Du-ge : by Epes Sargent, Esq. DIRGE. Night of the Tomb ! He has entered thy portal ; Silence of Death ! He is Avraiipecl in thy shade ; All of the gifted and great, that was mortal, In the earth, where the ocean mist weepeth, is laid. Lips, whence the voice that held Senates, proceeded, Form, lending argument aspect august. Brow, like the arch that a Nation's weight needed. Eyes, weUs unfathomed of thought, — all are dust. Night of the Tomb ! Through thy darkness is shining A light, since the Star in the East, never dim ; No jo}''s exultation, no sorrow's repining Could hide it, in life or life's ending, from him. Silence of Death! There were voices from Heaven, That pierced to the quick ear of Faith, through thy gloom ; The ROD and the staff, that he asked for, were given, And he followed the Saviour's own track to the tomb ! 58 Beyond it, above, in an atmosphere finer, Lo ! infinite ranges of being to fill ! In tliat land of the spirit, that region diviner, He liveth, he loveth, he worshippeth still. 5. Discourse. 6. Selections from Gray's Elegy in a Country Church- Yard. SELECTIONS. The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power, And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave, Await alike th' inevitable hour ; The paths of glory lead but to the grave. Can storied urn, or animated bust, Back to its mansion call the fleetincr breath ? Can honor's voice provoke the silent dust, Or flattery soothe the dull cold ear of death ? Hark ! how the sacred calm, that breathes around, Bids every fierce tmnultuous passion cease ; In still, small accents whispering from the ground, A grateful earnest of eternal peace. 7. Benediction. W46 » -» 'O » Ik • aV*^ 'www* .'i^'^ "^S^" 1^^*^ <5> * * K o ^.0-7%, <^ * o « o ^''^n c,'^"^ ** ^v/^^^ ' ■*A*^ o > • 'e. t "o. ♦.T^T* A • . ^. • <»u t"J>' ^^ "•'^•^ ^Q - ^^*^"- V ♦„ "P^ A?- *^ 0^ »•'!% .v., '^^ ': '^bv" ►l*^ S^n s'" * ^JH^ • «i- i\*^ ' ^5^ ''.. • ' VVT* /w 6 ♦ ^'^V,----^