to close. His life did not end as the lives of most end, with thoughts of self merely, or struggles to forget self. He recognized the condition of those friends he was about to leave behind him, with a singular mixture of consideration, tenderness, and collectedness of soul. He was not only cool and self-possessed himself, his vigorous spirit even buoyed up and animated those who surrounded him in his last moments. He recognized his own condition in the same spirit of philosophic and self-sustaining contemplation. He looked steadfastly in the face of the grim messenger, and calmly held out the hand of recognition as he approached. He accompanied him without a shudder within the gates of eternity, which swung wide to receive him. He passed the threshold with a tranquil majesty, casting upon the world a last look which was at once his calmest and noblest." Like the sun itself, he "shone largest at his setting."

His resting place is where it should be; in the fields which he has tilled; near the haunts alike of his hours of sublime contemplation, and his brighter and more genial moods; within sight of the window from which he looked, in the pauses of his study, upon the white tomb-stones which he had placed over his family-all but one gone before!

"It is all over! The last struggle is past; the struggle, the strife, the anxiety, the pain, the turmoil of life is over the tale is told, and finished, and ended. It is told and done; and the seal of death is set upon it. Henceforth that great life, marked at every step! chronicled in journals; waited on by crowds; told to the whole country by telegraphic tongues of flames-that great life shall be but a history, a biography, a tale told in an evening tent.' In the tents of life it shall long be recited; but no word shall reach the ear of that dead sleeper by the ocean shore. Fitly will he rest there. Like the granite rock, like the heaving ocean, was his mind! Let the rock guard his rest: let the ocean sound his dirge!"

D

!

Mr. WEBSTER died at Marshfield, on Sunday morning, October 24th, 1852.

His health as has been intimated, had failed during the summer from his severe public labors and from the progress of an obscure disease in the liver of long standing, accelerated, no doubt, by the shock which his whole system had received when he was thrown from his carriage in the preceding May. He was aware of his decline, and watched it with a careful observation; frequently giving intimations to those nearest to him of the failure in strength which he noticed, and of the result which he apprehended must be approaching. Towards the end of September he seemed, indeed, to rally a little; but it was soon apparent to others, no less than to himself, that, as the days passed on, each brought with it some slight proof of a gradual decay in his bodily powers and rescources.

On Sunday evening, October 10, he desired a friend, who was sitting with him, to read to him the passage in the ninth chapter of St. Mark's Gospel, where the man brings his child to Jesus to be cured, and the Saviour tells him, "If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth; and straightway the father of the child cried out, with tears, Lord, I believe, help thou mine unbelief." "Now," he continued, "turn to the tenth chapter of St. John, and read from the verse where it is said, 'Many of the Jews believed on him.'" After this he dictated a few lines, and directed them to be signed with his name and dated Sunday Evening, Oct.

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10, 1852. This," he then added, "is the inscription to be placed on my monument." A few days later,-on the 15th,―he recurred to the same subject, and revised and corrected with his own hand what he had earlier dictated, so as to make the whole read as follows:

"Lord, I believe; help thou
mine unbelief."

Philosophical

argument, especially

that drawn from the vastness of

the Universe, in comparison with the apparent insignificance of this globe, has some

times shaken my reason for the faith which is in me ; but my heart has always assured and reassured me, that the Gospel of Jesus Christ must be a Divine Reality. The Sermon on the Mount cannot be a merely human production. This belief enters into the

very depth of my conscience.

The whole history of man
proves it

DANIEL WEBSTER

When he first dictated this inscription, he said to the friend who wrote it down-"If I get well, and write a book on Christianity, about which we have talked, we can attend more fully to this matter. But if I should be taken away suddenly, I do not wish to leave any duty of this kind unperformed. I want to leave somewhere a declaration of my belief in Christianity. I do not wish to go into any doctrinal distinctions in regard to the person of Jesus but I wish to express my belief in his divine mission; "—solemn and remarkable words, by which it is plain that, having given the deliberate testimony of his life to the truth of Christianity, as a miraculous revelation of God's will to man he desired, though dead, still to bear the same testimony from his

grave to the same great truth. The monument on which he intended this striking inscription should be placed, he has elsewhere directed should be of "exactly the same size and form" with the modest monuments he had already erected, within the same inclosure, for his children and for their mother.

On Tuesday, the 19th of October, he was too feeble to appear at the dinner-table, and desired that his son might take his place at its head, till he should be able again to go down stairs; "or," he added, " until I give it up to him altogether." That evening was the last time his friends had the happiness to see him in his accustomed seat at his own hospital fire-side.

Warned by his increasing debility he had already given some directions concerning a final disposition of his worldly affairs; but he now desired that his will might be immediately drawn up in legal form, and the next day he dictated a considerable portion of it with great precision and a beautiful appropriateness of phraseology. Some of its directions are very striking, not only from their import, but from the simplicity with which their meaning is set forth :

"I wish to be buried," he says, "without the least show or ostentation, but in a manner respectful to my neighbors, whose kindness has contributed so much to the happiness of me and mine, and for whose prosperity I offer sincere prayers to God.”

After this, every thing relating to his personal concerns is wisely and well provided for, and all his immediate kindred tenderly remembered. He then goes on:

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My servant, William Johnson, is a free man. I bought his freedom not long ago for six hundred dollars. No demand is to be made upon him for any portion of this sum; but, so long as is agreeable, I hope he will remain with the family. Monicha McCarty, Sarah Smith, and Anna Bean, colored persons, now also, and, for a long time, in my service, are all free. They are very well-deserving, and whoever comes after me, must be kind to them." And then with the usual legal forms, this remarkable and characteristic document is closed.

The day when the preparation of the will was completed— Thursday-was one in which Mr. Webster had attended to much public business, besides giving his usual careful directions about every thing touching his household and his large estate. It was intended, therefore, to postpone the final signing and execution of that paper until the next morning; more especially as his forenoons were uniformly more comfortable than the later portions of the day. But, in the afternoon, his complaint assumed a new and more formidable character. Blood was suddenly ejected from his stomach. The symptom was decisive. He fixed an intensely scrutinizing look upon Dr. Jeffries, his attending physician and personal friend,-and inquired what it was? He was answered that it came from the diseased part. "What is it?" he repeated with the same piercing look, and then, without waiting for a reply, added, “That is the enemy;-if you can conquer that "—he was interrupted by a recurrence of the attack, but his mind, it was obvious, was already made up. He knew that his time must be short, and that whatever he had to do must be done quickly.

He determined, therefore, at once to execute his will. It was made ready and brought to him. He ascertained that its provisions and arrangements were entirely satisfactory to the persons most interested in them, and then, having signed it with a larger boldness and freedom in the signature than was common to him, he folded his hands together and said solemnly, "I thank God for strength to perform a sensible act." In a full voice, and with a most reverential manner he went on and prayed aloud for some minutes, ending with the Lord's Prayer, and the ascription, "And nowunto God the Father, the Son, and Holy Ghost, be praise forever more. Peace on earth, and good will towards men; "after which, clasping his hands together, as at first, he added, with great emphasis,-"That is the happiness-the essence-Good will towards men."

Much exhausted with the effort, he desired all but Dr. Jeffries and a favorite colored nurse, who had long been in his service, to