one, and only one, great First Cause,-one, and only one, proper object of human worship. This is the great, the ever fresh, the overflowing fountain of all revealed truth. Without it, human life is a desert, of no known termination on any side, but shut in on all sides by a dark and impenetrable horizon. Without the light of this truth, man knows nothing of his origin and nothing of his end. And when the Decalogue was delivered to the Jews, with this great announcement and command at its head, what said the inspired lawgiver? That it should be kept from children?—that it should be revered as a communication fit only for mature age? Far, far otherwise. 'And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thy heart. And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thy house, and when thou walkest by the way, when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.'

"There is an authority still more inspiring and awful. When little children were brought into the presence of God, his disciples proposed to send them away; but he said, 'Suffer little children to come unto me.' Unto me: he did not send them first to learn the lessons in morals to the schools of the Pharisees or to the unbelieving Sadducees, nor to read the precepts and lessons phylacterized on the garments of the Jewish priesthood; he said nothing of different creeds or clashing doctrines; but he opened at once to the youthful mind the everlasting fountain of living waters, the only source of eternal truths :-'Suffer little children to come unto me.' And that injunction is of perpetual obligation. It addresses itself to-day with the same earnestness and the same authority which attended its first utterance to the Christian world. It is of force everywhere and at all times. It extends to the ends of the earth, it will reach to the end of time, always and everywhere sounding in the ears of men, with an emphasis which no repetition can weaken, and with an authority which nothing can supersede, 'Suffer little children to come unto me.' And not only my heart and my judgment, my belief and my conscience, instruct me that this great precept should be obeyed, but the idea is so sacred, the solemn thoughts connected with it so crowd upon me, it is so utterly at variance with this system of philosophical morality which we have heard advocated, that I stand and speak here in fear of

being influenced by my feelings to exceed the proper line of my professional duty."

On the nature and purpose of true charity and its union with the Christian religion, Mr. Webster said,—

"There is nothing in the history of the Christian religion, there is nothing in the history of English law, either before or after the conquest; there can be found no such thing as a school of instruction in a Christian land, from which the Christian religion has been, of intent and purpose, rigorously and opprobriously excluded, and yet such a school regarded as a charitable trust or foundation. A school of instruction for children, from which the Christian religion and Christian teachers are excluded, there is no such thing in the history of religion, there is no such thing in the history of human laws, as a charity school of instruction for children, from which the Christian religion and Christian teachers are excluded, as unsafe and unworthy intruders. There can be no charity in that man of education that opposes Christianity.

"I maintain that in any institution for the instruction of youth, where the authority of God is disowned, and the duties of Christianity derided and despised, and its ministers shut out from all participation in its proceedings, there can no more charity, true charity exist, than evil can spring out of the Bible, error out of truth, or hatred and animosity come forth from the bosom of perfect love. No, sir! No, sir! If charity denies its birth and parentage,-if it turns infidel to the great doctrines of the Christian religion, if it turns unbeliever,—it is no longer charity. This is no longer charity, either in a Christian sense, or in the sense of jurisprudence; for it separates itself from the fountain of its own creation."

The faith of the Christian religion, which Mr. Webster had through his whole public career maintained with such masterly eloquence, was his stay in the last scenes of life. He died at Marshfield, Massachusetts, October 24, 1852. On that day he said, "All that is mortal of Daniel Webster will soon be no more." He then prayed, in his full, clear, and strong voice, ending with the petition, "Heavenly Father, forgive my sins, and receive me to thyself, through Christ Jesus."

His physician repeated to him, "Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me."

Mr. Webster instantly rejoined "The fact! the fact! That is what I want! Thy rod! thy rod! Thy staff! thy staff!". His last words were, "I still live."

A few days before his death he drew up and signed the following declaration of his religious faith, which was by his direction inscribed on his tomb:

"Lord, I believe: help thou mine unbelief. Philosophical argument, especially that drawn from the vastness of the universe in comparison with the insignificance of this globe, has sometimes 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."

Lamartine, a French statesman and writer, presents the following view of infidel and Christian influences, contrasted, on men and nations:

"I know-I sigh when I think of it-that hitherto the French people have been the least religious of all the nations of Europe. Is it because the idea of God-which arises from all the evidences of nature and from the depths of reflection-being the profoundest and weightiest idea of which human intelligence is capable, and the French mind being the most rapid, but the most superficial, the lightest, the most unreflective of all European races, this mind has not the force and severity necessary to carry far and long the greatest conception of the human understanding?

"Is it because our Governments have always taken upon themselves to think for us, to believe for us, and to pray for us? Is it because we are, and have been, a military people, a soldier nation, led by kings, heroes, ambitious men, from battle-field to battle-field, making conquests and never keeping them, ravaging, dazzling, charming, and corrupting Europe, and bringing home the manners, vices, bravery, lightness, and impiety of the camp to the fireside of the people?

"I know not; but certain it is that the nation has an immense progress to make in serious thought if she wishes to remain free. If we look at the characters, compared as regards religious sen

timents, of the great nations of Europe, America, even Asia, the advantage is not for us. The great men of other countries live and die on the scene of history, looking up to heaven; our great men appear to live and die, forgetting completely the only idea for which it is worth living and dying: they live and die looking at the spectator, or, at most, at posterity.

"Open the history of America, the history of England, and the history of France; read the great lives, the great deaths, the great martyrdoms, the great words at the hour when the ruling thought of life reveals itself in the last words of the dying; and compare.

"Washington and Franklin fought, spoke, suffered, always in the name of God, for whom they acted; and the Liberator of America died, confiding to God the liberty of the people and his own soul.

Sidney, the young martyr of a patriotism guilty of nothing but impatience, and who died to expiate his country's dream of liberty, said to his jailer, 'I rejoice that I die innocent towards the king, but a victim resigned to the King on high, to whom all life is due.'

"The Republicans of Cromwell only sought the way of God even in the blood of battles. Their politics were their faith; their reign, a prayer; their death, a psalm. One hears, sees, feels, that God was in all the movements of these great people.

"But cross the sea, traverse the Channel, come to our times, open our annals, and listen to the great words of the great political actors of the drama of our liberty. One would think that God was eclipsed from the soul, that his name was unknown in the language. History will have the air of an atheist when she recounts to posterity these annihilations rather than deaths of celebrated men in the greatest year of France! The victims only have a God; the tribune and lictors have none.

"Look at Mirabeau on the bed of death. 'Crown me with flowers,' said he; 'intoxicate me with perfumes; let me die to the sound of delicious music.' Not a word of God, or of his soul. Sensual philosopher, he desired only supreme sensualism, a last voluptuousness in his agony.

"Contemplate Madame Roland, the strong-hearted woman of the Revolution, on the cart that conveyed her to death. She looked contemptuously on the besotted people who killed their prophets and sibyls. Not a glance towards heaven! Only one word for the earth she was quitting:-O Liberty!'

'Approach the dungeon-door of the Girondins. Their last night is a banquet; the only hymn, the Marseillaise!

"Follow Camille Desmoulins to his execution. A cool and indecent pleasantry at the trial, and a long imprecation on the road to the guillotine, were the two last thoughts of this dying man on his way to the last tribunal.

"Hear Danton on the platform of the scaffold, at the distance of a line from God and eternity. I have a good time of it: let me go to sleep.' Then to the executioner, 'You will show my head to the people: it is worth the trouble.' His faith, annihilation; his last sigh, vanity! Behold the Frenchman of this latter age!

"What must one think of the religious sentiment of a free people whose great figures seem thus to march in procession to annihilation, and to whom that terrible minister, death itself, recalls neither the threatenings nor promises of God?

"The republic of these men without a God has quickly been stranded. The liberty won by so much heroism and so much. genius has not found in France a conscience to shelter it, a God to avenge it, a people to defend it against that atheism which has been called glory. All ended in a soldier and some apostate republicans travestied into courtiers. An atheistic republicanism cannot be heroic. When you terrify it, it bends; when you would buy it, it sells itself. It would be very foolish to immolate itself. Who would take any heed? The people ungrateful, and God non-existent! So finish atheistic revolutions!"