creation. A mind like Mr. Mason's, active, thoughtful,
penetrating, could not but meditate deeply on the condition of
man below, and feel its responsibilities. He could not look on
this mighty system,--

"This universal frame, thus wondrous fair,"--

without feeling that it was created and upheld by an
Intelligence to which all other intelligences must be
responsible. I am bound to say, that in the course of my life I
never met with an individual, in any profession or condition of
life, who always spoke and always thought with such awful
reverence of the power and presence of God. No irreverence, no
lightness, even no too familiar allusion to God and His
attributes, ever escaped his lips. The very motion of a Supreme
Being was, with him, made up of awe and solemnity, and filled
the whole of his great mind with the strongest emotions. A man
like him, with all his proper sentiments and sensibilities
alive in him, must in this state of existence have something to
believe, and something to hope for; or else, as life is
advancing to its close and parting, all is heart-sinking and
oppression Depend upon it, whatever may be the mind of an old
man, old age is only really happy when, on feeling the
enjoyments of this world pass away, it begins to lay a stronger
hold on those of another.

Mr. Webster then quotes, on the authority of another, the grounds of Mr.
Mason's religious faith, thus:--

Mr. Mason was fully aware that his end was near; and in answer
to the question, "Can you now rest with firm faith upon the
merits of your Divine Redeemer?" he said, "I trust I do. Upon
what else can I rest?" At another time, in reply to a similar
question, he said, "_Of course_; I have no other ground of
hope."

Mr. Webster adds:--

Such, Mr. Chief-Justice, was the life and such the death of
Jeremiah Mason. For one I could pour out my heart like water at
the recollection of his virtues and his friendship, and in the
feeling of his loss. I would embalm his memory in my best
affections.

Again, in the following extract from a letter to his teacher, Mr. James
Tappan, about two years before Mr. Webster's death, he writes:--

You have, indeed, lived a checkered life. I hope you have been
able to bear prosperity with meekness, and adversity with
patien