r heard him utter a harsh word to any one of us. On
winter evenings, as we all sat round the fire, he taught us games, and
would play them with us. He reproved without wounding us, and commended
without making us vain. His nature was so eminently sympathetic that
with those he loved he could enter into their feelings, anticipate
their wishes, gratify their tastes, and surround them with an atmosphere
of affection."

Thus did he live in his plain but beautiful house, in sight of the Blue
Ridge, with Charlottesville and the university at his feet. He rode
daily for ten miles until he was eighty-two. He died July 4, 1826, full
of honors, and everywhere funeral orations were delivered to his memory,
the best of which was by Daniel Webster in Boston.

Among his papers was found the inscription which he wished to have
engraved on his tomb: "Here was buried Thomas Jefferson, Author of the
Declaration of American Independence, of the Statute of Virginia for
Religious Freedom, and Father of the University of Virginia." He does
not allude to his honors or his offices,--not a word about his
diplomatic career, or of his stations as governor of Virginia, Secretary
of State, or President of the United States. But the three things he
does name enshrine the best convictions of his life and the substance of
his labors in behalf of his country,--political independence, religious
freedom, and popular education.

The fame of Jefferson as author of the Declaration of Independence is
more than supported by his writings at different times which bear on
American freedom and the rights of man. It is as a writer on political
liberty that he is most distinguished. He was not an orator or
speech-maker. He worked in his library among his books, meditating on
the great principles which he enforced with so much lucidity and power.
It was for his skill with the pen that he was selected to draft the
immortal charter of American freedom, which endeared him to the hearts
of the people, and which no doubt contributed largely to cement the
States together in their resistance to Great Britain.

His reference to the statute of Virginia in favor of religious freedom
illustrates another of his leading sentiments, to which he clung with
undeviating tenacity during his whole career. He may have been a
freethinker like Franklin, but he did not make war on the religious
beliefs of mankind; he only desired that everybody should be free to
adopt such religious p