Thou wak'st, and keep'st awake that lay Ah me! it shows no syren skill! Close to thy tree, with eager will, Might now be stealing, And touch it thus: Ha! thou art still! Poor tiny thing, life's tenant brief, To drop ere falls the fading leaf! Meanwhile thou'rt charmed from all mischief No flying fiend, no lurking thief, Kind Providence!-it cares thus then O yes, we fall beneath its ken, And sovereign care. O Thou, who shield'st, the lily's pride, Wean us from earth and be our guide MOTHER'S GRAVE. How still it is. The wind frills up the long summer grass, and rustles the swaying willows under which I am standing, just as softly as that other breeze that wafts up the years that lie in the shadow of the past, and stirs up my heart with the old memories it brings with it. Twelve years ago I sat just as I do now. I am greatly changed, but all around me is the same. The far off hills with their blue misty tops, half wreathed in the folds of white clouds, the green meadows with the country sunshine, flashing like sweet thoughts all about them, and the water splashing down softly on the white pebbles. I remember all. "Mother!" I need not whisper the name so low, for there is none to hear me but the birds on the tops of the willows, and it will not disturb her slumber. No, no, though I sit here with one arm wrapped closely round the grave, where the tears of manhood are dropping thick and fast, as the tears of my childhood dropped on her bosom; I know she will not waken. I remember it as though it had all happened this morning-how, her cool, soft fingers used to drop like snow-flakes on my hair, and her lips murmur sweet blessings over me with every night-fall. Oh! I am a rich man now! The dews of night fall on my broad acres, and the spray of the far Pacific washes the keels of my proud ships: but I would give many a goodly acre, many a treasure that sleeps deep in the hold, to lie down one night under the old garret rafter, with that sweet seraph face bending o'er me with its playful kiss, just as it used to do. Mother! mother! the daisies of a score of summers have bloomed and fallen above your grave, but your memory slumbers deep and sacred in the heart of your boy still. The memory of your prayers and your counsels have been with him in the long way that his feet have trodden, and he has cause to thank you for this now! Look over the shining bastions, sainted mother, and see me as I lie here, with my cheeks pillowed in the moist grass. Here, only here, casting off all my manhood, I can be a child again, for the world will never know me as you have known me, dearest mother. We shall know each other up there, too, where the snowy blossoms never wither on the everlasting hills, and the autumn never braids its scarlet fringing through the green eternal summers. Your boy will come to you, and from that land which is far off, we shall go no more out forever, mother. I heard the bell toll on thy burial day, I saw the hearse, that bore thee slow away, But was it such? It was. Where thou art gone, 2858.] The Late Thomas Hart Benton. 145 THE LATE THOMAS HART BENTON. COLONEL Benton was born near Hillsborough, Orange county, North Carolina, March 14, 1782. His father died when he was eight years old; his early education was imperfect; he was for some time at a grammar school, and afterwards at Chapel Hill, the University of North Carolina, but finished no course of study there, as his mother removed to Tennessee to settle on a tract of land belonging to his father's estate. Thomas studed law and soon rose to eminence in his profession. He was now elected to the Legislature, serving only a single term, during which he procured the passage of a law reforming the judicial system, and of another giving to slaves the benefit of a jury trial, the same as white men. One of his earliest friends and patrons was Andrew Jackson, at that time judge of the Supreme Court, and subsequently Major General of the State militia. Benton became his aid-de-camp, and during the war also raised a regiment of volunteers. It was from that service he derived the name of Colonel, which has clung to him through life. Notwithstanding the close intimacy between Jackson and himself, which was of the most cordial and unreserved character, a rude and sudden rencontre took place, in Nashville, between Jackson and a posse of friends on one side, and Benton and his brother on the other, in which severe pistol and dagger wounds were given, and produced a rupture which estranged them for many years. After the volunteers were disbanded Mr. Madison appointed Col. Benton, in 1813, a Lieutenant Colonel in the army; but on his way to serve in Canada, in 1814, he heard the news of peace and resigned. He now removed to Missouri, and took up his abode in the city of St. Louis in 1815. There he devoted himself anew to his profession. Soon, however, engaging in the politics of the day, he was led to the establishment of a newspaper entitled the Missouri Argus. In this position he was involved in many disputes and contentions. Duels were usual at the time, and he had his share of them, with their unhappy consequences. In one of them, which was forced upon him, he killed his opponent, Mr. Lucas, an event he deeply regretted, and all the private papers relating to which he has destroyed. In 1820, with the organization of the State government, Mr. Benton was elected a member of the United States Senate, and remained in that body an active and conspicuous member till the session of 1851, (thirtyone years in the Senate,) when he failed of a re-election. As Missouri, however, was not admitted into the Union until August 10th, 1821, more than a year of Benton's first term had expired before he took his seat. This interval he occupied in acquiring a knowledge of the language and literature of Spain; and thenceforth, for many years, his industry as a student during his extra hours, seized from the early morning, and appropriated from the night, form a most interesting feature of the economy and regularity of his personal habits. The results, too, were of the greatest advantage to him as a Senator, for having acquainted himself intimately with the political, social and religious systems, and with the languages, laws, and literature of the governing nations of ancient and modern times; his knowledge of every great subject involved in a Senatorial debate covered the most minute experience and teachings of the history of man, and of his progressive steps from the patriarchal institutions of the Hebrews to the comprehensive civilization of our own day. When Col. Benton entered the Senate Mr. Monroe was President; Governor Tompkins, Vice President; John Quincy Adams, Secretary of State; William H. Crawford, Secretary of the Treasury; John C. Calhoun, Secretary of War; Smith Thompson, of New York, Secretary of the Navy; John McLean, Postmaster General, and William Wirt, Attorney General; of whom all have disappeared from the stage of action except Mr. M'Lean. And here that voluminous and interesting historical political work of Mr. Benton-of his "Thirty Years in the Senate"-interposes its rich and copious details of the leading public characters, measures, events and issues which agitated the country, divided its political parties and determined the game for the Presidency from term to term, through all that long period. In glancing over the pages of these solemn volumes of a "Thirty Years' View" of "the workings of the American Government," we find that the first speech of Mr. Benton, prominently referred to is his speech of 1824, in favor of an amendment of the Constitution of the United States in relation to the election directly by the popular vote. It was not, however, until after the rupture between President Jackson and Vice President Calhoun, in 1831, and the breaking out of the war between Old Hickory and the United States Bank, that Col. Benton took the first rank in the Senate as a debater and the champion of the administration. The war against the bank was virtually declared in General Jackson's first annual message in Congress in 1829, and the war began in earnest in the Senate upon the question of a re-charter in 1831-Mr. Benton leading the way as the most radical advocate of a gold and silver currency. In person, Col. Benton was tall, muscular and robust, and with a presence singularly majestic and commanding. His features were of the strong Roman mould, and their habitual expression was that of a self-possessed, self-relying, positive and resolute man. His marriage with a daughter of Cól. McDowell, of Virginia, secured him an amiable and exemplary partner, and the domestic associations of an extensive circle of influential families. Mrs. Benton died some four years ago. Of his four surviving children, all daughters, one is "our Jessie," the wife of Col. Fremont; another is the wife of Mr. Wm. Carey Jones, returned from a government mission to Central America; another is married to Mr. Jacob, a well-to-do farmer, in Kentucky, and formerly one of Fremont's amateur mountain men; the fourth, and youngest, some years ago was married to an attache of the French Legation at Washington, and now French Consul General at Calcutta. In the important matter of religion, Cononel Benton was, if not a member, a faithful attendant with his family at the New School Presbyterian Church, near his residence at Washington. Among the people of Washington he was esteemed as a citizen, and beloved as a neighbor and friend. With Benton, the last excepting Cass, and we may say Crittenden, of the compeers of Clay, Calhoun and Webster, is gone. If Clay was distinguished for the love of his friends, and Calhoun for the veneration of his disciples, and Webster for the admiration of the commercial politicians of the North, Benton was particularly distinguished for the esteem 1858.] Nearer. 147 of those who knew him most intimately, and for the bitter hostility of his opponents who only knew him from his excusable egotism, and sometimes offensive, harsh, and imperious manner as a public debater in the Senate. To this brief account of the life of Col. Benton we would add a few reflections. First, we learn from it that he was a self-made man. Industry and perseverance led him forward to a position of undoubted eminence and usefulness to his country. In this respect his example may be commended to all young men. His talents, though of a high order, seem not to have been extraordinary. There are hundreds whose lives are spent in almost useless obscurity, whose native abilities were equal if not superior to his. He spared not the cost, and thus secured the end. Whilst, however, it is pleasant to contemplate this feature in his character, how sad is the reflection that he never became a professor of the christian religion! He died, it seems, out of the church! He attended church, perhaps all his life, more or less, as thousands do. Thus he looked at religion, and heard of it, and no doubt "thought it fit and decent" so to do; but it never became to him a personal matter, and he was never brought to "the obedience of faith." How strange is this. Men persuade themselves that they respect religion, and feel as if they had some vague interest in it, without identifying themselves with it! What would be thought of a man of Benton's prominence who should live 77 years in the county without acknowledging himself a citizen of the county? Standing coldly aloof from all its responsibilities and privileges? He would be regarded an enemy at heart to the land which protected him. But is not this exact. ly what such men do in regard to the church. Can any dishonor to the church be greater than to pass it by as though it did not exist to say by an act running through a long life-time that it is not of sufficient importance to claim a personal acknowledgment, and merit personal attention. Is any contempt equal to silent contempt? This, we say, is a thought full of sadness. We do not judge this eminent statesman. Nor are we unmindful of the saying, "nothing but good of the dead." We violate not this saying in our remarks; but only bear testimony against a vast error, and in favor of an everlasting good. We are persuaded that the time must come when in view of the state of the dying no comfort shall be drawn from any source where there is an absence of obedience to our blessed Saviour's dying command: "Do this in remembrance of me ;" and this command can only be obeyed in the church. One sweetly solemn thought NEARER. Than I've ever been before. Nearer my Father's house, Where the many mansions be; Nearer the great white throne, Nearer the bound of life Where we lay our burdens down; |