"Daniel Webster.
"To Madam Story."
[1.] P. 358, l. 28. 1. Cf. Life and Works of Judge Story.
[2.] P. 362, l. 10. 1. The following inscription, which Mr. Webster wrote with his own hand a short time before his death, and which he desired to have placed on his monument, is interesting in connection with these closing words of the eulogy:--
"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 wrote the above, he said to a friend: "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."
It was not Mr. Webster's custom to make a parade of his religious beliefs; he was simple, sincere, and unaffected in his religious life. That he was a lover and student of our English Bible, no one familiar with his thought and style needs to be told. Mr. Choate, in speaking of Webster's models in the matter of style, mentions Cicero, Virgil, our English Bible, Shakespeare, Addison, and Burke.
For the latest estimates of Webster's work the student should consult the following: