If not at all times first, he stood equal with the foremost, and a brilliant, rapid rise knew no decline in the confidence of those whose just appreciation of his merits had confirmed his title to renown.
The citizens of other countries will deplore his death; the struggling patriots who on our own continent were cheered by his sympathies, and who must have perceived his influence in the recognition of their independence by this government, have taught their children to venerate his name. He won the civic crown, and the demonstrations of this hour own the worth of civil services.
It was with great satisfaction that I heard my friend from Kentucky, [Mr. Breckenridge,] the immediate representative of Mr. Clay, detail a conversation which disclosed the feelings of that eminent man in relation to his Christian hope. These, Mr. Speaker, are rich memorials, precious reminiscences. A Christian statesman is the glory of his age, and his memory will be glorious in after times; it reflects a light coming from a source which clouds cannot dim nor shadows obscure. It was my privilege, also, a short time since, to converse with this distinguished statesman on the subject of his hopes in a future state. Feeling a deep interest, I asked him frankly what were his hopes in the world to which he was evidently hastening. ‘I am pleased,’ said he, ‘my friend, that you have introduced the subject. Conscious that I must die very soon, I love to meditate upon the most important of all interests. I love to converse and to hear conversations about them. The vanity of the world, and its insufficiency to satisfy the soul of man, has long been a settled conviction of my mind. Man’s inability to secure by his own merits the approbation of God, I feel to be true. I trust in theatonement of the Saviour of men as the ground of my acceptance and my hope of salvation. My faith is feeble, but I hope in His mercy and trust in his promises.’ To such declarations I listened with the deepest interest, as I did on another occasion, when he said: ‘I am willing to abide the will of Heaven, and ready to die when that will shall determine it.’
He is gone, sir, professing the humble hope of a Christian. That hope, alone, sir, can sustain you, or any of us. There is one lonely and crushed heart that has bowed before this afflictive event. Far away, at Ashland, a widowed wife, prevented by feeble health from attending his bedside and soothing his painful hours, she has thought even the electric speed of the intelligence daily transmitted of his condition too slow for her aching, anxious bosom. She will find consolation in his Christian submission, and will draw all of comfort that such a case admits from the assurance that nothing was neglected by the kindness of friends which could supply her place. May the guardianship of the widow’s God be her protection, and His consolations her support!
‘All cannot be at all times first
To reach the topmost step of glory; to stand there,
More hard. Even swifter than we mount, we fall.’
Mr. HAVEN said: Mr. Speaker, Representing a constituency distinguished for the constancy of its devotion to the political principles of Mr. Clay, and for its unwavering attachment to his fortunes and his person—sympathizing deeply with those whose more intimate personal relations with him have made them feel most profoundly this general bereavement—I desire to say a few words of him, since he has fallen amongst us and been taken to his rest.
After the finished eulogies which have been so eloquently pronounced by the honorable gentlemen who have preceded me, I will avoid a course of remark which might otherwise be deemed a repetition, and refer to the bearing of some of the acts of the deceased upon the interests and destinies of my own state. The influence of his public life, and of his purely American character, the benefits of his wise forecast, and the results of his efforts for wholesome and rational progress, are no where more strongly exhibited than in the state of New York.