Henry Clay is dead!  His body no longer animated with life; his spirit gone to God.  How like a torrent thought rushes on, in swift review, of his wonderful and glorious career.  His gifted youth, what if it were attended with the errors that almost invariably accompany genius like his!  Has he in the wide world an enemy who can bring aught against him?  Look at his patriotism, his benevolence, his noble acts.  Recall his energy, his calmness, his constant devotion to the interests of his country.  Look, above all, at his patience, his humility, as the great scenes of life were receding from his view, and futurity was opening before him.  Hear of the childlike submission with which he bowed to the Will that ordained for him a death-bed, protracted and painful.  “Lead me,” he said to a friend, “where I want to go, to the feet of Jesus.”

Listen to the simplicity with which he commended his body to his friends, and his spirit, through faith in Jesus Christ, to his God.  Regard him in all his varied relations of Christian, patriot, statesman, husband, father, master, and friend, and answer if the sigh that is now rending the heart of his country is not well merited.

Yes! reader, thoughts of death are useful to us all, whether it be by the grave of the poor and humble, or when listening to the tolling of the bell which announces to all that one who was mighty in the land has been summoned to the judgment seat of God.

CHAPTER XVI.

Mr. Weston and Phillis returned to the sick-room from the funeral.  Fever was doing its work with the fair being, the beloved of many hearts, who was unconscious of aught that was passing around her.  There was a startling light from the depths of her blue eyes; their natural softness of expression gone.  The crimson glow had flushed into a hectic; the hot breath from her parted lips was drying away their moisture.  The rich, mournful tones of her voice echoed in sad wailing through the chambers; it constantly and plaintively said Mother! though that mother answered in vain to its appeal.  The air circulated through the room, bearing the odor of the woods, but for her it had no reviving power; it could not stay the beatings of her pulse, nor relieve the oppression of her panting bosom.  Oh! what beauty was about that bed of sickness.  The perfect shape of every feature, the graceful turn of the head, the luxuriant auburn hair, the contour of her rounded limbs.  There was no vacancy in her face.  Alas! visions of sorrow were passing in her mind.  A sad intelligence was expressed in every glance, but not to the objects about her.  The soul, subdued by the suffering of its tenement, was wandering afar off, perchance endeavoring to dive into the future, perchance essaying to forget the past.

What says that vision of languishing and loveliness to the old man whose eyes are fixed in grief upon it?  “Thou seest, O Christian! the uselessness of laying up thy treasures here.  Where are now the hopes of half thy lifetime, where the consummation of all thy anxious plans?  She who has been like an angel by thy side, how wearily throbs her young heart!  Will she perpetuate the name of thy race?  Will she close thine eyes with her loving hand?  Will she drop upon thy breast a daughter’s tear?”