known that Webster was to make one of his great speeches, or arguments, these rich men would go early and bribe officers to give them the best seats in front of him, and then nod their heads in assent to his most profound sentences and Latin quotations, which they neither understood nor could they spell or write the words they contained if pronounced to them. Looking upon him as the grand conservator of wealth against unfavorable legislation, they did not know how soon they might need his services in the United States court. And as Webster knew the value of rich clients, and cared more for the supreme court than the senate, such manifestations could not be distasteful to him.
After his speech in Chicago, in 1837, I did not hear him until my first session in congress, in the winter of 1843-4.
THE SENSATION
he created by his entrance into Chicago, drawn in a barouche by four cream-colored horses belonging to Col. Henry L. Kinney, of Peru, in this state, where his son Fletcher Webster was then residing, is well remembered; as also the ball given him at the Lake House, on the north side, then the most fashionable hotel in our city.
One day a member came into the house and exclaimed that preaching was played out. There was no use for ministers now. "Daniel Webster is down in the supreme court room eclipsing them all by a defense of the Christian religion. Hereafter we are to have the gospel according to Webster." It will be remembered that Stephen Girard had made a will endowing a college at Philadelphia from visiting which clergymen were forever prohibited. Mr. Webster was contesting the will upon the ground that this is a Christian government and that such a will was contrary to public policy. As I entered the court room, here are his first words: "And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thy heart. And thou shall teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thy house and when thou walkest by the way, when thou liest down and when thou risest up."
Then again: "Suffer little children to come unto me"—accenting the word children. He repeated it, accenting the word little: "Suffer little children to come unto me." Then,
ROLLING HIS EYES HEAVENWARD
and extending his arms, he repeated it thus: "Suffer little children to come unto me' —'unto me—unto me. "Suffer little children to come." So he went on for three days. And it was the only three days' meeting that I ever attended where one man did all the preaching, and there was neither praying nor singing. I have heard such stalwarts in the American pulpit as Lyman Beecher, Robert J. Breckenridge, Hosea Ballou, William Ellery Channing, and Alexander Campbell, but Webster overshadowed them all in his commendation of doctrines which they held in common. One could best be reminded of Paul at Mars Hill. I, too, have heard John N. Maffett, in his palmiest days. Could Webster thus have spoken at a camp-meeting, not even Maffett could have made the woods resound with louder or more frequent amens.
There was the closest attention and the most profound silence, except when assuming an air of indignation, with all the force with which he was capable, he exclaimed,—"To even argue upon the merits of such a will is an insult to the understanding of every man. It opposes all that is in heaven and all on earth that is worth being on earth." Here the audience with one accord broke out in the most enthusiastic applause. This is the only time I ever heard ap-
