hern colored
man--a piece of writing surpassed in lurid power by nothing in the
literature of the French Revolution; and more potent than either or both
of these, the appearance of the first number of the _Liberator_, in
Boston. When Garrison wrote, "I am in earnest, I will not equivocate, I
will not excuse, I will not retreat a single inch, and I will be heard,"
Andrew Jackson for once met a will firmer than his own, because more
steadfast and moved by a loftier purpose. Thenceforth, for nearly half a
century, the history of the nation was the history of the great
anti-slavery contest.

DANIEL WEBSTER

By REV. DR. TWEEDIE

(1782-1852)

[Illustration: Daniel Webster. [TN]]

Daniel Webster, the American statesman, was born in the town of
Salisbury, in the county of Merrimack, New Hampshire, America, on
January 18, 1782. His mother, a woman of deep piety, was his first
teacher; his father was a man of singular but quiet energy, and the
training of the youthful statesman was well fitted to prepare him, at
least in some respects, for the work which it fell to his lot to
perform. From his mother's lips were first received the vital truths of
the Bible; and the first copy of that book ever owned by Webster was her
gift. Long subsequent to this period, and in the full blaze of his
fame, he could say that he had never been able to recollect the time
when he could not read the Bible, and supposed that his first
schoolmistress began to teach him when he was three or four years of
age. His first school-house was built of logs, and stood about half a
mile from his father's house, not very far from the beautiful Merrimack.
All was then humble enough with this great American statesman. He
attended school only during the winter months, and assisted his father
in the business of his farm and his mill as soon as he had strength for
doing so. He was, however, the brightest boy at school; and when the
tempting reward of a knife was promised to the scholar who committed to
memory the greatest number of verses from the Bible, Daniel came with
whole chapters, which the master could not find time to hear him repeat
in full. The boy secured the knife, and his delighted teacher
subsequently told the father of that child that "he would do God's work
injustice" if gifts so promising were not nurtured at college.

But that consummation was not to be very soon realized. For some time
Daniel had to assist his father at a saw-mill; bu