I was often with him during his last illness, when the world and the things of the world were fast fading away before him. He knew that the silver cord was almost loosened, and that the golden bowl was breaking at the fountain; but he was resigned to the will of Providence, feeling that he who gave has the right to take away, in his own good time and manner. After his duty to his Creator, and his anxiety for his family, his first care was for his country, and his first wish for the preservation and perpetuation of the Constitution and the Union――dear to him in the hour of death, as they had ever been in the vigor of life. Of that Constitution and Union, whose defence in the last and greatest crisis of their peril, had called forth all his energies, and stimulated those memorable and powerful exertions, which he who witnessed can never forget, and which no doubt hastened the final catastrophe a nation now deplores, with a sincerity and unanimity, not less honorable to themselves, than to the memory of the object of their affections. And when we shall enter that narrow valley, through which he has passed before us, and which leads to the judgment-seat of God, may we be able to say, through faith in his Son, our Saviour, and in the beautiful language of the hymn of the dying Christian――dying, but ever living, and triumphant―― ‘The world recedes, it disappears―― Heaven opens on my eyes! my ears With sounds seraphic ring; Lend, lend your wings! I mount――I fly! Oh, Grave! where is thy victory? Oh, Death! where is thy sting!’ ‘Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last hour be like his.’ * * * * * Mr. HUNTER.――Mr. President: We have heard, with deep sensibility, what has just fallen from the senators who have preceded me. We have heard, sir, the voice of Kentucky――and, upon this occasion, she had a right to speak――in mingled accents of pride and sorrow; for it has rarely fallen to the lot of any state to lament the loss of such a son. But Virginia, too, is entitled to her place in this procession; for she cannot be supposed to be unmindful of the tie which bound her to the dead. When the earth opens to receive the mortal part which she gave to man, it is then that affection is eager to bury in its bosom every recollection but those of love and kindness. And, sir, when the last sensible tie is about to be severed, it is then that we look with anxious interest to the deeds of the life, and to the emanations of the heart and the mind, for those more enduring monuments which are the creations of an immortal nature.