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 the atonement 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.’ * * * * *