The city has a wealth of new churches. The first little square white church which the Baptists built in the beginning of the century was removed in 1880 and a modern brick church now occupies the site. The Second Baptist Church society in the central part of the city has just completed a fine church edifice. The Second Congregational society, two years ago, dedicated a splendid granite building which cost nearly $100,000, the successor of the plain brick meeting-house which in 1853 was erected at the corner of High and Dwight streets. The city has a large Catholic population and three extensive Catholic parishes each having a capacious church of fitting architecture. The Episcopal people worship in a picturesque stone church on Maple street, and near it is the cozy little Unitarian church. The Methodists built a church of brick on Main street about the year 1870. The First Congregational society has a wooden edifice on Northampton street--the oldest church building in the city since the primitive First Baptist meeting-house was taken down--and the church at South Holyoke where the German residents listen to the services of their faith in the language of the fatherland. [Illustration: CHURCH OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD (FRENCH CATHOLIC)] * * * * * THE LAST PORTRAIT OF DANIEL WEBSTER. The many who cherish the memory of DANIEL WEBSTER with more than common interest and veneration, are fortunate, in that the records of his life, his habits and his appearance are so complete. The portraits of Webster, now extant, represent the great statesman at numerous periods of his life. [Illustration] In July, 1852, Mr. Webster was in Franklin, N.H., and there sat for his picture to the local artist of the town, who finished an excellent daguerrotype. The picture was given by Mr. Webster to the Hon. Stephen M. Allen, who now has it in his possession at the rooms of the Webster Historical Society, in the Old South Meeting House, and by whose courtesy it is here reproduced. In October of the same year, three months after the picture was made, Daniel Webster at his Marshfield home, breathed his last; leaving this portrait the last ever taken of him from life. * * * * * FORT SHIRLEY. By Prof. A.L. Perry of Williams College. The recent centennial celebration in the town of Heath, Franklin County, Massachusetts, has freshened up an interest in the history of the old fort that was built within its borders, at the opening of the Old French War in 1744, by the State of Massachusetts. The present writer, however, has made a study for many years of that and its kindred forts, has repeatedly visited and critically examined its site, and has in his possession the chief movable memorials of what was indeed a small, yet in its historical connections a deeply interesting, military outpost.