life in others' breath" so many men desire, the craving which John Milton called "the last infirmity of noble minds." Abraham Cowley in his address to his Muse says: "I shall like beasts or common people die, What is this sound that strikes my ear? It sounds like the last trumpet, for it can And perhaps of the goods, wares and merchandise dealt in at Vanity Fair, posthumous fame may be one of the most desirable; but, like other things bought and sold at that mart, it may be bought too dear. There is a motive which will efface this craving, as the rising sun blots out the stars of heaven. It is intense religious conviction. But that is not an article to be bought in Vanity Fair. John Marshall was a man of intense religious conviction. He was a regular and devout attendant at the services of the Episcopal Church. But as up to his last illness he was a Unitarian in belief, he never became a communicant of that church. In his last illness his views were materially changed, and at his death his belief was in full accord with that of the church whose services he had so long attended. Through his whole life, even in an age of great skepticism, he believed in God. In an age of wide-spread licentiousness he was a pure man in his relations with women. He was fond of jest, but his jests were free from irreverence and indelicacy. He was an affectionate and devoted husband; and his pure and unsullied domestic life is to be commended to the men of to-day. He was anxious, indeed, that his reputation should not be tarnished; but I see no evidence that he had any great craving for posthumous fame. He was a faithful friend, a faithful husband, a faithful citizen, a faithful public servant; in public life, in private life, in domestic life, in social life, he was a faithful man. We return to the questions: What is the basis of the things we hope for? By what is the coming age to be shaped? Now, faithfulness is the basis of things hoped for. By it, those who have gone before us have received their good report, and we know that through faithfulness the ages have been shaped in the counsel of God so that the things which are seen were not made of things that do appear. Great men, good men, faithful men are agencies and instrumentalities in the hands of God to accomplish His purposes, and when we study their history it is not to glorify the dead, but to glorify Him that liveth forever. "Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us; but unto Thy name give glory, for Thy mercy and for Thy truth's sake." "The old order changeth yielding place to new; Lest one good custom should corrupt the world." He buries His workmen; but he carries on His work. One of His workmen to whom a great work was entrusted was John Marshall. He was born in Fauquier County, Virginia, September 24, 1755, and was the oldest son of Colonel Thomas Marshall, who won deserved fame in the Revolutionary War, and who was from his boyhood a neighbor, associate, and friend of George Wash ington. From his father John Marshall acquired a great fondness for English literature, and especially English poetry; and he acquired habits of thinking and living that were invaluable to him. He often said: "My father was an abler man than any of his sons, and to him I owe my success in life." John Marshall was fond of athletics and field sports, and especially of the game of quoits. For some forty years he was a member of the Barbecue Club at Richmond; and it is said that in playing the game of quoits when he or his partner in the game made a stroke of special skill he would clap his hands with youthful enthusiasm. As a man he was tall, meager and emaciated. His appearance is said to have been rather ungainly. His coat would have fitted a man of twice his size; and his pockets were usually stuffed with legal papers, and occasionally with a law book. Repeatedly he would come from his farm near Richmond to take his seat upon the bench of the Supreme Court with burrs sticking to his clothes. His eyes were small and very black, beneath bushy brows. His lips were usually smiling and his laugh was a hearty one. He was always affable and had a kind and pleasant temper. When he was nineteen years old, the War of the Revolution broke out. He was lieutenant of a militia company, and at once called them together, and put them through the drill, winding up the day with a game of quoits, at which there was no betting. From 1775 to 1780 he was a soldier in the Revolutionary War. He was in winter quarters with the army during the dreadful winter at Valley Forge; and his kindness and cheerfulness of temper under all privations did much to alleviate the horrors of that winter. While a soldier, he met Mary Willis Ambler, a shy and diffident girl, fourteen years of age, who three years later became his wife, and with whom he lived happily until, after nearly half a century, she was taken from him by death, on Christmas day, 1831. In 1781 he commenced the practice of law. In 1784 he removed to Richmond and soon became the leader of the Virginia bar. He served repeatedly in the Virginia legislature. He was a member of the Virginia convention which ratified the Constitution of the United States. He was one of the envoys to France in 1797. He was a member of Congress in 1799. He was Secretary of State in 1800; and in his old age, in 1829, he presided over the Virginia convention which adopted the second constitution of that state. It is difficult for us to realize the political condition of this country during the period of which we are speaking. When the Revolution broke out a Continental Congress was created and the confederation was formed. Each state had its own government, but there was no national government. There was neither executive nor judiciary to the confederation. The United States consisted of little more than a fringe of settlements along the Atlantic. In 1786 Washington was asked to use his influence to induce certain insurgents against the confederation to disband, and he said, "Influence is not government; let us have a government that can protect our lives, our liberties and our property, or let us know the worst at once." It was desired to create a government that should act upon individuals as the state governments act. The convention of 1787 prepared a constitution, to take effect when it should be ratified by nine states. New Hampshire was the ninth state to ratify; but the news of the ratification had not reached Virginia when the vote was taken in convention; the members of that body supposed that Virginia was the ninth state to ratify. The vote in the Virginia convention was very narrow, being 89 yeas and 79 nays, and Marshall's influence in the convention in favor of the new constitution was greater than that of any other man, except James Madison. There were in the early days of the United States two parties: the Federalists and the Republicans, afterwards called Democrats. The Federalists desired a strong central government; the Republicans desired the central government to be restrained, as they feared that it might oppress them. Jefferson was a typical Republican; John Marshall was a Federalist. Indeed, it seems to the men of our day that to speak of a more intense Federalist than Marshall would be like talking of something wetter than water, and yet so extreme were many Federalists of his day that they thought him exceedingly moderate and were displeased that he did not go to the extent to which they themselves went; some of the Federal judges actually held that there was a criminal common law of the United States; and there was a tendency to stretch the Federal jurisdiction unreasonably. In his speech on the judiciary in the convention of 1788 he said, speaking of the possibility that a state might be sued by a citizen of another state, "I hope that no gentleman will think that a state will be called at the bar of the Federal court. It is not rational to sup |