"I believe all our Baptist ministers in town except two, and most of our brethren in the country, were on the side of the Americans in the late dispute . . . . We wept when the thirsty plains drank the blood of your departed heroes, and the shout of a king was amongst us when your well-fought battles were crowned with victory. And to this hour we believe that the independence of America will for a while secure the liberty of this country, and if that continent had been reduced, Britain would not long have been free."

At the College Commencement in September, 1789, Mr. Manning said: "Should the Christian ministry, with any of you, become an object, reflect on the absurdity of intruding into it while strangers to experimental religion. See that you yourselves have been taught of God, before you attempt to teach godliness to others. To place in the professional chairs of our universities the most illiterate of mankind, would be an absurdity far less glaring than to call an unconverted man to exercise the ministerial function. This is to expose our holy religion to the scoffs of infidels, and furnish to their hands the most deadly weapons. I omit to insist on the account such must render in the great tremendous day."

Mr. Manning married, in 1763, Margaret, daughter of John and Margaret Stiles, of Elizabethtown, N. J. She was not a professor of religion at the time of marriage, but during a revival under his preaching, became a hopeful convert, and was received into the fellowship of the Baptist church.

JOHN MARSHALL.

CHIEF-JUSTICE OF THE UNITED STATES, 1801-1835.*

*

COL. THOMAS MARSHALL, father of John, was a Virginia planter of small fortune, and signalized himself during the Revolution, at Brandywine, where his regiment bore the brunt of the British assault, led by Cornwallis in person.

John Marshall, the eldest of fifteen children, was born at Germantown, Fauquier County, Virginia, September 24, 1755; died at Philadelphia, July 6, 1835.

In his Autobiography, dated Richmond, March 22, 1818, he writes: "I was educated at home under the direction of my father, who was a planter, but was often called from home as a surveyor. From my infancy I was destined for the Bar; but the contest between the mother country and the colonies drew me from my studies, and my father from the superintendence of them, and in September, 1775, I entered into the service as a subaltern. I continued in the army until the year 1781. . . . In the year 1782 I was elected into the Legislature of Virginia, and in the fall session of the same year, was chosen a member of the Executive Council of that State. . . . In April, 1784, I resigned my seat in the Executive Council, and came to the Bar, at which I continued, declining any other public office than a seat in the Legislature, until the year 1797, when I was associated with General Pinckney, and Mr. Gerry, in a mission to France. In 1798 I returned to the United States; and in the spring of 1799, was elected a member of Congress, a candidate for which, much against my inclina

Autobiography of John Marshall," pamphlet edition, Columbus, O., 1848; "Lives of the Chief-Justices," by Henry Flanders; Drake's "Dictionary of American Biography"; "Old Churches and Families of Virginia," by Bishop Meade.

tion, I was induced to become, by the request of General Washington. At the close of the first session, I was nominated first to the Department of War, and afterwards to that of State, which last office I accepted, and in which I continued until the beginning of the year 1801, when, Mr. Ellsworth having resigned, and Mr. Jay having declined his appointment, I was nominated to the office of Chief-Justice, which I still hold." He served as Chief-Justice of the United States Supreme Court for the period of thirty-four years.

"Judge Marshall was a sincere friend to religion, and a constant attendant upon its ministrations. Brought up in the Episcopal Church, he adhered to it through life, though not until a short time before his death a believer in its fundamental doctrines."

Rev. William Norwood in a letter to Bishop Meade writes: "I often visited Mrs. General Harvey during her last sickness. . . . She was much with her father (Judge Marshall) during the last months of his life, and told me that the reason why he never communed was, that he was a Unitarian in opinion, though he never joined their society. He told her that he believed in the truth of the Christian revelation, but not in the divinity of Christ; therefore he could not commune in the Episcopal Church. But, during the last months of his life, he read Keith on Prophecy, where our Saviour's divinity is incidentally treated, and was convinced by his work, and the fuller investigation to which it led, of the supreme divinity of the Saviour. He determined to apply for admission to the communion of our Church-objected to communion in private, because he thought it his duty to make a public confession of the Saviour; and, while waiting for improved health to enable him to go to the church for that purpose, he grew worse, and died, without ever communing. Mrs. Harvey was a lady of the strictest probity, the most humble piety, and of a clear, discriminating mind, and her statement . . may be entirely relied

on."

...

"I can never forget," says Bishop Meade, "how he would prostrate his tall form before the rude, low benches without backs, at the Cool Spring Meeting House, in the midst of his children and grandchildren, and his old neighbors. In Richmond he always set an example to the gentlemen of the same conformity, though

JOHN MARSHALL.

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many of them did not follow it. At the building of the Monumental Church, he was much incommoded by the narrowness of the pews, which partook too much of the modern fashion. Not finding room for his whole body within the pew, he used to take his seat nearest the door of his pew, and throwing it open, let his legs stretch a little into the aisle."

A kinsman of Mr. Marshall offers this testimony to his character. "He was the composer of strifes. He spoke ill of no man. He meddled not with their affairs. He viewed their worst deeds through the medium of charity. He had eight sisters and six brothers, with all of whom, from youth to age, his intercourse was marked by the utmost kindness and affection."

Mr. Marshall married in January, 1873, Mary Willis, second daughter of Jacquelin Ambler, then Treasurer of Virginia. The strength of his domestic affection is revealed in the following tribute to the memory of Mrs. Marshall, penned by him December 25, 1832.

"This day of joy and festivity to the whole Christian world, is to my heart, the anniversary of the keenest affliction which humanity can sustain. . . . On the 25th of December, 1831, it was the will of Heaven to take to itself the companion who had sweetened the choicest part of my life, had rendered toil a pleasure, partaken of all my feelings, and was enthroned in the inmost recess of my heart. . . . From the moment of our union to that of our separation, I never ceased to thank Heaven for this, its best gift. . . . To manners uncommonly pleasing, she added a fine understanding, and the sweetest temper which can accompany a just and modest sense of what was due to herself. . . . Hers was the religion taught by the Saviour of man. She was a firm believer in the faith inculcated by the Church-Episcopal-in which she was bred. . . ."

Mr. Marshall published "Life of Washington," 1805, second edition, 1832; "History of the Colonies planted by the English in North America," 1824.

THOMAS MAYHEW.

GOVERNOR OF MARTHA'S VINEYARD.*

THOMAS MAYHEW, born in England, died in the year 1681, in the ninety-third year of his age.

He was at one time a merchant in Southampton, came to New England in 1631; in 1636 resided at Watertown, Mass., and subsequently received and accepted an appointment as Governor of Nantucket, Martha's Vineyard, and the adjacent islands.

The names of Governor Mayhew and his son, Rev. Thomas Mayhew, were intimately associated in benevolent work among the Indians. The latter lost his life at sea in the year 1657, the ship in which he took passage for England having never been heard from. "His excellent father, the Governor, now entered largely into his son's labors. He began himself, at the age of seventy, to preach to the natives as well as the English, sometimes traveling on foot through the woods twenty miles in his work of love. He was instrumental in bringing the natives at Gayhead to receive the Gospel, though they had resisted all previous efforts to evangelize them."

After the death of the son, Rev. Thomas Mayhew, the commissioners for the united Colonies write to Governor Mayhew as follows-modern spelling being observed:

"SIR:

"Yours of the 25th of the sixth month we received, and rejoice that it hath pleased God in any measure to bear up your heart under those sad thoughts and fears concerning your son, wherein we cannot but deeply sympathize with you; and indeed do mind it as that which at the present seemeth to be almost irreparable. But He that is the Lord of the harvest will, we hope, send forth Allen; Eliot; Sprague's “Annals of American Pulpit "; Hazard's “Historical Collections."