tures to the lady and she accepted him. He failed to publish the contract, according to law, and he performed the marriage ceremony himself. This he claimed the right to do in his capacity as magistrate, and when he was prosecuted, he refused to appear as an offender, and finally escaped censure.

Mr. Bellingham survived all the patentees and all the early assistants except Bradstreet. His sister Annie, widow of William Hibbens, an assistant, was executed as a witch at Salem in June, 1656.

THOMAS HART BENTON.

SENATOR IN CONGRESS, 1821-1851.*

THOMAS HART BENTON was born near Hillsborough, N. C., March 14, 1782, died in Washington, April 10, 1858.

He studied at the University of North Carolina, leaving that institution without receiving a degree; pursued law at William and Mary College, Virginia; was connected with the United States Army, in 1810; in 1811 began the practice of law at Nashville, Tenn., and soon after emigrated to St. Louis, Mo., where he edited the Missouri Inquirer.

In 1820 he was elected a member of the United States Senate, and remained in that body until the session of 1851. During the thirty years of his connection with the Senate, few public measures were discussed in which he did not participate.

In the Presidential election of 1856, he supported Mr. Buchanan, in opposition to his son-in-law, Colonel Frémont, fearing that the election of Colonel Frémont would occasion sectional parties fatal to the permanence of the Union.

While connected with the Missouri Inquirer, he had difficulty with Mr. Lucas, resulting in a duel between the two, in which Mr. Benton killed his opponent.

Says Daniel Webster of Mr. Benton: "We had had many political controversies; we were hardly on bowing terms. For many years we had been members of the same body, and passed in and out at the same door without the slightest mutual recognition, and we never had any intercourse except such as was official, and when it could not be avoided. There were no social relations whatever

Lanman; Appleton; Hervey's" Reminiscences of Daniel Webster; " Boston Recorder; Discourse, by Rev. Mr. Cowan; National Portrait Gallery.

between us. At the time of the gun explosion on board the Princeton, Mr. Benton was a passenger and he related to me this incident. He was standing near the gun in the best position to see the experiment. The deck of the steamer was crowded. Suddenly he felt a hand laid upon his shoulder, and turned. Some one wished to speak to him, and he was elbowed out of his place. The person who took his place was ex-Governor Gilmer, of Virginia, then Secretary of the Navy. At that instant the gun was fired, and the explosion took place. Governor Gilmer was killed instantly. Colonel Benton in relating this circumstance said, 'It seemed to me, Mr. Webster, as if that touch on my shoulder, was the hand of the Almighty drawing me away from what otherwise would have been instant death. That one circumstance has changed the current of my thoughts and life. I feel that I am a different man, and I want in the first place to be at peace with all those with whom I have been at variance, and so I have come to you. Let us bury the hatchet, Mr. Webster.' We shook hands, and agreed to let the past be past. After this, there was no person in the Senate of whom I would have asked any reasonable favor sooner than of Mr. Benton."

Rev. Mr. Cowan says of Mr. Benton: "To those who had the privilege of being with him in his last illness, he gave the most satisfactory evidence of having made his peace with God." Mr. Cowan also relates that "in 1851, he was engaged in a protracted meeting in Benton, Scott County, and Mr. Benton making a visit to the place attended the meeting. My text was, 'Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian.' At the close he came up and took me by the hand, and placing his mouth close to my ear, he remarked, in allusion to my text, 'It is all my own case-it is all my own case,' and burst into a flood of tears."

Mr. Benton published "Thirty Years' View; or, the American Government from 1820 to 1850"; two volumes. While the second volume was in preparation, a fire destroyed his manuscripts. He stated to his publisher his loss: that his labor would be doubled; but that he would go to work immediately and work incessantly.

He married Elizabeth, daughter of Col. James McDowell, of Rockbridge County, Va.

JEREMIAH SULLIVAN BLACK. ·

ATTORNEY-GENERAL OF THE UNITED STATES, 1857-1860.*

HENRY BLACK, father of Jeremiah S., served in the Legislature of Pennsylvania from 1815 to 1818, and was an Associate Judge of Somerset County from 1820 to 1840. In 1841, at a special election, he was chosen to fill a vacancy in Congress, but on the point of departure for his duties at Washington, died suddenly November 28, 1841.

Jeremiah Sullivan Black was born in Somerset County, Pa., January 10, 1810, died at York, August 19, 1883.

He received his early education in the schools about his home and completed his studies at a private academy in Fayette County. When seventeen years old, he left the school-room for the farm, where he spent eighteen months, devoting his leisure time to the translation of Virgil and Horace. He then studied law with Chauncy Forward, and was admitted to the bar in 1831. In 1838 he married Mr. Forward's daughter Mary, who was eleven years younger than himself.

In 1851, he was elected Judge of the Supreme Court, was reelected in 1854; received from President Buchanan, March 5, 1857, the appointment of Attorney-General of the United States, and served as Secretary of State from December, 1860, to March, 1861.

Mr. Black published an article in the "North American Review" upon the claims of the Christian Religion,† answering the points of a prominent opposer. Certain opposing points with their answers, are as follows:

Lanman; Weekly Dispatch, York, Pa.; "North American Review"; Address by Rev. T. L. Powers.

† A pamphlet edition was published in Toronto.

Christianity offers eternal Salvation as the reward of belief alone. This is a misrepresentation simple and naked. No such doctrine is propounded in the Scriptures, or in the creed of any Christian church. On the contrary, it is distinctly taught that faith avails nothing without repentance, reformation, and newness of life.

The mystery of the second birth is incomprehensible.

Christ established a new kingdom in the world but not of it. Subjects were admitted to the privileges and protection of its government by a process equivalent to naturalization. To be born again, or regenerated is to be naturalized. The words all mean the same thing.

The doctrine of the Atonement is absurd, unjust, immoral.

The plan of salvation, or any plan for the rescue of sinners from the legal operation of divine justice, could have been found only in the councils of the Omniscient. Necessarily, its heights and depths are not easily fathomed by finite intelligence. But the greatest, ablest, wisest and most virtuous men that ever lived, have given it their profoundest consideration, and found it to be not only authorized by revelation, but theoretically conformed to their best and highest conceptions of Infinite Goodness.

He does not comprehend how justice and mercy can be blended together in the plan of redemption; and therefore it cannot be true.

A thing is not necessarily false, because one does not understand it; he cannot annihilate a principle or fact by ignoring it. There are many truths in heaven and earth which no man can see through; for instance the union of man's soul with his body, is not only an unknowable, but an unimaginable mystery. Is it therefore false that a connection does exist between matter and spirit?

How can the sufferings of an innocent person satisfy justice for the sins of the guilty?

This raises a metaphysical question, which it is not necessary or possible to discuss here. As matter of fact, Christ died that sinners might be reconciled to God, and in that sense He died for them; that is to furnish them with the means of averting divine justice, which their crimes had provoked.

What would we think of a man who allowed another to die for a crime which he himself had committed?