"
How exceedingly astonished would these affectionate young friends have
been, if they could have looked forward forty years, and seen the
timid law-student Secretary of State, and his ardent young comrade a
clerk in his department. They seemed equals in 1802; in 1845, they had
grown so far apart, that the excellent Bingham writes to Webster as to
a demigod.
In these pleasant early letters of Daniel Webster there are a thousand
evidences of a good heart and of virtuous habits, but not one of a
superior understanding. The total absence of the sceptical spirit
marks the secondary mind. For a hundred and fifty years, _no_ young
man of a truly eminent intellect has accepted his father's creeds
without having first called them into question; and this must be so in
periods of transition. The glorious light which has been coming upon
Christendom for the last two hundred years, and which is now beginning
to pervade the remotest provinces of it, never illumined the mind of
Daniel Webster. Upon coming of age, he joined the Congregational
Church, and was accustomed to open his school with an extempore
prayer.
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