had been, she had evidently, to a great extent, embraced his ideas of the character of the Savior.

She died suddenly while on a visit to her son's, at Edgehill, Virginia, on the 10th of October, 1836, and her remains were carefully laid by the side of her father's on the "little mountain," near Charlottesville.

A writer in the "New York World" thus describes his visit in 1878 to the grave of Mr. Jefferson :

"Choose some unfrequented vale in the park, where is no sound to break the stillness but a brook that bubbling winds among the woods, no mark of human shape that has been there, unless the skeleton of some poor wretch who sought that place out to despair and die in. Let it be among ancient and venerable oaks; intersperse some gloomy evergreens. Appropriate onehalf to the use of my family; the other to strangers, servants, etc. Let the exit look upon a small and distant part of the Blue Mountains.'

"This wrote Jefferson on the fly-leaf of an old book of accounts. His grave is in a thick growth of woods, a few hundred yards to the right of the embowered road leading from Charlottesville, Va., up to Monticello. The spot is as lonesome as solitary could desire; the 'ancient and venerable oaks' are there, and a solitary evergreen,' whose murmur alone, and not that of a brook, 'breaks the stillness.' Its thirty graves are partly inclosed by a brick wall about one hundred feet square and ten feet high, which, on the south side, has been toppled over bodily, and now lies in level courses of brick and crumbling mortar level with the ground. On the north and west sides are iron gates, red and locked with rust. The west wall is clad with a scanty growth of Virginia creepers; a single bush of eglantine springs amid the matted grass and weeds, loose bricks and stones that cover the whole inclosure. Save two or three marble slabs, marking the graves where descendants of Jefferson were laid some ten years ago, there is no tombstone which is not broken, defaced, or fallen and hidden with weeds and dirt. Midway along the northern wall Wormley, Jefferson's old servant, who survived him twenty-five years, dug his master's grave in the spot his master had indicated,

but the mound has been trodden level with the earth. At its head was placed a coarse granite obelisk nine feet high, resting on a base three feet square. Not an inch of its surface but has been chipped and battered by the relic-seeker till from base to apex the corners present the appearance of a rough unhewn stone. The sole inscription not hammered away is in small letters on the base :

Born, April 2, O. S., 1743,

Died, July 4, 1826.

"The obelisk was made after a rough pen-and-ink sketch found in Jefferson's drawer a few days after his death, and on it was placed the inscription there designed, 'Here was buried Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence, of the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom, and Father of the University of Virginia; Born April 2, O. S., 1743; Died (July 4, 1826).' The vandals of half a century have only spared the last two lines.

"On the lower side of the monument is the grave of Mrs. Jefferson, but it has been trodden level with the ground since 1851, and the marble slab over it has been stolen. This slab bore these words: Martha Jefferson; Born in 1748, O. S.; Intermarried with Thomas Jefferson, January 1, 1772; Torn from him by Death, September 6, 1782. This Monument of Love is Inscribed.' On the upper side of the obelisk is the slab covering the grave of their eldest daughter, the inscription of which is partly legible. This testimonial was erected by her son, Thomas Jefferson Randolph, who presided over the Baltimore Convention in 1872, and died in 1876.

"Passing from out the burying-ground the visitor leaves the forest and his eye sweeps over a vast sea of verdure with fields of grain southward to Willis Mountain, forty miles distant. On the very summit of Monticello, half embowered in trees, is the old house, a long brick structure, whose broken windows and sagging walls look inexpressibly ruinous. For many years its only occupant has been a faded, threadbare old man, a tramp who has taken possession of the building, and greets the visitor with, 'Do you want to see the inside of old man Jefferson's house? Then it will cost you seventy-five cents.""

CHAPTER XXX.

THE "SAGE OF MONTICELLO" AND HIS RELIGION.

TWITHSTANDING Mr. Jefferson's great and

NOT

in religion espe

cially, and most other things, his rule of practice was not in harmony with his pretensions. Except occasional moments in which immediate circumstances softened and, for the instant, modified his general inclinations, he never lost an opportunity to use his pen for the purpose of turning men from their ways to his. His assumption of ability to do this in any field was plain enough. In the subject about which he naturally knew less than any other, religion, he was, next to that of politics, most dogmatic and bigoted. While he was utterly unable to comprehend or even consider a spiritual theme or question, the true field of relig ion, he had no hesitancy in holding up to ridicule. and contempt the positions of other men, who, like himself, were only able to put their theories mainly on literal and material foundations. As in politics, so in this, he was not unwilling to become the oracle of his countrymen in a religious fabrication in which he was unwise enough to claim that his should differ from and be superior to that of the Savior, whom he charitably pretended had been misquoted and misrepresented by men styled by him the "biographers of Jesus."

In his Inaugural Address, when he had good reason to feel lenient and satisfied with the world on account of his own good fortune, he could call all Americans republicans and all of them federalists. At this mellow moment these terms were synonymous, and merely denoted well-meant equivalent things. But the whole tenor of his disposition and teaching as a rule, on this matter, was that these Federalists were, in spite of any thing that could be said or done by them or anybody else, nothing but "Anglomen" and "Monarchists," and wrong headed, if not also wrong hearted, people, whom it was his business to put eternally down.

So he held matters of religion, national and social usages, etc., and set about, when he felt disposed, to correct them, that is, to fashion them after his own theories. He declined to appoint days of national thanksgiving, as his predecessors had done, and was not satisfied to put himself thus on record against the usages and inclinations of the people, but made it the occasion of teaching a new lesson that he hoped they would be kind enough to take. The following brief letter to Mr. Lincoln will clearly set forth Mr. Jefferson's disposition, and the way in which he became the head of a party, by insinuatingly turning things to his own account ::

"JANUARY, 1, 1802.

"Averse to receive addresses, yet unable to prevent them, I have generally endeavored to turn them to some account, by making them the occasion, by way of answer, of sowing useful truths and principles among the people, which might germinate and become rooted among their political tenets. The Baptist address, now enclosed, admits of a condemnation of the alliance between Church and State, under the authority of the Constitution. It furnishes an occasion, too, which I have long wished to find, of saying why I do not proclaim fastings and thanksgivings,

as my predecessors did. The address, to be sure, does not point at this, and its introduction is awkward. But I foresee no opportunity of doing it more pertinently. I know it will give great offense to the New England clergy; but the advocate of religious freedom is to expect neither peace nor forgiveness from them. Will you be so good as to examine the answer, and suggest any alterations which might prevent an ill effect or promote a good one among the people? You understand the temper of those in the North, and can weaken it, therefore, to their stomachs; it is at present seasoned to the Southern taste only. I would ask the favor of you to return it, with the address, in the course of the day or evening. Health and affection."

Religion rests wholly on spiritual foundations, and is only real and valuable in proportion to the degree in which it is spiritual in its application to life; and yet this man who prided himself on being a materialist, bitterly eschewing all spirituality, set himself up as a sower of useful truths and principles.'

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There was somewhat clownish in all these performances on the part of Mr. Jefferson.

The cunning and the contempt for public usage and conviction, exhibited in this remarkable letter are wonderful. The New England clergymen were a constant thorn in Mr. Jefferson's side. Them only did he seem to regard as men of sufficient mind, principle, and character to be proof against his purposes and teachings. If the Secretary could tone the decoction. down to suit the North, he would vouch for Southern taste.

Formerly every man of national prominence, who sought position, was rightly held to a close account for his moral and religious principles. The public have chosen to consider the course pursued in the case right, and have, accordingly, assailed every supposed vulnerable point in the opinions and character