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view of what is passing here. If so, this may well supply the wish of occasional visits." And to Mr. Adams, after the death of his wife, he speaks of ascending "in essence to a meeting with the friends we have loved and lost, and whom we shall still love and never lose again.”

In a report concerning the religious instruction in the university of Virginia, he said: "The relations which exist between man and his Maker, and the duties resulting from those relations, are the most interesting and important to every human being, and the most incumbent on his study and investigation."

THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA.

As early as 1816, Mr. Jefferson was instrumental in converting Albemarle academy into Central college. The scheme of a college grew in his mind into the University of Virginia. He gave much interest to this for many years. It was the initiatory movement for state universities. It did not realize his hopes, but became an efficient institution.

FINANCIAL MISFORTUNES.

During the last years of his life, a crushing financial depression made the values of property uncertain and caused many failures. Mr. Jefferson's constant attention to public business had prevented his attention to his own affairs, and they suffered by this neglect. He got somewhat involved in debt, and just at this time Governor Nicolas failed for whom he had given his name as surety to the amount of twenty thousand dollars. It was a great trial for his declining years, but he bore it with cheerful fortitude. But when it became known to the country that his affairs were thus involved, personal gifts of gratitude and love from all parts came in to relieve his estate and give him great peace. He accepted them as tokens of affection from his children.

FINAL DEPARTURE.

The robust frame of the great patriot at last began to give way to age. It is pleasant to read the correspondence between

him and John Adams, in their declining years. In their early manhood they were compatriots and personal friends and served their country in mutual affection. But in the sharp division of parties they became estranged, and lived as strangers for many years. When the heat of political misunderstandings passed away, they became reconciled, and ever after they were like two loving brothers in their correspondence. As they grew old they told of and inquired after their infirmities. They kept each other informed of their conditions. When Adams came to die, his last words were: "Thomas Jefferson still survives." His last thought seemed to have been on his old friend.

It was on the fourth of July, 1826, fifty years after they had enacted the declaration of independence, when the whole nation was jubilant in their praises of what they had done, at fifty minutes after twelve o'clock noon, that Thomas Jefferson died. A little before he had taken affectionate farewells of members of his family, and when the last was said, he audibly murmured, "Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace." An hour later and John Adams followed. Earth sees them no more, save in their great works. Their love is complete in the light in which they dwell.

THE GRAVE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON.

The grave of Jefferson is at Monticello, the place of his residence, which he chose for its beautiful situation, and wide and grand views over a great sweep of valley and hills and richly wooded mountains in the distance, forty miles away. He made the selection while yet a young man. There he took his young wife in the midst of a great snow-storm and in the dead of night. There he lived his great life. It was the dearest spot on earth to him, and the most beautiful. There he died; and there reposes his dust. What associations cluster around this now lonely and neglected place! What characters once came here for counsel and high converse! What throngs from all the states and over the sea! What letters were here written and

read; what words and works that live! How much for the young republic was here thought and done. Now how sadly lonely!

On the fly-leaf of an old book of accounts for 1741, was found, after Jefferson's death, the following in his hand, which was supposed to refer to the place where he would have his body sleep in peace. "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 of despair to die in. Let it be among ancient and venerable oaks; intersperse some gloomy evergreens. Appropriate one half to the use of my family; the other to strangers, seryants, etc. Let the exit look upon a small and distant part of the blue mountains."

A little way from his old residence, which crowns Monticello, and a little to the right of the Charlotteville road, in a thick growth of woods, still and lonely as he could wish, is Jefferson's grave. There is no vale, no brook to murmur, no sound but the soughing of the wind in the evergreens. There are some thirty graves in a space about one hundred feet square, which was enclosed by a brick wall, ten feet high. On the south side, this wall had fallen into a ruin. On the north and west sides it yet stood. The iron gates on these two sides were locked in rust. Virginia creepers adorned the west wall. The ground of the enclosure was neglected, grown up to grass, shrubs and weeds. Loose bricks and stones, and vegetable decay and growth marked the place as a solitude, if not a ruin. The tombstones were generally defaced and broken,-many of them fallen and overgrown with weeds and moss. About the middle of the northern side, is the grave of Jefferson, precisely where he had often told Wormley, his old servant, he desired to have it. The mound is trodden even with the ground. At the head of the grave was placed a coarse granite obelisk, nine feet high, which rested on a base three feet square. The monument was beaten and battered into a ruin by relic-hunters; even the inscription was beaten off, except the part that tells his birth and death.

After Jefferson's death, a rough sketch of an obelisk was

found, after which this was patterned.

this inscription:

Under the design was

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.

Even this inscription, which was put upon the obelisk, is beaten off by the sacrilegious horde who have thronged the sacred place in idle curiosity, except the words that give the birth and death.

This was the cordition of Jefferson's grave until very recently. In 1878 a movement was made in Congress to remove this battered and disfigured monument and to put in its place one which should properly recognize the great sleeper underneath. That movement failed because of objections by the owner of the place, who claimed ownership of the grave and the right of way to it. Arrangements were finally made, and last year a resolution was passed by Congress appropriating ten thousand dollars for erecting a suitable monument. During the pending of this resolution, Miss Sarah N. Randolph, a descendant of Jefferson, made to a member of Congress a full statement of the condition of the graveyard and the title to it by the family. The following is a part of this statement:

"The little graveyard at Monticello- only one hundred feet square-is all of the ten thousand acres of land owned by Jefferson when he entered public life, which is now left in the

pessession of his descendants. He sleeps amid scenes of surpassing beauty and grandeur, on that lovely mountain side, surrounded by the graves of his children and grandchildren to the fifth generation. At his side lies his wife whom he loved with singular devotion. A few feet from him rests the cherished friend of his youth-young Dabney Carr-whose motion in the Virginia House of Burgesses, to establish committees of correspondence between the sister colonies, leading as it did to the meeting of the First Congress, has given his name an enviable place in American history. A little farther off lie the remains of another devoted and distinguished friend, Governor Wilson Cary Nicolas, of Virginia; while at his feet sleeps another governor of the old commonwealth, his own son-in-law, Thomas Mann Randolph. The modesty of the spot is in striking contrast with the celebrity of its dead; and there are, perhaps, few in America of greater historic interest, or more deserving of the nation's care. Soon after the appropriation was made by Congress, Mr. W. W. Corcoran, the distinguished philanthropist, with characteristic munificence, endowed a professorship of natural history in the University of Virginia, on condition that the institution should take care of the graveyard at Monticello, thus very appropriately placing the care of Jefferson's tomb in the hands of this child of his old age and the last creation of his genius."

Congressman Manning said: "In God's universe there perhaps never lived a man who could point to grander and more glorious testimonials that he had lived.' He was, indeed, tenacious of living among men as one that serveth,' and 'Heaven, that lent him genius, was repaid.' He was sure of his reward through all succeeding generations."

The monument was erected last year, and inscribed, as was the old one, according to his direction. The three things for which Jefferson cared most to be known, were those he named for his monument. It is hoped they will stand perpetual monuments of his genius and humanity.

At last a fitting monument marks his resting place, erected as it should be, by the nation he did so much to create.

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