“At last one of the young men, remarking that it was impossible to combat with long-established prejudices, wheeled around, and, with some familiarity, exclaimed, ’Well, my old gentleman, what think you of these things?’ If, said the traveler, a streak of vivid lightning had at that moment crossed the room, their amazement could not have been greater than it was with what followed.  The most eloquent and unanswerable appeal was made, for nearly an hour, by the old gentleman, that he ever heard or read.  So perfect was his recollection, that every argument used against the Christian religion was met in the order in which it was advanced.  Hume’s sophistry on the subject of miracles was, if possible, more perfectly answered than it had already been done by Campbell.  And in the whole lecture there was so much simplicity and energy, pathos and sublimity, that not another word was uttered.  An attempt to describe it, said the traveler, would be an attempt to paint the sunbeams.  It was now a matter of curiosity and inquiry who the old gentleman was.  The traveler concluded it was the preacher from whom the pulpit eloquence was heard; but no—­it was the Chief Justice of the United States.”

Judge Marshall was a simple and earnest Christian, and held in the deepest abhorrence the fashionable skepticism of his day.  His conduct was consistent with his profession, and to the last this good and great man repeated night and morning the simple prayer he had learned at his mother’s knee.

For many years he suffered from an affection of the bladder, and was at length compelled to resort to a surgical operation for relief.  This had the desired effect, but he was soon after taken with an attack of “liver complaint.”  He repaired to Philadelphia for medical treatment, but failed to derive any benefit from it, and died in that city on the 6th of July, 1835.

His body was conveyed to Richmond for interment, and he now sleeps by the side of his wife in the Shockoe Hill Cemetery in that city.  The spot is marked by a plain slab of marble, over which the weeds and the rank grass are growing, and on which may be read the following inscription, dictated (saving the last date) by himself: 

“John Marshall, son of Thomas and Mary Marshall, was born 24th of September, 1755; intermarried with Mary Willis Ambler, the 3d of January, 1783; departed this life the 6th day of July, 1835.”

[Illustration:  JAMES T. BRADY.]

CHAPTER XXVI.

JAMES T. BRADY.

The father of James T. Brady was born in Ireland, and came to this country during the second war with England, and just after his marriage.  Mr. Brady opened a school for boys, in New York, soon after his arrival, and it was in that city, on the 9th of April, 1815, that his eldest son, JAMES TOPHAM BRADY, was born.  Other children followed, there being seven in all, two boys (James T., and Judge John R. Brady) and five girls.  Mr. Brady, senior, was a man of rare abilities, and his wife was a woman of great personal beauty and high character, “one of those mothers,” says a distinguished gentleman, who knew her, “whose quiet virtues shed their blessed influence over families, and are felt so long in their durable effect upon children.”