He could not look on this mighty system,
"This universal frame, thus wondrous fair,"
without feeling that it was created and upheld by an Intelligence, to
which all other intelligences must be responsible. I am bound to say,
that in the course of my life I never met with an individual, in any
profession or condition of life, who always spoke, and always thought,
with such awful reverence of the power and presence of God. No
irreverence, no lightness, even no too familiar allusion to God and his
attributes, ever escaped his lips. The very notion of a Supreme Being
was, with him, made up of awe and solemnity. It filled the whole of his
great mind with the strongest emotions. A man like him, with all his
proper sentiments and sensibilities alive in him, must, in this state of
existence, have something to believe and something to hope for; or else,
as life is advancing to its close and parting, all is heart-sinking and
oppression. Depend upon it, whatever may be the mind of an old man, old
age is only really happy, when, on feeling the enjoyments of this world
pass away, it begins to lay a stronger hold on those of another.
Mr. Mason's religious sentiments and feelings were the crowning glories
of his character. One, with the strongest motives to love and venerate
him, and the best means of knowledge, says:--
"So far as my memory extends, he always showed a deep conviction of
the divine authority of the Holy Scriptures, of the institutions of
Christianity, and of the importance of personal religion.
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