William Campbell Preston. that he could see them clutching his gown and saying to him : " Father, now is the time to get us bread. " And so, too, in Mr. Preston's case was there behind a sustaining force, — a noble Christian wife, who was at the same time an impulse and an inspiration. Mrs. Preston's journal has, all through it, evidences of her devotion to her husband, her love for him, and her loyalty to him. You can see, too, that she recognized where he was weakest, and that from her lips there went up to heaven in his behalf many a fer vent and loving prayer. And what a noble, splendid woman she was! In her heart of hearts she would far rather that her beloved husband should be poor and humble than have high position at the sacrifice of truth and right. Mrs. Preston had in her heart and about her life the grace of piety. On one page of her journal, I find these words : " Oh, what a grace real piety sheds over poor human nature?" That she loved her husband deeply and devotedly, that she sustained him with a life of devotion, that she nerved him in the hour of trial with the sweetness of wifely love and the fervency of a Christian's prayer, the fol lowing extract from the pages of her journal shows: "But, oh! my heavenly Parent, watch over my husband, and grant that neither love of fame nor high place may cause him to swerve, whatever else befall him. Oh, may he preserve his integrity!" When we think of Mr. Preston's splendid character, his charming personality, his lofty statesmanship, and his unsurpassed elo quence, we must not forget the power be hind the throne — the gentle, sweet, Christian wife, who upheld and supported him with her love, her life, and her prayers. On Wednesday evening, May 23, 1860, Mr. Thomas M. Hanckel delivered an ad dress before the South Carolina Historical Society, in which he paid a tribute to the eloquence of Mr. Preston, which, though it is somewhat long, is so beautiful, so graphic,
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so true to life, and so charmingly written, that I cannot resist the temptation to present it here in its fullness to the reader: "And looking up from the grave of Hayne, our eyes but yesterday might have rested upon the noble form of William C. Preston, bowed, indeed, with the infirmities of age and the inevitable sorrows of life, but still recalling the days of his power, when the listening Senate hung upon his words, and the multi tude was swayed by his eloquence. To day he lies in the majesty of death. He, too, during a life which has just come to its close, was a noble representative of the highest qualities of Carolina statesmanship. I think we are apt to underrate his powers of argument in our admiration of his vivid imagination and his brilliant rhetoric. His reasoning was not conceived according to the forms and the method of an elaborate analysis and a strict logical deduction, but he drew such vivid pictures of things, men, and events, in their natural order and accord ing to their true relations, that his hearers for themselves caught the idea upon which he wished to insist, and arrived for them selves at the conclusion to which he wished to bring them. But it is as her great orator that the State is justly proud of him. And to estimate his power as an orator we must not confine ourselves to his powers of argu ment; but we must recall, also, the nervous magnetism of his nature and all the elements of his unrivalled action; we must recall the quivering muscles, the tremulous lips, the cloud and sunshine of his brow, as his face was swept by the shadowy gust of passion; we must recall that noble form, now lifted to its majestic height and swayed by emotion, like some grand oak with its branches rocking in the gale, now bending with the pliancy of the willow, to the attitude of eager persuasion and pathetic appeal, un til it seemed as if ' his very body thought '; we must recall that glorious voice, now clear and strong as an organ's swell, now full and soft as woman's gentlest speech, while every
