Our eastern brethren have entered heartily into the pious duty of
bringing to remembrance the character and deeds of their forefathers.
Shall we of the west allow the names of those great men, who won for us,
from the forest, the savages, and wild beasts, our fair domain of
fertile fields and beautiful rivers, to fade into oblivion? They who
have hearts to admire nobility imparted by nature's great
seal--fearlessness, strength, energy, sagacity, generous forgetfulness
of self, the delineation of scenes of terror, and the relation of deeds
of daring, will not fail to be interested in a sketch of the life of the
pioneer and hunter of Kentucky, Daniel Boone. Contemplated in any light,
we shall find him in his way and walk, a man as truly great as Penn,
Marion, and Franklin, in theirs. True, he was not learned in the lore of
books, or trained in the etiquette of cities. But he possessed a
knowledge far more important in the sphere which Providence called him
to fill. He felt, too, the conscious dignity of self-respect, and would
have been seen as erect, firm, and unembarrassed amid the pomp and
splendor of the proudest court in Christendom, as in the shade of his
own wilderness. Where nature in her own ineffaceable characters has
marked superiority, she looks down upon the tiny and elaborate
acquirements of art, and in all positions and in all time entitles her
favorites to the involuntary homage of their fellow-men. They are the
selected pilots in storms, the leaders in battles, and the pioneers in
the colonization of new countries.

Such a man was Daniel Boone, and wonderfully was he endowed by
Providence for the part which he was called to act. Far be it from us to
undervalue the advantages of education: It can do every thing but assume
the prerogative of Providence. God has reserved for himself the
attribute of creating. Distinguished excellence has never been attained,