Washington's Birthday Part 13

Patriots of America--and military officers of every name, view the great example that is set before you. Emulate the virtues of Was.h.i.+ngton, and in due time your heads will also be adorned with the wreath of honor.

Here you learn what is true and unfading glory. You will see that it is not the man who is led on by the blind impulse of ambition; who rushes into the midst of embattled hosts, merely to show his contempt of death; or who wastes fair cities or depopulates rich provinces,--to spread far the terrors of his name--who is admired and praised as the true hero and friend of mankind;--but the man, who, in obedience to the public voice, appears in arms for the salvation of his country, shuns no perils in a just cause, endeavors to alleviate instead of increase the calamities of war, and whose aim is to strengthen and adorn the temple of liberty, as resting on the immovable basis of virtue and religion. The voice of justice and the voice of suffering humanity forbid us to bestow the palm of true valor on the mad exploits of the destroyers of mankind.

Was.h.i.+ngton's delight was to save, not to destroy. His greatest glory is that with small armies and the loss of few lives--compared with the wastes of other wars--he made his country free and happy.

ROBERT DAVIDSON.

Brave without temerity, laborious without ambition, generous without prodigality, n.o.ble without pride, virtuous without severity--Was.h.i.+ngton seems always to have confined himself within those limits where the virtues, by clothing themselves in more lively but more changeable and doubtful colors, may be mistaken for faults. Inspiring respect, he inspires confidence, and his smile is always the smile of benevolence.

MARQUIS CHASTELLEUX.

G.o.d has given this nation many precious gifts; but the chief gift of all, the one, we may say, which has added something to every other one, is the gift of this great soldier, this great statesman, this great and good man, this greatest of all Americans, past, present--past, if not to come. Our heritage from him is ill.u.s.trious above all others.

ANONYMOUS.

Great without pomp, without ambition brave, Proud, not to conquer fellow-men, but save; Friend to the weak, a foe to none but those Who plan their greatness on their brethrens' woes; Aw'd by no t.i.tles--undefil'd by l.u.s.t-- Free without faction--obstinately just; Warm'd by religion's sacred, genuine ray, That points to future bliss the unerring way; Yet ne'er control'd by superst.i.tion's laws, That worst of tyrants in the n.o.blest cause.

--_From a London Newspaper_.

Extract from a translation of a Dutch Ode to Was.h.i.+ngton. Dr. O'Calla has made a literal translation; Alfred B. Street, of Albany, the poetical translation.

No lofty monument thy greatness needs; The freedom which America from thee Received, and happiness of thy great deeds The everlasting monument shall be.

Thy proud foot trampled on the British chain; But O! beware lest some false foreign power Rivet his fetters on thy land again, For despots smile while waiting for their hour.

How deeply touched, Humanity! your soul, When you beheld the grateful tears that rained Down a glad Nation's cheek, as Freedom's goal Was by that Nation's might in triumph gained.

O, Fatherland, whoever loves thy fame, Sighing shall mourn thy glory lost, when won; Freedom, when leaving thee, lit up her flame Within the patriot heart of Was.h.i.+ngton.

When Time shall sink in everlasting gloom, And Death with Time shall cease for evermore; When the dead burst the cerements of the tomb, As the last trumpet breaks in thunder o'er;

Then as it feels its pulses once more free, Let every heart Columbia claims as son Beat first for G.o.d, but let its next throb be For the eternal bliss of Was.h.i.+ngton.

The character of Was.h.i.+ngton! Who can delineate it worthily? Modest, disinterested, generous, just, of clean hands and a pure heart, self-denying and self-sacrificing, seeking nothing for himself, declining all remuneration beyond the reimburs.e.m.e.nt of his outlays, scrupulous to a farthing in keeping his accounts, of spotless integrity, scorning gifts, charitable to the needy, forgiving injuries and injustices, brave, fearless, heroic, with a prudence ever governing his impulses, a wisdom ever guiding his valor, true to his friends, true to his country, true to himself, fearing G.o.d, no stranger to private devotion or public wors.h.i.+p, but ever recognizing a divine aid and direction in all that he accomplished. His magnetism was that of merit, superior, surpa.s.sing merit; the merit of spotless integrity, of recognized ability, and of unwearied willingness to spend and be spent in the service of his country.

ROBERT C. WINTHROP.

One of the best of modern Americans, James Russell Lowell, who was born on the same day of the month as Was.h.i.+ngton, February 22d, 1819, wrote shortly before his death, to a schoolgirl, whose cla.s.s proposed noticing his own birthday: "Whatever else you do on the twenty-second of February, recollect, first of all, that on that day a really great man was born, and do not fail to warm your hearts with the memory of his service, and to brace your minds with the contemplation of his character. The rest of us must wait uncovered till he be served."

ELBRIDGE S. BROOKS.

The fame of Was.h.i.+ngton stands apart from every other in history, s.h.i.+ning with a truer l.u.s.ter and a more benignant glory. With us his memory remains a national property, where all sympathies, throughout our widely extended and diversified empire meet in unison. Under all dissensions and amid all the storms of party, his precepts and example speak to us from the grave with a paternal appeal; and his name--by all revered--forms a universal brotherhood, a watchword of our Union.

IRVING AND FISKE.

The soul of Was.h.i.+ngton was one of the grandest of all ages that takes its equal rank with Greek and Roman and Hebrew names of renown for humane and prime worth, names that seem written not in our poor records, but on the sky's arch--names in the broad suns.h.i.+ne of whose moral glory, spreading through the world, all the little fires which men have made with the kindling of words from abstract conceptions,--go out. For however otherwise a man may be distinguished--unless there be in him a spirit of love, devotion, and self-sacrifice, we feel he lacks the very pith and beauty of manhood; and though he may be a great performer with his pen as one plays well on a musical instrument, a Great Being he is not.

_Christian Examiner_.

It will be the duty of the historian and the sage of all nations to let no occasion pa.s.s of commemorating this ill.u.s.trious man; and until time shall be no more, will a test of the progress which our race has made in wisdom and virtue, be derived from the veneration paid to the immortal name of Was.h.i.+ngton.

LORD BROUGHAM.

The character of Was.h.i.+ngton may want some of those poetical elements, but it possessed fewer inequalities and a rarer union of virtues than perhaps ever fell to the lot of any other man. Prudence, firmness, sagacity, moderation, an overruling judgment, an immovable justice, courage that never faltered, patience that never wearied, truth that disdained all artifice, magnanimity without alloy. It seems as if Providence had endowed him in a pre-eminent degree with the qualities requisite to fit him for the high destiny he was called upon to fulfill.

IRVING AND FISKE.

WAs.h.i.+NGTON'S NAME IN THE HALL OF FAME

BY MARGARET E. SANGSTER

Republics are ungrateful, but ours, its best-loved son Still keeps in memory green, and wreathes the name of Was.h.i.+ngton.

As year by year returns the day that saw the patriot's birth, With boom of gun and beat of drum and peals of joy and mirth, And songs of children in the streets and march of men-at-arms, We honor pay to him who stood serene 'mid war's alarms; And with his ragged volunteers long kept the foe at bay, And bore the flag to victory in many a battle's day.

We were a little nation then; so mighty have we grown That scarce would Was.h.i.+ngton believe to-day we were his own.

With s.h.i.+ps that sail on every sea, and sons in every port, And harvest-fields to feed the world, wherever food is short, And if at council-board our chiefs are now discreet and wise, And if to great estate and high, our farmers' lads may rise, We owe a debt to him who set the fas.h.i.+on of our fame, And never more may we forget our loftiest hero's name.

Great knightly soul who came in time to serve his country's need, To serve her with the timely word and with the valiant deed, Along the ages brightening as endless cycles run Undimmed and gaining l.u.s.ter in the twentieth century's sun, First in our Hall of Fame we write the name all folk may ken, As first in war, and first in peace, first with his countrymen.

ESTIMATES OF WAs.h.i.+NGTON

George Was.h.i.+ngton, the brave, the wise, the good. Supreme in war, in council, and in peace. Was.h.i.+ngton, valiant, without ambition; discreet, without fear; confident, without presumption.

DR. ANDREW LEE.