Essential character of the soldier life.
We answer: The essental character of the soldier life is ‘service’— its all pervading law is ‘duty.’
Its first lesson is obedience
questioning—its last lesson command
unquestioned. Its daily discipline Accountability
unceasing-its final burden Responsi-Bility
unmeasured. Its every-day experience hardships, perils, Crises
unparalleled—its compensation fixed pay. Its inspiration promotion from above.
Here is the mould.
Does it not prefigure the man we mourn and honor to-night?
His purity, his loyalty, his directness, his robustness, his majestic simplicity, his devotion to duty, his heroism?
Yes! God made him in body, mind, and soul a youth capable of responding to this noble training and absorbing these lofty influences; but they made him the man and the hero he was.
Thus was he
soldier-trained to a great character and a grand career, to a majestic manhood and a mightyl ife; but his spirit soared even higer, because he was also
God-created high-souled, and broadminded.
It is noteworthy how his soldier-training and his soldier spirit entered into, inspiring or modifying, his almost every act and utterance, and yet how his personal elevation and breadth bore him up and away above and beyond the mere soldier.
