Prof. John B. Minor, law Department, University of Virginia.
The birthday of General Robert E. Lee incites to the contemplation of a character as remarkable for its symmetrical excellence as any that history records.
Profound veneration for the man in his august simplicity, his unblemished uprightness, and his steady, unostentatious pursuit of duty, controlled always by his Christian principle, awakens at once a strong desire to give fitting expressions thereto, and an apprehension that the words may not be worthy of the subject.
The future historian, when prejudice and partiality shall have been alike silenced by time, will say that the world has seldom seen a man on whom it might bestow an admiration and reverence so unreserved.
And a Virginian cannot think without exultation that such a chronicler must render to the society in which General Lee was nurtured and by which he was moulded, the tribute of singular aptitude for greatness and for moral excellence, as seen in a Washington and a Lee, and also in the numerous other worthies, great and good, who have grown to world-wide renown beneath the skies of Virginia.
May our people take these examples to heart, and show themselves, through the coming age, worthy to be fellow-citizens with these, our illustrious countrymen!
John B. Minor. University of Virginia.
