Thus stands “St. John” for love; “ St. Peter” for repentance unto good works; “St. Paul” for lion-like courage and holy zeal.
Aeneas, with old Anchises on his back, stands for filial piety; Curtius for self-sacrifice; Lucretia for purity; Horatius for courage; Cato, noblest Roman of them all, stands for stern integrity. These illustrate that ancient story and tell us why man's memory endures.
Here in a newer land and a later age, the name of a great Virginian stands for the qualities that mark a grand character, and by these he will be remembered when men have forgotten the operations on the Delaware that won great Frederick's admiration, and the march from the Hudson to the York that broke the yoke of tyranny for mankind.
Need I ask these graybeards around me to search the inner chamber of their hearts and tell me what other Virginian, there enshrined in simple majesty, so rules our lives that at thought of his presence men fear to fail of duty and flee from dishonor! It is the faithful gentleman who left to our English tongue those “words of the wise which are as nails fastened by the masters of assemblies,” ‘The question is, Is it right?’—that supreme maxim which is to remain as an apple of gold in a picture of silver, ‘Duty is the noblest word in our language.’ It is the loved commander who, while the world paused to take record of his deeds and Glory wept for a flag furled forever, was content to utter the simplest, most pathetic words that ever fell from a leader's lips: ‘I and my brave men have done the best we could.’ It is not Sir Lancelot, not Sir Galahad, not Sir Tristram, nor any knight of Table Round,—it is Arthur the King, the royal gentlemen, “whose strength was as the strength of ten because his heart was pure;” the incomparable soldier, the Christian—who died at Lexington, his uplifted finger then as always pointing his people ‘Forward!’ to the goal where final Victory waits to welcome that valor and virtue for which his name shall stand 'till Time shall be no more.
The ancient philosopher describes the virtues that made the worthies of Rome's nobler day: ‘quas mihi semper antiponens,’ he says: ‘mentem animumque conformabam’—‘and placing them always before me, so I sought to mould my mind and my soul.’
Let us learn from the wise old heathen, and wisely choose our models for imitation.
If then in the record of this our native land, our own Virginia, a
