and the aroma of his grace is as consciously breathed by statesmen and
citizens to-day as the invisible atmosphere which secures physical
vitality and force. Senator Vance of North Carolina, thus earnestly
commends to the youth of America the brightness and beauty of the great
example:

Greater soldiers, more intellectual statesmen, and profounder sages
have doubtless existed in the history of the English race, perhaps
in our own country, but not one who to great excellence in the
threefold composition of man, the physical, intellectual, and
moral, has added such exalted integrity, such unaffected piety,
such unsullied purity of soul, and such wondrous control of his own
spirit. He illustrated and adorned the civilization of
Christianity, and furnished an example of the wisdom and perfection
of its teachings which the subtlest arguments of its enemies cannot
impeach. That one grand, rounded life, full-orbed with intellectual
and moral glory, is worth, as the product of Christianity, more
than all the dogmas of all the teachers. The youth of America who
aspire to promote their own and their country's welfare should
never cease to gaze upon his great example, or to remember that the
brightest gems in the crown of his immortality, the qualities which
uphold his fame on earth and plead for him in heaven, were those
which characterized him as the patient, brave, Christian gentleman.
In this respect he was a blessing to the whole human race no less
than to his own countrymen, to the many millions who annually
celebrate the day of his birth.

Such sentiments fitly illustrate the controlling element of character
which made the conduct of Washington so peerless in the field and in the
chair of state. His first utterances upon assuming command of the