permitted to extinguish a life consecrated to the hopes of humanity and
to the purposes of Heaven.

For more than sixteen years he rested from his warfare, amid the shades
of Mount Vernon; ripening his mind by reading and reflection, increasing
his knowledge of practical affairs, entering into the whole experience
of a citizen at home and on his farm, and as a delegate to the Colonial
Assembly. When, at last, the war broke out, and the unanimous voice of
the Continental Congress invested him, as the exigency required, with
almost unbounded authority, as their Commander-in-Chief, he blended,
although still in the prime of his life, in the mature bloom of his
manhood, the attributes of a sage with those of a hero. A more
perfectly fitted and furnished character has never appeared on the
theater of human action than when, reining up his war-horse beneath the
majestic and venerable elm, still standing at the entrance of the
Watertown road to Cambridge, George Washington unsheathed his sword and
assumed the command of the gathered armies of American Liberty.

* * * * *

WASHINGTON AS HE LOOKED

From _The Christian Endeavor World_

According to Captain Mercer, the following describes Washington when he
took his seat in the House of Burgesses in 1759:

He is as straight as an Indian, measuring six feet two inches in
his stockings, and weighing one hundred and seventy-five pounds.
His head is well shaped, though not large, and is gracefully poised