performance of his duty toward all parts and all interests of his
reunited country as he was anxious for the obliteration of sectional
animosity and sincere and generous of heart in his social obligations to
all of his fellow-men.

The most touching remembrance we bear of Gen. LEE's goodness of heart
has reference to his custom in springtime of bringing to this Hall from
his farm great quantities of lovely roses, and having them distributed
to his associates of both political parties on this floor with his
compliments. Here we have a practical illustration that flowers are the
interpreters of man's best feelings. In oriental lands the language of
flowers was early studied and made expressive. As Percival says:

Each blossom that blooms in their garden bowers,
On its leaves a mystic language bears.

With Gen. LEE they bore tidings of good will to partisan friend and
partisan foe alike. They bespoke in mute eloquence the expansive heart
of one "that loved his fellow-men." Little, however, did he think at the
time that these beautiful roses were especially speaking to him as
emblems of a near immortality. Awakening from their sleep of winter,
they were also harbingers of a brighter day to him and of the bloom of
a glorious resurrection. The Germans have a saying that "he who loves
flowers loves God." If this be applied to Gen. LEE, we have the blessed
assurance that he has approached close to the celestial throne.

Gen. LEE belonged to one of the most historic families of America.
Looking back to the early settlement and the pioneer struggles of the
peninsula and then through the plantation and colonial period of entire
Virginia, we everywhere discover the genius, the dauntless courage, the