It was not strange that the product of such influences should be a
gentleman. All that was courageous, all that was loyal to truth, all
that was courteous to those with whom he came in contact, all that was
gentle and kindly was not only the heritage which he received with his
name and his blood, but it was developed by all the environments which
he was so fortunate as to have surround him. If I were to select a
character of which it might be said that it was round, without angles,
even without salient points, it would be his--not because he was weak,
but because the calmness, the serenity, and the magnificence (if I may
use a word that seems to be hyperbolic) of the equipoise of his
qualities made each of them seem less important than it would have
seemed if other qualities had been less.

It would not be extravagant to apply to him the paraphrase of the
apostolic description of a Christian gentleman--loving without
dissimulation; abhorring the evil; cleaving to the honorable; preferring
to confer honor rather than to receive it; earnest in the work of life,
and careful of time and opportunity to labor; hopeful of all good;
patient in tribulation; forbearing to resent trespass; charitable in
thought and word, as in deed; given to hospitality; at peace with his
own conscience and with God.

We live, Mr. Speaker, in a heroic age. I constantly hear of this being
an age of materialism, of the worship of the "almighty dollar." I
challenge all the past, in all the endeavors of man, to reach a higher
level, to equal the heroism of the age in which we have been called to
perform our part--the devotion to duty, the readiness to make
sacrifices, the willingness to give all for the truth which have marked
our generation--the era in which we have to act our part.