n all-gracious Providence, we can never cease lamenting, in
our finite view of Omnipotent Wisdom, the heart-rending privation for
which our nation weeps. When the civilized world shakes to its centre;
when every moment gives birth to strange and momentous changes; when our
peaceful quarter of the globe, exempt, as it happily has been, from any
share in the slaughter of the human race, may yet be compelled to
abandon her pacific policy, and to risk the doleful casualties of war;
what limit is there to the extent of our loss? None within the reach of
my words to express; none which your feelings will not disavow.

The founder of our federate republic, our bulwark in war, our guide in
peace, is no more. Oh that this were but questionable! Hope, the
comforter of the wretched, would pour into our agonizing hearts its
balmy dew; but, alas! there is no hope for us. Our Washington is removed
forever. Possessing the stoutest frame and purest mind, he had passed
nearly to his sixty-eighth year in the enjoyment of high health, when,
habituated by his care of us to neglect himself, a slight cold,
disregarded, became inconvenient on Friday, oppressive on Saturday, and,
defying every medical interposition, before the morning of Sunday, put
an end to the best of men. An end did I say? His fame survives, bounded
only by the limits of the earth and by the extent of the human mind. He
survives in our hearts, in the growing knowledge of our children, in the
affections of the good throughout the world; and when our monuments
shall be done away, when nations now existing shall be no more, when
even our young and far-spreading empire shall have perished, still will
our Washington's glory unfaded shine, and die not, until love of virtue
cease on earth, or earth itself sink into chaos.

How, my fellow-citizens, shall I single to your grateful hearts his
pre-eminent worth? Where shall I begin in opening to your view a
character throughout sublime? Shall I speak of his warlike achievements,
all springing from obedience to his country's will, all directed to his
country's good?

Will you go with me to the banks of the Monongahela to see your youthful
Washington supporting, in the dismal hour of Indian victory, the
ill-fated Braddock, and saving, by his judgment and by his valor, the
remains of a defeated army, pressed by the conquering savage foe? Or
when oppressed America, nobly resolving to risk her all in defence of
her violated rights, he w