n the application of duties and
donations toward the promotion of useful institutions, and the same
discrimination in the dispensation of private charities, characterize
the wise and good of the world. These attributes of mind and heart are
apparent in the child; and in every heart, whatever its character,
there is a natural respect and love for these, and all who possess
them. Such grow with their growth in the world's estimation, and are
prominent, however secluded in their way of life, or unpretending in
their conduct, with all who know them, or with whom, in the march of
life, they come in contact.

It is to but few that fortune throws her gifts, and these are rarely
the most deserving, or the goddess had not been represented with a
bandage over her eyes. She is blind, and though her worshippers are
many, she kisses but few, and cannot see if they be fair and beautiful
or crooked and ugly. Hence most of those who receive her favors conceal
them in selfishness, and hoard them to be despised; while hundreds,
slighted of her gifts, cultivate the virtues, which adorn and ennoble,
and are useful and beloved.

Will you, who yet live, and were children when I was a child, turn back
with me in memory to those days, and to those who were your
school-fellows and playmates then? Do you remember who were the brave
and generous, kind and truthful among them? and do you recall their
after lives? Answer me; were not these the true men in that day? Do you
remember William C. Dawson, Joseph H. Lumpkin, Lucius Q.C. Lamar, and
his brother Mirabeau B. Lamar, Eugenius Nesbit, Walter T. Colquitt, and
Eli S. Shorter? How varied in temperament, in character, in talent; and
yet how like in the great leading features of the soul! Love for their
country, love for their kind, love for the good was common to them all;
unselfish beyond what was necessary to the wants of their families,
generous in the outpourings of the soul, philanthropic, and full of
charity. They hoarded no wealth, nor sought it as a means of power or
promotion. Intent upon the general good, and content with an approving
conscience and the general approbation, their lives were correct, and
their services useful; and they live in the memory of a grateful people
as public benefactors.

There are others who rise to memory, who were at school with these, who
were men with these, but they shall be nameless, who struggled, and
successfully, to fill their coffers to repletion, an