were good boys, good Presbyterian boys, all Presbyterian boys,
and loyal and all that; anyway, we were good Presbyterian boys when the
weather was doubtful; when it was fair, we did wander a little from the
fold.

Look at John Hay and me. There we were in obscurity, and look where
we are now. Consider the ladder which he has climbed, the illustrious
vocations he has served--and vocations is the right word; he has in
all those vocations acquitted himself with high credit and honor to his
country and to the mother that bore him. Scholar, soldier, diplomat,
poet, historian--now, see where we are. He is Secretary of State and
I am a gentleman. It could not happen in any other country. Our
institutions give men the positions that of right belong to them through
merit; all you men have won your places, not by heredities, and not by
family influence or extraneous help, but only by the natural gifts God
gave you at your birth, made effective by your own energies; this is the
country to live in.

Now, there is one invisible guest here. A part of me is present; the
larger part, the better part, is yonder at her home; that is my wife,
and she has a good many personal friends here, and I think it won't
distress any one of them to know that, although she is going to
be confined to that bed for many months to come from that nervous
prostration, there is not any danger and she is coming along very
well--and I think it quite appropriate that I should speak of her. I
knew her for the first time just in the same year that I first knew John
Hay and Tom Reed and Mr. Twichell--thirty-six years ago--and she has
been the best friend I have ever had, and that is saying a good deal;
she has reared me--she and Twichell together--and what I am I owe to
them. Twichell why, it is such a pleasure to look upon Twichell's face!
For five-and-twenty years I was under the Rev. Mr. Twichell's tuition, I
was in his pastorate, occupying a pew in his church, and held him in due
reverence. That man is full of all the graces that go to make a person
companionable and beloved; and wherever Twichell goes to start a church
the people flock there to buy the land; they find real estate goes up
all around the spot, and the envious and the thoughtful always try
to get Twichell to move to their neighborhood and start a church; and
wherever you see him go you can go and buy land there with confidence,
feeling sure that there will be a double price for you before very