r.
Honored again and again by the people of the land he had redeemed from
thraldom, he has taken his place in death by the side of the wisest and
best of the world's benefactors. Assassins did not unglory him in life,
nor has oblivion drawn her mantle over him in death. The names of his
great battle-fields have become nursery words, and his principles have
imbedded themselves forever in the national character. Every pulsation
of our hearts beats true to his memory. His mementoes are everywhere
around and about us. Distant as we are from the green fields of his
native Westmoreland, the circle of his renown has spread far beyond our
borders. In climes where the torch of science was never kindled; on
shores still buried in primeval bloom; amongst barbarians where the face
of liberty was never seen, the Christian missionary of America, roused
perhaps from his holy duties by the distant echo of the national salute,
this day thundering amidst the billows of every sea, or dazzled by the
gleam of his country's banner, this day floating in every wind of
heaven, pauses over his task as a Christian, and whilst memory kindles
in his bosom the fires of patriotism, pronounced in the ear of the
enslaved pagan the venerated name of WASHINGTON!

Nor are the sons of the companions of Washington alone in doing justice
to his memory. Our sisters, wives and mothers compete with us in
discharging this debt of national gratitude. With a delicacy that none
but woman could exhibit, and with a devotion that none but a daughter
could feel, they are now busy in executing the noble scheme of
purchasing his tomb, in order for endless generations to stand sentinel
over his remains. Take them! take them to your hearts, oh! ye daughters
of America; enfold them closer to your bosom than your first-born
offspring; build around them a mausoleum that neither time nor change
can overthrow; for within them germinates the seeds of liberty for the
benefit of millions yet unborn. Wherever tyranny shall lift its Medusan
head, wherever treason shall plot its hellish schemes, wherever disunion
shall unfurl its tattered ensign, there, oh there, sow them in the
hearts of patriots and republicans! For from these pale ashes there
shall spring, as from the dragon's teeth sown by Cadmus of old on the
plains of Heber, vast armies of invincible heroes, sworn upon the altar
and tomb at Mount Vernon, to live as freemen, or as such to die!

[Decoration]

XXI.

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