Part 23

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The character of Washington! Who can delineate it worthily? Modest, disinterested, generous, just, of clean hands and a pure heart, self-denying and self-sacrificing, seeking nothing for himself, declining all remuneration beyond the reimbursement of his outlays, scrupulous to a farthing in keeping his accounts, of spotless integrity, scorning gifts, charitable to the needy, forgiving injuries and injustices, brave, fearless, heroic, with a prudence ever governing his impulses, a wisdom ever guiding his valor, true to his friends, true to his country, true to himself, fearing God, no stranger to private devotion or public worship, but ever recognizing a divine aid and direction in all that he accomplished. His magnetism was that of merit, superior, surpassing merit; the merit of spotless integrity, of recognized ability, and of unwearied willingness to spend and be spent in the service of his country.

ROBERT C. WINTHROP.

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One of the best of modern Americans, James Russell Lowell, who was born on the same day of the month as Washington, February 22d, 1819, wrote shortly before his death, to a schoolgirl, whose class proposed noticing his own birthday: "Whatever else you do on the twenty-second of February, recollect, first of all, that on that day a really great man was born, and do not fail to warm your hearts with the memory of his service, and to brace your minds with the contemplation of his character. The rest of us must wait uncovered till he be served."

ELBRIDGE S. BROOKS.

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The fame of Washington stands apart from every other in history, shining with a truer luster and a more benignant glory. With us his memory remains a national property, where all sympathies, throughout our widely extended and diversified empire meet in unison. Under all dissensions and amid all the storms of party, his precepts and example speak to us from the grave with a paternal appeal; and his name--by all revered--forms a universal brotherhood, a watchword of our Union.

IRVING AND FISKE.

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The soul of Washington was one of the grandest of all ages that takes its equal rank with Greek and Roman and Hebrew names of renown for humane and prime worth, names that seem written not in our poor records, but on the sky's arch--names in the broad sunshine of whose moral glory, spreading through the world, all the little fires which men have made with the kindling of words from abstract conceptions,--go out. For however otherwise a man may be distinguished--unless there be in him a spirit of love, devotion, and self-sacrifice, we feel he lacks the very pith and beauty of manhood; and though he may be a great performer with his pen as one plays well on a musical instrument, a Great Being he is not.

Christian Examiner.

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It will be the duty of the historian and the sage of all nations to let no occasion pass of commemorating this illustrious man; and until time shall be no more, will a test of the progress which our race has made in wisdom and virtue, be derived from the veneration paid to the immortal name of Washington.

LORD BROUGHAM.

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The character of Washington may want some of those poetical elements, but it possessed fewer inequalities and a rarer union of virtues than perhaps ever fell to the lot of any other man. Prudence, firmness, sagacity, moderation, an overruling judgment, an immovable justice, courage that never faltered, patience that never wearied, truth that disdained all artifice, magnanimity without alloy. It seems as if Providence had endowed him in a pre-eminent degree with the qualities requisite to fit him for the high destiny he was called upon to fulfill.

IRVING AND FISKE.

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WASHINGTON'S NAME IN THE HALL OF FAME

BY MARGARET E. SANGSTER

Republics are ungrateful, but ours, its best-loved son Still keeps in memory green, and wreathes the name of Washington. As year by year returns the day that saw the patriot's birth, With boom of gun and beat of drum and peals of joy and mirth, And songs of children in the streets and march of men-at-arms, We honor pay to him who stood serene 'mid war's alarms; And with his ragged volunteers long kept the foe at bay, And bore the flag to victory in many a battle's day.

We were a little nation then; so mighty have we grown That scarce would Washington believe to-day we were his own. With ships that sail on every sea, and sons in every port, And harvest-fields to feed the world, wherever food is short, And if at council-board our chiefs are now discreet and wise, And if to great estate and high, our farmers' lads may rise, We owe a debt to him who set the fashion of our fame, And never more may we forget our loftiest hero's name.

Great knightly soul who came in time to serve his country's need, To serve her with the timely word and with the valiant deed, Along the ages brightening as endless cycles run Undimmed and gaining luster in the twentieth century's sun, First in our Hall of Fame we write the name all folk may ken, As first in war, and first in peace, first with his countrymen.

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ESTIMATES OF WASHINGTON

George Washington, the brave, the wise, the good. Supreme in war, in council, and in peace. Washington, valiant, without ambition; discreet, without fear; confident, without presumption.

DR. ANDREW LEE.