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and friends: It is a custom in Eastern lands for the believers in Allah, to make an annual visit to the grave of their prophet. To this shrine the adherents of the true faith come with each passing year, to lay their offerings upon his tomb, and gather new inspiration and new courage, to contend against the difficulties with which the pathway to the happy realms above is beset. Their fervor, which may have lost something from contact with the world, is again enkindled. Their zeal, if it has become in aught diminished, is here renewed and they depart with the weapons of their faith burnished, and with their nerves braced to continue the good fight they have commenced. You and I, comrades, have come from a distance to the grave lying here at our feet, upon a similar errand. After an absence of a year, we have returned to scatter flowers over him whose name has been given to our Post — to recall, in a few words, as we stand here in sorrow together, the scenes of his life, and to learn from his example new lessons of virtue and self denial.

There were many things which made the sacrifice of this life unusually great. Had he been disposed to follow other promptings than those of duty, it would have been easy to have found many reasons why he should not expose himself to the dangers of the field, and the privations of the camp. At the time of the commencement of the war, he had scarcely attained the age of manhood. There are some