Page:Life and Select Literary Remains of Sam Houston of Texas (1884).djvu/255

 earth. He who was Sam Houston in life was emphatically and characteristically Sam Houston in death. The same reverence-inspiring form, the same piercing eye, the same gigantic mind! Death came upon him like a 'deep sleep,' and he sank as sets the sun in the peaceful and quiet splendors of a summer's eve. It affords me much pleasure to state to the House that he died in the triumphs of that faith which he professed during the last decade of his life. And she who performed so important a part in his reformation, the partner of his bosom, had from his own dying lips ample assurances that her labors in that behalf had not been in vain, and that he was sustained by an abiding faith in the Author of his redemption, and by that living hope which is ' as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which entereth into that within the veil.' There is, sir, to my mind something majestic, magnificent, and yet instructive and beautiful, in such a life and such a death. He whose career was as brilliant and in some respects as erratic as the comet in its wildest flights, revolved with equal splendor, yet with lamblike humility, during the last years of his life around the great Sun of Righteousness as the center of his attraction. But, pleasing as are these consoling reflections in bereavement, I will not longer indulge in them. Gen. Houston leaves a most devoted wife and large and lovely family of children, who lament in the bitterness of their souls the loss of him who was their comfort, their stay, and their pride. Full of years and of honors, he has gone to rest.

"And now that the war of faction and of party is over with him, and the tongue of envy is hushed, all can see and acknowledge his great worth, and honor his immortal memory. Whatever may have been his faults or errors (and to say his long and eventful life was free from them is more than can be said of mortal man), none can question his pure and undying devotion to his country, especially Texas, and the 'patriotic pride' with which he at all times beheld her prosperity. We might say of Texas, that she was his handiwork; he loved her as a father loveth his own child, rejoiced with her when she rejoiced, and wept with her when she wept. Always as jealous of her rights and honor as of his own, he never, when in his power to prevent it, suffered the one infringed or the other tarnished. And I doubt not that as long as there are those who love Texas, and desire the perpetuation of the rights, liberties, and honor of her people, and as long as her glorious history is read, the name of Houston will be honored and revered and his noble deeds emulated by a grateful people."