Page:Matthew Fontaine Maury 1806-1873.pdf/19

 were as anxious for his return as he to share their poverty in. the restoration of Virginia. Nor was he idle; with the aid of his wife and daughters he was getting ready for publication a series of school geographies. This done, he instructed the officers of many European nations in the use of the electrical torpedo.

When the Chair of Physics in the Virginia Military Institute was tendered him, he saw the way opened to serve the old Commonwealth in the congenial field of Scientific Research, and, by public addresses, to press upon the people the necessity of diversified agricultural pursuits and of co-operative meteorological work on land. In 1868, he was back in Virginia, making ready to take up the physical survey of the State, in close friendship and fellowship with all that were left of the great Virginians of the olden time. He made his home in the little valley town of Lexington, named in commemoration of that far-away hamlet, where the first martyrs of the Revolution fell. Here, he and Lee, friends and neighbors, trained the younger generation in the high duties of citizenship till "God's finger touched them and they slept."

Matthew Fontaine Maury was the embodiment of that type of greatness and goodness which finds expression in an unquenchable enthusiasm for service. His loyalty to duty and his service to mankind, extending over a period of nearly fifty years, project upon the page of history material and moral influences as yet unrecognized. The records of his life are accessible and await the inspired pen of a biographer equal to the task. To interpret the spiritual value of one of the noblest lives ever launched upon the tide of time is a challenge to genius. May Heaven-directed "winds and currents" bear this challenge to genius consecrated to the high undertaking!

"His work is done; But while the races of mankind endure, Let his great example stand Colossal, seen of every land, And keep the soldier firm, the statesman pure; Till in all lands and thro' all human story The path of duty be the way to glory."