Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 14.djvu/32

 26 Southern Historical Society Paj^ers.

old, clad in cuirass and steel, to rescue from Saracenic defilement, but a shrine where tender woman may lay her choicest offerings, where chivalrous foemen stand with uncovered head, and where rests the dust, once the embodiment of what is noblest in human nature, and the incarnation of all that is God-like in man !

" Nor wreck, nor change, nor winter's blight, Nor time's remorseless doom. Can dim one ray of holy light That gilds that glorious tomb."

" Their deeds can never be forgot While Fame her record keeps, And Honor guards the hallowed spot Where valor proudly sleeps ! "

2. OUR GUEST— " Always Welcome." No response.

3. VIRGINIA—" May Her Future be worthy of her Past." Responded to by Judge H. W. Flournoy as follows :

Afr. President and Ladies and Geyitlenien :

Virginia has been the theme of so much grand oratory, so much splendid composition in both prose and poetry, that it is almost impossible, on an occasion like this, ■ within the compass of a few minutes, to say anything which has not often been said before.

In responding to the wish that her future may be worthy of her past, I would say that he is a pessimist, indeed, who takes a gloom}- view of her future. Midway between the cold regions of the North and the sun-kissed land of the South; almost in the center of the temperate zone ; blest with a genial climate ; possessed of every variety of soil ; penetrated throughout her borders with abundant streams of crystal water ; her great mountains filled with every variety of mineral and covered with every species of timber ; her Capitol city at the head of tide-water, nearer the great wealth of the West than any other commercial city on the Atlantic slope, it is but a question of a few short years when we shall see her standing in the front rank of the States of this Union in material prosperity.

It is a statistical fact that out of the desolations of war, within a period of twenty years, she is richer in all material things than she was before the red hoof of blood planted itself upon her sacred soil.