Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 14.djvu/394

 388 Southern Historical Society Papers.

if the words of Gray's elegy were to be literally fulfilled and we were

to be —

" Each in his narrow cell forever laid."

Base thought ! degrading superstition ! which dishonors the mind and heart that harbor it, and which is equally at war with every analogy that can be drawn from nature and every precept of the Divine Law. So far from being true, the doctrine that death is only another name for annihilation is but a dreadful nightmare, a torturing dream of the impossible, the very capacity to conceive which is evi- dence of the immortality of the soul.

No, they still live who die, and we who are only a little later in going to our rest — for " our little life is rounded with a sleep " — will meet them again in the morning. Else what purpose is to be served by commemorating them and recalling their virtues or their services in the cause of truth, country or humanity ? " What profiteth us if the dead rise not?"

When you resolved that each of your future memorial addresses should be devoted to the life and services of some one distinguished North Carolina soldier of the late war, I hailed your action as a wise departure from the established custom, and as a work which would result in the accumulation of a series of biographical sketches which must prove valuable as a contribution to the war history of the State.

I am here to-day, in compliance with your invitation, to attempt to pay a tribute to the memory of as noble a gentleman, as knightly a soldier, as true a man, and as devoted a son of North Carolina as any who ever lived. And I esteem myself fortunate in that I may best perform this duty by a simple recital of the leading events of his life.

I do not know how others who had a similar duty to perform have felt while discharging it, but I have never been able on such occa- sions to divest myself of the thought that the subject of my discourse, if not in some sense present, was in some way conscious of the event, and this feeling has a saddening effect, suggesting as it does how pitiful the language of eulogy must sound to one who has put off the burden of the flesh, and from beyond the veil smiles mournfully at the vanity of human ambition. Nothing would be less acceptable, hardly anything would be more offensive, to hnn of whom I am about to speak, if conscious of my words, than such an offering on this occasion ; and knowing this I shall best evidence my respect for his memory by uttering only the language of soberness and truth. He, doubtless, had in common with every human being not utterly