Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 16.djvu/121

 Address of Rev. G. W. Beale. 115

brothers, I turn from our past soldier-life to notice, in conclusion, our present and future obligations as citizens. The issues for which we contended in battle have been forever settled by the stern arbitration of the sword; our cause has been lost despite our noblest efforts and costliest sacrifices to maintain it. A new era with new claims and new duties is upon us. If the maxim be true, " In peace prepare for war," let us endeavor to illustrate the converse of it, and to show that in war we have been prepared for the privileges and duties of peace. By all our hearts have felt of the bitterness, the loss, the desolations of war, let us cherish and seek the enduring peace and prosperity of our common country. Let us know no North, no South, no East, no West; and as the soldiers of Lee were found faithful in every circum- stance of war, let it be our aim to prove ourselves loyal and faithful citizens in every exigency of our country's need.

And let us cherish the welfare of Virginia. May we harbor no despairing views of the future of the Commonwealth, and may no selfish aim or ignoble greed of office ever lead us to betray our trust as her true and loyal sons. But with hearts as true to her as the needle to the pole, and souls as incorruptible as the wife of Caesar, may we be found whilst life lasts striving to promote her moral, material, and political interests, that those who stand in our places in tjme to come, may find them happier and better, because, as citizens of Vir- ginia, we have filled them.

Never were men called to exercise a nobler patriotism or a higher public virtue than are we, the soldier- citizens of Virginia. Every en- joyment of liberty and every boon of free governrrjent are consecrated by the struggles and the blood which they have cost; our broad Com- monwealth is hallowed in our hearts by the perils and sufferings which thousands of its plains, and villages, and mountain passes have witnessed; and its soil is a thousand times endeared by the precious dust of our comrades that mingles with it. Unnumbered scenes of sublime devotion to the public good, and a flood of burning and bleeding memories of deeds of patriotic love and martyrdom appeal to us to be firm and faithful to every high duty of citizenship as long as our lives shall last.

Let us, then, more deeply enshrine our mother State in our heart of hearts, because of the battle-scars that have torn her bleeding bosom; because of the tears of widows and orphans that have bedewed her furrowed cheeks ; because of the desolation and anguish that have wrung her soul. Let us yearn for Virginia with the fervid devotion of the outcast patriots of Israel, as beside the