Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 17.djvu/364

 356 Southern Historical Society Papers.

It is well and right that Virginians should seek to perpetuate the memory of the peerless man who has illustrated that name, that those who come after us may know what priceless gift was bestowed upon Virginia in the person of this Christian soldier and patriot.

T. U. Dudley, Bishop of Kentucky.

PROF. JOHN B. MINOR, LAW DEPARTMENT, UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA.

The birthday of General Robert E. Lee incites to the contempla- tion of a character as remarkable for its symmetrical excellence as any that history records.

Profound veneration for the man in his august simplicity, his un- blemished uprightness, and his steady, unostentatious pursuit of duty, controlled always by.his Christian principle, awakens at once a strong desire to give fitting expressions thereto, and an apprehension that the words may not be worthy of the subject.

The future historian, when prejudice and partiality shall have been alike silenced by time, will say that the world has seldom seen a man on whom it might bestow an admiration and reverence so unreserved. And a Virginian cannot think without exultation that such a chron- icler must render to the society in which General Lee was nurtured and by which he was moulded, the tribute of singular aptitude for greatness and for moral excellence, as seen in a Washington and a Lee, and also in the numerous other worthies, great and good, who have grown to world-wide renown beneath the skies of Virginia.

May our people take these examples to heart, and show them- selves, through the coming age, worthy to be fellow-citizens with

these, our illustrious countrymen !

John B. Minor. University of Virginia,

REV. JOHN B. NEWTON, A SOLDIER PREACHER.

You ask for a sentiment in connection with the birthday of Robert E. Lee, our great commander.

I give it in the words of the poet-laureate of England upon the death of the great Duke of Wellington, believing that in General Lee they find their truest and noblest illustration :

Yet clearest of ambitious crime ;
 * The man of amplest influence,