Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 27.djvu/372

 364 Southern Historical Society Papers.

noble life, you and your children are here invited to study; such a noble example is here offered lor their imitation and for ours.

Fellow citizens and good friends for these people are bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh: yonder where the solemn cedars wave, and here where the spire points to heaven, lie the ashes of genera- tions right dear to me; familiar to my childhood are the faces here depicted; to this town of Tappahannock I owe the peaceful ending of an honored lather's long labor of love; in the act I now perform, I pay reverent honor to a noble woman, who, once familiar to your eyes, was, as I think, dear to your hearts, and who, when the shad- ows fell around her, was comforted by the memory of your affection and desired that her last home might be among you.

So thinking and so feeling thankful for the opportunity to ren- der this service to my people, deeply sensible of the honor I myself receive in having this commission laid upon me I bring here this picture of Judge William Brockenbrough learned lawyer and up- right judge Virginia gentleman, true to State and lineage, and careful to hand down to posterity that ' good name which is more to be desired than great riches,' a man whose life stands for learning guided by wisdom, for truth, for purity, for charity towards all, for courage to do right, for justice the ermine adorning, for Christian virtue in that he humbly sought to form his mind and heart by loving study of the only complete example.

True product, this, of the ancient civilization, my young friends the civilization of the time when the fields were greener, when the summer breeze was softer, when the birds sang more sweetly than now, and all the world was vocal with the sounds that brought us joy; a civilization (I charge you to observe) which the ignorant, the envious; and the malignant condemn, and for which the weak and the base among ourselves have been fain to apologize. Yet was it so simple and so beautiful, so natural and native to the soil, so rooted in truth, so erect in honor, so lofty and so strong, so abloom with all courtesy, so redolent of nobleness, so fruitful of virtue that for my- self I am profoundly thankful that the men and women before whom my soul stands uncovered, were born under its shadow and that the formative years of my own life were spent beneath its grateful shade.

Therefore, I speak in humble recognition of the Hand that work- eth all nobleness in man in commemoration of that gracious olden time that now is passing away paying honor where honor is justly due knowing that the generation so paying its debt of honor to those that have gone is guiding in paths of honor generations yet