Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 34.djvu/60

 52 Southern Historical Society Papers.

AN ADDRESS BEFORE THE LADIES' MEMORIAL ASSOCIATION.

With Glowing Apostrophe to General T. J. Jackson, at Charlotte, N. C., May icth, 1906.

By Hon. R. T. BENNETT, Late Col. of the 14th N. C. Regiment, C. S. A.

[As to other addresses of Col. Bennett and notice of his admirable career, see Southern Historical Society Papers, Vol. XXXIII, p. 65. ED.]

Madame President, Ladies of the United Daughters of the

Confederacy, Citizens ;

When that illustrious man William Edward Gladstone lay in the crisis of his fate, which closed in his death May i8th, 1898, messages of sympathy from the foremost men of our Christian world were read to him, and he murmured at intervals, "Kindness, kindness, kindness!" at length as prayers were ended he exclaimed, "Amen!"

There is sunshine in my soul to-day. You have given me mani- festations of sympathy akin to affection.

An old man taken in the act of doing right is your guest to-day. I value beyond weights and measures the good opinion of our people, whether they be plain people, official people, or such as determine alone or in council public opinion, that mysterious and invisible power which no man can resist more frequently right than any man can fathom or forecast. Need I pause to define public opinion as the conception of the best and foremost thought of the time, the day, the hour. It is not the cry of the multitude, "Crucify him! Release to us Barabbas," but of the still small voice, "Be just and fear not."

I quiver with emotion in the presence of this audience, cultured and adorned with every embellishment of beauty. I reckon the