Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 34.djvu/61

 Address of Hon. .E. T. Bennett. 53

census of immortal events wrought here by the good limbs of our people.

I miss the lionhearted Jones, the intrepid Flemming, the un- matched Waring", glorious Greer, my virtuous friend John E. Brown, the steady Barringer and perennial Vance.

"At their tombs my tributary tears I offer for my brethren's obsequies."

I asked my wife if it would be risking too much with this assem- blage of worthies to indulge my sense for humor. With Confed- erate precision she retorted against it and I am sworn to a severe demeanor.

I am not to herald discordant notes. Peace on earth to men of good will enthuses me. If I may twang the bow of Ulysses I recognize that you cannot annihilate the past. Verily you must not suspect me capable of infidelity to that past. Genius when young. is divine.

Charles Dickens, the most pathetic of all English writers, in one of his letters from Rome, represents the early Christians of Rome as having sought and found sanctuary in the catacombs of the Eternal City, where they worshipped the God of the Christian. Their hiding place having been discovered, fathers, mothers were slain by the men of the law the lynchers of the Apocalypse, the mot of the day.

The men who hang others upon the Statue of Liberty while pro- fessing a mission for free speech, freedom of conscience. The children of those slain for their faith witnessing the awful tragedy of fathers and mothers immolated, rush upon their tormentors crying aloud: "We are Christians." By an access of unspeakable tenderness they were lifted above fear and looked upon death as a mere incident of life.

Those of us who were completely possessed with the principles of 1861 on fire with its scope and energy "A burning bush."

We are Confederates now henceforth eternally. Our methods of observation and reasoning now, as then, are the sheet anchor of our principles. We extenuate nothing naught exaggerate in malice. Calumnies cast at the government are not our weapons.

Who would not love his country with all his might? Is she not made of our secular traditions, our unrivaled glories, our reverses, and of the genius of our great men, writers, thinkers, poets,