Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 36.djvu/309

Rh our reincarnated heroes are assembled, under the Stars and Bars, he is witnessing the homage rendering to his memory tonight.

Leigh Robinson, of Washington, son of the late Conway Robinson, one of the most eminent of American jurists, and nephew of Moncure Robinson, accepted the portrait in an address, remarkable for its eloquence, epigram and sarcasm. At the beginning of the war he at once crossed the Potomac, and throughout our momentous struggle of four years, participated in the hardest service, being actively engaged in many battles. He said: Mr. Commander and Fellow-Soldiers: The Lee Camp of Confederate veterans stands for a grand ideal. In the throng of selfish contention, it is your prerogative to exist, as a shrine amid ruins, that you may preserve as in amber the memory of that bright sword which, among the swords of the captains, shines like yonder sentry of the skies, around whose serene light the stars obediently bend. In an anarchical night time of transition this unswerving force burns in our heavens, like a word of command, whose authority we reverence, and whose speech is the "still small voice" of duty. As the commemoration thereof, this shrine shall be a guide post in the desert.

Unselfish force is a Scripture "given by inspiration of God." Our world divides itself into the heroes who live and die for others, and the others for whom they live and die. The hero is the response to that question of the early Satan, "Doth Job serve (or fear) God for naught?" The lofty answer is, he doth. His own heroism is the hero's booty. He gives his greatness to others for the joy and glory of giving. Save in a mere material sense, it is not for naught. The life, which, while strong in the strife forgets itself in the striving, is born Commander of the Faithful, and in every age has found the faithful to command. We look elsewhere, indeed, for the thrifty patriots who make the litany of the daughters of the horse leech the mother tongue