will could not conceal its high and warm pulsations.  Under the enemy’s guns at Boston he did not forget to instruct his agent to administer generously of charity to his needy neighbors at home.  The sufferings of women and children thrown adrift by war, and of his bleeding comrades, pierced his soul.  And the moist eye and trembling voice with which he bade farewell to his veterans bespoke the underlying tenderness of his nature, even as the storm-wind makes music in its undertones.

Disinterested patriot, he would receive no pay for his military services.  Refusing gifts, he was glad to guide the benefaction of a grateful State to educate the children of his fallen braves in the institution at Lexington which yet bears his name.  Without any of the blemishes that mark the tyrant, he appealed so loftily to the virtuous elements in man, that he almost created the qualities which his country needed to exercise; and yet he was so magnanimous and forbearing to the weaknesses of others, that he often obliterated the vices of which he feared the consequences.  But his virtue was more than this.  It was of that daring, intrepid kind that, seizing principle with a giant’s grasp, assumes responsibility at any hazard, suffers sacrifice without pretense of martyrdom, bears calumny without reply, imposes superior will and understanding on all around it, capitulates to no unworthy triumph, but must carry all things at the point of clear and blameless conscience.  Scorning all manner of meanness and cowardice, his bursts of wrath at their exhibition heighten our admiration for the noble passions which were kindled by the aspirations and exigencies of virtue.

Invested with the powers of a Dictator, the country bestowing them felt no distrust of his integrity; he, receiving them, gave assurance that, as the sword was the last support of Liberty, so it should be the first thing laid aside when Liberty was won.  And keeping the faith in all things, he left mankind bewildered with the splendid problem whether to admire him most for what he was or what he would not be.  Over and above all his virtues was the matchless manhood of personal honor to which Confidence gave in safety the key of every treasure on which Temptation dared not smile, on which Suspicion never cast a frown.  And why prolong the catalogue?  “If you are presented with medals of Caesar, of Trajan, or Alexander, on examining their features you are still led to ask what was their stature and the forms of their persons; but if you discover in a heap of ruins the head or the limb of an antique Apollo, be not curious about the other parts, but rest assured that they were all conformable to those of a god.”

* * * * *

“Rome to America” is the eloquent inscription on one stone of your colossal shaft—­taken from the ancient Temple of Peace that once stood hard by the Palace of the Caesars.  Uprisen from the sea of Revolution, fabricated from the ruins of bartered bastiles, and dismantled palaces of unrighteous, unhallowed power, stood forth now the Republic of republics, the Nation of nations, the Constitution of constitutions, to which all lands and times and tongues had contributed of their wisdom, and the priestess of Liberty was in her holy temple.