Great Father of your Country!  We need your words; we feel their force, as if you now uttered them with lips of flesh and blood.  Your example teaches us, your affectionate addresses teach us, your public life teaches us, your sense of the value of the blessings of the Union.  Those blessings our fathers have tasted, and we have tasted, and still taste.  Nor do we intend that those who come after us shall be denied the same high function.  Our honor, as well as our happiness, is concerned.  We cannot, we dare not, we will not, betray our sacred trust.  We will not filch from posterity the treasure placed in our hands to be transmitted to other generations.  The bow that gilds the clouds in the heavens, the pillars that uphold the firmament, may disappear and fall away in the hour appointed by the will of God; but, until that day comes, or so long as our lives may last, no ruthless hand shall undermine that bright arch of Union and Liberty which spans the continent from Washington to California!

VI

TRIBUTES

MEMORIALS OF WASHINGTON[19]

BY HENRY B. CARRINGTON

Modern history, oratory, and poetry are so replete with tributes to the memory of Washington, that the entire progress of the civilized world for more than a century has been shaped by the influence of his life and precepts.  The memorial shaft at the national capital, which is the loftiest of human structures, and is inner-faced by typical expressions of honor from nearly all nations, is a fit type of his surmounting merit.  The ceremonies which attended the cornerstone consecration and signalized its completion are no less an honor to the distinguished historian and statesman who voiced the acclamations of the American people than a perpetual testimonial worthy of the subject honored by the occasion and by the monument.  When the world pays willing tribute, and the most ambitious monarch on earth would covet no higher plaudit than that he served his people as faithfully as Washington served America, it is difficult to fathom the depths of memorial sentiment and place in public view those which are the most worthy of study and appreciative respect.  The national life itself throbs through his transmitted life, and the aroma of his grace is as consciously breathed by statesmen and citizens to-day as the invisible atmosphere which secures physical vitality and force.  Senator Vance of North Carolina, thus earnestly commends to the youth of America the brightness and beauty of the great example: