These sorrowful occasions, which are deprecated by some as involving a loss of the time of the Senate and needless expense to the Government, I can not think are unprofitable to us or to the country.  Surely in the mad rush and hurry of business we may be permitted to halt long enough to take notice of the invasion of our ranks by death and to voice our esteem for a departed member.  The death of an eminent member of the Senate or of the House is not only a loss to his immediate constituency, but to the whole country, and, in accordance with a long and honored usage, demands from his former associates formal and appropriate action.

After such an hour spent in the contemplation of the common end of all that live, in introspection and retrospection, who of us does not again take up the burdens of life with renewed resolutions to redouble our energies to faithfully discharge every public and private duty.

My acquaintance with Mr. LEE was not intimate.  I frequently met him socially, but he did not belong to the party with which I am affiliated, and no fortuitous circumstance occurred to bring us together in the discharge of public duties.  The incidents of his life, his public services, and his domestic relations have been fittingly alluded to by others, and it only remains for me to cast an evergreen upon his grave, to add my poor tribute to his memory, and give expression to the emotions awakened by the occasion and the exercises of the hour.  Coming from a long line of distinguished ancestors, serving with marked distinction in the Confederate army until the cause he championed was hopelessly lost, honored by the people of his State by election to high civil positions, in which he did credit to himself and honored them with a rounded character and well-developed manhood, at once the incarnation of gentleness, tenderness, and courage, it is not to be wondered at that sorrow for his death hung over his State like a funeral pall, and all parties vied with each other in giving expression to the universal sense of private and public loss.

He was the son of a distinguished sire, who in life was the idol of the people of Virginia; but he was held in the highest esteem by the people of his State not so much on account of his illustrious father as on account of his own ability and worth.  His public services and his blameless life, touching, tender, and beautiful, won the tributes to his memory pronounced by his colleagues at the other end of this Capitol.  Fortunate, indeed, is the man who can win such admiration from his associates.

What higher eulogy can be pronounced on any man than that in every station, public and private, he was true to himself and faithful to the people and was equal to the duties of his station?  Not every man can become great; genius is the gift of the few, but goodness and fidelity to duty are within the reach of all.  He has gone the way of all the living.  He has found the level of the grave.  Our words of eulogy can not reach him there.