Lee's Birthday, 353
of its greatest captains. It is fast learning that the man was greater than the soldier — for,
- His grandeut he derived from Heaven alone,
For he was great ere fortune made him so ; And wars, like mists that rise against the sun, Made him but greater seem, not greater grow."
Washington, D, C, William L. Wilson.
REV. DR. MOSES D. HOGE.
The public career of Robert E. Lee forms one of the most impres- sive and inspiring chapters in human history. In many respects he occupies a place all his own in the military annals of the world. But men are not fully known by their official lives or by those conspicu- ous acts which fill the world with their fame. It is to the social and domestic realm that we look for those traits of character — the up- rightness, the courtesy, the magnanimity, and the supreme devotion to duty— which constitute the true men. So, too, it is to the religi- ous life that we look for the sincerity, the meekness, the humility and the self-consecration which constitute the true Christian.
Therefore, when we contemplate a man, like Lee, it is not the splendid renown of the soldier, nor the virtues of the citizen, nor the devotion of the Christian alone that impresses us, but the harmoni- ous blending of all in a character of such strength, symmetry and attractiveness as to form an ideal which at once gratifies the intellect and satisfies the heart.
Men thus endowed by nature and by grace form the models most worthy of imitation and become the bequests of Providence to com- ing ages.
By the admiration they command and by the aflfection they attract, they inspire and encourage others to the pursuit of " whatsoever things are just and true and lovely and of good report, and thus lift humanity to a higher plane.
MosES D. HOGE.
Richmond, Va,
PROFESSOR J. J. WHITE, LEE'S INTIMATE FRIEND.
Robert E. Lee — Supremely good and great among men.
J.J. White. Washington and Lee University, Lexington,
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