His faculties were so well balanced and combined that his constitution, free from excess, was tempered evenly with all the elements of activity, and his mind resembled a well-ordered commonwealth; his passions, which had the intensest vigor, owned allegiance to 5 reason; and with all the fiery quickness of his spirit his impetuous and massive will was held in check by consummate judgment. He had in his composition a calm which gave him, in moments of highest excitement, the power of self-control, and enabled him to 10 excel in patience, even when he had most cause for disgust. Washington was offered a command when there was little to bring out the unorganized resources of the continent but his own influence, and authority was connected with the people by the most frail, most 15 attenuated, scarcely discernible threads; yet, vehement as was his nature, impassioned as was his courage, he so restrained his ardor, that he never failed continuously to exert the attracting power of that influence, and never exerted it so sharply as to break its force. 20 His understanding was lucid, and his judgment accurate; so that his conduct never betrayed hurry or confusion. No detail was too minute for his personal inquiry and continued supervision; and at the same time he comprehended events in their widest aspects and 25 relations. He never seemed above the object that engaged his attention; and he was always equal, without an effort, to the solution of the highest questions, even when there existed no precedents to guide his decision. In this way he never drew to himself admiration for the possession of any one quality in excess; never made in council any one suggestion that was sublime but impracticable; never in action took to himself the 5 praise or the blame of undertakings astonishing in conception, but beyond his means of execution. It was the most wonderful accomplishment of this man that, placed upon the largest theater of events, at the head of the greatest revolution in human affairs, he never 10 failed to observe all that was possible, and at the same time to bound his aspirations by that which was possible. Profoundly impressed with confidence in God's providence, and exemplary in his respect for the forms 15 of public worship, no philosopher of the eighteenth century was more firm in the support of freedom of religious opinion; none more tolerant, or more remote from bigotry; but belief in God and trust in His overruling power formed the essence of his character. 20 Divine wisdom not only illumines the spirit, it inspires the will. Washington was a man of action, and not of theory or words; his creed appears in his life, not in his professions, which burst from him very rarely, and only at those great moments of crisis in the fortunes of 25 his country, when Earth and Heaven seemed actually to meet, and his emotions became too intense for suppression; but his whole being was one continued act of faith in the eternal, intelligent, moral order of the Universe. Integrity was so completely the law of his nature, that a planet would sooner have shot from its sphere, than he have departed from his uprightness, which was so constant that it often seemed to be almost impersonal. They say of Giotto, that he introduced goodness into 5 the art of painting: Washington carried it with him to the camp and the cabinet, and established a new criterion of human greatness. The purity of his will confirmed his fortitude; and, as he never faltered in his faith in virtue, he stood fast by that which he knew 10 to be just; free from illusions; never dejected by the apprehension of the difficulties and perils that went before him; and drawing the promise of success from the justice of his cause. Hence he was persevering, leaving nothing unfinished; free from all taint of 15 obstinacy in his firmness; seeking and gladly receiving advice, but immovable in his devotedness to right. Of a "retiring modesty and habitual reserve," his ambition was no more than the consciousness of his power, and was subordinate to his sense of duty; he 20 took the foremost place, for he knew, from inborn magnanimity, that it belonged to him, and he dared not withhold the service required of him; so that, with all his humility, he was by necessity the first, though never for himself or for private ends. He loved fame, 25 the approval of coming generations, the good opinion of his fellow-men of his own time; and he desired to make his conduct coincide with their wishes; but not fear of censure, not the prospect of applause, could 5 tempt him to swerve from rectitude; and the praise which he coveted was the sympathy of that moral sentiment which exists in every human breast, and goes forth only to the welcome of virtue. This also is the praise of Washington, that never in the tide of time has any man lived who had in so great a degree the almost divine faculty to command the confidence of his fellow-men and rule the willing. Whereever he became known, in his family, his neighborhood, 10 his county, his native state, the continent, the camp, civil life, the United States, among the common people, in foreign courts, throughout the civilized world of the human race, and even among the savages, he, beyond all other men, had the confidence of his kind. NATIONAL HYMN. SAMUEL FRANCIS SMITH. SAMUEL FRANCIS SMITH was born in Boston in 1808, and died in 1895. He attended, the Boston Latin School, was graduated at Harvard College, and then studied for the ministry at the Andover Theological Seminary. While in Harvard he was a classmate of 5 Oliver Wendell Holmes. At a reunion of his class, held many years after they had left college, Holmes read a poem which he had written for the occasion, called "The Boys," and spoke of Mr. Smith in these words: “He chanted a song for the brave and the free, 10 He referred to the poem beginning "My country, 't is of thee," the national hymn of America, written by Mr. Smith when he was a young theological student, and first sung at a children's celebration, held on one Fourth of July, in the Park Street 15 Church, Boston. A collection of his hymns and poems has been published under the title of "Lyric Gems." My country, 't is of thee, Of thee I sing; Land where my fathers died, |