The resolutions were adopted.

ADDRESS OF MR. MEREDITH, OF VIRGINIA.

Mr. SPEAKER: This day having been set apart for the purpose of paying a
last tribute to the memory of one who so lately was a loved and honored
member of this House, I shall, in the brief remarks which I propose to
make, attempt nothing but a plain and truthful narrative of some of the
characteristics and public services of a Christian gentleman, who in my
judgment measured fully up to that standard which makes man the noblest
work of God.

On the 15th day of October, 1891, at Ravensworth, his beautiful home in
Fairfax County, Va., surrounded by those loved ones whose constant care
and tender nursing had done all that human power could do to stay the
hand of the fell Destroyer, all that was mortal of Hon. WILLIAM HENRY
FITZHUGH LEE passed from this earth, and his noble spirit returned to
the God who gave it.

If the earnest supplications to Almighty God, offered by the good people
of his native State upon their bended knees night and morning, during
the period of his lingering illness, could have availed, he would have
been restored to health and usefulness, and these melancholy proceedings
postponed for many a long year.

The great sorrow which made the heart of Virginia heavy and bowed in
grief the heads of her true sons and daughters when the sad intelligence
of his death was flashed over the electric wires was more genuinely
spontaneous than were the loud lamentations of the Roman populace (so
graphically described by Tacitus) when they beheld the widow of
Germanicus, with her weeping children entering the gates of the imperial
city. Nor was this sorrow confined to those of his own political faith.
Men of all parties vied with each other in their expressions of regret
at his death and in their sympathy for his bereaved family.

The blameless life he had led, his high character, his gentle and
unassuming manners, won for him not only the respect but the admiration
of all with whom he came in contact.

As gentle as a child and as tender as a woman, with the courage of a
hero and a faith that never faltered, he proved himself a worthy
descendant of that race of famous men from whom he sprang, and most
worthily bore a name which will be honored as long as a liberty-loving
people shall find a dwelling place upon the earth.

WILLIAM H.F. LEE was the son of Gen. Robert E. Lee, and was born at
Arlington, on the 31st day of May, 1837.

H