t utter on this
platform, and this parallel between the first Washington and the
second occurred to me. I asked my own heart the question, 'Would you
not accept the fame and the glory and the career of Robert E. Lee just
as soon as accept the glory and career of the immortal man who was his
predecessor?' Sir, there is a pathos in fallen fortunes which stirs
the sensibilities, and touches the very fountain of human feeling. I
am not sure that at this moment Napoleon, the enforced guest of the
Prussian king, is not grander than when he ascended the throne of
France. There is a grandeur in misfortune when that misfortune is
borne by a noble heart, with the strength of will to endure, and
endure without complaining or breaking. Perhaps I slip easily into
this train of remarks, for it is my peculiar office to speak of that
chastening with which a gracious Providence visits men on this earth,
and by which He prepares them for heaven hereafter; and what is true
of individuals in a state of adversity, is true of nations when
clothed in sorrow. Sir, the men in these galleries that once wore the
gray are here to-night that they may bend the knee in reverence at
the grave of him whose voice and hand they obeyed amid the storms of
battle: the young widow, who but as yesterday leaned upon the arm of
her soldier-husband, but now clasps wildly to her breast the young
child that never beheld its father's face, comes here to shed her
tears over this grave to-night; and the aged matron, with the tears
streaming from her eyes as she recalls her unforgotten dead, lying on
the plains of Gettysburg, or on the heights of Fredericksburg, now,
to-night, joins in our dirge over him who was that son's chieftain and
counsellor and friend. A whole nation has risen up in the spontaneity
of its grief to render the tribute of its love. Sir, there is a unity
in the grapes when they grow together in the clusters upon the vine,
and holding the bunch in your hand you speak of it as one; but there
is another unity when you throw these grapes into the wine-press,
and the feet of those that bruise these grapes trample them almost
profanely beneath their feet together in the communion of pure wine;
and such is the union and communion of hearts that have been fused by
tribulation and sorrow, and that meet together in the true feeling of
an honest grief to express the homage of their affection, as well as
to render a tribute of praise to him upon whose face we s