the Heroic Virtues 225 



their daily bread upon the work of their hands or 

 brain from month to month. It was a good thing 

 for both classes to be brought together on such 

 terms. It showed that we of this generation had not 

 wholly forgotten the lesson taught by you who 

 fought to a finish the great Civil War. And there 

 is no danger to the future of this country just so 

 long as that lesson is remembered in all its bearings, 

 civil and military. 



Your history, rightly studied, will teach us the 

 time-worn truth that in war, as in peace, we need 

 chiefly the every-day, commonplace virtues, and 

 above all, an unflagging sense of duty. Yet in dwell 

 ing upon the lessons for our ordinary conduct which 

 we can learn from your experience, we must never 

 forget that it also shows us what should be our model 

 in times that are not ordinary, in the times that try 

 men's souls. We need to have within us the splendid 

 heroic virtues which alone avail in the mighty crises, 

 the terrible catastrophes whereby a nation is either 

 purified as if by fire, or else consumed forever in the 

 flames. When you of the Civil War sprang forward 

 at Abraham Lincoln's call to put all that life holds 

 dear, and life itself, in the scale with the nation's 

 honor, you were able to do what you did because 

 you had in you not only the qualities that make good 

 citizens, but in addition the high and intense traits, 

 the deep passion and enthusiasm, which go to make 



