The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1870-11-24

1t is meet that we recall on this occasion the
memory of cur revered chieftain, Gen. Robert
e. Lee, and toslay upon his tomb our poor
tribute to his greatness and his worth, amid
the votive offerings of our countrymen at the
shrine of the patriot and hero. When we,ap-
proach the truly grand and breathe the atmos-
phere of that which is sublime, either IN the
moral or physical world the heart of man is
stilled-the spirit is awed and humbled by the
presence of the Infinite, manifested IN the
works of His hands, or in the diviner emana-
tions of His own supernal nature and image,
sometimes vouchsafed to the denizens of earth.
Thus it is whenwe stand by the newly-made
grave and contemplate the person, the charac-
ter and the career of Robert E. Lee. We feel
the inadeauacy of our limited powers either
rightly to conceive the virtues of the dead, or
to embody in language such conceptions as our
capacities enable US to enjoy. We would With
draw into the deeper recesses OF our own ma
ture, the silent regions Of unutterable emotions,
those borders of the spirit land where We catch
the echoes of the infinite world beyond, there
to commune in the stiffness of our own hearts.
Yet it is fitting that VIC, his friends and COM
rades in the past, who shared his triumphs and
his reverses his joys and his sorrows, his hopes
and his despair, should wreathe around his
honored name and memory our .garlands OF
love and praise, fresh and unfading. flowers
from the garden of grateful hearts, embalmlng
for the generations to come the virtues and the
greatness of the ilustrious citizen, hero and pa
triot.
His was nature so perfect that like the
icicle, it defes analysis or comparison. 1t pre-
sented fullness, completeness, grandeur of
development that offered nothing to censure,
and left nothing to desire. Neither the expe-
rience of the living, nor the portraitures OF his
tory offered its prototype or parallel. Our great
countrymar, Washington, furnishes in some Of
of his characteristics, as also in the analogies
of his career, a resemblance as that between
star and star, but they differed as zone star
difereth from another star in glory" His
form, his face, his voice, his bearing God-like
in beauty, power and grace, distinguished him
from all other men. He certainly was made
but "a little lower than the angels" and now
he has crossed the river to be with them,
whittier the flower of his noble army had gone
before, whittier we, too, shall follow, if faithful
sentinels, as one by one we are relieved from
duty here and ordered to the front to join that
victor band. There are men, cast in so high a
mould, so peculiarly and eminenty favored by
God, as to be rather fitted for that better life
than this. They are the great exemplars; the
beacon lights, that guide the race onward and
upward. Think. of that ilustrious throng-
the Confederate dead-in the world of light
and liberty How many such men-"heroes in
history"-find there place most fitting among
the highest and the brightest? Yet even
among these, how towers the lofty spirit of
Robert E. Lee! When we consider the moral
grandeur of the man, even his magnificent
achievements in the field of arms cease to as
tonish u.s. and we lose ourselves in the contem-
plation of his nobility of soul. What was his
life for the last five years but constant mar
tyrdom of the spirit-a daily dying for usF To
teach us to labor, to suffer, to endure, to wait
patiently for our redemption, to abide faith
fully by the inevitable, to bow to the will
of God. Who can estimate what he felt, what
he endured, in those five years of agony for his
tortured countrymen? What wonder his great
heart broke at last? His duty done, thank
God, henceforth he wears the victors crown
illustrious inhabitant of one of the ''many
mansions" of his Fathers House" Thither,
in our humble measure, may we strive to fol-
low, that "where he is, We may be alsoa'
Resoiuea, That the allowed be inscribed upon
the minutes of the association, and q copy be
forwarded to his bereaved family as an assur-
ance OF our profound and respectful sympathy
with their afflictiOn.