The Madisonian. (Richmond, Ky.) 1913-1914, 1913-10-28

tnterpOsltlOn OF PROVIDENCE ana the -
sistance | have received from my
countrymen increases with every re
view OF the momentous contest.
| consider II my indispensable duty to
close this last solemn act of my official
life by commenting the interests OF
our dearest country to the protection
of Almighty God and those who have
the superintendence OF them to his
holy keeping"
II was as IL spoken on the morrow
of the day upon which he accepted
his commission: the same diffidence.
the same trust in a power greater and
higher than his OWL
An Idol and q Hero.
The plaudits that mad but just now
filed his ears at every stage of his
long journey from New York seemed
utterly forgotten: he seemed not to
know how his fellow countrymen had
made Of him an idol ana a hero; his
simplicity was once again his anthem
tic badge of genuinsness. He knew
II would seem, no other way in which
to act
A little child remembered after
wards how he had prayed at her
fathers house upon the eve OF battle:
how he had taken scripture out of
Joshua, and had cried. The Lord God
of gods, the Lord God of gods. he
knoweth, and Israel he shall know; If
II be in rebellion, or IL in transgres-
sion against the Lord (save US not
this day."
There was here the same note of
solemnity and of self-forSetful devo-
ton as II duty and honor were alike
inevitable
On Christmas eve. 1888, Washington
was once more at Mount Vernon, to
resume the life he loved more than
victory and power
He had zest for the means and the
labor Of succeeding. but not for the
mere content of success. He put the
revolution behind him as he would
have laid aside book that was read:
turned from ii as quietly as he had
turned from receiving the surrender OF
CORVALLIS at Observation-Disclosures in
glory, but only as a means to an
end.
lie looked to find very sweet salts
faction in the peace which war had
earned. as sufficient a scope for his
powe., at home as in the field
Once more he would be a Virginian
ard join his strength to his neigh
bors' in all the tasks of good citi
zenship.
He had seen nothing OF the old
familiar places since thHt far-away
spring in the year 1915, when he had
left his farming and his fox-huntirs.
amidst rumors of war to attend the
congress which was to send him tc
Cambridge. He had halted at Fred
ericksburg. indeed. with the Count de
Pocha mbeau. two yeers ago. ere he
followed his army from York to it's
posts upon the Hudson.
Mrs. Lewis, his sister had returned
one day from visiting a neighbor in
the quiet town to look in astonishment
uDon an officers horses and attend
ants, at her door, and had entered to
find her beloved brother stretched
u pop her own bed within, sound asleep
in his cloth -, like boy returned from
hunting.
Takes His Mother to Ball.
There had been a formal ball given.
too, in celebration of the victory, be-
fore the French officers and the COM
A.. L., Inf ;1lya b.,r a.,
go northward again, and Washington
had had the joy of entering the room
in the face of the gay company win |
his aged mother on his arm. not a whit /
bent for all her seventy-four years,
and as quiet as queen at rece' ging I
the homage of her sons comrades in
arms.
He had got his imperious spirit OF
command from her. A servant had
told her that Mars George" had put
up at the tavern.
60 and tell George TO come here In ,
stantly." she had commanded, and he !
had come. masterful man though be /
was
He had felt every old affection and |
every old allegiance renew itself as he /
saw former neighbors crowd around /
him; and that little glimpse of Vir- .
ginia had refreshed him like a tonic /
deeply, and as II II renewed his very (
nature, as only a silent man can be re- .
freshed But few days in Fredericks- B
burg and at Mount Vernon then had .
been only an incident of campaigning.
only a grateful pause on a march.
Back to Private Life.
Now at last he had come back to
keep his home and be a neighbor
again. as he had not been these nine
years.
IL was not the same Virginia, nor
even the same home and neighborhood
he had gone from, that Washington
came back to when the war was
done
He had left Mount Vernon in the
care Of Lund Washington. his nephew,
while the war lasted. and had not for
gotten amidst all his letter writing to
send seasonable directions and main
lain a constant oversight upon the
OF his estate.
Rebukes His Nephew.
II was part of his genius 10 and time
'or everything. and Mount Vernon had
suffered something lass than the or