Ye who have unrolled the scrolls that tell the tale of the rise and fall of nations, before whose eyes has moved the panorama of man's struggles, achievements, and progression, find you anywhere the story of one whose life work is more than a fragment of that which in his life is set before you? Conquerors, who have stretched your scepters over boundless territories; founders of empire, who have held your dominions in reign of law; reformers, who have cried aloud in the wilderness of oppression; teachers, who have striven with reason to cast down false doctrine, heresy and schism; statesmen, whose brains have throbbed with mighty plans for the amelioration of human society; scar-crowned Vikings of the sea, illustrious heroes of the land, who have borne the standards of siege and battle--come forth in bright array from your glorious fanes--and would ye be measured by the measure of his stature? Behold you not in him a more illustrious and more venerable presence? Statesman, Soldier, Patriot, Sage, Reformer of Creeds, Teacher of Truth and Justice, Achiever and Preserver of Liberty--the First of Men--Founder and Savior of his Country, Father of his People--this is he, solitary and unapproachable in his grandeur. Oh! felicitous Providence that gave to America OUR WASHINGTON! High soars into the sky to-day--higher than the Pyramids or the dome of St. Paul's or St. Peter's--the loftiest and most imposing structure that man has ever reared--high soars into the sky to where "Earth highest yearns to meet a star," the monument which "We the people of the United States" have erected to his memory. It is a fitting monument, more fitting than any statue. For his image could only display him in some one phase of his varied character--as the Commander, the Statesman, the Planter of Mount Vernon, or the Chief Magistrate of his Country. So art has fitly typified his exalted life in yon plain lofty shaft. Such is his greatness, that only by a symbol could it be represented. As Justice must be blind in order to be whole in contemplation, so History must be silent, that by this mighty sign she may unfold the amplitude of her story. In 1657, while yet "a Cromwell filled the Stuarts' throne," there came to Virginia with a party of Carlists who had rebelled against him John Washington, of Yorkshire, England, who became a magistrate and member of the House of Burgesses, and distinguished himself in Indian warfare as the first colonel of his family on this side of the water. He was the nephew of that Sir Henry Washington who had led the forlorn hope of Prince Rupert at Bristol in 1643, and who, with a starving and mutinous garrison, had defended Worcester in 1649, answering all calls for surrender that he "awaited His Majesty's commands."