Will you allow me to say that the anxiety that always possesses me when I address my young countrymen is to-day quickened to the point of consecration. For the first time in man’s responsibility I speak in Virginia to Virginia. Beyond its ancient glories that made it matchless among States, its later martyrdom has made it the Mecca of my people. It was on these hills that our fathers gave new and deeper meaning to heroism, and advanced the world in honor! It is in these valleys that our dead lie sleeping. Out there is Appomattox, where on every ragged gray cap the Lord God Almighty laid the sword of His imperishable knighthood. Beyond is Petersburg, where he whose name I bear, and who was prince to me among men, dropped his stainless sword and yielded up his stainless life. Dear to me, sir, are the people among whom my father died—sacred to me, sir, the soil that drank his precious blood. From a heart stirred by these emotions and sobered by these memories, let me speak to you to-day, my countrymen—and God give me wisdom to speak aright and the words wherewithal to challenge and hold your attention. We are standing in the daybreak of the second century of this Republic. The fixed stars are fading from the sky, and we grope in uncertain light. Strange shapes have come with the night. Established ways are lost—new roads perplex, and widening fields stretch beyond the sight. The unrest of dawn impels us to and fro—but Doubt stalks amid the confusion, and even on the beaten paths the shifting crowds are halted, and from the shadows the sentries cry: “Who comes there?” In the obscurity of the morning tremendous forces are at work. Nothing is steadfast or approved. The miracles of the present belie the simple truths of the past. The church is besieged from without and betrayed from within. Behind the courts smoulders the rioter’s torch and looms the gibbet of the anarchists. Government is the contention of partisans and the prey of spoilsmen. Trade is restless in the grasp of monopoly, and commerce shackled with limitation. The cities are swollen and the fields are stripped. Splendor streams from the castle, and squalor crouches in the home. The universal brotherhood is dissolving, and the people are huddling into classes. The hiss of the Nihilist disturbs the covert, and the roar of the mob murmurs along the highway. Amid it all beats the great American heart undismayed, and standing fast by the challenge of his conscience, the citizen of the Republic, tranquil and resolute, notes the drifting of the spectral currents, and calmly awaits the full disclosures of the day.