Gentlemen, only the other day I completed my eightieth year, and to some of you, doubtless to many of you, I am indebted for one of the moments of the deepest gratification in my life, and the words I am speaking to-day are, therefore, old words--the result of earnest thought and practical experience; but, gentlemen, my fellow-citizens and fellow-Englishmen, citizens of this great and sacred trust, this Empire, if these were my last and latest words, I still should say to you, "Arm yourselves!" And if I put to myself the question, How can I, even at this late and solemn hour, best help England?--England that to me has been so much, England that for me has done so much--again I answer, "Arm and prepare to quit yourselves like men, for the day of your ordeal is at hand." I have commanded your armies in peace and in war. In my early years, as in my middle life, and now in these my latest years, I have felt to the quick the glories accompanying the armies of the past across every battlefield. What made the valour of those armies so distinguished? One thing at least: it was that, in officers exclusively, and in the ranks mainly, they were composed of men who regarded citizenship as incomplete unless it involved soldiership. Gentlemen, you have been enfranchised, many of you, by the great Acts of 1832 and 1867. I say to you, the young men of this city and of this nation, that your enfranchisement is not complete until you have become soldiers as well as citizens, prepared to attest your manhood on the battlefield as well as at the election booths.