Memorial Addresses on the Life and Character of William H. F. Lee (A Representative from Virginia): Delivered in the House of Representatives and in the Senate,; Fifty-Second Congress, First SessionVarious
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Memorial Addresses on the Life and Character of William H. F. Lee (A Representative from Virginia): Delivered in the House of Representatives and in the Senate,; Fifty-Second Congress, First Session
Various
Lee, William Henry Fitzhugh, 1837-1891
How vividly the picture comes to me now (never to be effaced) of a
learned professor in one of Virginia's highest schools, himself
three-score years and ten, a soldier of two wars, as he led the way
through a quiet Virginia town on horseback, followed by two sons,
distinguished ministers of the gospel, and they in turn by a younger son
and the grandson of the leader, with a goodly train of friends, amid the
blasts of horns and baying of hounds, who followed, eager for the chase
among the beautiful hills which surrounded the town of Lexington, even
as the mountains stand "round about Jerusalem."
Religion--the duty of man to his Creator, not sectarianism--was
scrupulously taught, and Sunday morning found the family alive in
preparations for attending religious service at Zion or Trinity, as it
might happen to be the first or the fourth Sunday of the month. From
this duty none were exempt from the least to the greatest. The pastor
was the friend on whom all troubles both temporal and spiritual were
cast, and his visits were long remembered and talked of in the life of
each family. Deference to his wishes and reverence for his character
were well-nigh universal.
A man he was to all the country dear,
And passing rich with forty pounds a year;
Remote from towns he ran his godly race,
Nor e'er had changed, nor wished to change his place.
Unskillful he to fawn, or seek for power,
By doctrines fashioned to the varying hour;
Far other aims his heart had learned to prize,
More bent to raise the wretched than to rise.
Such was the atmosphere in which our deceased friend was reared. He was
a trustee in the venerable institution of Washington and Lee University
at Lexington, Va., founded by Gen. Washington, and presided over by Gen.
Robert E. Lee during the last years of his life; he was faithful to the
trust, and ever watchful of the best interests of the school. The loss
sustained by this institution in his death has been most fittingly
expressed in the appended minute of the faculty of the university,
adopted on the 19th of October, 1891:
At a meeting of the faculty of Washington and Lee University, held
October 19, 1891, the following minute was adopted:
Upon the announcement of the death of Gen. W.H.F. LEE the faculty
of Washington and Lee University unite in sorrowful sympathy with
his family, bereaved of husband, father, and brother; with the
Commonwealth in the loss of a patriotic citizen; and with the board
of trustees of this university, of which he was an esteemed member.
He was graduated at Harvard for the life of a civilian, but took a
commission in the United States Army as lieutenant, and served with
fidelity to duty under Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston in the Utah
expedition of 1858.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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