With him to do right was not simply a duty, it was a pleasure. He had philosophy enough to know that the quality of actions depends upon their consequences, and that these consequences are the rewards and punishments that no God can give, inflict, withhold or pardon. He loved his country, he was proud of the heroic past, dissatisfied with the present, and confident of the future. He stood on the rock of principle. With him the wisest policy was to do right. He would not compromise with wrong. He had no respect for political failures who became reformers and decorated fraud with the pretence of philanthropy, or sought to gain some private end in the name of public good. He despised time-servers, trimmers, fawners and all sorts and kinds of pretenders. He believed in national honesty; in the preservation of public faith. He believed that the Government should discharge every obligation--the implied as faithfully as the expressed. And I would be unjust to his memory if I did not say that he believed in honest money, in the best money in the world, in pure gold, and that he despised with all his heart financial frauds, and regarded fifty cents that pretended to be a dollar, as he would a thief in the uniform of a policeman, or a criminal in the robe of a judge. He believed in liberty, and liberty for all. He pitied the slave and hated the master; that is to say, he was an honest man. In the dark days of the Rebellion he stood for the right. He loved Lincoln with all his heart--loved him for his genius, his courage and his goodness. He loved Conkling--loved him for his independence, his manhood, for his unwavering courage, and because he would not bow or bend--loved him because he accepted defeat with the pride of a victor. He loved Grant, and in the temple of his heart, over the altar, in the highest niche, stood the great soldier. Nature was kind to our friend. She gave him the blessed gift of humor. This filled his days with the climate of Autumn, so that to him even disaster had its sunny side. On account of his humor he appreciated and enjoyed the great literature of the world. He loved Shakespeare, his clowns and heroes. He appreciated and enjoyed Dickens. The characters of this great novelist were his acquaintances. He knew them all; some were his friends and some he dearly loved. He had wit of the keenest and quickest. The instant the steel of his logic smote the flint of absurdity the spark glittered. And yet, his wit was always kind. The flower went with the thorn. The targets of his wit were not made enemies, but admirers.