“On such a happy day, which is the harbinger of peace—a day which completes the eighth year of the war, it would be ingratitude not to rejoice; it would be insensibility not to participate in the general felicity. “Happy, happy, thrice happy, shall they be pronounced, hereafter, who have contributed anything, who have performed the meanest office, in erecting this stupendous fabric of freedom and empire on the broad basis of independency; who have assisted in protecting the rights of human nature, and in establishing an asylum for the poor and oppressed of all nations and religions.” CHAPTER XXXVI. WASHINGTON’S PREDICTION REALIZED.—THE ATTITUDE OF AMERICA PRONOUNCED. The blending of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries comes at a moment of such marked transition in all that directs human activity and relationship, that the promise of Washington’s benediction, with which he proclaimed peace, seems about to be verified with a fuller, grander, and more universal scope of responsibility and example than even his sublime faith encompassed. “A stupendous fabric of freedom and empire on the broad basis of independency,” has already been established. The present generation and its actors in every department of public duty—including Washington’s successor in the Presidential Chair; the American Congress in both Houses; Governors of all the States; and responsible agencies in all sections—have seemed to unify their efforts to maintain the empire thus established. Those now living are the heirs to be made “happy, happy, thrice happy,” through the legacy of his life; if they do their part in “protecting the rights of human nature, and in establishing an asylum for the poor and oppressed of all nations and religions.” Nothing in the career of Washington the Soldier was more sovereign in its sway over citizens under arms, than his constant appeal to a Divine Providence as the truest ally of the soul, in hours of grave responsibility and peril. This narrative would lose much of its value to America and to mankind, if the passages reflecting Washington’s religious faith were to be lightly passed over; and if he were to be measured only as a distinguished representative of the military profession.