And no age will come we trust, so ignorant or so unjust
as not to see and acknowledge the efficient agency of these we now honor
in producing that momentous event.
We are not assembled, therefore, fellow-citizens, as men overwhelmed
with calamity by the sudden disruption of the ties of friendship or
affection, or as in despair for the republic by the untimely blighting
of its hopes. Death has not surprised us by an unseasonable blow. We
have, indeed, seen the tomb close, but it has closed only over mature
years, over long-protracted public service, over the weakness of age,
and over life itself only when the ends of living had been fulfilled.
These suns, as they rose slowly and steadily, amidst clouds and storms
in their ascendant, so they have not rushed from their meridian to sink
suddenly in the west. Like the mildness, the serenity, the continuing
benignity of summer's day, they have gone down with slow-descending,
grateful, long-lingering light; and now that they are beyond the visible
margin of the world, good omens cheer us from "the bright track of their
fiery car!"
There were many points of similarity in the lives and fortunes of these
great men. They belonged to the same profession, and had pursued its
studies and its practice, for unequal lengths of time indeed, but with
diligence and effect.
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