Here the poet and orator have stood and gazed
with wonder and with admiration; they have dwelt upon her innocence,
the ornament of all her virtues. First viewing her external charms,
such as set forth in her form and benevolent countenance, and then passing
to the deep hidden springs of loveliness and disinterested devotion.
In every clime, and in every age, she has been the pride of her NATION.
Her watchfulness is untiring; she who guarded the sepulcher was
the first to approach it, and the last to depart from its awful
yet sublime scene. Even here, in this highly favored land,
we look to her for the security of our institutions, and for our
future greatness as a nation. But, strange as it may appear,
woman's charms and virtues are but slightly appreciated by thousands.
Those who should raise the standard of female worth, and paint her
value with her virtues, in living colors, upon the banners that are
fanned by the zephyrs of heaven, and hand them down to posterity
as emblematical of a rich inheritance, do not properly estimate them.
Man is not sensible, at all times, of the nature and the emotions
which bear that name; he does not understand, he will not comprehend;
his intelligence has not expanded to that degree of glory which
drinks in the vast revolution of humanity, its end, its mighty
destination, and the causes which operated, and are still operating,
to produce a more elevated station, and the objects which energize
and enliven its consummation.
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