Once again Mount Vernon's grateful shades receive him, and there--the world-crowned Hero now--he becomes again the simple citizen, wishing for his fellow men "to see the whole world in peace and its inhabitants one band of brothers, striving who could contribute most to the happiness of mankind"--without a wish for himself, but "to live and die an honest man on his farm." A speck of war spots the sky. John Adams, now president, calls him forth as lieutenant-general and commander-in-chief to lead America once more. But the cloud vanishes. Peace reigns. The lark sings at Heaven's gate in the fair morn of the new nation. Serene, contented, yet in the strength of manhood, though on the verge of threescore years and ten, he looks forth--the quiet farmer from his pleasant fields, the loving patriarch from the bowers of home--looks forth and sees the work of his hands established in a free and happy people. Suddenly comes the mortal stroke with severe cold. The agony is soon over. He feels his own dying pulse--the hand relaxes--he murmurs, "It is well;" and Washington is no more.
Washington, the friend of Liberty, is no more!
The solemn cry filled the universe. Amidst the tears of his people, the bowed heads of kings, and the lamentations of the nations, they laid him there to rest upon the banks of the river whose murmurs were his boyhood's music--that river which, rising in mountain fastnesses amongst the grandest works of nature and reflecting in its course the proudest works of man, is a symbol of his history, which in its ceaseless and ever-widening flow is a symbol of his eternal fame.
No sum could now be made of Washington's character that did not exhaust language of its tributes and repeat virtues by all her names. No sum could be made of his achievements that did not unfold the history of his country and its institutions--the history of his age and its progress--the history of man and his destiny to be free. But whether character or achievement be regarded, the riches before us only expose the poverty of praise. So clear was he in his great office that no ideal of the Leader or the Ruler can be formed that does not shrink by the side of the reality. And so has he impressed himself upon the minds of men, that no man can justly aspire to be the chief of a great free people who does not adopt his principles and emulate his example. We look with amazement on such eccentric characters as Alexander, Cæsar, Cromwell, Frederick, and Napoleon; but when the serene face of Washington rises before us mankind instinctively exclaims, "This is the Man for the nations to trust and reverence and for heroes and rulers to copy."