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points of view, a moral obligation. Be it remembered, that we are thus, not only discharging- a debt of gratitude to meritorious and highly gifted individuals, whose lives have been a source of benefit to the whole community, but we are performing another not less agreeable, and perhaps a still more important duty—that of holding up for imitation some of the brightest examples of intellectual greatness, within the compass of all past ages. Can the love and veneration, with which the memory of the illustrious dead is saluted "in a nation's eyes," ever fail to excite in the living a noble spirit of emulation, powerfully conducive to the progress of truth and knowledge? -Or can they fail to promote the repetition of all those fine actions and achievements, on which the praises of history, and the admiration of the world, will be to all eternity concentred % They cannot fail : for, the assurance thus conveyed, that surpassing merit is the best road to fame and immortality, must rouse the capabilities of man, as certainly as the vernal sun calls into action the dormant
