the accidental impulse of the moment; their action was the slowly ripened fruit of Providence and of time.  The light that led them on was combined of rays from the whole history of the race; from the traditions of the Hebrews in the gray of the world’s morning; from the heroes and sages of republican Greece and Rome; from the example of Him who died on the cross for the life of humanity; from the religious creed which proclaimed the divine presence in man, and on this truth, as in a life-boat, floated the liberties of nations over the dark flood of the Middle Ages; from the customs of the Germans transmitted out of their forests to the councils of Saxon England; from the burning faith and courage of Martin Luther; from trust in the inevitable universality of God’s sovereignty as taught by Paul of Tarsus and Augustine, through Calvin and the divines of New England; from the avenging fierceness of the Puritans, who dashed the mitre on the ruins of the throne; from the bold dissent and creative self-assertion of the earliest emigrants to Massachusetts; from the statesmen who made, and the philosophers who expounded, the revolution of England; from the liberal spirit and analyzing inquisitiveness of the eighteenth century; from the cloud of witnesses of all the ages to the reality and the rightfulness of human freedom.  All the centuries bowed themselves from the recesses of the past to cheer in their sacrifice the lowly men who proved themselves worthy of their forerunners, and whose children rise up and call them blessed.

Heedless of his own danger, Samuel Adams, with the voice of a prophet, exclaimed:  “Oh, what a glorious morning is this!” for he saw his country’s independence hastening on, and, like Columbus in the tempest, knew that the storm did but bear him the more swiftly toward the undiscovered world.

Copyrighted by D. Appleton and Company, New York.

WASHINGTON

From ‘History of the United States’

Then, on the fifteenth of June, it was voted to appoint a general.  Thomas Johnson, of Maryland, nominated George Washington; and as he had been brought forward “at the particular request of the people of New England,” he was elected by ballot unanimously.

Washington was then forty-three years of age.  In stature he a little exceeded six feet; his limbs were sinewy and well-proportioned; his chest broad; his figure stately, blending dignity of presence with ease.  His robust constitution had been tried and invigorated by his early life in the wilderness, the habit of occupation out of doors, and rigid temperance; so that few equaled him in strength of arm, or power of endurance, or noble horsemanship.  His complexion was florid; his hair dark brown; his head in its shape perfectly round.  His broad nostrils seemed formed to give expression and escape to scornful anger.  His eyebrows were rayed and finely arched.  His dark-blue eyes, which were deeply set, had an expression of resignation, and an earnestness that was almost pensiveness.  His forehead was sometimes marked with thought, but never with inquietude; his countenance was mild and pleasing and full of benignity.