Memoir of John Howe Peyton / in sketches by his contemporaries, together with some of his public and private letters, etc., also a sketch of Ann M. Peyton

by Unknown

LETTERS.

from the rev. j. henry smith, d. d., pastor of the first
presbyterian church, greensboro, n. c., one of
the few survivors of mr. peyton's
old friends.

Greensboro, N. C., July 24th, 1894.

Col. John L. Peyton:

My Dear Sir—I have just received from your hand a copy of the "Staunton Daily News" of the 21st inst., and I have read with very great pleasure, the beautiful and eloquent and richly deserved tributes to your honored father at the public meeting in your town called for the acceptance of your father's portrait. It well deserves to be placed among the purest and ablest and noblest of his talented and honored associates and contemporaries. I congratulate you on so interesting an occasion, and I sympathise with you in the filial joy and pride and gratitude to God that your heart, I know, felt, as those tributes were paid to your noble father's character and influence. Next to the fear of God, is the feeling we cherish for a father, who has taught us in the right way of virtue and honor, who has exemplified such a life and led us onward and upward. I think the 5th Commandment stands in the decalogue where it does, because the love and reverence to parents is next to the love and fear of God, in the estimation of God himself.

Greek and Latin writers often classified and summed up human duty in the following three-fold way,—"to fear the gods—to honor one's parents and to obey the laws of the land." This was I think in the mind of Cicero when he said "in aris et focis est Republica." Plato says "let us believe then that we can have no religious image more precious in the sight of heaven than a father, or a grandfather or a mother worn out with age, and that in proportion as we honor or delight in them with a religious joy, in the same proportion does God himself rejoice." Such sentiments, I believe, are fragments of the true and primitive religion carried abroad—but also, soon afterward, in so many respects corrupted, we recognize such sentiments as a part of the original Divine law not wholly obliterated, thanks to God, by the fall.

For the sake of dear old Virginia, I thank you that your father's form and face is where it is—to be an incentive to virtue and patriotism, as it looks down from year to year upon all who enter your court of justice.

For your considerate kindness in sending me the paper, and awakening thoughts of the long past, and with apologies for this longer letter than I had thought to write, I am,

Gratefully yours,
J. Henry Smith.