"But it is the crowning excellence of him whose memory we honor to-day, that he was as pure, as noble in heart as he was great in mind. In him there was that fine and harmonious combination of high moral qualities and great intellectual powers which makes the model man. This combination of moral and intellectual qualities is what so greatly commended this man to the regard and esteem of his contemporaries, and in what still keeps his memory fresh."
"Well it is for the lawyers of the present day, and well it will be for those who are to follow them, that the portrait of such a lawyer should be ever looking down upon them from the walls of this hall of justice.
"Its presence here will be at once an inspiration and a restraint.
"With the form and features of John Marshall, the great expounder of the Federal Constitution and the founder of our Federal jurisprudence, and with the forms and features of such of his disciples as John H. Peyton, Thos. J. Michie and John B. Baldwin, ever before them, the lawyers who come here to practice their profession should not go wrong."
At the conclusion of Major Elder's speech, calls were made on Col. John L. Peyton, who arose and responded in a few brief remarks which can be found on another page of this book.
[From Yost's Weekly.]
PRESENTATION OF A PORTRAIT.
A goodly company, including a number of ladies, assembled in the Court-house at noon on Friday last to witness the presentation to Augusta County of the portrait of Hon. John Howe Peyton, than whom the old county never had a more distinguished son, for although born outside of her confines, the major part of his long and useful life was spent in her service, and the lustre of his fame forms one of her richest heritages and indissolubly interwoven with her history and progress.