Daily Iowa State Democrat. [volume] (Davenport, Iowa) 1856-1859, 1859-02-25

be looked upon as marvellous.
If there be aught of honor in leavin.
friends. comforts and country, and submit
ting TO the fortunes OF an untried e1peri
mert in migration, the sentiment propose
that our children will not dIshonor ou
memories. Heavens choice.t blessings res
upon them.
: Tie yeter4n Settlers cr Ioud.-Lord kee2 thei
msmorles gfeen.
Responded to by Alfred Sanders.
Certainly, Mr.. Chairman, have not bee,
selected TO respond 10 this sentiment on ac
count Of my age; for, ladies, am vet OF
the sunny side OF forty. and it cannot be SAID
of me, in the language Of Scotland's bard
that my 'lyart haffets are wear'n' thin ant
bare" No, no, it nust be that ! am some
times called the ueteran editor of Iowa, We
I teran in my profession and not in years
/ But for me, age has no terrOrs and death ne
fears
/ The veteran settlers Of Iowa, those wht
are bending beneath the weight of years
18th heads frosted and limbs enfeebled. have
but a email representation among US thil
evening. Age prefers the quiet OF the coy
! fireside to the noise Of the crowded festiv al
and yet at our last gathering who enjoyed
! themselves more unreservedly, and whose
tongues ran with more quickened impulse
/ than the old folks that met us here! The
occasion revived many a happy reminis
cence and their recital demonstrated, tina,
the Lord had kept their memories green
| But the good Lord suffers Us not to forge,
entirely-age may dim our memories as il
| does our eyesiyht, but anon they will glow
the brighter, and the tabled mirror Of Sho
! nou, who lived and reigne3 twenty thousand
years before the flood, will become a reality
and men will then see their minds, as they
now see their faces, reflected
What subtitle agent is that permeating the
universe, the thin intangible tilrus Of which
have begun to unfold themselves to the in
vestigation of man? That power which
enables him to read the mind Of a fellow
man as though it were tangible, physical
| organization reflected from mirror That
power which allows fellow mortal to sit
down before you and recite to you not only
what you knom. but that which you suppose
you had forgotten! What it is, no man
knows, further than that it is an agent more
subtitle than electricity, more attenuated
than calorc Why it is thus, is because that
through this medium, whatever it may be,
he is enabled to penetrate the mind and in
its hidden crypts there discover ideas that
their possessor had thought long since to
have faded from memory forever.
Skeptcs seize upon this fact to undermine
the Christian religion by attributing the
miracles of Christ to the same potent influ-
ence, forgetful that if it falls, like the por-
tails of the temple upheaved by the might Of
sampson, it will bury them in the ruins.
Christians regard it as another evidence of
the truth of divine eyelation in that all
things that ever man knew shall one day be
revealed unto them, that the mind shall be
unravelled as a scroll and in letters of living
light, men shall there read every idea re-
ceived. every act committed
Cardinal Richelieu has said that there is
no such word as tad y: with equal truth it
may be affirmed there is no such word as
forget An idea once impressed upon the
mind is stamped there forever; written upon
the tablets Of the memory, it cannot be
erased. 1t may snk away and be tempo
rarly forgotten, but q word, sound, q
thought, may bring it forth brightly and
beautiiully-fresh and green as when first it
was received.
Veteran settlers, is it not so? Has not a
word. or it may he single sonnd, sent your
thoughts away back through the vista OF
years to reyel in the scenes Of other days,
bringing up before Your memories, fresh "a
when garnered there, incidents that you had
long since apparently forgotten? All, !
know it is so-even while speak do your
minds revert to the scenes Of the past, and
in Imagination do you behold, it may be,
the log cabin, with its caphoard roof, punch
con floor and latch-string ever ha. gng out,
the trailing sweet brar and rose bushes
around, with which was associated your
earlier days Here the rivulet coursnc over
its pebbly bed. with its pro ecting bank, the
favorite resort where You loved to sit and
in its deeper waters angle for the finny tribe;
there the meadow and the woods where the
wild flowers and the berries grew go abun-
dainty. Or, perhaps, the even more pleasing
recollection. when the now aged partner
and companion of your tolls and troubles,
then budding into womanhood, hung fondly
on your arm and confidiDgly surrendered to
you her affections Or, it may be, that like
myself YOU were reared amid bricks and
mortar. and the we'll known front of some
venerable structure long since forgotten,
rises up before your Imagination, every line
cieoii9 uehuSds
Oliver Wendell Holmes, in the latest con-
tinuation of his interesting conversations at
the bre akfast table, has something Of this
when he says: Twenty years after you have
dismissed thought. it suddenly wedges up
to You through the press, as if it had been
steadily galloping round and round all that
time without rider
Ah, it is glorious reflection, that nothing
in the intellectual any more than in the
physical worlds ever lost That all Of the
rich ideas with which we are freighting our
minds are not lost, but are merely stored
away for fnture use. Age may dim, but it
cannot destroy them utterly, even though
our minds be wrecked and We present the
melancholy spectacle Of the aged author
who sat himself down to read the writings
of his younger days and wept that he could
not understand them. The ply steal powers
may decay and men may stil live in the en-
ioyment Of life, but as soon as the memory
begins to fail and for the time to grow weak
and unretentive, then indeed does life be.
come q burthen, not alone to ourselves but
to our friends.
Well may those veteran men who were the
early settlers of our favored county, pray
the Lord to keep their memories green; that
Whatever woe betide them. the citadel Of
memory shall be the last to surrender to
the assault Of death-that rude monitor
who flatters not
Q. The Press The lever that displaces tyYants-
protests the weat elevates the goo1s Nay It
b guard ID BY the just and the upright.
Response by Add H. Sanders
l am not here to. night in companionship
of the Old Settlers of Scott county, strictly
by right of my own. but rather by virtue Of
the right of lady old settler. Who has led
me in many other pleasant ways beside this.
since led her into the reverend presence
of kind old gentleman, who in making the
"Old Settler" and myself one, also bestow
ed upon me the indieputable right Of at.
tending oil Scott county Old Se:tlers' Fssti.
walls thereafter. In the enjoyment Of this
privilege, however. it il no desire Of mine.
assure you, to assume the prominence Of