Lamoille newsdealer. [volume] (Hyde Park, Vt.) 1860-1877, 1865-06-14

And when in the course Of events, this
great country of ours shall have been de-
veloped, when we and those around us are
no more and forgotten, the story OF the
great trials through which we have just
now passed will be remembered then
will be gratitude for the patriotlsom that
has sustained our country in its time Of
danger; then too will they remember our
murdered President. then will they honor
and revere him, and as they call to mind
his wisdom as ruler and his goodness as
q man we ure sure the prayer OF good men
will be: Lord return to earth again such
men as Abraham Lincoln,
Such was the man whose loss we now
mourn. The first half of his great work,
that of subduing the rebcllion,--he had
we'll nigh accomplished. The second,--
that of pacifcating the couutry.--he had
but just begun. Cut off in the midst of
his usefulness and in the prime OF his
manhood, it is fitting that we should
mourn for him and do honor to his men,
ory. We know indeed that we can do
him no good by any praise of ours He
has gone beyond our reach to the grave
whence no man returns Nor can we add
to his reputation. That too is beyond
our reach. 1t needs no feeble tongues
like ours. We come here, not because he
needs what we can do in his honor, but
because we ourselves need to do it, not to
benefit him, but that we ourselvs may get
gain in the contemplation of his charac-
ter.
There are to us all, even here on earth,
two lives. There is the first in which we
live in what we do, and say aud suffer,
and the second wherein we live in the i'll
huence which our characters as developed
in our first life exert in our fellow men.
To some of us this second life is longer and
to some shorter, to some better and to some
worse, as we succeed in our first.
In this second life our dead President
still lives. Dead and buried though he
be. murdered, his column broken, his days
of activity, care and suffering premature
ly numbered. he still lives the good guard
ian genius of the country for which he
lived and died That second life of his
is just begun and Will continue far beyond
the reach of the assassin, unaffected by
calumny, to grow brighter and brighter
SO long as men remem Der the great strug-
gle through which we have passed.
1t is for a communion with his great
aud good spirit as developed in his char
acter and to behold him and learn from
him in his second life that we have met
here to-day.
When the National Cemetery at Gettys-
burgh erected in honor of the illust ious
dead who fell on that ground, was dedi-
,ated, he of whom we now speak was
here aud spoke these glowing words which
We have for our lesson here to-day
1--WE are met to dedicate a portion
VI a great battle. field as the final resting
place of those who here gave their lives
hat the nation might live. 1t is alto
,ether fitting that we should do this, but
n larger sense we cannot dedicate, we
,annot hallow this ground Brave men.
living and dead, who struggled here have
it far above our power to add
,r detract. The world will little heed
ind net long remember what we say here,
but it can never forget what they did
lere. 1t is for us, the living, rather to be
dedicated here to the finishing of the
,reat work they have 50 far thus nobly
'arried on. 1t is rather for US to be here
dedicated to the task remaining before
Is. that from these honored dead we take
increased devotion to that cause for which
hey here gave the last full measure of
devotion: that we here highly resolve
hat the dead shall not have died in vain,
hat the nation shall under God have o
,ew birth of freedom, and that governments
IF the people, by the people and for the
people shall not perish from the earth"
Let us apply the lesson we learn from
the great man whom here we mourn, and
Is we cherish his glorious exampl,, by the
love we bear him, by tho memory of those
illustrious men, the living and the dead,
who labored with him. consecrate oursel-
yes here anew to the finishing of the work
be so advanced in life ard for which he
lied. Let us learn from him, the lesson
IF his self-sacr6cing patriotism and ded-
Ieate ourselves To the service of our great