New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1869-05-29
THE Day or THE DEAD.

On Sunday falls the sweetest service OF the
wear. 1t is the new All Saints Day, IN our
calendar. Throughout the land no such ser
mon will be preached as the vOceless dead
shall utter; no such anthem swell to heaven
as the sacred silence beside unnumbered graves;
no prayer so pitifully entreat as the laugh OF
little children. At the same hour hundreds OF
thousands of soldiers in the great Army OF
Life will put off their weapons for while,
and come with light footsteps and uncovered
heads to lay flowers on the quiet hearts OF
dead comrades. 1t is not far to seek for the
lesson of the hour. AS all men join in this
commemoration, the wise and the simple, the
rich and the poor, the best result OF America ana
the rawest newcomer from over seas, Sadducee
and Spiritualist, jew and Gentle, we remem-
her that so many and 80 various were they
whose very faces were unknown to us, yet
whose memory is so dear. We remember that
they were men like those about u.s. like
ourselves: men bafiled by the daily defeats OF
life, worn by its demands: promise-makers
and promise breakers; hard, sometimes, and
selfish and inhuman, the best OF them; tender,
sometimes, and generous and sweet, the worst
of them men who went hungry or were full
fed; men who shaved or were shaved for: men
to whom their days were commonplace or
high. We remember that when the heroic hour
struck, all these men, SO different from each
other-so unherOic for the most part, to our
dull eyes-knew its stroke, answered 1t, left
behind them the fair or barren land of their past,
and went out into a new world. We remember
that even there, many we're overcome by
fierce temptations. But we remember, also,
that every one of them gave himself to death
that so the Nation might live-the Nation
which stood TO him for his highest thought of
good So, losing his life, each Of these martyrs
saved it in the hearts of the living, in their
higher conceptions, and better deeds in their
larger ideal of Country, and Patriotism. So,
each teaches us the power of grand unseltsh-
ness, which blots out the memory Of feebleness
and mistake, which tansfgures the poorest
existence. ..t..
II is fitting that we come to stand beside
these graves in the fullest flush of Spring,
when every quckening blade of grass Is the
assurance of changing but imperishable life ::
when every flower upon the tender turf Ia the
symbol of growth, fragrant and beautiful
springing ont of the dark ground wherein the
seed was laid with doubt. 1t is doubly fitting
that, on the day made sacred by its memories
of Divine Life, we should dedicate ourselves
anew to the fullest grandeur of the human
life. For it is not the calling upon any name
that makes us better men and women. 1t is
not any words that show that we have under
stood the meaning of the sacrifice offered for
us. No flowers that we can strew honor our
dead. since Death conferred all hOnors. And
on this sacred Sunday it should be easier to
understand that we mock the Divine Life and
east reproach upon our martyrs unless we bring
away from these graves better gifts than we
carry to them unless we bring away faith in
unselfshness in heroism in the endless growth
of the soul unless we freshly remember that
love and sacrifice are tho duty and the expla-
nation of life. -