Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1869-11-28
THE MONUMENTAL CHURCH.
Meeting al the Greealaw Opera House last
Night.
Speeches of Col. Stephens and Judge Brown

GreenlaW opera House was cOnlOIt-
ably filed last night with the elite OF
our city to hear the addresses from
Col. W. II. Stephens and Judge Thos.
w. Brown.
AT 8 o'clock Gen. Pillow called the
Rev. DIR. Ford to the chair, and the
Doctor Immediately introduced Col,
Stephens to the audience in about the
following words:
Ladies and Gentlemen: 1 learn from
the public prints that the object of this
meeting is to rear a monumental pile
to transmit to other generations the
memory of the sufferings and the trl-
umphs of the Confederate dead. The
plan and details will be explained to
you by the speakers.
DR.. Ford then introduced Col. Ste
phens, who made a most eloquent aC-
dress, which we will present to our
readers tomorrow. At the close Of
his remarks, Judge Brown was intro
duced, and spoke as follows:
The sorrow-stricken, but yet I'm
broken heart of the South, demands
for those who fell in her defense
maintaining to the death her cause
some commemOratiOn monument
more obtrusiVe on the senses, but as
enduring as a great thought linked to
immortal verse. This yearning de-
sire has been present tQOur people
with all the impulse ana tenacity OF
instinct ever since the last and ire
trievable disaster befel our arms.
The poverty decentralization that fol-
lowed defeat have not quenched it.
With returning prosperity it gathers
renewed vigOr. Our great grief can
not be appeaSed until the costliest and
most appropriate hOnOrs are paid to
the names of our dead heroes. Hec-
tor had his tomb and due funeral
rites, although his vaIor failed to Sc
cure ultimate triumph, and his deeds
could not save his beloved Illium.
Is it just and rational to crafty this
acknowledged desire of the South, and
with the execution of a design to that
end cOmpOrt with the prOprieties of
our situation? The solution of this
question does not necessarily reopen
any issue closed by the late civil war.
Nor are we called upon to record in
advance what may be the verdict of
history as to the merit of the respect
i've parties involved in this most fear
full tragedy of the present century.
Great virtues remain 10 indlvidu-
ais as well as States, notwith-
standing political errors. Often the
gravest political errors result
from an excess of virtue. To
argue that we were right, politically
in the struggle, would, TO the South
ern mind, be merely an attempt to
prove an axiom. To say that we
were wise in putting statesman
ship at the time, on the hazard of bat
tie, would only be to make a dispute
about a matter of eXpediency. Our
sectional foes and partisan antagonists
could not now admit either our truth
or wisdom, whatever convictions in
our favor may have latterly sprung
up in their breasts, a time has been
allowed them to pause upon the huge
gOlgotha-the field of dead mems
bOnes-intO which our beautiful land
has been converted; the time for our
vindicatiOn is not yet. But far be-
yond this debatable ground are the
deedS-the thOughts-the herOism-
the sufferings, and the genius which
will in all time to come demand and
receive from mankind that recOgni-
ton which must individuaIize Us as a
people, and give US a name and a his
tory, surviving our misfOrtunes, and
scarcely furnished by defeat. Other
people have perpetuated themselves
in the sympathie5 of mankind; their
follies and ill-success have only been
crystalized in the tears of their fellow
men, and their only history has been
the Illiad of their woes. Little ever
remained of their career or character
which ought to have been preserved.
Not so with the South. We stand
amid the vast ruins that surround US
above the pity of our race-soliciting
now, as we did at the proudest mo-
ment Of our national power, only the
Just Judgment Of the world; and
demanding only that place in history
to which, as a distinctive people,
from the earliest colonial times, we
are entitled. We ask the closest scru-
tiny of our virtues and our faults
our triumphs and our defeats. Our
whole political career, since the fOun-
datiOn of free government on a virgin
continent, challenges the attention Of
every lover of freedom, and furnishes
a chapter in the worlds annals, rich in
experience-great in thought and &C
ton.
The student of Grecian history may
easily revert over the lapse of some
thousands of years to the time of
Pericles. He will remember the au-
tumn day when this Athenian demo-
crat and statesman, or orator, on the
summons of his fellOW-citiZens, de-
livered, in one of the suburbs of
Athens, the Metropolis of that city,
the funeral Grafton on the remains of
the Athenian soldiers who had fallen
during the first year of the PelepO-
nisian war, which, like ours, was a
strife between States once confeder-
ated. The bones Of these sol
diers had been gathered from
the wide-eXtended battle-tields OF that
first year brought to Athens, and, on
an appointed day, were borne, with
elaborate ceremonies, to hOnOred Sc
pulture in the kersmikuS. 1t is not
fOr.us to conceive that sad
but heroic scene, respondent as it
was with all the civic and military
pOmp of Athens, the missing friends
of the dead might, for awhile, forget
private sorrow in the glory of the
and the august hon
Ors paid to slain fathers, husbands
and brothers. But what the pagean-
try of the occasion mightsfail to as
suage Of grief must have yielded to
the noble sentiments and eloquent
periods Of that rareSt of Greek ora
tors. We can, almost, at this dis
lance of time, see the ardOF Of q re-
patriotism gradually illumin-
ing the Qp-turned faces of the Athen-
women, bat 4 moment since bath
ed in tears, and as the speaker threw
upon the currents of the pGrest
.reoian speech his majestic thoughts,
we behold the clearly CHS
eIled features Of Athenian maid
and matron all agloW with pride
country (albeit sectional), (
ready 10 Norget the calamitieS
Of the present IN the proud memories
Of the past, and once more brave
enough to dare the future. The re-
flames Of patriotism, leapiug
eye to eye-from heart TO heart
soon enwrapped the vast concOurse,
warming into courage, the coolest spir-
it, until the orator finds himself a
very Prom6thegs, quickenfng the
dead and voicening The dumb, and
once more renewing the State. ALI
Is forgotten in that supreme mo
ment, except the greatness that has
been, and the grandeur that may yet
be.
Those who are familiar with this
remarkable discourse, as reported by
the historian Ihueydides, will re-
member that it embraced the follow
ing points:
First, that the extraordinary valor
displayed by the Athenian armies in
campaiOn inst closed mariEad for