Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1873-06-04
Decoration Day.

The soul yearns not alone for that immor
tility which shall give it cycles of growth ant
delight in the unfolding of other worlds-lul
of duties and sublime creations. 1t longs tol
yet another life after death for remembrance
and love in the human hearts that it leave;
still beating. The most sacred rite of the
Christian Church is 50 in remembrance.
The most lovely of patriotic observances Is
in that witnessed so universally last week
throughout our country.
keep my memory green, Philip Sidney
asked of his friends, and who. better than
this soldier, can ask that? His best treas
ure, his life, he yields before its natural time.
that those surviving may live more free and
more happy. He goes before his hour to
try another andschanged existence; gives up
the years and the opportunities that they
held, which awaited him here; t. kes upon
himself not only the present pain and shock
of wounds, disease and death, but lOregOes
the future joys that picture themselves IN
more vivid and delightful cOlOrs as he puts
himself where he cannot reach them. The
man who has taken his life in his hands and
has yielded it for his country deserves then
to be remembered, to have bis shortened life
heightened and made full by the kind thoughts
of his countrymen.
1t has fallen to this country, since the great
rebellion which threatened its life and failed
only through the sacrifice of SO many good
and true men, to adopt the most appropriate
of all the many ways that have IRON time
immemorial been used to display the respect
and love of the living for the dead War
has seemed almost the normal condition OF
man, and from the oldest days means have
been sought to commemorate great events
battles, and deeds of valor. But these means
have generally been OF the colder and, what
we are wont perhaps to think OF as, the more
enduring kind. They have been rather in
memory of the pomp and glory Of war
than of the men who persisted. Statues,
columns, gates and monuments have borne
their witness to the valor and the triumpbs
of the soldiery of many nations. Orators
have summoned the shades lof 50 those who
fell at Marathon - to animate their descend
ants, but it has been rather to effect pres
ent purpose than to render homage to the
dead. Since the rebellion, however, our
country. thankful for its preservation and
loving those who saved it, has taken lesson
from loving human hearts whose gifts of
foo ha oil IN
the dead.
From year toayear this observance more
and more wins its way to the hearts of the
people, and promises to be so firmly seated
there that when this generation shall have
gone and the last comrade of the dead shall
have for the last time shared in the rites OF
decoration, those rites will not cease. There
was fear before the war that the American
people had become lost to that patriotism
which gives up life. None who saw the army
that put down the rebellion will have any
such fears in future. The hope of the coun-
try is that the sacrifices Of war will not be
again demanded of our nation, and In no
class among our people Is this hope more
strong than among these who know what
those sacrifices are. They. who know what
it is to give the 80 last full measure Of devo-
ton" by having seen their comrades when
they gave it. wish for the land only peace
not fearing that the demands of war would
not be met, but knowing what those demands
are And while we have peace we can do no
less than to keep green the memory of those
who secured it, to make, with the fragrance
and bloom OF flowers, the ground they rest
in sweet and beautiful, duloe ct decOrum, for
such was their death and such should be its
lasting concentration.