Weekly Trinity journal., 1876-10-28
AN ELOQUENT OUTBURsT.

When Col. Ingersoll faced his old
comrades, the Boys in Blue, at the In
dianapolis Convention, the inspiration of
the occasion caused him to give improm-
tn utterarce to the following eloquent,
touching and pathetic passage. We have
never read anything of the kind equal to
it. 1t proves him to be natural born
orator of the highest order.
He was recalling the scenes of the war,
and said
The past rises before me like dream.
Again we are in the great struggle for
national life. We hear the sounds of
preparation-the music OF the boisterous
drums-the silver voices ofheroic bugles.
We see thousands of assemblages, and
hear the appeals of orators we see the
pale cheeks of women, and the flushed
faces of men and in those assemblages
we see all the dead whose dust we have
covered with flowers. We lose sight of
them no more. We are with them when
they enlist in the great army of freedom.
We see them part from those they love.
Some are walking for the last time in
quiet woody places with the maidens
they adore. We hear the whisperings
and sweet vows of eternal loves rs they
lingeringly part forever. Others are
bending over cradles, kissing babes that
are asleep. Some are receiving the bles-
sings of old men. Some are parting who
hold them and press them to their hearts
again and again, and say nothing and
some are talking with wives, and endeav-
oring with brave words spoken in the
old tones to drive from their hearts the
awful fear. We see them part We see
the wife standing in the door, with the
babe in her arms, standing in the sun
light sobbing-at the turn of the road II
hand waves-she answers by holding
high in her loving hands the child. He
is gone and forever.
We see them all as they march proud =
ly away under the Haunting flags, keep
ing time to the wild, grand music of war
marching down the streets of the great
cities-through the town and across the
prairies-down to the fields Of glory, to
do and to die for the eternal right.
We go with them one and all. We
are by their sides on all the CORY fields
in all the hospitals of pain-on all the
weary marches. We stand guard with
them in the wild storm and under the
quiet stars. We are with them in ra.
vines running with blood-in the furrows
Of old fields. We are with them between
contending hosts, unable to move, wild
with thirst, the life ebbing slowly away
among the withered leaves. We see
them pierced by balls and torn with shells
in the trenches by forts, and in the whirl-
wind Of the charge, where men become
men OF iron with nerves of steel.
We are with them in prisons of hatred
and famine {; but human speech can new
er tell what they endured.
We are at home when the news comes
that they are dead. We see the maiden
in the shadow of her first sorrow. We
see the silvered head of the old man bow
cd with grief.
The past rises before us and we see
four millions of human beings governed
by the lash we see them bound hand
and foot we hear the strokes of cruel
whips we see the hounds tracking wom-
en- through tangled swamps. We see
babes sold from the breasts of mothers.
Cruelty unspeakable ! Outrage infinite.
-Four million bodies in chains-four
million souls in fetters. All the sacred
relations Of wife, mother, father, and
child trampled beneath the brutal might.
And all this was done under our own
beautiful banner OF the free
The past rises before us. We hear the
roar and shrek of the bursting shell. The
broken fetters fall. These heroes died -
We look. Instead of slaves we see men,
women and children. The wand of pro-
gress touches the auction block, the slave
pen, the whipping post, and we see homes
and fresides, and school-houses and
books, and where all was want, cruelty,
and crime, and letters, we see the faces
of the free.
These heroes are dead. They died for
liberty-they died for us. They are at
rest. They sleep in the land they made
free, under the flag they rendered stain
less, under the solemn pines, the sad
hcmlocks, the fearful willows, and the
mbracing vines. They sleep beneath
the shadows of clouds, careless alike Of
the sunlight or of storm, each in the
windowless palace Of rest. Earth may
burn with other wars-they are at peace.
In the midst Of battle in the roar Of con-
aict, they found the serenity Of death.
[ A voice" Glory."l | have one senti-
ment for the soldiers living and dead
cheers for the living and tears for the
dead.
JAMES CLARKE, young man in New
Orleans, morbid on the matter of Hy-
hob;a ecarad birnenlf into fho dia-