The Forest Republican. [volume] (Tionesta, Pa.) 1869-1952, 1876-07-19
GRAFTON,
Delivered at Tionesta, Pa, on
the Fourth of July, 1875.
BY MILES W. TATE, ESQ.

After certain Introductory remarks
Mr.. Tate spoke substantially as fol-
lows:
We have here common purpose
and pleasant duty. The patriotic
light that to-day touches us with its
nimbus of glory, dissolves all differ en-
ces Of interest, and tints our thought
and feeling with its harmonious hue.
Banished be the cares Of life and the
tolls Of business-we will rejuvenate
to-day--into this Ell Dorado we will
plunge and come up fresh and young
again. We know no sect or party
here. We are citizens, with no creed, !,
but country, no acolytes, but patriots.
Democrat and Republican may we be,
but the channels Of the soul are run
ming freely on. Widening in their
placid goings far beyond the bounda.
ry lines of caucus and primary meet
ings. Wo rule out the politician as
one who may be of use tomorrow but
not o.day-to-day is for the heart.
We forget the old animosities of the
war, as the hands that wounded, now
draw near with trembling pity
throughout our land, to stanch and
heal the bruises war has made. The
blue and the gray, side by side, in the
shop, on the farm, in the busy mast,
look up to that starred banner-O,
long may it be folded together in
peace as it is now,-with the old love
thrilling alSng every nerve, and their
hopes nesting in its peaceful folds
like the prayers of happy childhood
on mothers neck.
True it is we do not forget-how
should we forget-when the lava
waves of human passion were devasta.
ting our land, and the stately edifce
of our liberties was rocking to her
base with the giant upheavals of civil
war. Nor do we forget-how could
we forget-the brave men whose souls
went straight to God from prisan- pen
and battle field, redeemed by Christ's
broad grace in merit Of such holy
cause alone,-nor the living heroes
who walk among Us to-day. starred
with bullet wounds, and striped with
sabre cuts, marked by the war with
their country's flag, and rendered
forever illustrious as its firm defend
ers. No! We mourn for the one,
We honor the other, and we remember
both to-day, as the men of bronze and
iron, who led up our victory through
the ivory gates of death. And we
recall, too, the achievements of the
fathers-the days of Gage, and Percy,
and Pitcairn, when the fires of revolu-
ton were kindling in the occident.
We used on such occasions as this, to
view those old heroic times as in a
fine crystalline mist of romance, where
in we beheld the hardy pioneers of
hemisphere simply wooing and win.
ming victory in her secluded forest
home, and leading her blushing, like
bride, in the van of their triumphal
marches. But our own war has given
us the true measure of those times.
We we'll know now in what 'forge
aud what a heat those noble souls
were wrought. In the light of Antie.
tam and Gettysburg, we read the true
story Of the sufferings Of Princeton,
Yorktown, and the hundred fields of
revolutionary fame. Our own was the
mightier struggle, for it was waged
to make a republican form of govern
ment possible in the world: They
fought against the expressions of an
unnatural parent,-we fought for the
union, for government, for our coun-
try and for q flag, that symbolized
the final hopes Of man. The glory OF
both is ours, as we gather here to-day
the great sacrifices of one hundred
years ago, those Of the last decade,
and the countless ones not written in
history, or dwelling in memory, but
inscribed in the book Of the recording
angel, to stand out plain and golden
in the light of eternity; and these
are all part Of the fragrant memo
ries that gather about this natal day.
And now, my fellow citizens, at the
end of one hundred years of liberty
here, what has been our progress,
what is our tendency and our future
as a people?
1st. Our civilization was the natur-
al product of the ages. When the full
ness Of time came, she took the sta
tion assigned her by providence, from
the beginning. The logic of modern
events was this: The barons in the
meadow of Runnymede demanding,
and obtaining, Magma Charta,-JOhn
Knox, the Reformation, oliver Crom.
we'll, Puritanism, and after these, as
an inevitabla eonseoueneA- American