Morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven [Conn.]) 1848-1894, 1883-06-04
Goldan Memories.

COuntry,s HOnored Dead Fragrant
Memories From the Past i'm all Ages
A Tribute Paid to Recently Departed
Members of Center Church.
At Center church yesterday morning Rev.
DIR. Newman Smyth. preached sermon
Astounding in beautiful and suggestive
thought from the words, Proverbs 1922, ga
good man Ieaveth an inheritance to his chill
drens children" The pastor spoke Of man
kinds inheritance in good mems lives; of the
nations inheritance in the memories of brave
men and deeds commemorated on Memorial
day, and of the loss to the church, and its in
heritanee, in the lives of worthy men who
have passed away, making reference to the
deaths of the late DIR. Bacon and of the late
Samuel Brace and concluding with tribute
to the late Henry Trowbridge. The pastor
said
I wish to speak this morning concerning
our inheritance in the lives of good men.
ALI the saints minister unto us. All true,
brave lives belong to US. I need no excuse
for touching this chord to day; has not the
recurrence of one of our national days of
memorial caused it to vibrate again in the
heart of the people? And death, coming
once more to our own fold, has reminded us
of our growing inheritance in the lives of
good men. For the worthy conservation
and devotion of our own lives we need to be
reminded that the saints from all the genera
tons have left us their inheritance and God
requireth the past. In the supreme hours of
spiritual conservation, in the sublime. devo-
lions of patriotism and honor, men do real
~, kha
and the sainthood of the ages. In those
days of darkness, death and victory, which
we lived through, and whose events our
children are now studying at school as an
epoch of history, we cannot forget how then
the heart of the people awoke to sense Of
the high calling of our o Wn history of liberty.
Across the century's distance the great days
of the republic seemed to draw near and to
look down upon u.s. We lived with our
fathers in the heroic age of the republic.
Their deeds we felt were required again at
our hands Historic names became our in
SEPARATIONS of duty. We grew conscious of
an ennobling kinship with the great of all
the ages. The baptism of their 81 irit was
upon us in our baptism of fire.
Happily these days of memorial do not
come now, North or South, to revive the an
imosities of the war, the bitterness of strife
which the soldiers at least, who had learned
to respect each others valor, knew how to
bury upon that memorial day when by a
common impulse of patriotism the cheers of
Lees troops at Appomatox met in mid
air the hurrahs of our veterans from the
crests of the hills; but now that these is
sues are settled and past We should not suffer
the memory of our part and Inheritance
in the heroism of our dead and
in the devotion of those who have done
true deeds and brave in all the generations,
to pass lightly from our thoughts or from
the education of our children. It is not in
deed for Christians, of all men, to dwell in
the shadow of the past. It is not for the
church, of all organizations, to stand still
keeping guard by the tombs of its prophets.
The command of the Christ rings through
history calling every generation to go for
ward. There is ever better world-age to
come, and all true Christians turn happy
faces towards it. But we do need to bring
to our own labor a spirit of conservation
from the lives of those who have died in the
faith. We need to march forward as the
heirs of all things. We need to be both
humbled and exalted by reverent sense of
the ministry of the good through the success
sion of the ages to our present life. With
great sum has the Christian past of history
purchased for US this freedom. In the rub
rie of the church day of all saints finds fit
ting commemoration. If we stopped to real
US the day of all saints for their lives have
entered into and are conserved in the forces
of providence which make for US our world
to-day and not the labors and triumphs
of the famed and the noble
only, of those prophets and
priests and kings of humanity whose
names men will not willingly let die; but of
all the saints; the humble and the lowly, the
great hosts of those unknown saints who have
obeyed the truth and kept the faith and lived
not to be ministered unto, but to minister
''The hands of many brave forgotten" said
Carlyle in one of his happier moments of
truth-seeing, 'the hands of many brave for
gotten have made it world for u.s. Often
as our soldiers marched over fields which
perhaps but few hours before had been
darkened and torn by the battles
storm, we would see over some hasty mound
of earth and leaves, written upon some piece
of rough board, whether by comrade or foe,
these words, 'Union soldier, name un-
known words which, as we passed, would
send the thoughts far away to some home in
the listening North where some woman had
given up in heroism more than mans that
which was more than life to the country
some mother or wife-was waiting for the
tidings from her dead which would never
come. How much we owe to those nameless
graves; to those Union soldiers, name un-
known; to those brave sacrifices of women's
hearts, all unsung in history, but held in re-
membrance by him who sees all and forgets
nothing; and not to these alone, the sacri-
fees of our day and generation, buta to the
unknown martyrs and saints of all history,
to the heroes of common life throughout the
generations. These all do minister unto US
and we are bough with price, even with
the blood of the Lamb that was slain and with
the lives of all his saints who have been fill
ing up what remains of the sufferings of
Christ for his bsdy's sake, the church.
Let me bring now these thoughts to a
word more pastoral and personal Yours is
a rich Inheritance of the lives of good men,
More than one honored name is preserved
not in the memorial tablets only upon these
walls, but upon the living tables of your
hearts. From more than one century influ-
ences of pure and consecrated lives meet and
flow on together in the continued existence
of this church of Christ. Yours is sacred
inheritance. And the fathers have also their
rights in US. They too are to have part in
the good which any of us may add to their
works. The increase shall be theirs and ours
We live, and IN our measure work for the
fruition of their lives, as they once laid up
their good works for us; that as the scripture
says of the prophets of old, and as we may
say of all our sainted dead, without us they
should not be made perfect. Let US seek to
rise to the greatness and gladness of our in
heritance in the saints. Let this pure hope
purify our service. No real death for us and
ours; no real loss for Christians in the eter-
nal years of God; we shall go from grace to
grace; we shall be changed into the same
image from glory to glory, even as b. the
spirit of the Lord.
And we have need to-day in
this church, and some of you have
need in your homes, of this comfort of
the scriptures For there has come an age
of reaping to this church and seeds sown by
other ministry in the bygone years have ma
tured in Christian lives and, one after an.
other, the Lord of the harvest is gathering
the ripened sheaves into his heavenly gar
ners. This church has a larger membership
above than on this earth; it is one church on
earth and in heaven Already the venerable
pastor. whose life of clear invigorating at
mosphere and old age with something of the
sunsets softening light, as of celestial charity
upon it, is your Inheritance, begins to meet
now more of his people at the marriage sup
per of the Lamb than are left here to sit to-
gether at our tables of the Lord. And dur
ing the past week two more have been taken
from our communion to add to the happy
number of that triumphant church the one
a man whose early life had been consecrated
to the Christian ministry, but withheld by
an infirmity of the flesh from that intended
AaExa