Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1884-06-10
TaImage's EIoquence.

THE NATION BAND OF BROTHERS AMONG
wHOAf~ALL STRIFE SHOULD CEASE.
AT the decoration day services in Green
wood cemetery, New York, Friday after
noon, May Both, Rev DR.. Talmage was the
orator. In the course of his address he
said:
''In Greenwood to-day three armies are
assembled. The one army you behold. The
two others are invisible. Here is great
host of sympathetic souls, their hands and
eyes and lips all expressing gratitude for
what our departed brothers did for us in
agony and tears and blood. If there be in
all this audience soul so base as to feel no
tenderness or thanks, let him begone now
and take his polluted feet out of this holy
dust But hail all the sympathetic souls
who have come here to-day! Hail to the
living soldiery who have come here to look
upon the resting places of their comrades
The second army in Greenwood is the army
of the dead. Walk softly about their pill
low of dust-their arms of war stacked,
their march ended their battle fought
Sleep on, great host, till the morning strikes
through the riffs of the tent and the trumpets
sound the resurrection The third army in
Greenwood is the invisible host that hovers
above us-the immortals who mingle in all
grand and holy occasions led on by the Lord
of Hosts, who is mighty in battle." He
gave an eloquent portrayal of a visit to
Lookout mountain. 81 never saw so far as
from the top of Lookout mountain. Why,
sirs, looked back seventeen years, and
saw rolling up the side ofthat mountain the
smoke of Hooker's storming party, while
the foundations of eternal rock quaked with
the cannonade. Four years of internecine
strife seemed to come back, and without
any chronological order l saw the events
| Norfolk navy-yard on fire, Fort Sumter on
| fire, Charleston on fire, Chambersburg on
fire, Columbia, s. c., on fire, Richmond on
fire; and saw Lyon fall, and Mcpherson
fall, and Bishop Polk fall, and Stonewall
Jackson fall; and l saw hundreds of grave
trenches afterward cutinto two great gashes
across the land-the one for the dead men
of the north, the other for the dead of the
south. And standing there, the future was
revealed to me. And l looked out and l
saw great populations from the north mov-
ing south, and great populations from the
south moving north, and found that thei1
footsteps obliterated the hoof-marks of the
war chargers. And 1 saw the angels of the
Lord of hosts standing in the national
cemeteries, trumpet in hand, as much as to
say, '1 will wake these soldiers from their
long encampment." And l looked and
saw such snowy harvest of cotton and such
golden harvest of corn as had never i'm
agined; and I found that the earthworks
were down, and the gun-carriages down,
and the war barracks were all down. And
standing there, on the tip-top rock OF Look.
out mountain, was so near heaven that |
heard two voices which some way slipped
from the gate, and they sang: "Nation shall
not lift up sword against nation, neither
shall they learn war any more" And l
recognized the two voices. They were the
voices of two christian soldiers who fell at
Shiloh-the one federal, the other con-
federate. And they were brothers.
''Thank God for the helpful institutions
established at the north and south for the
wounded soldiers and their families. They
need not SO much poses as bread. L am
glad the time has gone by when it is neces-
sary that the man who lost an arm or leg
in fighting our battles should have to GRIND
hand organs at the street corner, and that
women whose husbands and fathers perish.
ed in battle at the point of the sword should
have themselves to die at the point of the
needle"