National Republican. (Washington City (D.C.)) 1872-1888, 1884-06-02
OUR SACRAMENT OF FLOWERS.
Or. Domer Lectures Upon the significance
OF Decoration Days.

DIR. Domer Lectures Upon the Significance
OF Decoration Days.
At st. Pauls English Lutheran church last
evening the Rev. S. Domer loctured upon
'Our Sacrament of Flowers" He read q
quotation from an old manuscript from ono
Of his speeches delivered twenty-threo years
ago in the midst of the civil war, and COM
pared IL with a quotation from the Thanks
giving sermon delivered by him on the
jubilee day in 1865, appointed by tho prosi-
dent for giving thanks that the war was over.
He said:
"The effort to keep those years, and the
actors in those scenes. ever at hand, and the
achievements Of the heroic dead from fading
out of memory, we find our Decorations days,
SO appropriately inaugurated soon after the
war was ended and now so generally honored
from year to year. IL is sacrament of
flowers in which the new national life con-
tinually comes into tender and earnest re-
view as the cost of that life is rehearsed in
the sacrifices which were made, and the blood
that was shed, in order that it might con-
tinue and that the generations to whom the
rich inheritance should come might not for
got the cost at which they were SO richly on
dowed."
This floral sacrament, is it not In most inti-
mate relation to the peace jubilee of nineteen
years agOp Is 1t not q sort of cOntenuity of
that jubilee? Such had been the stress and
strain of heavy war when our strife closed,
that, like coming out Of long and dreary
winter into the bloom and beauty Of spring
time. the people of this country nevor before
so exultingly realized the benedctions Of
peace, and, therefore, put special emphasis
on the appointment and'season of rejoicing
which had been brought in through the
awful winter of preceding war. The grand
celebrations which ensued, and which are
perpetuated in the annual tribute of flowers,
had their best and sweetest inspiration, not so
much in the rehearsal and recollection Of
battles fought. marches made, campaigns
organized and executed, and countless re-
verses and successes in those years of strife
and final victory at last for the national
cause, but the eliminating joy was in this,
This cruel war is over" A time of peace
has come, and the clangor of arms is hushed
on every plain and mountain top.
Referring TO the continued peace bought at
such great sacrifice DIR. Domer said: "In vain
all the agony and blood and treasure of those
awful years If the nation defaults in her re-
turns Of nstionhood; in vain all our flowers,
all these pageants of music, poetry, and
oratory, IL no commensurate purity, liberty,
prosperity, charity, power, and national
patriotism shall follow. So the eternal be-
hest is upon US with all these recurring days
of jubilee, to make glorious answer to these
questions of cost, in q better nationality, q
purer patriotism, in an ever-increasing COM
pleteness to answer the ends of highest gov
ernment of the people, by the people, and for
the people,"
If we can thus shape the thought, and SO
embody in these floral days the correspond
ence Of cost and commodity, we shall have
these seasons full Of immortality-they will
impart lessons, and give forth influences
which shall bless with increasing glory tho
advancing maturity of popular empire on
these shores; if not, then our sacrament of
flowers win become meaningless, or q mock
cry, which We shall ultimately realize in the
doom of national decay aud death; if not,
then, verify, our worthless have died in vain;
those rivers of blood have been of no value,
and our floral rojoicings can mean but little
beyond tho sympathy of tear for the unpro-
duotivo deaths If not, then had those
soldiers better been permitted to stay at
home, and with their own friends and
families, at least to sleep in quiet in the
common cemeteries of the land.
In closing DR.. Domer spoke eloquontly OF
the fraternal manner in which soldiers oi
both armies united last Friday in honoring
the memory of their fallen comrades.