Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1886-05-31
DECORATION DAY.
CONTINUED FROM FIRST PAGE.

serve the highest earthly use to which
flowers or gold or marble are ever put.
They are the coupling links that bind
the Hottest patriot-issue Of the past to
the on-rushing car of national progress,
and give to those who were early cut
off to make this great progress possible
a share in the glories of the hour.
They till no prairie farms, yet they
pillow and make fallow ground of mill
lions of patriot hearts. They broad
cast no wheat, and yet they instill the
germs of unselfsh love for man and
native land. If they show no heap of
accumulated dollars, they do send out
mighty ground-swell of human ten
derness IN comparison with which gold
is brass.
These flowers in dying speak, but in
a loneliness that in no way excels that
of the choicest of Americas loyal sons
for whom they stand Nor do they ex-
hale fragrance that has so sanctifying
an influence as was their own in the
moral sweetness of the early manhood
in which they were cut down like swaths
of new-mown hay. For America pro-
duces nothing half so grand or worthy
as its noble, consecrated, patriotic man
LooJ
CALIFORNIA; gold has not done so
much for nor been so precious to this
nation as New England manhood. And
the iron mountains of Pennsylvania are
not by half so rich and famous as that
Wisconsin and Indiana mine of heroes.
1.-The Iron Brigade, whose record will
yet GO on the same page with Leonidas
and his brave three hundred at Their
mopyla, and the six hundred at Bala-
klava Missionary Ridge viii forever
be the Calvary of the nation and Gettys-
burg its Gethsemane, with Lincoln as its
fearful, prayerful intercessor.
While Decoration Day is as nearly as
possible its Easter morning, we remem-
Der dates of battles, we honor import
ant victories To the Army of the Mis-
sissippi who first won the crown of gil
gantic victory, February with its Don
nelson, April with its Shiloh, July 4th
with its Yicksburg, November with its
Chattanooga-all are red-letter dates.
The Army of the Potomac remembers
fredericksburg, charlottesville, An
tietam, Gettysburg, the Wilderness and
Spottsylvania, Cold Harbor, Petersburg
and Appomattox. These speak of hor-
rors, agonies, heartaches; but joys un-
speakable grew out of the terrific plant
ing.
But to-day we celebrate the return of
peace. This day we remember those
who died in JOY that no more shall
die for such a cause, and that those
died not in vain. In the ages past the
dove with its olive branch has been the
symbol of returning peace, while
some fictitious maiden with her horn of
plenty has been the heather emblem of
its abiding presence, and she was wor
SHIPPED as q deity. But our peace was
safety for mankind security to all;
was happiness for each, that being the
price of blood most precious Chris
tian blood.
Peace must be tokened to us, and by
us in true Gospel spirit. So woman,
made real under gospel light, maiden,
whose life may be crowned with honor,
| because of moral worth, educational en-
dowment and spiritual impulses which
insures to her great usefulness-stands
in lieu of the heather goddess. Instead
of the horn of plenty is the garland of
beauty in her hand, gathered from
| orchard and garden, conservatory and
wild wood These, laid upon the graves
of the heroic dead by such hands as
these, are in truth most fitting symbols
of q true Christian peace. For when
the master" was upon the earth and
he sought to impart a lesson of most
dreadful solemnity, the life he chose for
sacrifice was that of fruitless tree.
And so when we would show the
value of our dead we do likewise-select
from nature that which most nearly
resembles them-the flower that alone
contains the promise and possibility of
| the future fruitaoe.