Wood River times. [volume] (Hailey, Idaho) 1882-1915, 1888-05-28
A FINE GRAFTON.
Ane memorial Sermon Delivered BY
the Rev. ]. W. Maxwell, In the
Methodist Church Last Evening.

/ - We. M8A Wclus I0 vNH
Methodist Church Last Evening.
/ About 80 comrades of E. d. Baker
Post, No. 6, Department of Idaho.
Grand Army of the Republic, attend
ed the Memorial services in the
Methodist church in this city last
evening. The church was filed to its
utmost capacity, many persons having
been turned away, unable to gain
admittance. The choir of 20 voices.
assisted by Professor Miner and
"Hal." Steward, executed a few vocal
selections with cornet ACCOMPANYING mt ;
alter which the Rev. J. w. Maxwell
spoke as follows:
Ladies - ana Gentlemen. and Veterans OF. the G.
We have halted in this temple of
worship to review the history of the
brave heroes whose graves we will
soon strew with flowers. We are a
part of the millions of loyal citizens
whose tramp sounds like the approach
OF a mighty army. But the shout and
song is not the war.cry of a battling
host, but rather the sweet, sad cadence
OF the song Of triumph for the dead.
The air is redolent-not with the sui.
phurous smoke of battle-but laden
with the sweet perfume of flowers.
Ii the stranger or the youth in our
midst, not conversant with the history
OF these brave soldiers whose graves
are found on every mountain and hill
and valley and dale from Maine to
the shores of California on the west,
and stretching from the glades of
Florida on the south to the Great
Lakes on the north, should inquire
"Who are these?" and "What great
question or interest so enlisted their
attention and caused them to meet its
requirements with their lives?" Were
they soldiers actusted by motives
such as were the followers of Alex
ander, Caesar, or Napoleon the Great?
No! it was higher and hol,er cause
than any that had ambition, conquest
or glory as its actuating motive. They
were the sons of the noblest of sires:
the sons of the heroes who brayed
all the periIs of voyage across the
painless ocean, and through the track
less desert of new, strange world,
there to endure all the privations in
cident to pioneers, with the hostile
savage, ready at the midnight hour
with torch and tomahawk, to com.
plete the work of death Which pesti
lence and famine had already begun.
They came to lay the foundations of
a free republic, whose motto was
that veninspired sentence:
That all men are created equal;
that they are endowed by their Creator
with certain inalienable rights; that
among these are life, liberty, and the
pursuit Of happiness.
Sufficiently in earnest were they to
take up arms against the mother
country to protect their sacred rights;
and when driven to the extremity to
sever even the last tie that bound US
TO her; sires who bled at Lexington,
Bunker Hill, and Yorktown.
But, alas for human wisdom and
early in the colonial days
Of this people grave error was com.
mitted which so nearly cost US our
dearly bought liberty. While ell
gagged in conquering the wilderness
and savage there touched on the
shores of Virginia a foreign vessel,
bearing as its cargo the seed of
deadly poison. 1t soon struck deep
roots in that fertile soil and began to
spread until it covered the face of the
Sunny South; nor did it stop here;
in the more sterile soil of the North it
grew and cast a shadow Ger the
cradle of liberty at Plymouth.
The hydra-headed monster caused
the wisest men of the nation to
,hudder with fear as to the result, |,
Like the deadly nightshade it wound
itself around the pillars of State at
the national capital. Alarmed at this
compromise after compromise was at
resulting only in drawing ,
more distinctly the lines that made
not one-hut divided people, and
he Appreciation of "Northerner" or
'Sou,.iernei" was used Instead of that
name that should ever be
applied to one and a!l-AMERICAN.