The comet. (Johnson City, Tenn.) 1884-1916, 1888-06-21
lNGERSOLL'S ADDRESS.
The Gifted Orator IndHlges his Imag-
inatiOn ON Memorial Day.


Col. Robert G. Ingersoll's Memorial
day oration, delivered in the Metro
politan Opera House, New York, We'd
nesday evening, May 30:
GLIMPSE OF THE PAST.
"The past rises before me like a
dream. Again we are in the great
struggle for national life. We hear
the sounds Of preparation, the music
of boisterous drums, the silver notes
of heroic bugles. We see thousands
of assemblages and hear the appear of
orators. Wesee pale faces of men,
and in those assemblages we see all
the dead whose dust we have covered
with tlowers.
ave lose sight Of them no more.
Weare with them when they enlist in
the great army of freedom. We see
them part from those they love. Some
are walking for the last time in quiet
woody places with the maidens they
adore. We hesr the whisperings and
the sweet vows of eternal love, as they
lingeFingly part forever.
"0tbers are bending over cradles,
kissing babes that are asleep. Some
are receiving blessings OF old men
some are parting with mothers who
hold them and press them to their
hearts again and again and say moth.
ing. Kisses and tears, tears and kiss
es, divide mingling Of agony and love.
And some are talking with wives and
endeavoring with brave words spoken
in the old times to drive from their
hearts that awful fear.
ave see them part. We see the
wife standing in the door with the
babe in her arms--standing in the
sunlight sobbing. At the turn of the
road hand waves. She answers by
holding high in her loving arms the
child. He is gone, and forever.
WITH THEM ON THE MARCH.
I'VE see them all as they march
proudly away under the Haunting flag,
keeping time to the grand, music Of
war, marching down the streets of the
great cities, through the towns and
across the prairies, down to the field of
glory, to do and to die for the eternal
right. We 90 with them one and all.
"We are by their side on all the 60
ry fields, in all the hospitals of pain,
on all the weary marches. We stand
guard with them in the wild storm
and under the quiet stars. We are
with them in ravine, running with
blood, in the burrows of old fields.
I'VE are with them between contend
ing posts, unable to move, with wild
thirst, the life ebbing slowly away
among the withered leaves.
I'VE see them pierced by balls and
torn with shells, in the trenches by
forts and in the whirlwind of the
charge, where men become iron with
NERVE OF STEEL We are with them in
the prisons OF hatred and famine but
human speech can never tell what
they endured,
ave are at home when the news
comes that they are dead. We set
the maiden in tn e shadow OF her frs
sorrow. We see the silver head OF thu
4 old man bowed with his last grief.
4 "The past rises before us, and we SCI
four millions of human beings gov
erned by the lash. We see then
bound hand and foot. We hear th'
! strokes Of cruel whips. We see tn
hounds tracking women through tang
led swamps. We see babes sold from
breasts of mothers.
Cruelty unspeakable, outrage in
&. finite. Four million bodies in chain
,I--foHr million souls in letters.
"All the sacred relations OF wife
: mother, father and child trampled be
meath the brutal feet OF might. An
: all this was done under our own beat
! tiful banner OF the free.
LIBERTY UNeHAGED.
r "The past rises before us. We hes
. the roar and shrek OF the burstin
I shell. The broken letters fall. Thof
q heroes died. We look. Instead I
!. slaves we see men and women an
a children. The wand of progrei
: touches the auction block, the sla,
pen, the whipping post, and we 81
10 homes and fireide, and school house
y and books, and where all was wal
and crime and cruelty and fear we 81
the faces of the free.
It "The heroes are dead. They di'
g. for liberty--they died for us. Th'
10 are at rest. They sleep in the lal
n they made free, under the flag th'
10 rendered stainless; under the solen
t. pines, the sad hemlocks, the tearf
II willows and the embracing yin'
in They sleep beneath the shadows
o, the clouds, careless alike of sunshil
n or of storm, each in the windowlt
Of Palace OF Rest.
he Earth may run red with other wa
Vt. they are at peace. In the midst
4 ~