The Carbon advocate. [volume] (Lehighton, Pa.) 1872-1924, 1888-10-06

the words "liberty," Country" ''rights, -
the tomb, T" "God," and 'second life" f"
When Robert Ingersoll became most elo-
quent he was recalling the graves of our
soldiers. There in those silent hilocls he
found a theme great enough for his mental
equipment.
BY the soldiers grave stood Pericles when
he uttered his greatest grafton. When
citizens have died for their country, have
abandoned the beauty and JOY of this world
that their country may the better bring
happiness to others, and are under the sod
that others may be the happier up under
the light of the sun, then can the mind
that is near those graves think its best
thoughts and the heart become full of the
noblest emotions? To Pericles standing
amind such memories, Athens and the
Athenians, past and future, arrayed them
selves in his reason and Imagination, and
his voice seemed not the voice of man,
but the voice of all Greece speaking to her
dead and to her living through the dead
AT the close of the speech the women threw
wreaths and ornaments at the one who
had so perfectly expressed their own patri-
otto emotions and fond memories.
All the Greek orators came upon times
when they were called to speak words of
praise for those who had died upon the
/ field of battle. Much of which literature
came not from the fact that Athens had
schools of elocution, but because her sold
iers were noble men.
If ever nation had need OF battlefield
| eloquence, speech in memory of her dead
troops, this is that nation. For more than
twenty years those tens of thousands who
fell in the war of the secession have been
away from the land they loved. They will
meyer come back to see its homes, its VII
lagos, its cities, its greatness. They suf-
fered and died that we might live in peace
and honor. They haye all gone into the
perpetual exile of death that disunion
might cease, that slaves might go free, that
the North and South might end long ami
mostly in longer friendship, and that the
people oppressed in despotic lands might
look across the sea and perceive the fact
and blessedness of liberty. Great was the
cause for which they fought ands great is
the honor beneath which they sleep.
In the whole history of man there never
marched more intelligent armies than those
which tramped to and fro upon the banks
of the James river and the Mississippi.
| The farmers son, the lawyer, the gradu-
ate, The editor, the school-master, the au-
thor met in the volunteers camp and
quickly learned the steps, the signals and
the whole ceremony of war; They knew
the value of the Republic which their
fathers had founded. They, with the
calmest reason, offered to place their bodies
between their native land and its ruin. No
graves in the classic fields we're ever SO
great as those now hidden under our
American grass. Out of them should spring
an eloquence in which should be interviewer
gratitude for such sons and wisdom for the
future, awakened and inspired by long
roll-call of dead heroes. Tongues capable
of this form of exalted speech should tell
the great story of patriotism to that gener-
alton which has come up from childhood
to manhood since the surrender at Rich
mond.
/ The spectacle Of free people whose
millions of black citizens are now on theil
way toward industry and education, the
coming of new South, the strengthening
friendship between the states which were
hostile for two generations, the great un-
folding of the new Territories into power
fnl commonwealths, the National pride al
home and the National honor abroad make
the tombs of the dead heroes more signih
cant to-day when the flowers of spring ant
summer give way to autumnal tints. Soor
drifts of snow shall hide from sight thC
tombs, and simple headstones that mari
the last resting place of those who fell in
defense of our country's honor
1t is a sad thought that all this greatness
was to spring up from the bloody field
where noble men were dying, But the fac
is evident as the sadness is great. Thu,
comes there battlefield eloquencc unlik,
any other form of public utterance, more
solemn, more tender, more pathetic. 1t il
a combination of history, philosophy, de
: votion, of patriotism, and of warm tears, Z
prose as sublime as poetry, an assemblag'
of fact that surpasses fiction. Its details
might excite the envy of the painter ant
the dramatist. 1t swoops upward from tht
first soldier who fell in death-ArShul
Ladd, April 10, 1S6l-to that last soldier
Abraham Lincoln, who poured out hi
blood after peace, the doye, had luttere'
her white wings in the joyful air.