Connecticut western news., 1891-06-03
to death {
SYMPATHY FOR THR BEREAvED.

l detain from the top of the tomb these two garlands that am twisting for little while that may with them soothe the brow of the living Over the fallen the people said Poor fel lowl What a pity that he should have been struck downw We did not, how ever, often enough say: Poor fatherl Poor motherl Poor wifel Poor childl' and so say it now Have you realized that by that wholesale massacre hun dreds of thousands of young people at the north and the south have never had any chance9 We who are fathers stand between our children and the world. We fight their battles, we plan for their welfare, we achieve their live lhood, we give them the advice of our superior years Among the richest blessings of my life thank God that my father lived to fight my battles un, til was old enough to fight for my self
 Have you realized the fact that our civil war pitched out upon the farm fields of the north and the plantations of the south multitude that no man can number, children without fatherly help and protections Under all the ad vantages which we had of fatherly guidance, what struggle life has been to the most of usl But what of the children, two and five and ten years of age, who stood at their mothers lap with great, round, wondering eyes, hear ing her read of those who perished in the Battle of the Wilderness, their father gone down amid the dead host2 Come, young men and women, who by such disaster have had to make your own way in life, and will put the garland on your young and unwrinkled brow. Yes; you have had your own Malvern Hill. and your own South Mountain, and your own Gettysburg all along these twenty years Conel And if l cannot spare whole garland for your brow l will twist in your locks at least two flowers, one crimson and one white, the crimson for the struggle of your life which has almost amounted to carnage, and the white for the, vic tory you have gained
 FLOWERS FOR THR SURVIVORS.
 Before put the two garlands l an twisting upon the northern and south ern tombs detain the garlands little while that l may put them upon the brow of the living soldiers and sailors of the north and south, who though in variance for long while, are now at peace and in hearty loyalty to the United States government, and ready if need be to march shoulder to shoul der against any foreign foe. The twenty-six winters that have passed since the war, l think, have sufficient | ly cooled the hatreds that once burned | northward and southward to allow the remark that they who fought in that | conflict were honest on both sides The chaplains of both armies were hon est in their prayers The faces that went into battle, whether they marched toward the Gulf of Mexico or marched | toward the north star. were honest | faces
 It is too much to ask either side to believe that those who came out from their homes, forsaking father and mother and wife and child, many of them never to return, were not in earn est when they put their life into awful l exigency Witness the last scene at family prayers up among the Green mountains or down by the fields of cotton and sugar cane Men do not sacrifice their all for fun Men do not eat moldy bread, or go without bread at all, for fun. Men do not sleep un sheltered in equinoctial storms for fun There were some, no doubt, on both sides who enlisted for soldiers pay, or expecting opportunity for violence and pillage, or burning with revenge and thirst for human blood. but such cases were so rare many of you who were such an instance of depravity.
 As chaplain of Pennsylvania regf ment and as representative of the United States Christian commission was for a while at the front, and in those hospitals at Hagerstown and Will iamsburg, and up and down the Poto mac, where all the churches and farm l uOuScS WcT0 uIIcO "itlA "Ouuu0u dIlO dying Federal and Confederates. for got amid the horrors to ask on which side they fought, when, with what lti tie aid l could take them for their suffering bodies and the mightier aid l could pray for their souls, passed tho days and months amid scenes that in my memory seem like ghastly dream rather than possible reality. ..s-. When New Orleans boy unable to answer my question as to where he was hurt. took out from the folds of the only garment that had not been torn l of him in the battle New Testament marked with his own life blood, and 1 saw the leaf turned down at the pas sage. My peace give unto you, not as the world giveth give l unto you, " it read just as though it had been north ern New Testament. And when sat | down and took from South Carolinian dying in a barn at Boones>ille his last message to his wife and mother and child, it sounded just like message that A northern man dying far from l home would send to his wife and moth l CT and child
 And when picked up from the bat tie field of Antietam the fragment of a letter which 1 have somewhere yet, for the name and the address were torn off, l saw it was the words o: wife to her husband, telling him how the little child prayed for their father every night that he might not get hurt in the bat tie, and might come home sound and