The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1891-06-17
REV. DR.. TALMAGE.
THE BROOKLYN DIVINES SUM-
DAY SERMON.
Subject: 1.-TWO Garlands."

Subject: 1.-TWO Garlands."
TEXT: 81 1OiU say to the north. Giueup,
and to the south, Keep not baok."-Isaiah
xiii, 6.
Just what my text meant by the north
and south I cannot say, but in the United
States the two words are so point blank in
their meaning that no one can doubt. They
mean more than east and west, for although
between those last two there have been riv-
alries and disturbing ambitions and infelic:-
ties and silver bills and Worlds fair contro-
versies, there have been between them no
batteries unlimbered. no intrenchments dug,
40 long lines of sepulchral mounds thrown
up. 1t has never been Massachusetts, Four
teenth Regiment against Wisconsin
lery against Mississippi rifles.
East and west are distinct words, and
sometimes may mean diversity Of interest,
but there is no blood on them. They can be
pronounced without any information Of wall
ing and death groan. But the north and the
south are, words that have been surchargei
with tragedies. They are words which sug-
gest that for forty years the clouds had been
gathering for four years tempest which
thirty years ago burst in fury that shook
this planet as It has never been shaken since
X. L
thank God that the words have lost some Of
the intensity which they possessed three de-
cades ago; that a vast multitude Of northern
people have moved south, and vast multi
tude Of southern people have moved north,
and there have been intermarriages by the
ten thousand, and northern colonels have
married the daughters Of southern captains
and Texas rangers have united for life with
the daughters Of New FORK abolitionists, and
their children are half northern and half
southern and altogether patriotic.
But north and south are words that need
to be brought into still closer harmonization.
thought that now, when we are
half way between presidential cleo
The lowest ebb; and now, just after
q presidential journey, when our chief mag.
istrates, who was chiefly elected by the north,
has been cordially received at the south: and
now. just after TWO Memorial Days, one Of
them month ago strewing flowers on south
ern graves, and the other yesterday strewing
lowers on northern graves, it might be ap-
oropriate and useful for me to preach q ser.
mon which would twist two garlands-one
for the northern dead and the other for the
southern dead-and have the two interlocked
in chain of flowers that shall bind forever
The two sections into one, and who knows
but that this may be the day when the
prophecy of the text made in regard to the
,ncients may be fulfilled in regard to this
country, and the north give up its prejudices
and the south keep not back its confidence?
II will say to the north, Give up, and to the
touth, Keep not back"
But before I put these garlands on the
graves mean to put them this morning
little while on the brows Of the living men
and women Of the north and south who lost
husbands and sons and brothers during the
civil strife There is nothing more soothing
two garlands are cool from the night dew.
What morning that was on the banks OF
the Hudson and the Savannah when the son
was to start for the war! What fatherly
and motherly counsel! What tears! What
heartbreaks! What charges to write home
ofteni What little keepsahes put away in
the knapsack, or the bundle that was to bs
exchanged for the knenssck! The crow
arul....a tho 10. do. or the steamboat LANDING
shouted, but father and mother and sister
cried.
And how lonely the house seemed after
they went home, and what an awfully va.
can't chair there was at the Christmas and
Thanksgiving table! And after the battle,
what waiting for news What suspense till
the long lists of the killed and wounded were
made out All along the Penobscot, and the
Connecticut, and the st. Lawrence, and the
Ohio, and the Oregon, and the James. and
the Albemarle, and the Alabama, and the
Mississippi, and the Sacramento there vera
lamentation and mourning and great woe,
Rachel weeping for her children, and refus-
ing to be comforted because they were not.
The world has forgotten it, but father and
mother have not forgotten it. They may be
now in the eighties or nineties, but it is a
fresh wound, and will always remaina a fresh
wound.
Have you realized the fact that our civil
war pitched out upon the farmdelds Of ths
north and the plantations Of the south
multitude that no man can number, chill
dren without fatherly help and protection?
Under all the advantages which we had Of
fatherly guidance, what struggle life has
been to the most Of us! But what Of the
children, two and five and ten years of age,
who stood at their mothers lap with great,
round, wondering eyes, hearing her read o.
those who perished in the Battle OF tae
Wilderness, their fathers gone down among
the dead host? 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 unwrinsled
brow. Yes: you have had your own Malvern
Hill, and your own South Mountain. and
your own Gettysburg all along these twenty
years. Come! And, if l cannot spare a
whole garland for your brow, l will twist in
your locks at least two flowers, one crim-
son and one white, the crimson for the strug.
gle Of your life, which has almost amounted
TO carnage, and the white for the victory
You have gained.
Before put the two sarlands am twist
Ing upon the northern and southern tombs,
detain the garlands little while that
may put them upon the brow Of the living
soldiers and sailors Of the north and south,
wko though at variance for long while,
are now at peace and in hearty loyalty to
the United States government, and reaiy,
if need be. to march shoulder to shoulder
against any foreign foe. The twenty-six
winters that have passed since the war, I
think, have sufficiently cooled the hatreis
that oncs burned northward and south.
ward to allow the remark that they who
fought In that conflict were honest on both
sides. The chaplains on both armies wars
went into battle, whether they marched tow
ard the Gulf Of Mexico or marched toward
the north star, were honest faces.
1t IS too much to ask either side to believe
that thoss who came out from their homes,
forSaking father and mother and wife and
child, many of them never to return, were
not in earnest when they put their life into
awful e1igency. Witness the last scene at
family prayers up among tho Green mount
aims or down by tine fields of cotton AMI
sugar cane Men do not sacrifice their all
for fun. Men do not eat moldy bread OF %
without bread at all for fun. Men do not
sleep unshelterel in eluinoctal storms for
fun.
As chaplain Of Pennsylvania re5ine nent,
and as repres ,ntative of the United States
Christian Commission, was for waile at
the front, and in those hospitals at Hagers-
town and Williamsburg AMI up AMI down
the Potamac, whera all tn, churches and
farm-houses were filled with wounded and