Connecticut western news., 1891-06-03

after a few battles nothing more was said about northern 'mudsills" and southern "braggarts It was an army of lions against an army of lions It was flock of eagles nid-sky with iron beak against another flock of eagles iron peaked. It was thunderbolt against thunderbolt It was archangel of wrath against archangel of wrath. It was Hancock against Longstreet It was Fitzpatrick against Wade Hampton. It was Slocum against Hill. It was o. O. Howard against Hood. It was Sherman against Stonewall Jackson. It was, Grant against Lee. And the men who were under them were just as gallant, and some of them are here, and l detain the two garlands that l have twisted for the departed, and in recognition of honesty and prowess put the coronals upon these living Federals and Confederates North and South, we will make great fuss about them when they are dead.
 There will not be room on their tomb stones to tell how much we appreciate them We shall call out the military and explode three volleys over their graves. making all the cemetery ring under our command of "Firew We will have long obituaries in newspapers telling in what battles they fought, what sacrifices they endured, what flags they captured, in what prisons they suffered, but all that will come too late One word in the living ear of praise for their honesty and courage will be worth to them more than mil itary funeral two miles long, or pile of flowers half mile high, and ten bands of music playing over the grave
 Star Spangled Banner" or "'Way
 Down South in Dixie"
 Now, while they are in their declin
 ing years, and their right knee refuses to work because of the rheumatism they got sleeping on the wet ground on the banks of the Chickalnauga, or their digestive organs are off on furlough because of the six months of prison life, in which their rations were big slices of nothing. and their ears have never been alert since the cannonade in which
 they heard so much they have been able to hear but little since in these cases call upon the people of north and south to substitute a little ante
 mortem praise for the good deal of
 post-mortem eulogium. These two gar lands that l twisted for northern and southern graves shall not be put upon the grass of the tomb until they have first encircled the foreheads of the liv ing will let the front of the wreath come down over the scar of scalp wound made by the sword of a cavalry man at Atlanta, and droop little over the eye that lost it's luster in the mine
 explosion at Petersburg Huzza for the living! Calla lilies and camellias and amaranths and palm branches for the uvingl
 THEY KNOW
 But we must not detain the two gar
 lands any longer from the pillows of l those who, for a quarter of a century. have been prostrate in drealnless slum
 Der, never oppressed by summer heats 1 or chilled by winters cold. Both gar
 lands are fragrant. Both have in | them the sunshine and the shower
 of this springtine The colors of both were mixed by him who mixed the blue of the sky, and the gold of the sunset,
 and the green of the grass, and the 1 whiteness of the SHOW crystal And 1 do not care which you put over the northern grave and which over the
 southern grave. Does any one say What is the useY None of them will
 know it. Your Decoration Days both l sides Mason and Dixon's line are great 1 waste of flowers t" Al I see you have
 carried too far my idea that praise for
 the living is better than praise for the departed. Who says that the dead do not know of the flowers: l think they 1 do. The dead are not dead. The
 body sleeps, but the soul lives and is
 unhindered.
 l No two cities on earth are in such 1 rapid and constant communication as l earth and heaven, and the two great Decoration Days of north and south
 are better known ill realms celestial | than terrestrial With what interest 1 we visit the place of our birth and of | our boyhood or girlhood days! And have the departed no interest in this l world, where they were born and ran l solned, and where they suffered and I triulnplled9 My Bible does not posi- lively say so. nor does my catechism
 teach it. but my common sense declares 1 it. The departed do know. and the l hammered procession that marched the earth yesterday to northern graves and
 the hammered procession that marched
 a month ago to southern graves, were
 accompanied by two grander though invisible procesSions that walked the air-processions of the ascended, pro
 sessions of the martyred, processions of | the sainted-and they heard the an | thems of the churches and the salvo of 1 the batteries, and they stopped down
 to breathe the incense of the flowers.
 These august throngs gathered this 1 morning in these pews and aisles and
 corridors and galleries are insignificant
 compared with the mightier tlrongs of
 heaven who mingle in this service which
 we render to God and our country
 while we twist the two garlands, Hail, 1 spirits multitudinousl Hail, spirits blest!
 Hail, martyred ones come down from the Kings palaces How glad we are
 that you have come back again Take
 this kiss of welcome and these garlands
 of reminiscence, ye who languished in
 hospitals or went down under the thun-
 ders and the lightnings of Fredericks-
 burg and Cold Harbor and Murfrees- boro and Corinth and Yorktown and