Democratic Northwest. [volume] (Napoleon, Ohio) 1869-1894, 1891-06-11
TABERNACLE PULPIT.
REV. DR. TALMAeE's SERMON FOR
, MEMORIAL DAY.

"T VIII Say to the North. Give Up. and
TO the South. Keep Not Baek"-IsaIah
xllIL O. the Text A Notable Dis
! course.
} BRooKLTN, May 3l.-Yesterday having
been observed as Decoration Day. DR.. Tai.
mage this morning preached an approprS
ate sermon ID was a novel and nnprece-
dented service, as in different parts Of the
audience were many Of those who had be
longed TO both Federal and Confederate
armies. the subject having been previously
announced, namely. Two Garlands for
Northern and Southern Graves" Over the
pulpit were two wreaths OF beautiful
flowers, and they were linked together, so
that they were an object lesson for the sub
iect presented. Text: Isaiah xiii, 6-"I
will say to the north, Give up. and to the
south, Keep not back"
Just what my text meant by the north
and south | canAot 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 rivalries and disturbing ambi
tions and infelicities and silver bills and
Worlds fair controversies, there have been
between them no batteries unlimbered, no
intrenchments dug, no long lines OF sepul-
chral mounds thrown up. 1t has never
been Massachusetts Fourteenth regiment
against Wisconsin zouaves; it has never
been Virginia artillery 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
wailing and death groan. But the north
and the south are words that have been
surcharged with tragedies. They are
words which suggest 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 it swung out
at the first world building. | thank God
that the words have lost some of the in
tensity which they possessed three decades
ago; that a vast multitude of northern
people have moved south, and vast mul-
titude of southern people have moved
north, and there have been intermarriages
~ buo Ucu anu
have married the daughters of southern
captains, and Texas rangers have united
for life with the daughters of New York
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 harmoniza-
tion. thought that now, when we are
half way between presidential elections,
and sectional animosities are at the lowest
ebb; and now, just after a presidential
Journey, when our chief magistrate who
was chiefly elected by the north, has been
cordially received at the south; and now,
Just after two Memorial Days, one of them
a month ago, strewing flowers on southern
graves, and the other yesterday, strewing
flowers on northern graves, it might be ap-
propriate and useful for me to preach
sermon 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 re-
gard to the ancients may be fulfilled in re-
gard to this country, and the north give
up its prejudices and the south keep not
back its confidenceP II will say to the
north, Give up, and to the south, Keep not
back"
GARLAEDs ON LIVING BRows-
But before 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 to wound than cool
bandage, and these 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 warl What fatherly and motherly
counsel! What tearsl What heartbreaksl
What charges to write home oftenl What
little keepsakes put away in the knapsack,
or the bundle that was to be exchanged for
the knapsackl The crowd around the de-
pot 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 outl 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 Ala
bana, and the Mississippi, and the Sacra-
mento there were lamentation and mourn
ing and great woe, Rachel weeping for her
children, and refusing to be comforted be-
cause they were not The world has for
gotten it, but father and mother have not
forgotten it. They may be now in the
eighties or the nineties, but it is fresh
wound, and will always remain a fresh
wound.
Coming down the steep of years the
hands that would have steadied those
tottering steps have been twenty-eight
years folded into the last sleep. The
childishness, the widowhood, the or
phanage, who has a measuring line
long enough to tell the height of it, the
depth of it, the infnity of it? What a
mountain, what an Alps, what a Hima
laya Of piled up agony of bereavement in
the simple statement that three hundred
thousand men of the north were slain and
five hundred Thousand men of the south
tWCI0 bAdlut duu uuuu1SuS Vi ohouSduub
long afterward, through the exhaustions
there suffered, going down to deathl
UNPROTECTED CHILDREN.
Idetain from the top of the tomb these
two garlands that am twisting for lit
tie while that may with them soothe the
brow Of the living. Over the fallen the
people said; Poor fellowl What pity
that he should have been struck DOWN.
We did not, however, often enough say;
''Poor fatheri Poor motherl Poor wifel