The Bossier banner., 1891-08-06
THE BLUE AND THE GRAY.
An Eloquent Memorial Sermon by
Rev. T. Dewitt Talmage,
Two GarIands for Northern and Southern
Grsves-A Tribute to the Living as
Well as to the Dead of the
North and South.

and south, was delivered by Rev. T.
Dewitt Talmage in a memorial sermon
at the new Brooklyn tabernacle. His
text was:
will say to the north, give up, and to the
south, keep not back.-Isiaah xiii 6,
just what my text meant by the
north and south, l can not 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
these two last there have Teen rival
ries and disturbing ambitions and in
felicities and silver bills and World S
fair controversies there have been be-
tween them no batteries unlimbered,
no entertainments dug, no long lines of
sepulchral 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 intonation
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 gather
ing for a four years tempest, which
thirty years ago burst in fury that
shook this planet as it had never been
Ghal<nn Cinan saR 1on G1.ct
world building. l thank God that the
words have lost some of the intensity
which they possessed three decades
ago; that a vast multitude of northern
people have moved south and a vast
multitude of southern people have
moved north, and there have been in
termarriages 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 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 har-
monization. l 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 strew-
ing flowers on northern graves, it
might be appropriate and useful for me
to preach a 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 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 ancients, may be fulfilled in regard
to this country, and the north give up
its prejudices and the south keep not
back its confidence Il will say to the
north, give up, and to the south, keep
not back"
But before put these garlands on the
graves mean to put them this morn
ing 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 a wound than
a 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 war! What
tatherly and motherly counsel! What
tears! What heart breaks! What
charges to write home often! What lit
tie keepsalles put away in the knapsack
or the bundle that was to be exchanged
for the lnapsaclz! The crowd around
the depot 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 vacant chair there
was at the Christmas and Thanksgiv-
ing table! And after the battle. what
waiting for news! What suspense I'll
the long lists of the killed and wound
ed were made out! All along the
and Connecticut and
the st. Lawrence, and the
Ohio, and the Oregon, and the
James, and the Albemarle, and the AL
ALBANIA, and the Mississippi, and the
Sacramento there were lamentation
ard great woe, Rachel weeping for her
and refusing 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 the nineties, but
it is fresh wound and will always re-
main 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 childlessness, the wild
owhood, the orphanage, who has
line long enough to tell the
heigh tof it? What mountain, what an
Alps, whats Himalay of piled-up agony
Of bereavement in the simple state
ment that three hundred thousand men
OF the north were slain and five hun
dred thousand men of the south were
slain, and hundreds of thousands long
through the exhaustions