Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-06-01
NORTH AND SOUTH.
DR.. Talmage Fwines Two Garlands
for the Dead of Both Sides
IT'S TINE TO HEAL THE WOUNDS,
The Armies We're Equal in Courage and
Terribly in Earnest.
A SERMON FOR DECORATION SEASON

ESPECIAL TELEGRAM D1SPAICH.1
BROOKLYN, May 3L-Yesterday having
been observed as Decoration Day, DR.. Tai
mage this morning preached an appropriate
sermon. 1t was a novel and unprecedented
service, as in different parts of the audience
were many of those who had belonged 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 of the subject presented.
Text, Isaiah xiii, 6, 81 will say to the
North, give up, and to the South, keep not
back"
just what my text meant by. the North
and South, 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 two last there have been
rivalries and disturbing ambitions and
infelicities and silver bills and Worlds
Fair controversies there have been between
them no batteries unlimbered, no entrench-
ments dug, no long lines of sepulchral
mounds thrown up. 1t has never been
Massachusetts Fourteenth Regiment against
winconsin Zouaves; it has never been Vir-
ginis Artillery against Mississippi Rifles.
East and West are distinct words and some
times may mean diversity of interest, but
there is no blood on them. They can
be pronounced without any information
of waiIing and death-groan. But the
North and the South are words that have
been surcharged with tragedies. They are
words which suggest that for 40 years th g
clouds had been gathering for four years
tempest, which 30 years ago burst In Iury
that shook this planet as 1t has never Deen
shaken since it swung out at the first world
building. ] thank God that the words nave
lost some of the intensity which they pos
sessed three decades ago; that vast multi
tude of Northern people have moved South
and vast multitude Of Southern people
have moved North, and there have been
1ntermarriages by the ten thousand, ana
daughters of Southern Captains, and Texas
rangers have united for life with the
daughters of New York Abolitionists, an d
their children are half Northern and half
Southern and altogether patriotic.
The Need of the Hour.
But North and South are words that need
to be brought into still closer harmoniza-
ton. thought that now, when we are half
way between Presidential elections and Sec
tional animosities are at the lowest possible
ebb, and now just after Presid entail jour
ney, when our Chief Magistrate, who vas
chiefly elected by the North, has been cor
daily received at the South, and now just
after two Memorial Days, one of them
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 ser
mon which would twist two garlands, one
for the Northern dead and the other for the
Southern dead, and have the two inter
locked 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 preju-
dices and the South keep not back its conf
and to the South, keep not back"
But before L put these garlands on the
graves, mean to put them this morning
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 oandage, and these
two garlands are cool from the night dew.
What a morning that was on the banks of
the Hudson and the savannah when the SON
was to start for the waTl What fatherly and
motherly COUNSEL What tears! What heart
breaks! What charges to write home often!
What little keepsakes put away in the KNAPP
sack or the bundle that was to be exchanged
for the knapsacki 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 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 Alabama and the Mississippi and
the Sacramento there were lamentation and
mourning and great woe, Rachel weeping
for her children and refusing to be COM
forted 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 a fresh
wound. Coming down the steep of years
the hands that would have steadied those
tottering steps have been Is years folded
into the last sleep.
The Horrors of Civil War.
1 detain from the top of the tomb these
two garlands that am twisting for a little
while that may with them soothe the brow
of the living. Over the fallen the people
said: Poor fellowl What a pity that he
should have been struck down!" We did
not, however, often enough say: "Poor
father! Poor motheri Poor wife Poor
child!" and so say it now. Have you real
lied that by that wholesale massacre hun
dreds of thousands of young people at the
North and the South have never had any
chance2 We who are fathers stand between
our children and the world We fight their
battles, we plan for their welfare, we achieve
their livelihood, we give them the advice
OF our superior years, Among the richest
blessings of my life 1 thank God that my
father lived to fight my battles until was
old enough to fight for myself Have you
realized the fact that our Civil War pitched
out upon the farm fields of the
North and the plantations of the
children without fatherly help and protec-
tion? Under all the advantages which we
had of fatherly guidance, what struggle
life has been to the most of usi But what of
the children, and and 10 years of age, who
stood at their mothers lap with great, round,
wondering ewes, hearing her read of those
who persisted in the battle of the Wilderness,
their father gone down amid the dead host!
Come, young men and women, who by such
disaster have had to make your own way in
life, and l 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 Gettysb burg all
along these 20 years. Come! And, if can
not spare a whole garland for your brow
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
victory you have gained.
Before put the two garlands 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
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 shoulder against
any foreign foe. The 26 winters that have
passed since the war, L think have sufi-
GENTLY cooled the hatreds that once burned
Northward and Southward to allow the re-
mark that they who fought in that conflict
were honest on both sides. The chaplains OF
both armies were honest 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