The Penn's Grove record., 1891-06-05
REV DIR. TALMAGE.
THE BRoOKLYN DIvINEs Sun
DAY SERMON.
Subject: "Two Garlands.'

TEXT: 4 tciH say TO the north, Gire up,
and to the south, Keep not dss."-lsaia
xiii, 9.
Just what my text meant by the north
and south l 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-
nIries and disturbing ambitions and iufelic.-
tics and silver bills and Worlds fair contro-
yenies, there have been between them no
batteries unlimbered, no intrenchments dug,
| no long lines of sepulchral mounds thrown
up. 1t has never been Massachusetts Four
teenth Regiment against Wisconsin
| Zouaves; Il has never been Virginia artil-
lery against Mississippi rifle,
Fast and west are distinct worjs, and
| sometimes may mean diversity of interest.
but there is no blood on them. They can be
pronounced without any information Of vail
ing and death groan. But the north and tho
south are words that have been surcnarged
with tragedies. They are words which sus-
gest that for forty years the clouds had been
gathering for a four years tempest which
thirty years ago burst in a fury that shook
this planet as il has never been shaken since
1t swung out at the first world building. 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 a vast multi
tude of southern people have moved north,
and there have been intermarriages by the
ten thousand, and northern colonies 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 M south are words that need
to be brought into still closer characterization.
l thought that now, when We are
half way between presidential cleo
tions, and sectional animosities are at
the lowest cob and now, just after
a presidential journey, when our chief mag
lstrates, VINO was chiefly elected by the north,
has been cordially received ut the south; and
now, just after two Memorial Days, one Of
them II month ago strewiug flowers on SOUTH
| ern graves, and the other yesterday strewing
flowers on northern graves, it might be APP
propriate and useful tor me to preach a SER
mon which would twist two garlauds-one
for the northern dead and the other for the
southern deaG-and have the two interlocked
in a 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
ancients may be fulfilled in regard to this
country, and the north give up its prejudices
and the south keep not back its confidence?
81 will say to the north, Give up, and to the
south, Keep not hacx."
But before ] put these gariands on the
graves | mean to put them this morning o
little while on the brows OF the living men
and women of the north and south who lost
husbands aud sons and brothers during the
civil strife. There is nothing more soothing
to n wound than a cool bandage, 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 sou
was to start for the warl What fatherly
and motherly COUNSEL What tears! What
heartbreaksi What charges to write home
l Nffopf AVHaf liftla l-aavrata, r,trf aUou in
the kIapsacs, or the bundle that was to be
exchanged for the knapsac1! The crowd
around the depot or the mbo landing
shouted, but father and mother n sister
crieo.
And how lonely the house seemed after
they went home, and what an awfulIy va
cant chair there was at the Christmas md
THANKSGIVING tablet And after the battle,
what waiting for newsi What suspense till
the long lists of the killed aud 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 Alabamn, and the
Mississippi, and the Sacramento there were
lamentation and Mourning and great woe.
Rachel weeping for her children, and refus-
ing to be coGiforted 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 1t is a
fresh wound, and will always reiuaina fresh
wounl.
Have you realized the fact that cur civil
war pitched out upon the farmfields of the
north and the plantations OF the south q
multitude that 10 man eau number, chill
dren without iatherly help aud protect on,
Under all the advantages which we had OF
fatherly guidance, what a struggle life has
been TO the most of usl But what of the
children, two aud five and ten years of age,
who stood at their mothers lap with great,
rouni, wondering eyes, bearing her read OF
those vino persisted in the Battle OF the
Wilderness. their fathers gone down among
I the dend hos? Come, young men and
wonep, who by such disaster have had To
make our own way in life, aud l will put
the garland on your young and unwrinzied
brow. Yes; you nave had your own Malvern
Hill, anu your own South Mountain. and
your own Gettysburg all along these twenty
years. Comei And, il l cannot spare u
Whole garland for your brow, | will twist in
your 'ocks at least two fowers, one Grim
sou and one white, the crimson for the strug
to carnage, an } tho white for the victory
you have camel
Before ! put the two g~ar;anis I I'm twist
Ing upon the northern and southern tombs
/ detain the garlands a little while that !
may put them upon the brow OF tho Twins
soldiers and sailors OF the north and south
who, though at variance for a long while
are now at peace and In hearty loyalty t.
INC OhhtSu obtteS EONcrllncuL, anu To11y.
II need be, to march shoulder IN shoulder
against any foreign foe. The twmty-si.
winters that have passed since the war, :.
think, have sufficiently cooled the hatrel
that once burned northwarl and south
warl to allow the remark that they who
fought In that conflict were honest on both
sides. Ths ~chaplains on both armies were
honest In their prayers. The faces that
went into battle, whether they marched tow.
ard the Gulf of Mexic, o. marched toward
the north star, were honest faces.
1t is too much to ask either side to believe
that thos5 who anne out from their homes,
forsaking father and mother aud wife aud
child, many OF them never to return, were
not in earnest when they put their life int
awful e~xigeucy. Witness the last scens at
family prayers up among the Green mount.
aims or down by the fields Of cotton an
sugar cane Men do not sacrifice their all
for fun. Men do not eat moldy bread or 60
without bread at all for fun. Men do not
sleep unshelterei in eluinoctial storms fo-
fun.
As chaplain Of a Pennsylvania regiment,
and as a repres ,ntative OF the United States
Christian Commission, l was for a whila at
the front, aud in those hospitals ut Hasers
town and williamsburg anil up AMI dow
the Potamac, where all tn, cuurc' res an
farm-houses were filled with wouniel and
dying Felera,s and Confeicrates, ! forgot
nmid the horrors to ask on which stfc they
l lOu1utt Wutii Wltt Wuat htttc dfA 4 NOitl
take them tor their suffering bodies, AM ths
mightier aid l could pray for their souls, ]
passed the days and months amid scene.
that in my memory seem like a CHASTITY
dream rather than a possible reality.
Whena New Orleans boy, unable to an
swer my question as to where he was hurt
took ont from the folds OF the only Carmen
that had not been torn of him in the battl,
a New Testament, marked with his own lif
blood, and ! saw the leaf turned down at til
passage, my peacsI give unto You. not a
the world giveth give | unto You" it req,
just as though it had been a northern New
Testament. And when | sat dow and tool
from a South Carolinian dyin. in q barn. a
Boonesvile his last messay re to his wife ant
mother and child, it sounded just like a mes
sage that n northern man dying far from
home would send to his wife and mother an
child.
And when I picked up from the BATH
field Of Antietam the fragment OF a lette
which l have somewhere yet, for the nam
-