The Maryville times. (Maryville, Tenn.) 1884-1944, 1891-06-17
ISAIAH'S WORDS.
ITO the North Give Up; To the
South, Keep Not Back"
Flowers Which May Take Wrinkles From
the Brow-Memorial Day Ser
mon by Rev. T. Dewitt
TalmaSe, u. d.

tdhcH from lSdldu Aliil'o' Will soy W
the North, Give up, and to the South.
Keep not back"
Just what my text meant by the
north and south I 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
those two last there have been rivalries
and disturbing ambitions and intellect
ties and silver bills and world fair con-
troversies, there have been between
| them no batteries unlimbered, no in
pulchral mounds thrown up. 1t has
never been Massachusetts, Fourteenth
regiment against Wisconsin gouaves; it
has never been Virginia artillery
againt Mississippi rifles. East and west
are distinct words and sometimes may
mean diversity of interests, but there
is no blood on them. They can be pro-
nounced 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 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. thankG God that the words have
lost some of the intensity which they
possessed three decades ago; that vast
multitude of northern people have
moved south, and vast multitude of
southern people have moved north,
and there have been intermar-
riages by the ten thou
sand, northern colonies nave mar
ried the daughters of southern captains.
Texas rangers have united for life with
the daughters of New York abolition
lists, and their children are half northern
and half southern, and altogether patri-
otto. But north and south are words
that need to be brought into still closer
harmonization. thought that now
when we are half way between presi-
Dental elections, and sectional animos-
tiles are at the lowest ebb, and now
just after 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
month ago strewing flowers on southern
graves and the other yesterday strewing
flowers on northern graves it might be
appropriate and useful for me to preach
q sermon which would twist two gar
lands. 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 regard to
ancients, may be fulfilled in regard to
this country and the north give up its
prejudices and the south keep not back
It's confidence. 81 will say to the north,
give up, and to the south, keep not
back"
But, before I 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 a
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 war;
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 ex-
changed for the knapsackl The crowd
around the depot or the steamboat
landing shouted, but father 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 we're
made out! All along the Penobscot and
tia Connecticut and the ST. Lawre ace
ard the Ohio and the Oregon and the
James and the Albemarle and the Ala.
bama and the Mississippi and the Sac
ramento there were lamentation and
mourning and great woe, Rachel weep.
ing for her children 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 ninetes
but it is fresh wound and will always
remain fresh wound. Coming down
the steep of years the hands that would
have steadied those lettering steps have
been twcnty-cight years folded into the
last sleep. The childlessness, the wild
owhood, the orphanage, who has 6
measuring-line long enough to tell the
height of it, the depth of it, the infinity
of it? What mountain, what an Alp
what a Himalaya of piled-up agony o.
bereavement in the simple statement
that 500, 900 men of the north were slair
and 500, 900 men of the south were slain
and hundreds of thousands long after
ward through the exhaustions Their,
suffered going down to death.
| detain from the top of the toni
these two garlands that | am twistin,
for little while that may with then
soothe the brow of the living Owe
the fallen the people said: poor fel
low! What a pity that he should hav,
been struck DOWN. We did not, how
ever often enough say: Poor father
Poor mother! Poor wife! Poor childi
and SO say it now. Have you realize,
that oy that wholesale massacre hun
ireds of thousands of young people a
he north and the south have never ha,