Milford chronicle. [volume] (Milford, Del.) 1878-1974, 1891-06-05
GARLANDs ON LIVING BRoWs.

But before put these garlandS on Uh'
! graves l mean to put them this morning
a little while on the brows of the living
men and women of the north and soutl
who lost husbands and sons and brothers
during the civil strife. There is nothing
more soothing to a wound than COO
bandage, and these two garlands are COO
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 heartbreaks
Mhat charges to write home oftenl What
little keepsakes put away in the knapsacki
pr the bundle that was to be exchanged fol
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
cant chair there was at the Christmas and
Thanksgiving tablet And after the battle,
what waiting for newsl What suspense
till the long lists of the killed and wounded
were made Quit 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
bama, 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 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 infinity 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
were slain, and hundreds of thousands
long afterward, through the eXhaustions
there suffered, going down to deathl
UNPROTECTED CHILDREN.
Idetain from the top of the tomb these
two garlands that ami twisting for n lit
tie 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 downw
We did not, however often enough say;
poor fatherl Poor motherl Poor wiiel
Poor childP' and so say it now. Have
you realized that by that wholesale massa-
ere hundreds of thousands of young people
at the north aud 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 wei
fare, we achieve their livelihood, we give
them the advice Of our superior years.
Among the richest blessings of my life
thank God that my father lived to fight
my battles until was old enough to light
for myself
Have you realized the fact that our civil
war pitched out upon the farmlelds of the
north and the plantations Of the south a
multitude that no man can number, ehlt
dren without fatherly help and protectioni
Under ell the advantages which we had o.
fatLerly guidance, what a struggle life
has been to the most Of U.s. But what Of
the children, two and five and ten years
of age, who stood at their mothers lap
with great, round, wondering eyes, hear
ing her read OF those who persisted IN the
Battleofthe Wilderness, their fathers gone
down among the dead host? Come, young
men and women, who By such disaster
have had TO make your own way IN Inc
and Twill nut the garland on your young
and unwrinkled brow Yes; you have
had YOUR own Malvern Hill, and your own
South Mountain, and your own Gettys-
7.aHzr ell along these twenty years Comel