The Bossier banner., 1891-08-06

them arc here, and | detain the tw
garlands that [ have twisted for the de
parted, and in recognition of honesty
and prowess put the coronals upon these
living federals and confederates
North and south, we will make a great
fuss about them when they are dead
There will not be room on their tomb
stones to tell how much we appreciate
them. We shall call out the military
and explode three volleys over their
graves, making all the cemetery ring
under our command of ''Firew We will
have long obituary in newspapers tell
ing in what battles they fought, what
sacrifices they endured, what flags
they captured, in what prisons
they suffered, but all that will come
too late. One word in the living ear OF
praise for their honesty and courage
will be worth to them more than
military funeral two miles long or
pile of flowers half mile high and
ten bands of music playing over the
grave Star Spangled Banner" or
Way Down South in Dixie" Now,
while they are in their declining years
and their right knee refuses to work,
because of the rheumatism they got
sleeping on the wet ground on the
banks of the Chickamauga, or their di-
gestive organs are off on furlough, be-
cause of the six mon tbs of prison life
in which their rations were a big slice
of nothing and their ears have never
been alert since the cannonade in which
they heard so much they have been
able to hear but little since, in these
cases call upon the people of north
and south to substitute a little ante
mortem praise for the good deal of post
mortem eulogium. These two garlands
that | twisted for northern and south
ern graves shall not be put upon the
grass of the tomb until they have first
encircled the foreheads of the living.
| will let the front of the wreath come
down over the scar of scalp wound
made by the sword of a cavalryman at
Atlanta and droop a little over the eye
that lost its luster in the mine explo-
sion at Petersburg. Huzza for the liv-
ing! Gala lilies, and camellias, and
amaranths, and palm branches for the
living!
But we must not detain the two gar
lands any longer from the pillows of
those who for a quarter of a century
have been PROSTATE in dreamless slum-
Der, never oppressed by summer heats
or chilled by winters cold. Both gar
lands are fragrant. Both have in them
the sunshine and shower of this spring
time. The colors of both were mixed
by Him who mixed the blue of the sky
and the gold of the sunset and green of
the grass and the whiteness of the
snow crystal. And do not care which
you put over the northern grave and
which over the southern grave. Does
anyone say: "What is the use? None of
them will know it; your decoration days
both sides Mason and Dixon's line are
great waste of flowers" All! I see you
have carried too far my idea that praise
for the living is better than praise for
the departed. Who says that the dead
do not know of the flowers? I think
they do. The dead are not dead. The
body sleeps, but the soul lives and isun-
hindered. No two cities on earth are in
such rapid and constant communication
as earth and Heaven, and the two great
decoration days of north and south are
better known in realms celestial than
terrestrial. With what interest we visit
the place of our birth and of our boy
hood or girlhood days! And have the
departed no interest in this world
where they were born and ransomed
and where they suffered and tri-
umphed? My Bible does not positively
say so, nor does my catechism teach
it, but my common sense declares it.
The departed do know, and the ban
nered procession that marched the
earth yesterday to northern graves and
the hammered procession that marched
month ago to southern graves, We're ac.
companied by two grander though
invisible professions that walked
the air, professions of the aseended,
professions of the martyred, process.
sions of the sainted; and they heard
the anthem of the churches and
the salvo of the batteries and they
stopped down to breathe the incense Of
the flowers. These August throngs
gathered this morning in these pews
and aisles and corridors and galleries
are insignificant compared with the
mightier throngs of Heaven who min.
gle in this service which we render
to God and our country while we
twist the two garlands. Hail spirits
multitudinous! Hail spirits blest! Hail
martyred- ones come down from the
Kings palaces! How glad we are that
you have come back again. Take this
kiss of welcome and these garlands of
ye who languished in
hospitals or went down under the
thunders and the lightnings of Fred
ericksburg and Cold Harbor and Muir.
freesboro and Corinth and Yorktown
and above the clouds on Lookout
mountain
have been waiting for some years
for some one else to twist the two gar
lands that to-day twist, but, no one
doing it, in the love of God and nv
country Iput now my hand to the work.
and next spring about this time, if l am
living and well, / will twist two more
garlands for northern and southern
nd