Daily tobacco leaf-chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1890-1895, 1891-06-01
flowers.

MOWERS.
These august throngs gathered this
morning in these pews and aisles and cor
ridors and galleries are insign ifcant com
pared with the mightier throngs of heaven
who mingle in this service which we render
to God and our country while we twist the
two garands, Hail spirits multitudinousl
Hail spirits blest! Hail martyred ones
come down from the Kings palacesl How
glad are we that you have come pack
again Take this kiss of welcome and
these garlands of Renaissance, ye who
languished in hospitals or went down
under the thunders and the lightniugs
of fredericksburg and Cold Harbor and
Murfreesboro and Corinth and Yorktown
and above the clouds on Lookout Mount
ain.
A UNIQUE SERVICE.
Among the thousands of gatherings at
the north and at the south for Decoration
Days am conscious that this service is
unique, and that it is the only one in
which there has been twisted two gar
lands, one for the grave of the northern
dead and the other for the grave of the
southern dead 0 Lord God of the Amer
lean Union is it not time that we bury for
ever our old grudges? MyI Myl Can we
not be at peace on earts when this mo
ment in heaven dwell, in perfect love,
Ulysses S. Grant and Robert Il. Lee Will
lam Il. Sherman and Stonewall jackson,
and tens of thousands of northern and
southern men who, though they once
looked askance ut each other from the
opposite banks of the Potomac and the
Chickahominy and the James and the Ten,
nessee, now are on the same side of the
river keeping jubilee with some of those
old angels who near nineteen centuries
ago came down one Christmas night to
chant over Bethlehem, GLORY to God in
the highest; on earth peace, good will to
menp'
| have been waiting for some years for
some one else to twist the two garlHnds
that today twist, but no one doing it, in
the love of God and my country put now
my hand to the work, and LeXt spring
about this time, if am living and well,
will twist two more garlands for northern
and southern graves, and every springtime
until some man or woman whom | may
have cheered little in the struggle of this
life shall come out and put n pansy or two
on my own grave. But if the time should
ever come when this land shall be given
over to sectional ranCor and demagogism,
and north and SOUTH or east and west
shall forget what the good God built this
nation for, and it shall halt on it's high
career of righteousness and liberty and
peace, and become the agent of tyranny
and wrong and oppression, then let some
young man whom have baptized in in
fancy at these affairs go out to Greenwood
and scoop up my dust and scatter it to the
four winds Of heaven, for do not want to
sleep, and | will not sleep in a land &C
cursed with sectonalism or oppression.
And now hand over the two garlands,
both of which are wet with many tears
tears of widowhood and orphanage and
childlessness, tears of suffering and tears
of gratitude; and as the ceremony must be
performed in symbol, there not being
enough flowers to cover all the graves, take
the one garland to the tomb of some north
ern soldier who may yesterday have been
omitted in the distribution of the sacra.
ment of flowers, and the other garland to
the tomb of some southern soldier who
may month ago have been omitted in the
distribution of the sacrament of the flow
ers, and put both the wreaths gently down
over the hearts that have ceased to beat
God bless the two garlandsI God save the
United States OF AmeriCa