Martinsburg herald. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1881-1920, 1891-06-06
REV. DR.. TALMAGE.
The Eminent Brooklyn Divine's Sun
day Sermon.
Subject: Two Garlands.'

just what my text meant by the north
and south cannot say, but in the United
States the two words are 50 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.
Aries and disturbing ambitions and infelici-
ties and silver bills and Worlds fair contro4
VERSES, there have been between them no
batteries unlimbered, no intrenchments dug.
no long lines Of sepulehral mounds thrown
up. 1t has never been Massachusetts, Four
teeflth Regiment against Wisconsin
zouaves; it has never been Virginia artil-
lery against Mississippi rifles.
East and west are distinct words, and
sometimes may mean diversity of interest
but there is no blood on them. They can be
pronounced without any information Of wall
ing and death groan But the north and the
south are words that have been surcharged
with tragedies. They are words which sIy-
gest 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 weird building, l
thank God that the words have lost some of
the intensity which they possessed three de-
cades ago: that 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 aud south are words that need
to be brought into still closer harmonization.
/ thought that now, when we are
half way between presidential cleo
lions, and sectional animosities are at
the lowest ebt: and now; lust after
presidential journey, when our chief mag
lstrates, 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 south
ern graves and the other yesterday strewing
flowers on northern graves it might be APP
proprlate and useful for me to preach a ser.
mon which would twist two garIands-one
for the northern dead and the other for the
southern deac--and have the two interlocked
IN a cham 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
ancents may be fulfilled in regard to this
country, and the north give up its preiudices
and the south keep not back its confidence?
Il Will say TO the north, Give up, and to the
south, Keep not bacS
But before | put these garlands on the
graves mean TO put them this morning q
little while On the brows of the living men
and women of the north and south VINO lost
husbands and sons and brothers during the
civil strife. There is nothing more soothing
to wound than cool bandage, and these
two garlands are cool from the nj hit 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
end motherly counsel What tears What
| heartbreaks! What charges to write home
! hat t1a I-as.
the knapsacS, or the bundle that was to be
exchanged for the knapsackl The crowd
around the depot 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 table, And after the battle
what waiting for news! What suspense till
the long lists of the killed and wounded were
made outl 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 Alabama, and the
Mississippi and the Sacramento there were
lamentation and mourning and great woe,
Rachel weeping for her children, and refus-
ing 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 nineties, but it is a
fresh wound, and will always remaina fresh
wound
Have you realized the fact that our civil
war pitched out upon the farmfeds of the
north and the plantations of the south a
multitude that no man can number chit
dren without fatherly help and protect on?
Under all the advantages which we had of
fatherly guidance, what 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, hearing her read OF
those who perishe.i in the BATTLE of tie
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 life, and | will put
the garland on your young and unwrinklsd
brow. Yes; you have had your own Malvern
Hill, and your own South Mountain, and
your own Gettysburg all along these twenty
years. Come! And, if | cannot spare a
whole garland for your brow, | will twist in
your locks at least two flowers. one GRIM
son and one white, the crimson for the strug
gle of your life, which has almost amountel
to carnage, and the white for the victory
YOU have gained.
BEFORE put the two garlauds am twist
ing upon the northern and southern tombs.
L detaln the garlands little while that
may put them upon tbs brow of the liyinr
soldiers and sailors of the north AMI soutn
WIN ohousu aO variance Tor a long while
are now at peace and in hearty LOYALTY n
the United States govern n ent, aud ras1v
II need be- ID march shoulder to shoulder
against any foreign foe The twsntv-six
winters that have passed since the war I
thind, have sufficiently cooled the hatreis
that oncs burned northwari aad south
ward to allow the remark that they VIII,
loushC IN mat conflict We're honest on both
SIDES Inc chaplains on both armies wers
honest In their prayers. The faces th1t
went INTO battle, whether they marched tow
ard the Gulf of Mexico or marched toward
the north star, were honest faces.
1t Is too much to ask either side to believe
that thoss who came out from their homes,
1orSaklng father and mother and wife ami
child, many of them never to return wars
not IN earnest when they put their life into
awful exigency. Witness the last scene at
family prayers up among the Green mount.
ans or down by the fields of cotton ami
sugar cane. Men do not sacrifice their ali
for fun. Men donot eat moldy bread or q
without bread at all for fun. Men do not
sleep unshelterel in equinoctial storms for
fun
As chaplain OF Pennsylvania regiment.
ana as a repres entative of the United States
christian Commission, [ was for a while at
the front, and in those hospitals at Hagers.
town and Williamsburg aul up AMI down
Tue fotamac, where all ths churches AMI
iarm-houses were filed with wounded AMI
dying Fe1erals AMI Confederates, l forgot
amld the horrors to ask on which side they
fought, when with what little aid I could
take them Tor their suffering bo lies, an the
mlghtler aid | could pray for their souls.
passed the days and months amid scenes
that III my memory seem like a CHASTITY
dream rather than possible reality.
hen New Orleans 10y, unable to an
sWer my question as to whers he was hurt
TOOK out from the folds of the only garment
That had not been torn of him in the BATTLE
a New Testament, marked with his own life
blood, and saw the leaf turned down at the
passage, MY peace give unto You. not as
the world giveth give | unto You.n it rea
lust as though it had been a northern New
Testament. And when | sat down and took
from South Carohnan dying in barn at
Bonneville his last message to his wife AMI
mother and child, it sounded Just like a mes
sage that northern man dying far from
home would send to his wife and mother and
child.
And When l picked IN from the battle
fed of Anietam the fragment OF a letter
which have somewhere vet, for the mama
and the address were torn OF, | saw it was
tde words of a wife to her husband telling
him how the little child prayed for their
tather every night that he might not get
hurt in the battle and might come HON,
SOUND and come home well but that il any
tfins happened to them they might all meet
again in the world where there are no part
lngs, 1t read just as northern wife would
write to husband away from home and in
peril conveying the messages of little chit
dren. Oh, yes; they were honest on both
SIDES And those who lived to get home are
living yet were just as honest, and ought
they not FOR the suffering they endured have
a coronal of some kind?
But we must not datain the two crarlands