Shenandoah herald. [volume] (Woodstock, Va.) 1865-1974, 1891-06-05
REV. DIR. TALMAGE.
The Eminent Brooklyn Divine's Sun
day Sermon.
Subject, 1.-TWO Garlands."

Aiihs1 W
Just what my text meant by the north
and south | cannot say, but in the Unitei
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 last two there have been riv-
aries and disturbing ambitions and infelic.-
ties and silver bills and Worlds fair contro-
versies, there have been between them no
batteries numbered, 10 intrcnchments dug,
no long lines of sepulchral mounds thrown
up. 1t has never been Massachusetts, Four
tenth Regiment against Wisconsin
Zouaves: it mas 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 bs
pronounced without any intonation of wall
ing and death groau. But the north and the
south are words that have been surcharged
with tragedies They are words which sug-
gest that for forty years the Clouds had boen
gathering for four years tempest which
thirty years ago burst in fury that shook
this planet as it has never been shaken since
il swung out at the first world building.
thank God that the words have lost some OF
the intensity which they possessed three de-
cades ago: that a vast multitude of northern
people have moved south. and n 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 aboiitionists and
their children are half northern and half
southern and altogether patriotic
But north and south are words that nee1
to be brought into still cioscr harmonization.
| thought that now, when we are
half way between presidential cleo.
lions, and sectional animosities are at
the lowest ebL; and now, just after
O presidential Journey. when our chief mag
istrates, 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 Oh SOUTH
ern graves, and the other yesterday strewing
flowers on northern graves it might be APP
propriate and useful for me to preach n ser.
mon which would twist two garlands--one
for the northern dead and the other for the
southern dead--and have the two interlocbed
in n chain of flowers that shall bind forever
the two sections into one; and who knows
hut that this may be the day when the
prophecy Of the text made in regard to the
ancients may be fulfilled in regar1 to this
country, and the north give up its prejudices
and the south keep not back its confi1encs2
VI will say TO the north Give u2 and to the
south, Keep not bac;.
But before | put these garands on the
graves mean TO put them this morning a
little while on the brows of the living men
and women of the north end south VINO lost
husbands and sons and brothers during the
civil strife Inere is nothing more soothing
to wound than cool bandage, and these
two garlands are cool from the nj hit dew.
lIhof hot Pho hauf-a of
the Hudson and the Savannah when the sol
was to start for the war, What fatherly
and motherly counsel! What tears, What
heartbreaks, What charges to write Eom9
often What little keepsaSes put away in
the knapsacS. or the bundle that was to b5
exchanged for the knapsack The crowl
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 out All along the PenO5scot, and tho
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 reius-
ing to be comforted because they were not.
The world has forgotten it, but father and
mother have not forgotten it. They may ba
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 farmfelds Of th5
north and the plantations of the south a
multitude that no mau can number. chill
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 us But what of tho
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 perished 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 70
make your own way in life, and Will put
the garland on your young and unwrinSled
brow Yes: you have had your own Malvern
Hill. and your own South Mountain. and
your own Gettysburg all along these twenty
wears Come And, if / cannot spare
whole garland for your brow, | will twist III
your locks at least two flowers. one GRIM
son and one white, the crimson for the strug-
gle of your life, which has almost amounte
10 carnage. ana the white for the victory
YOU have gained.
Before I put the two garlands am twist
ing upon the northern and southern tombs.
/ detain the garlands little while that
may put them upon the Draw OF tho living
soldiers aud sailors of the north AMI south,
who, though at variance for a long while.
are now at peace and in hearty loyalty to
the United States govern nsat, and ready.
If need be, to march shoulder to shoulder
against any foreign foe. The twenty-six
winters that have passed since the war [
think, have sufficiently cooled the hatreis
that once burned northward and south
warl TO allow the remark that they who
fought in that conflict were honest on both
sides The chaplainS ON both armies were
honest in their prayers. The faces that
went into battle, whether they marched tow
ard the Gulf of Mexico or marched toward
the north star, were honest faces.
1t Is too mucd to ask either side to believe
that thoss who came out from their homes
father and mother and wife and
child, many of them never to return, were
not In earnest when they put their life into
awful exigency. Witness the last scene at
family prayers up among the Green mount |
aims or down by the fields of cotton and
,NSoh 1ASu uO nOb SttCTluct J0elT all
Ior fun. Men do not eat moldy bread or 90
without bread at all for fun. Men do not |
,eep unshelterel in equinoctiaI storms for
un.
As chaplain OF Pennsylvania regiment,
md as representative OF the United States |
christian Commission, was for a while at |
he front, and in those hospitals at Hagers-
own and Williamsburg and up and down /
he Potamac, WHERE all thu churches AMI /
arm-houses were filed with wounded and /
lying Fejerals and Confederates, | forgot |
imid the horrors to ask on which side they !
ought when with what little aid / could /
AXE them tor their suffering bodies, AMI thu |
nightier aid | could pray for their souls, |
)lssei the days and months amid scenes
hat in my memory seem like a CHASTITY /
iream rather than possible reality.
Whena New Orleans boy, unable to an
'wer my question as 10 where he was hurt.
o0k out from the folds of the only garment /
hat had not been torn off him i'm the battle /
| New Testament, marked with his own life /
blood, and saw the leaf turned down at the /
,assage, MY peace give unto You, not as
he world giveth give | unto YOU il real
ust as though it had been northern New
Testament. And when sat down and took
rom South Carolinian dying in barn at
Bonneville his last message TO his wife and
mother and child, it sounded just like mes
age that a northern man dying far from
iome would send to his wife and mother and
,hild