The Bennington banner. [volume] (Bennington, Vt.) 1858-1894, 1892-06-03
Arlington.
MEMORIAL SUNDAY.

In body, to attend divine services In
accordance with the custom and head
quarters regulations. This Post num-
bers about 40 members, and some 35, re-
inforced by goodly company of the
Sons of Veterans, were in attendance up
on the services. The sermon by the
rector, the Rev. r. G. Soaring, is an able
effort, and by desire of the Post, is pub
lished below. The musical part of the
service was fine. We give the
MEMORIAL DISCOURSE.
Proclaim We this among the Genties: Prepare
war, wake up the mighty men, let all the men OF
war draw near, let them come up; beat your
plOwshares into swords, and your pruning hooks
into spears; let the weak say, u am strong. -
And he shall Judge among many people and re-
buke strong nations afar of; and they shall beat
their swords into plowshares and their spears into
puning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword
against nation, neither shall they learn war any
more.-Micah w., 8.
The generations of men are like the
rising and setting of the mighty stars,
whilst Gods purposes move on with maj
esty and grandeur. Mems thoughts fly
into quick action, and meet with speedy
end in decay; whilst Gods plans seem
slow to us, yet move on in power and
dignity and moderation unto complete
and certain success. The purpose of the
Almighty since the fall of man has been
mans restoration to the enjoyment of
the possibilities of happiness which he
had lost. The uplifting of thoughts and
motives, the inspiring of lofty desires
after still better and nobler things than
any yet attained, the filling of the soul
of man with resolve to rise up from
fault and error and decay to perfection
and beauty and life, was in the mind of
the All-Father from the beginning, and
the ever succeeding ages of the worlds
life. His blessings in Nature, His bless
ings in the Spirit, and His promises of
grander blessings as men were able to
receive them, His guidings of men to the
Fount of Life, where whosoeYer would
drink was refreshed and strengthened,
and became new man, all we're in the
line of His purposes. Yet men thought
it slow; men, who seized with a glim-
mering sight of what they supposed
were Gods purposes, became impatient
of the gradual and sure steps that must
always be taken over dangerous path
way, and started out, in every genera
ton, eager to do something grand and
noble for their kind. We read of many
men who have caught this spirit, and
have given their lives in helping on the
grand purposes of God, but their zeal
has been sometimes unwise, their eager
ness impatient, their spirit like the
mountain brook that makes great noise
and pretension as it rushes onward, beat
ing down and washing away what it
ought to have refreshed and nourished,
and unlike the grandly flowing river
whose stream benefits mankind far and
near. But as the mountain torrent does
good and is profit to the world, so the
men full of an idea that he believes of
vast good to his country, or the race of
man, serves to stir other mems thoughts,
to excite their feelings, and to rebuke
slackness and sluggishness which do not
move even when paths of good-doing to
others are opened before the soul.
Men may critlcise much in the life of
John Brown, who set out in 1859 to stir
up a revolution of slaves in Virginia.
Cody men may declare that it never
can be right to start on career of muir
der, acting only with the authority of
ones own Judgment But all men may
not remember that John Brown was in
Kansas during the exciting times that
accompanied its settlement, and wit
messed there the unjust, unrighteous and
unholy attempts made by the owners of
the slave to make the first vote of the
people of that sovereignty declare that
to be a slave State. We believe that it
was Gods purpose that slavery must be
abolished. 1t is contrary to all the noble
precepts of the clear revelation of Chris
tianity that man shall be cruelty held in
bondage by his fellow man. Whilst
many shareholders, it is true, were
kind hearted toward their slaves, were
tender of them in sickness, and cared for
4ho,, ,,rnfaotin,, fhon tho
emancipated slave at first could care for
himself, still it was contrary to the grand
principles given in the first chapter of
the Book of God, where it is said that
man was made in the image of God, and
if the black man was human being, he
must be free moral agent in his Max
er,s sight.
But how to deal with the evil, as men
were growing to perceive it to be, how to
free the slave without making a bitter
enemy of the master, and threatening the
dissolution of the Nation, was a greater
problem than our wisest statesmen of
that day could solve. Men in Kansas
fought one phase of the trouble as bred
Scott and our highest Supreme Court
Judge had fought another phase. And
John Brown, brave, impetuous, impa-
tent of any softer measures, went rash
ly into the very country of the slave, and
fought and suffered and died. Men may
call his action revolt against law, and a
crime; men may judge him fanatic,
and whether curiously so, or not; muir
derer of his sons and friends, but his mo-
tives were set on fire by the light that
burns in the heart of true humanity, and
he was aiming to fulfill what he held to
be Gods purposes. There is something
in that strange old man and his sincere
character, and his consistent conduct to
appeal to the heart of every true patriot,
both in and out of the armies, before the
war was half over. His action and the
awful hush that settled upon the Nation
in the year 1860 seemed to betoken that
this country was on the threshold of a
revolution. Mems wit could not solve
the tremendous problem. This new Ma
ton that was marching onward in a
glorious progress towards mightier
things than the world had ever known,
this strong young giant among the kings
and emperors and chiefs of nations was
gathering strength and vigor every day.
And yet blot was on his garments, a
gangrene in his flesh that was a sure
token that the fall of Rome's great en-
pire was not more sure than his was to
be.
Then, while some men prayed, and
some schemed, and some pondered deep
ly, and still others stirred up strife and
imperilled theiTlives, God's purposes were
ripening. His proclamation, then, went
forth: proclaim We this among the Ma
tons; prepare war, wake up the mighty