Connecticut western news., 1893-06-08

bngle IS again sounding for the charge of steel. Wherever a man turns the tide of appetite, there again is Getiys- burgh Wherever the veteran pushes the campaign of righteousness across the wilderness, there again Is Appoma- tox. And so, though the comrades might hang the sword above the mantel, there was found no place for hanging up the swordly courage He might put away with care the honorable discharge, but the time never came when he could be discharged from the military service of the right Four years ended ihe Rebellion, but the warfare that enlists grander than the Grand Army is not ended in our day, nor will it be 'Till the suu grows cold, and the stars are old, and the leaves of the judgment day unfold" The soldier once is soldier forever.
 For the soldier came to feel that the conflict engaging him in the South was only part of greater conflict that has always been waged whose line of battle runs ont beyond the fixed stars. It was truth more or less imperfectly caught even then and there, as one of the war poets sang:
 
 The soul of Baker, when
 With red sword in his bloody fist
 He died among his men.
 I think, tho, that when Winthrop fell,
 His face toward the foe,
 John Hampden shouted All Is well r
 Above that overthrow"
 The soldier in civic life found the fight still on, because the spirit that led to the Rebellion was still alive What was that spirit? One answer would surely be the spirit of slavery. And what was back of slavery? There were plausible arguments presented for 1t in those days. An officer in the Confeder- ate army once referred me to a book that proved, he said, ths right of it by all laws human and divine. The thing is common, "No damned error, but some pious brow will bless it, and ap- prove it with text" We were told that 1t was humane institution. that 1t was biblical, that it was civilization, that it was a missionary enterprise. But the real reason why slavery hourished was because it ao1s pTottdble. We meet with like arguments in the campaign against liquor. We are informed that Old Testament and New commends 1t, that it is a wrong to personal liber'y to restrict 1t, that it is unhospitable to for cigners to forbid the making of Jackson Park a national beer garden. Bnt the real reason of it's continuance Is there" money in it. We are told that the American Sabbath should be side-trsck- ed for foreign importation. that closing the gates is to defraud the. poor, IS to suppress great power for uplifting. And hands are thrown mp in frantic hor TOT, when we are told that the saloon keepers of Chicago are in league with tbe Sabbatarians. But all the while the real animus of the agitation, without which it would not be, is the fifty cents at the gate. It Is so in this evil. as it is in liquor, in slavery and in all other ills, the love of money is it's root. Selfish ness has not died at Appomatox, and the soldier found it even so.
 We commemorate today as one fea- ture of that great struggle the solaierly virtue of courage We forget all the littleness of the bounty claimant, the drunkenness of the camp. the thieving, the debauchery, for there were unworthy wearers of the blue, as there are un- worthy members of the church. We remember only the nerve, the daring,
 
 and faced the guns, and led the charge. There was certain dash and enth lsi- asm to it all. A soldier once complained to me (he has preached from this plat form) that life now seemed tame and commonplace. No doubt there is truth in the experience. The hot excitement was over.
 "The neighing troop, the flashing blade,
 The bugle's stirring blast,
 The charge, the dreadful cannonade,
 The din and shout are past:
 Nor wars wild note, nor glory's peal Shall thrill with fierce delight
 The breasts that never more may feel
 The rapture of the fight"
 But though the wildness of the fray was gone, it was soon found that the call for courage had not yet been ended. Courage it is of different sort that is wanted of the true soldier, not less real because it is less observed When Douglass cast the ball containing the heart of Bruce into the thick of the Saracen host, crying, "Pass on first. as thou hast been wont to do. Douglass will follow thee or die," and then fought his way up to it. he exhibited a courage we may term daring. When Sir Phillip Sydney was spit upon, he drew no sword, but said, "If could as easily wipe the stain of your blood from my conscience, as do this stain from my brow, I would take your life this moment" That was courage of differ ent sort, the kind that can bear and | forbear. It Is not always the courage to face the blazing battery that is want ed, the kind that is fired by martial mu. sic, by loud huzza, by the spirit flashing from man to man, and the electric shock of touching the elbow. Many man is brave when others are looking on. But to do ones duty manfully in secret, to put aside the bribe unnoticed and un- commended, to face ridicule, and grap- pie with appetite, and attack the evil that brings not applause but unpopu. larity, this is the courage divine, the courage of Christ, the courage of that great catalogue of whom the world was not worthy.
 Let us remember, also, the lesson taught by victory. The Boys in Blue ended by being on the winning side. II did not always so appear. There was one Bull Run, and more than one defeat | There was always talk of compromise There was criticism, and evil prophecy, and clamorers for an unworthy peace. Nay. more, remember hearing with 6 sense of horror man of the city des cribed, He chuckles over Rebel vic tories; he ridicules our generals. he des pisps our soldiers" it was said. l thought he could but be son of Belial But we lived through it all and sang our songs at last We are familiar witt the expressions of public joy, the bon fires, the illuminatioDs. the bunting the salutes. It has always been SO Rome gave her generals triumph. h Greece the city emptied itself to gree the victor from the isthmus or from Oly Opus, who brought back the chaple for the pentathlon or fve-fold contest Miriam broke into song at the overthrow in the Red Sea, Deborah sang her lyric of victory, and the maidens of David, day gave praise for the fall of Goliath Even in the distant future we learr through the medium of Revelation,