The Somerset reporter. [volume] (Skowhegan, Me.) 1868-1909, 1893-06-01
Memorial Services.


week. About 80 members of Rus I'll
Post and visiting veterans were in al
tendance and nearly 80 members of tie
Women's Relief Corps. The hall Nas
well filled by an attentive audience of
ciliz us. The hall WAS decorated with
flags, bunting, evergreen, potted plants,
flowers and appropriate cmblems
THE PROGRAMME.
Singing, Male Qnartette
Mr.. Mower. Mr.. Morgan, Mr.. Smith
Mr.. Taylor.
Invocation, Rev. R. b. Mathews
scripture, Rev. f. II. Morgan
Singing, Quartette
"Their Country was calling
Prayer, Rev. c. V. Hanson, d. D.
Singing, Congregation
Sermon, Rev. /. b. Mower
Singing, Congregation
Benediction.
Miss Annie Allen OBLIGATED ut the
piano.
Following is an abstract of Rev Mr..
Mowers sermon
The only preface | offer to the message
! bring to you to-day is simple expl ma
ton. There is "A seeming presumption
IL ~ bl'SSIhE NVus VI Dti Nblldi It.
collections of the war are very few.
When with benediction of peace the
men who comprised the union drmy
were dismissed, remember the return
of II veteran in his coat of blue, faded
and worn, to the neighborhood in which
| Was born. | remember, too, the feel
ing of bereavement, the sense of loss,
that involuntarily swept over the peo-
pie when the tidings came that he who
had piloted our ship of state through
those years of storm and breakers had
fallen at the hand of an assassin. But
il was in my early childhood that these
events occurred, and it seems almost in
congruous for me to speak in your pres
ence.
And yet it is not uniting that Il repre-
sentative of younger generation should
give expression to our appreciation of
" hat the fathers have done. We are in
debted to you, and am before You rs
Il representative of those who recognize
such Indebtedness.
The object of this service and of the
more formal exercises of Decoration
day soon to follow is not the gloriiica-
ton of war. We are not Il Warlike ma
tion. nor do we seek to foster II military
spirit. American armies have not been
raised for conquest, but in obedience to
the moral sense of the people. And it
is the spirit of loyalty to freedom, to
truth, to honor, to the best interests If
humanity that we magnify by these me
memorial days.
The lesson which | bring is drawn
from words found IN the book of Acts
Oh PC: V. o:
II verify thought | ought.
The Bible is both Il revelation from
God and of God. From it we learn
something of the attributes of him whom
we call Father. We are warranted in
believing that God is holy, Just. true and
right. Every moral excellence is his.
And man is the child of God. Let
us make man in our image. God said
BY this we understand that when God
breathcd into the clay he had fashioned
in the form of Il man. he impaired some
thing of his own likeness. To man he
gave moral nature. A. the she'll
"Sings of the sea" from whence it came,
so in the soul of Il man there is an echo
of God. And it is this moral sense which
is the echo of the mind of God that
makes one Il man. The cultivation OF
this npittS him and brings him into fel-
l9wship With the divine. While the sup
preston of the sense of right separates
man from God.
My theme. then, is Il vital one. The
cultivation of the moral sense: the re
cognitiOn of obligation, of duty. will
ever be the earnest endeaVor OF the man
who seeks to make the most of himself.
Those whose names have been in
scribed on the worlds ''Roll of honor
have possessed Il keen sense of moral oh
legation They have appreciated the
meaning of ought. No one eyer ques-
TONED the loyalty of the Christian mar
tyr Paul. At the close of life. standing
almost in sight of the cXeculioher, he
could honestly say. II have fought IA
good fight, ! have finished my course;
have kept the f,th.' Evcu the pros
peel OF being brought before the tNrant
Nero. did not sWcrvc linn from the
way he had chosen and which he belt we'd
to be right
The annals of noble deeds are repletc
with examples ct men sWaycd by lhi,
sense of ought. In the prolonged strug
gle OF truth with error, men have APP
pcared who lrIVr civ II magnificent eX-
expression To iiIt lily Ia moral princi-
pie Almost every country has lis shin
ing character, its noble example of moral
WORTH Even in the middle ages, which
historians not inaptly call the dark ages,
God did not leave himself without a wit
ness. In the little state of Bohemia, be-
tween the years 1873 and lil6, John
Illus lived and toiled. He loved the
truth. 1t was the time when Europe
was beginning to throb with new life.
Here and there a brave spirit WAS strug-
Cling TO break the trttpTS of the aUpS