The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1893-06-01

s7Y. .NE dawned one of the
.ENIf- III finest days of the
VA w spring, and at
Als -TJ 1880 the John S.
Marsh Post and Women's Relief
Corps, in all about sixty strong,
marched from the G. A. r. hall to the
court house to listen to the tribute of
their comrade. Rev. L. L. Hanscom,
of the NJ. E. church. The large court
room was packed to the doors long be-
fore the service began. The altar and
platform had been profusely loaded
with potted plants and small shrub
berry and added restfulness to the
scene, fanked on one side by the
white crowned veterans and on the
other by their wives and daughters.
On the platform SIT Revs. Slime and
Hanscom.
After singing by the choir Rev. Slime
offered fervent prayer. And after
making the usual announcements
Rev. Hanscom delivered one of the
best and most stirring addresses ever
listened to by a Redwood Falls con-
gregatiou. For lack of space we can
only print the following extracts. He
said:
haye selected as being appropri-
ate for this occasion the 2lst verse of
the 4th chapter of the book of Joshua,
"What mean these stones?" In every
age of the world it has been the Gus
tom of the people in some way to COM
memorate the death of those who have
offered their lives for the welfare of
others. Five hundred years before
Christ the Greeks had days set apart
as memorial days. Such days are
mentioned in the Bible. The Jews
kept the passover in memory OF their
deliverance from Egyptian bondage
1t is we'll for us to celebrate the day
of our nations birth, when men gave
their lives as freely as in any age of
history. It is we'll that once year we
strew garlands of grateful remem-
brance upon the graves of the patri
otto dead who led us across the ter
rible chasm of secession, that the COM
ing generations may not forget the
heroic deeds of their fathers.
The grave of a union soldier will
ever be a sacred spot to all who love
the flag for which he died. not only
for sacrificing his life upon their
country's altar but for the glorious
principles in defense of which he fell.
The conflict was not to extend our ter
ritory, or to build up a party or graf
y an ambition for military glory or
prestige, as in the previous history of
nations. They died for the good of
their fellow men. for the sacred prin-
ciples which anderle the best of all
governments, that the blessings which
We enjoy might be transmitted to gen
erations yet unborn, and that the sun
of liberty which had risen upon this
western continent. whose beams were
felt through all the world. might not
go down IN endless night of disunion,
anarchy and despair, and our country
be obliterated from the map of nations.
/ We boasted of a free country, of
fee institutions, when the clanking
chains of millions Of slaves went up
to Him who declared His purpose to
execute Righteousness and judgment
for all that are oppressed
when hrst saw our banner wave above our
heard, beneath its marble walls the clankino
letters OF the slave.
In the vile market place stood ard saw the
| christian mother sold,
And childhood With its locks of gold, blue
eyed. and fair, with Saxon blood
Then the civilization of the north
said This curse may live where we
cannot control it, but it shall not ex-
tend" And to cast this hedge about
it was precursor of its death.
Mr.. Lincoln's first call for troops
said slavery had nothing to do with it.
But when battle after battle had been
lost, then that grandest of all our
mighty dead whose memory is as gen
tie as the summer air when reapers
sing amid the gathered sheayes, is
sued the proclamation of emancipa-
/ ton aud from that time on our flag
friumphed. Who can say the war was
not necessity
"What mean these stones?" They
tell us of the noble men who left their
quiet, homely pursuits to defend hui
mainly, free the oppressed and slay
the monster of their time. Of the men
who finished what the soldiers of the
revolution began, kept our country in
the map of the world and our flag in
heaven.
4 Let q grateful nation ever honor
her defenders.
There are more graves to decorate
this year than there was last, and
there are fewer hands to perform the
loving tribute.
''They fade from our vision. those cohorts
/ sublime,
And leaders and ranks shall soon vanish from
| time:
But while Freedoms mountains unbroken
4 shall stand.
And her rivers roll free to a continent g
| strand.
So long ehall the union they reasoned endue