The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1894-08-08

For word spoken soft
VIII turn enemies oft
Into friends that will stay friends for life."
Northwestern Christian Advocate.
Decoration Day.
lTo-day's celebration is not a tribute
to war but to self sacrifice. Neither
the strains of martial music nor the
rhetoric of the orator should be per-
mitted to bide the fact that war is the
greatest curse that ever afflicted man.
kind it is worse than famine and pes
telence; for it not only takes life and
pierces the heart with grief, but it
nourishes the ugliest and fierces hu-
man passions.
It was nothing but the instinct of a
savage that led Won Moltke to eulogize
war as one of the greatest agencies OF
civilization. The struggles of the bat
tlefield may have rid the world OF
many unfit men and nations; but they
have, at the same time, destroyed the
strongest and bravest, for these are
the ones that rush to the front and re-
ceive the deadliest blows of the enemy.
They may have cultivated courage,
but it was the courage of the tiger, IN
capable of sympathy and finding the
greatest Joy in the misfortunes of
others. 1t is possible that they have
led to 8 greater respect for the rights
of others, since resistance to aggression
tends always to discourage aggression
but some of the most peaceful tribes on
the earth-tribes that have no knowl-
edge of the art of war, exhibit the
most Difference for the rights of others.
Although low in the intellectual scale
they practise all those virtues that,
militant peoples constantly laud in
their maxims and habitually disre-
gard in their actions.
There is not q virtue that the eulo-
gists of war have attributed to it that
the arts of peace do not draw forth.
Thers are innumerable virtues born of
peace that war invariably blasts. Not
a day passes over mans head that heis
notcalled upon to exhibit courage, perse-
verannce and self-sacrifice. Was it not
Emerson who said man had not lived
who had not each day conquered some
difficulty? Did not Wagner typify
the same thought in the victory OF
Siegfried over the dragon Z? For most
people, the slaughter of dragons is
q daily task-often an hourly task.
The beasts require a moral courage
that no barbaric Siegfried ever felt.
They develop a character as much
above that of Wagner's hero as his was
above the creature he slew. The man
that does battle in behalf of some des-
pissed but humane cause that dares to
defend the truth when others fOrsake
her. that seeks to deliver the govern
ment of his city or country from the
brigands that prey upon 1.-THE is q
type of character that finds no paral-
lei in mythology or among the heroes
of military history. In him exists the
feeling of sympathy-the richest and
choicest product of civilization.
While they fight for plunder or glory.
he fights because of his love for his fel.
low men.
War was not essential, either, to the
creation of great nations. 1t was not
necessary for the strong to conquer the
weak to bring them into one society
under one government. It istrue that
historically that was the agent that
brought about united England, a un-
tied France, a united Italy, united
Germany. But the pages of the re-
cord of that InificatiOn is black with
tales of cruelty, treachery, meanness
and bloodshed. Doesany one think that
these would have been tales had COM
merce united these peoples =? Her
conquests are as resistless and COM
plete as those of war. She drives out
of existence the weak and incompe-
tent she compels subsection to the
laws of order, honesty, truth and JUS
tice. But she does not leave her bat
tlefields strewn with the dead and
wounded she does not fill the hearts
of widows and orphans with anguish
she does not leave in the breast OF her
conquered adversary the feeling of un-
quenchable hatred and revenge. She
brings men of all races and creeds into
a union devoted to the arts of industry
and the cause of humanity.
1t ID this thought that is in danger
of being forgotten to-day. At this
time there is an essential danger be-
cause of the militant spirit that the
creation of a new navy and the pur-
suit of the policy of jingoism has call
ed into existence since the Rebellion.
The generation that has grown up dur
ing the past thirty years knows moth.
ing experimentally of the horrors and
decentralization Of that terrific contest.
They are prone to think that war and
heroism 60 together, and that one is
essential to the other they are prone
to bestow upon one the praise that be-
longs to the other, and to imagine that
to be heroes they must be warriors.
But war at best is only the occupation
ofsavages, land, like cannibalism, is GER
tain to disappear with the extinction
of the feelings appropriate to savages.
There will, however, remain the same
occasion for heroism and selfsacrifice
that has always existed from the begin
ming of time. Men will be called up
on to succor the victims of natures
surly moods and to help those that from
birth or misfortune or old age are una
ble to take care of themselves.-Roch-
ester(N. W Union and Advertiser.