Evening star., 1895-05-30

culture of TIE south found profit in the
black mans slavery and blood, and The lib
erty for which our fathers had fought and
| died and of which our orators prated, SO
far as he was concerned, belonged to the
skin and not to the soul.
But there is that in man which will not
tolerate a wrong. Conscience Will not al
ways sleep. She awoke in the heart of
America, and she took up arms against
the terrible coalition between hypocrisy,
avarice and crime. She protested against
that gigantic robbery by the American peo-
pie which feloniously took and carried
away not only the goods and estate, but
also the bodies and souls, the lives, the af-
fections and the eternal fate of millions of
human beings for whom God himself had
died, and conscience brought on the war.
Conscience waged it to the bitter end. Con-
| science conquered al last, and all men un-
der the flag were free. But in that strug-
gle these men did die, and thirty millions
of people lay down in the depths of woe.
And SO it was that these beloved and sa-
cred dead gave up their lives-a vicarious
sacrifice for the nations guilt"
Glory of War.
The orator spoke of inevitable eXpiation
for all sins, and continued:
WAR Is always a calamity and generally
a crime, but it is nevertheless true that if
the great deeds which war has written in
human history were blotted out human
nature would be deprived of some Of its
preme, and all great eras of progress seem
to be eras of convusion Resistless causes
work on in silence for years, it may be for
generations of peace; but when transition
comes from the old to the new, and ma
ton or a race is summoned to come UP
higher, and does come up higher, the vic
tors climb over the heaped corpses of the
past and plant the standard of light and
progress more exalted rampartS amid
shot and shell and death.
so 1t is that these, our dead. shall live
forever. Dying like the great martyr for
the crimes of others, even thus did their
sacrifice bring political life and salvation
into the world in a higher and completer
form than it had ever before been bestowed
upon man. To have thus died is cause for
triumph, and for these dead We should
weep only tears Of joy. Nay, weep not for
them at all, for they are risen!
Work to Be Done.
Mr. Blair continued by asking if the
children of the illustrious sires whose deeds
We commemorate are left only to record
of duh achievement, to an existence which
demands no stern stuff in the soul, and
gives no opportunity for high endeavor?
Never before he continued, was there
so vast and hopeful field in which to la
Dor for the good of man open to you
and to ME in this latter day, when the
happier fate of man seems to be ripening in
harvest suns of approaching millenniai
peace. But do not be too sure of an early
peace. Do not mistake the signs of the
times. Men may cry peace, peace; but
there is no peace which does not come be-
cause reason and conscience, justice and
love have done their perfect work
Human slavery, fortified and guaranteed
by civil law, was the cause OF the great
civil war. AS a result of that war, the
civil law was changed, but was slavery
abolished? Nay, verify, for the civil law
was not the cause of slavery. Slavery en-
listed in the ignorance, fraud, injustice and
hate which made it possible for one class
OF. men to enslave another; and so long as
these fell forces continue in operation in
human society something of slavery and
of its consequences will remain, and the
war must go on for their determination
and elimination from human lie.
Mr.. Blair spoke earnestly of the danger
citizen.
Seek out" he said. "those parts of our
land where the colored man was once
slave under the civil law, and the
he was the master of the slave, by the
same law; which was then the more in
jured by slavery? And how is it now?
Ignorance, which inaugurates and rer-
petuates slavery. still chains millions; and
millions of our fellow citizens will tell you
that, but for the hope of a better day
they would seek refuge in their condition,
before the war.
Are you, my young friends, with that
light flashing in your eyes, which I have
seen shine in battle from the orbs of your
business and personal ease, Willie the ore
third part of your fellow citizens are with
out that power and opportunity to culti-
vate their mental and moral natures which
are required to enable them to secure aud
defend the rights of freemen? If not you
have enough to do, and far more per-
haps than You think
The Great Problems.
1.-THE common school Is the republic, but
the common school is not doing its perfect
work; nor is the common school an insti-
tuition which is now safe in our land
Young man and young woman, commend
to your keeping the common school; the
common school, which came here in the
Mayflower; the common school, that high
est of all seats of learning in which Amer
lean liberty studied, from which she grad
uated, and now turning anxiously to her
beloved alma mater prays for her the pro-
lection Of God and the aroused solicitude
of all American citizens"
Mr.. Blair followed with a strong plea
for temperance as one of the things the
generation should fight ard struggle for
The great problems of all ages he sad
were education, temperance, social and in
dustrial conditions.
"They are not yet solved. Their solution
lies before US. That solution Is a process
which precedes the millennial condition of
l